Reproductive Health Care Access
A topic that has always ruffled my feathers is the issue surrounding lack of reproductive access to women of all ages.
Reproductive access is described as ensuring that barriers in terms of financial, organizational, social or cultural limitations to services are significantly reduced (Gulliford et al., 2002). The actual access to reproductive health care would include that availability as well as accessibility to contraceptives, legal abortion services, and miscarriage counseling and support services are available to women in need . Although, the age in which a woman is allowed access to these services and the extent to which services are to be provided continue to be a cause of hot topic debate, it is still imperative that these issues be addressed as the proper care of these things are almost synonymous with a woman's overall health and "economic security" (National Women's Law Center, 2015).
According to the National Women's Law Center (2015) appropriate access to reproductive health services allows women the ability to decide when or whether to become a mother which has led to the incredible increase in the participation of women in the workforce and the surge of double income families. But, if availability and accessibility to reproductive health care continues to be limited due to financial, cultural, social and other significant barriers, does this not threaten the health and economic well-being of these women?
It is crucial to work together to eliminate or at least reduce the existing barriers to reproductive health care for every woman and ensure that every woman has the legal right and ability to access safe and affordable reproductive health services because the overall health and well-being as well as the economic security of women and their families, for the future, could very well depend on our actions today.
References
Gulliford et al., (2002). What does 'access to health care' mean?. Journal of health research and policy , 7(3), 186-8. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12171751
National Women's Law Center. (2015, May 29).Reproductive health is part of the economic health of women and their families. Retrieved from http://www.nwlc.org/resource/reproductive-health-part-economic-health-women-and-their-families