Ideas for an Open Society: Reproductive Health and Rights

Stressing the need to find common ground in the abortion debate while securing policies to protect safe and legal reproductive rights for women, OSI released a paper examining the changing science, politics, and public attitudes on abortion.

"Everything about abortion in America has changed in the three decades since Roe v. Wade guaranteed a constitutional right to privacy, except the way people talk about it," said Ellen Chesler, director of OSI's Program on Reproductive Health and Rights, and author of the feature article in Ideas for an Open Society.

In the second issue of OSI's new Ideas series, Chesler, also the author of a biography on birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, discusses the importance of emergency contraception RU-486, and the need to lift restrictive legal provisions that govern surgical abortions in her piece, "The Abortion Debate: Finding Common Ground."

Also included in the issue is Jane Manners' "Manhattanville MIC Center: Model Neighborhood Reproductive Health Care," a case study of one of eight Maternity, Infant Care-Women's Health Services run by the City of New York that offers family planning services and prenatal care to women in low-income neighborhoods. Manners, a program associate for OSI's Governance and Public Policy program and former staff writer at Brill's Content, reports on the personalized attention that women receive at the center; each is assigned to and receives continuous care and counseling from a single physician or midwife throughout her pregnancy.

However, MIC centers are prohibited from performing abortions. Manners argues that if MIC centers could offer their patients this early option, much of the emotional toll and public shame of visiting an abortion clinic and being treated by unfamiliar doctors would be alleviated. Currently, should an MIC center patient request an abortion, her doctor must refer her to a public hospital or clinic, provided the patient has Medicaid coverage.

OSI's new Ideas series, to be released six times a year, debates provocative and innovative ideas and strategies for social change to advance democratic, open society values. Written by OSI program directors, trustees, and grantees, upcoming issues will focus on overreliance on incarceration, reform of urban high schools, and other OSI projects. The premier issue of Ideas examined campaign finance reform.