Feminist Abortion Network

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The Feminist Abortion Network (FAN) is a national consortium of independent, feminist, not-for-profit abortion care providers. Although more than fifty such health care providers once existed, today fourteen clinics remain in operation. [1] FAN was formed in 2006 to promote information-sharing, cross-organizational strategizing and improve the overall efficacy and reach of the member clinics.

Contents

History

Most of the FAN member clinics were founded in the mid- to late-1970s and were inspired by the self-help movement. [2] All of the clinics opened after the decision of the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade , which ruled that women had the constitutional right to access abortion. In addition to providing abortions, these clinics were committed to providing their clients with the knowledge necessary to participate in decisions about their own health care. Some of the clinics were even borne out of groups of women practicing self-help health care, using mirrors and speculums to examine their own cervixes. [3]

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the member clinics and activists throughout the country participated in the women's health movement, changing the way that women receive health care services in the United States. The women's health movement has been credited with changing the health care landscape in a number of ways, including: [2] [4] [5]

Despite the many gains of the women's health movement, independent abortion clinics have faced myriad struggles throughout their existence. Many FAN clinics have been firebombed, clinic employees have been threatened, clients have been harassed by protesters, and high-profile murders of abortion providers such as Dr. George Tiller have created challenges and fears for abortion providers. [6] [7] [8] In addition to security concerns, many independent clinics face financial struggles because they provide abortion services to all women who seek them. Some of these costs are offset by abortion funds, but many clinics still struggle to remain operational. [9] Independent clinics may also face competition from larger abortion care providers, such as Planned Parenthood. When the Yakima branch of the Cedar River Clinics closed its doors in 2010 after thirty years of operation, it cited the expansion of the Yakima Planned Parenthood's services to include first- and second-trimester abortions as playing a critical role in their inability to remain open. [10]

In addition to the ongoing struggles that the FAN clinics have faced since the 1970s, many states and state legislatures are currently hostile to abortion rights. In recent years, legislators across the fifty states have been introducing legislation that would restrict abortion access at an unprecedented rate. In 2011 alone, legislators across the country introduced over 1,100 reproductive rights-related provisions. One hundred and thirty five of these provisions passed in 36 states, exceeding the 89 provisions passed in the previous year and the 77 passed in 2009. [11]

The FAN member clinics remain committed to staying open, despite the challenges, because they believe that they offer an important alternative to "standard" healthcare. Kudra MacCalleich of the Concord Feminist Health Center framed the need for feminist health centers in terms of biodiversity: "Why is biodiversity so crucial? Because we know there are significant negative consequences when a species is lost, and that once we lose it, there is high improbability that we will ever get it back. I think there is a critical role to be played by the diverse and distinct types of providers we still have in our 'health care ecosystem' and that we should consider what might be the consequences of their disappearance and absorption into the corporate conglomerate." [9]

In the decades that they have been open, many of the FAN clinics have expanded their services beyond abortion and gynecological care. Many, such as the Blue Mountain Clinic in Missoula, Montana, now offer services to men, ranging from STI testing to more comprehensive health care services. [12] Others, such as the Feminist Women's Health Center in Atlanta, continue to offer health care only to women, but have expanded their services with fertility treatments, [13] trauma survivor sensitive care, [14] and gynecological health care for trans men. [15] The Women's Health Specialists of California offer a "Teen Care-A-Van" that travels throughout Sacramento County to provide STI testing services and information regarding sexual health to local youth. [16]

In an interview with reproductive health news source RH Reality Check, two women from FAN member clinics (Kudra MacCaillech of the Concord Feminist Health Center and Joan Schrammeck of Cedar River Clinics) discussed the formation of the consortium. MacCaillech says of the initial idea, "I can't say what inspired the "click" to connect, but that's exactly what it felt like. It was exciting, but also very focused and coordinated. Initially, we were brainstorming ways to collaborate on projects and funding; projects that had not only the potential to impact the clinics in our own states and communities – but every FWHC across the entire country." Member clinics would be non-profit, independent, have a feminist philosophy and be committed to providing abortions. [9]

Before forming FAN, the women conducted a survey to find out how many feminist abortion care providers still existed – and were alarmed by the number that had closed. Since forming FAN, two more feminist clinics have closed: Aradia Women's Health in Seattle, WA and A Woman's Choice Clinic in Oakland, CA. [9]

Goals

The self-stated goals of the consortium are: [17]

Member clinics

Listed in alphabetical order: [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States abortion-rights movement</span> Support for womens right to elective abortion

The United States abortion-rights movement is a sociopolitical movement in the United States supporting the view that a woman should have the legal right to an elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy, and is part of a broader global abortion-rights movement. The movement consists of a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinic</span> Outpatient health care facility

A clinic is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs of populations in local communities, in contrast to larger hospitals which offer more specialized treatments and admit inpatients for overnight stays.

An abortion clinic or abortion provider is a medical facility that provides abortions. Such clinics may be public medical centers, private medical practices or nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crisis pregnancy center</span> Medical facility that urges alternatives to abortion

A crisis pregnancy center (CPC), sometimes called a pregnancy resource center (PRC) or a pro-life pregnancy center, is a type of nonprofit organization that typically offers counseling, prenatal care, and/or a variety of medical services from an anti-abortion perspective. Many crisis pregnancy centers are established and/or supported by anti-abortion groups. Crisis pregnancy centers do not provide or refer for abortions. Instead, CPCs often deter women from obtaining abortions and urge other alternatives instead.

Anti-abortion violence is violence committed against individuals and organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling. Incidents of violence have included destruction of property, including vandalism; crimes against people, including kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder; and crimes affecting both people and property, as well as arson and terrorism, such as bombings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Downer</span>

Carol Downer is an American feminist lawyer and non-fiction author who focused her career on abortion rights and women's health around the world. She was involved in the creation of the self-help movement and the first self-help clinic in LA, which later became a model and inspiration for dozens of self-help clinics across the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorraine Rothman</span> American activist

Evelyn Lorraine Rothman was an American activist. She was a founding member of the feminist self-help clinic movement. In 1971, she invented the Del-Em menstrual extraction kit to make abortions available to women before Roe v. Wade. She was an advocate of self-induced abortions.

Abortion is illegal in the Philippines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reproductive justice</span> Social justice movement

Reproductive justice is a critical feminist framework that was invented as a response to United States reproductive politics. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments. The framework moves women's reproductive rights past a legal and political debate to incorporate the economic, social, and health factors that impact women's reproductive choices and decision-making ability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Merle Hoffman</span>

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The Feminist Women's Health Center of Atlanta is a feminist health center that provides comprehensive gynecological health care, engages in community outreach, and advocates for reproductive justice. Kwajelyn Jackson has served as the executive director since 2018.

A feminist health center is an independent, not-for-profit, alternative medical facility that primarily provides gynecological health care. Many feminist health centers were founded in the 1970s as part of the women's health movement in the United States. These centers were founded with the purposes of challenging the medicalization of health care, providing an alternative to mainstream health facilities, and increasing access to gynecological information and services for all women, regardless of race, class, sexual orientation, or insurance coverage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abortion-rights movements</span> Social movement advocating for legal access to abortion

Abortion-rights movements, also self-styled as pro-choice movements, advocate for the right to have legal access to induced abortion services including elective abortion. They seek to represent and support women who wish to terminate their pregnancy without fear of legal or social backlash. These movements are in direct opposition to anti-abortion movements.

carafem American nonprofit organization

Carafem is an American nonprofit organization that provides women’s reproductive health services with centers in Maryland, Atlanta Georgia, Chicago Illinois, and Nashville TN metro areas as well as virtual care in select states. The organization seeks to normalize, "de-medicalize" and remove the social stigma from the provision of birth control and early abortions in the midst of an ongoing polarized and politicized debate on abortion in the United States. The organization intentionally uses certain language such as “health center” instead of “clinic”, and openly uses the word “abortion” in its advertising.

The women's health movementin the United States refers to the aspect of the American feminist movement that works to improve all aspects of women's health and healthcare. It began during the second wave of feminism as a sub-movement of the women's liberation movement. WHM activism involves increasing women's knowledge and control of their own bodies on a variety of subjects, such as fertility control and home remedies, as well as challenging traditional doctor-patient relationships, the medicalization of childbirth, misogyny in the health care system, and ensuring drug safety.

Abortion in Alabama is illegal. Historically, Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. However, Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.

Abortion in New Hampshire is legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy as of January 1, 2022, when a new law went into effect. Prior to this, the gestational limit was unclear. Abortion was criminalized in the state by 1900. In June 2003, the state passed a parental notification law, repealing it four years later before passing a new one in 2011. New Hampshire then passed a law in 2012 which required minors to wait 48 hours after requesting an abortion but no longer required parental consent. New Hampshire law regarding abortion has been heard before the US Supreme Court in the case Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in 2006. The number of abortion clinics in New Hampshire has declined over the years, with 18 in 1982, 16 in 1992 and four in 2014. In 2010, there were three publicly funded abortions in the state; all three were federally funded. There are both active abortion rights and anti-abortion rights activists in the state.

Abortion in Maryland is legal at all stages of pregnancy. The first laws regulating abortion in the state were passed in 1867 and 1868, banning abortion except by a physician to "secure the safety of the mother." Abortion providers continued to operate both within and outside of the law. Legal enforcement became more strict from the 1940s through 60s, with numerous police raids on abortion providers. In 1968, Maryland passed a liberalized abortion law that clarified the wording of the previous law, allowing abortion in hospital settings in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or when life and health were endangered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on abortion in the United States</span> Impact of COVID-19

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-abortion government officials in several American states enacted or attempted to enact restrictions on abortion, characterizing it as a non-essential procedure that can be suspended during the medical emergency. The orders have led to several legal challenges and criticism by abortion-rights groups and several national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association. Legal challenges on behalf of abortion providers, many of which are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, have successfully stopped some of the orders on a temporary basis, though bans in several states have not been challenged.

References

  1. ↑ Amie Newman (January 2, 2007). "Life Support for Feminist Health Care?". RH Reality Check. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  2. 1 2 See Morgen and Kline.
  3. ↑ Cindy Pearson. "Self-Help History". Women's Health Specialists. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  4. ↑ Cindy Pearson. "Women's Health Movement". Women's Health Specialists. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  5. ↑ Amie Newman. "Life Support?" . Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  6. ↑ "About BMC - History". Blue Mountain Clinic Family Practice. Archived from the original on March 5, 2012. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Herstory of FWHC". Feminist Women's Health Center DBA Cedar River Clinics. September 19, 2011. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  8. ↑ Lauren Evans (September 15, 2006). "A Brief History of Women's Health Specialists". Chico News and Review. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Amie Newman (December 21, 2009). "An Interview With the Feminist Abortion Network". RH Reality Check. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  10. ↑ Amie Newman (November 18, 2010). "Feminist Health Center Closes After Thirty Years, What Does It Mean for Women?". RH Reality Check. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  11. ↑ Guttmacher Institute (January 5, 2012). "States Enact Record Number of Abortion Restrictions in 2011". Archived from the original on March 30, 2016. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  12. ↑ "Healthcare Services: Choices in Health Care". Blue Mountain Clinic Family Practice. Archived from the original on June 2, 2012. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  13. ↑ "Donor Insemination 101". Feminist Women's Health Center of Atlanta, GA. Archived from the original on May 28, 2012. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  14. ↑ "Trauma Survivor". Feminist Women's Health Center of Atlanta, GA. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  15. ↑ "Trans Health Initiative". Feminist Women's Health Center of Atlanta, GA. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  16. ↑ "About Us: Clinic Locations". Women's Health Specialists. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  17. ↑ "FAN Brochure" (PDF). Feminist Abortion Network. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 28, 2012. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  18. ↑ "FAN Member Clinics". Feminist Abortion Network. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  19. ↑ "Trust Women Foundation". Trust Women Foundation. Retrieved 2019-08-02.

Bibliography

Kline, Wendy (2010). Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women's Health in the Second Wave. Chicago: University of Chicago. ISBN   978-0226443089.

Morgen, Sandra (2002). Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Health Movement in the United States, 1969-1990. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN   978-0813530710.

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