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Gender Equity Forum Meeting - After Action Report

7/24/2022

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Gender Equity Forum First Meeting - July 19th - After Action Report

Gender Equity Forum

The Gender Equity Forum held its first meeting on Tuesday, July 19th at the Bettendorf Library. Thirty-five people were in attendance. While we normally won't share a forum meeting update as an After Action Report, this was our first one and we were very pleased with the turnout.

Although there were technical issues with hooking up the computer to the Gilbert Room's system, the forum facilitators were able to "wing-it" in fine form. We began with a discussion of what we had planned for the meeting and then broke into two meetings to brainstorm ideas for actions to be taken in both Illinois and in Iowa.

Here's the PowerPoint presentation that we had hoped to share. You will probably see something similar to this in a future meeting.

Alta Price
Carolyn Martin
2022.07.19_gender_equity_forum_meeting.pptx
File Size: 166 kb
File Type: pptx
Download File
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LTE from Iowa Medical Professionals re: Abortion as health care - PACG Event

7/24/2022

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Letter to the Editor from Iowa medical providers regarding abortion as health care 

Gender Equity Forum

July 19, 2022

To The Editor:

(Note: Read the published letter here.)

As physicians and advanced practice providers from across the State of Iowa who care for women, we are compelled to outline our concerns for their healthcare after the recent SCOTUS decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health which overturned prior precedent of autonomy and privacy for women. While abortion and contraception remain legal and available in Iowa for now, we are concerned about future legislation that has the potential to negatively impact the health and autonomy of our patients.

We have conversations daily with women about medical conditions that may adversely affect a pregnancy or vice versa. Complications that can arise in pregnancy are complex, different for every person, and often unpredictable. We are highly trained medical professionals, yet we cannot foresee every pregnancy complication; therefore, policymakers cannot be expected to do so. We are concerned that maternal outcomes will be adversely affected in Iowa if more restrictive abortion legislation is enacted. Maternal outcomes have already suffered in Texas after legislation that significantly limited abortion was signed into law in September 2021. 1 Furthermore, legislation restricting abortion may worsen inequities in maternal health outcomes for people of color and those with limited economic resources. The pregnancy-related maternal mortality rate in Iowa for non-Hispanic Black women is currently six times higher than
the rate for non-Hispanic White women. 2

Some states have passed legislation that defines life as beginning at conception and these laws threaten medical advances such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and medicated intrauterine devices (IUDs). IVF accounts for 2% of all births in the United States. Defining life as beginning with fertilization, even outside a woman's body and restricting a patient’s autonomy over their own embryos will result in reductions of pregnancy rates. Medicated IUDs are used for medical conditions such as endometriosis, irregular menstrual bleeding or to prevent cancer of the uterus. Some states have targeted IUDs under restrictive legislation despite little evidence that their mechanism of action is to prevent implantation of an embryo. We hope our legislators can appreciate that farreaching legislation can have inadvertent consequences that place lives at risk. These reproductive health decisions, including abortion, should be made after an informed individual in consultation with a trusted healthcare provider.

And finally, physician staffing in Iowa may worsen if additional legislation is passed to restrict abortion and healthcare for women. Recruitment and retention will be more difficult and physician training programs could lose accreditation, resulting in closure. Highly restrictive laws will make this state much less attractive to outstanding physicians who desire to practice evidence-based medicine utilizing the best treatments for helping patients in need. The State of Iowa is understaffed for Family Medicine and OBGYN physicians and this deficit is projected to worsen by 2030. 3 - 4  Since 2000, 40 rural Iowa hospitals have closed their maternity units. 5 This has resulted in maternity care deserts in 29 Iowa counties. 6 Women often drive 2 hours or more, one way, for prenatal care. These hardships will worsen with legislation that impairs reproductive and medical autonomy for patients and their physicians. 7

We implore the policymakers for Iowa at the State and Federal level to collaborate with us, the physicians and advanced practice providers who provide healthcare to the women of Iowa. We advocate for public policy that maintains bodily autonomy and privacy for women, does not restrict medical practices designed to improve the health and fertility of women and sometimes saves their lives. Give us a seat at the table, so that we can learn from one another and find the common ground we all desire: Improved health and well-being for women and infants in our state.

Respectfully,

Andrea Greiner, MD and numerous others

1 Nambiar A, Patel S, Santiago-Munoz P, Spong CY, Nelson DB, Maternal morbidity and fetal outcomes among pregnant women at 22 weeks’ gestation or less with complications in two Texas hospitals after legislation onabortion, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2022.06.060.
2 https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.smfm.org/mortality_records/134-:state_slug.pdf, accessed 7/5/2022
3 https://bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bureau-health-workforce/data-research/projections-supply-demand-2018-2030.pdf. Accessed 7/5/2022
4 https://www.ama-assn.org/about/masterfile/ama-physician-masterfile. Accessed 7/5/2022.
5 Access to Obstetrical Care in Iowa: A report to the Iowa State Legislature – Calendar year 2019. Division of Health Promotion & Chronic Disease Prevention – Bureau of Family Health, January 2021.
6 https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/datareg=99&top=23&stop=641&lev=1&slev=4&obj=9&sreg=19. Accessed 7/5/2022
7 https://www.ansirh.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/turnaway_socioeconomic_outcomes_issue_brief_8-
20-2018.pdf. Accessed 7/5/2022

Carolyn Martin
Alta Price

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We Will Not Go Back! rally for Choice - After Action Report

6/27/2022

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We Will Not Go Back! rally - After Action Report
Sunday, June 26th in Davenport

PACG Women's Equity Forum and other groups

​Sponsored by:
QC-National Organization for Women, PACG Women's Equity Forum, One Human Family-QC, Iowa Women United and others

We Will Not Go Back! the ​Davenport rally for Choice, attracted a huge crowd of members of our community who feel that the recent shameful ruling from the Supreme Court on abortion access is a devastating setback to anyone who can get pregnant - women and nonbinary individuals. We listened to speakers and then protested peacefully by walking around Vander Veer Park. Here's a link to the Quad-City Times report from the event, along with their pictures. 

Women and nonbinary people around the U.S. awoke late last week to the news that they have less reproductive freedom than their mothers did. A person's right to make her/their own decisions regarding pregnancy has been either taken away or is in grave danger of being abolished.

PACG has always had the ability to organize new issue forums to work on critical problems that arise in our communities and country. These Board of Directors-approved groups can be created and mobilized to address areas of interest and urgent need. This flexibility is part of the reason that PACG continues to be so successful - we meet the needs and demands put upon us. We can focus our outrage and frustration into positive action. We are better and stronger together!

PACG is proud that our new Women's Equity Forum was a sponsor of this rally - it was our first event! And we haven't really had a regular meeting yet!

Join our forum by contacting me (click on my name below for my email box). Our first meeting will be on Tuesday, July 19th at 7:00 pm at the Bettendorf Library. We have work to do! Let's go!

Alta Price
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SCOTUS Abortion Ruling Op Ed - Women's Equity Forum

6/26/2022

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SCOTUS Abortion Ruling Op Ed 

PACG Women's Equity Forum

Note: This Op Ed was prepared by the new PACG Women's Equity Forum in advance of the ruling by the Supreme Court. We submitted it to the the Quad-City Times last week and hope that it will be published soon..

Date:  June 21, 2022
 
The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to deny women federal protection to control their own reproductive choices and bodily autonomy, and to allow individual states to enact widely varying laws regarding abortion, represents an enormous setback for women.  
 
As individuals within a collective society, we will never fully agree on the question of when life begins because personal beliefs dictate and shape that thought. But a more readily answerable question might be this. Whose life is more important and valued: an autonomous woman already navigating her adult life, or a dependent fetus whose continued growth and delivery may pose grave physical, personal, and economic risk to that woman?
 
Another perplexing question is whether we trust women to make informed decisions regarding their own health and welfare - what is best for them in their own unique set of circumstances – or if we believe that remote legislative bodies in a state or national capitol know better. 
 
Maternal mortality rates are often used as a sentinel measure of a society’s well-being, and cultures that do not value women suffer a higher percentage of maternal deaths. The United States is a sad outlier among high-income countries, with one of the highest rates of maternal mortality. A woman is substantially more likely to die from a pregnancy-related complication or in the first year postpartum if she lives in the United States than if she resides in Canada, Australia, or Europe. Contributing factors include our highly fragmented medical system and lack of universal health care, among others. Enforcing pregnancy, while simultaneously failing to provide nationally funded, comprehensive prenatal and postnatal care, and denying free and universal access to effective contraception is unfathomable.
 
It is much safer to undergo an abortion than to continue a pregnancy. In 2020, the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists stated that the risk of death associated with pregnancy and childbirth is 14 times higher compared with abortion. Legislation within a democracy typically exists as a means by which the health and welfare of its citizens is protected, not abandoned. But the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision reversing nearly a half-century of reproductive health protection is abandonment. Similarly, the recent decision by the Iowa Supreme Court, ruling that our state constitution does not protect the right to an abortion, endangers women’s health.
 
Overturning Roe will not end abortion in the U.S. Banning abortion will only stop safe abortion. Women will die.
 
Since 1935, when maternal mortality rates in the U.S. were first separated out by race, a disturbing racial disparity has been documented. Black and Indigenous women die from pregnancy related complications at two to three times the rate of their White counterparts. We will likely see this disparity increase even further, as Black and Brown women are more apt to be deprived economically and may lack the material support and means to travel out of state to have an abortion, should they desire to do so.
 
Numerous unanticipated events can complicate a previously uneventful pregnancy. With the recent Supreme Court ruling, women and physicians in certain states now find themselves subjected to scrutiny and treatment debates over common obstetric complications such as ectopic pregnancy and incomplete abortion (a subcategory of spontaneous miscarriage). It is untenable that there are now states in which life-saving treatment of these complications is up for debate, something reminiscent of a dystopian novel rather than modern 21st century life. It is not possible to write a state law capable of addressing the myriad potential developments in a patient’s pregnancy, while also allowing for the nuance required in good clinical management. These challenging decisions need to be made between the woman who is pregnant and her physician. No one else should be allowed into that conversation.
 
Besides the absence of universal health care, we lack affordable childcare and universal pre-K education. Since 2009, the Iowa minimum wage has remained a paltry $7.25 an hour, while in Illinois it was increased in 2022 to $12 an hour. It is simply not possible for a family, let alone a single-parent household, to thrive on these wages. For a family with one child, existing childcare costs in Iowa take up a whopping 18% of a single parent’s family budget, and with two or more children the percentage is even higher. The economic hardships of an enforced pregnancy will push more women and their children into poverty, denying them full and self-determined lives.
 
Societal progress has been slow, and women are tired of waiting for change and the elusive concept of equality. But besides the dire health and economic consequences, an enforced pregnancy can cause other catastrophic upheavals: It can change the entire trajectory of a woman’s life. Her education may be derailed and never completed, she may choose to stay in an unhappy or abusive relationship, she may not have the time or emotional capability to care for additional children, and her future may be irretrievably altered. 
 
We profoundly disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
 
 
Carolyn K. Martin, M.D.
Alta L. Price, M.D.
Co-Facilitators, Women’s Equity Forum
Progressive Action for the Common Good
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We Will Not Go Back!  rally for Choice in Davenport - Action Alert

6/24/2022

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We Will Not Go Back! rally - Action Alert
Sunday, June 26th at 3:00 pm

PACG Women's Equity Forum and other groups

Vander Veer Park
215 W Central Park AV
Davenport, IA 52803 (map)

​Sponsored by:
QC-National Organization for Women, PACG Women's Equity Forum, One Human Family-QC, Iowa Women United and others

​Women around the U.S. awoke today to the news that they have less reproductive freedom than their mothers did. A woman's right to make her own decisions regarding pregnancy has been either taken away or is in grave danger of being abolished.

While we have known for some time that the Supreme Court intended to overturn Roe v. Wade, today’s decision is no less devastating to women and nonbinary people across the nation.

We Will Not Go Back!

Thirteen states have trigger laws that immediately end abortion access. We know that another 13 states will likely move to end abortion rights in the coming weeks and days. This decision will certainly affect Black, Brown and poor people disproportionately. They already face unsatisfactory medical outcomes, placing them at even greater risk of dying either through forced pregnancy or illegal abortions. 

This outrageous attack upon women and nonbinary people cannot stand. We must codify women's choices about their own reproductive health into law.

Bring your signs (if you have them) and your energy and join us at Vander Veer Botanical Park to rally for women's rights. We will be meeting at the Stone Fountain on the south side of the park closest to West Lombard Street. 

Alta Price
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PACG Book Club - September 2022

5/21/2022

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PACG Book Club - The Cider House Rules by John Irving
Monday, September 19th at 4:30 pm

Since we are taking a break in July and August, you will have plenty of time to read our lengthy September book, The Cider House Rules by John Irving. I read this book decades ago and loved it. Since one of the themes of the book is abortion, and the setting is in a time when abortions were illegal, it seems quite relevant today. The book also deals with other issues of interest to our members, such as racism and sexism.

Although we may meet in person in September, depending on the Covid situation it may be a Zoom meeting. In either case, it will be at 4:30 pm on Monday, September 19th. Watch the Progressive Action Update (email) for more information.

Here is more information from Goodreads:
​
Raised from birth in the orphanage at St. Cloud's, Maine, Homer Wells has become the protege of Dr. Wilbur Larch, its physician and director. There Dr. Larch cares for the troubled mothers who seek his help, either by delivering and taking in their unwanted babies or by performing illegal abortions. Meticulously trained by Dr. Larch, Homer assists in the former, but draws the line at the latter. Then a young man brings his beautiful fiancee to Dr. Larch for an abortion, and everything about the couple beckons Homer to the wide world outside the orphanage.

Contact me for a link to the meeting (if it is by Zoom) or with questions.

Alta Price
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