ANSIRH News

ANSIRH Update: May 2017

Fifteen years ago, in 2002, Drs. Felicia Stewart and Tracy Weitz founded Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). This year, we are celebrating one and a half decades of conducting innovative, rigorous, multidisciplinary research on complex issues related to people’s sexual and reproductive lives.

As part of our 15th anniversary celebration, we are launching ANSIRH Updates - a quarterly email digest to keep you better informed on our research, our communications efforts, and recognition for ANSIRH's work.

Health care system contributes to women shouldering burdens of preventing pregnancy

A study from ANSIRH’s Katrina Kimport finds that during contraceptive counseling visits, clinicians normalized and legitimized women assuming the mental and emotional burdens of contraception. In fact, they regularly expressed doubt or surprise or even dismissed women’s desire not to have children in the future. As a result, the clinicians promoted contraceptive methods that would preserve fertility—but also require women to continue to shoulder the work of maintaining these methods, rather than sterilization procedures.

Editorial: White House policy changes put women’s health at risk

In an editorial featured in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care, ANSIRH’s Dan Grossman examines how the Trump administration’s sexual and reproductive health policy changes threaten women in the USA and across the world. One concerning development is the re-imposition of the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, which prevents US-funded organizations from providing, informing about, or advocating for abortion care in their countries.

Television plotlines inaccurately portray the ease of abortion access

The Abortion Onscreen project identified 89 plotlines from 2005 to 2015, including in popular shows such as Shameless, Orange is the New Black and Friday Night Lights, in which characters considered or had an abortion. Our analysis found that these plotlines often under-represent the various difficulties, including legal barriers, financial constraints and social pressures, which real women face in pursuing abortions.