NEWS

City Council women's caucus plan includes $1 million to aid reproductive healthcare access

Zaria Johnson
The Columbus Dispatch
City Councilmember Elizabeth Brown, center, flanked by fellow women's caucus members Shayla Favor on the left and Lourdes Barroso de Padilla on the right, speaks at a news conference Friday during which they announced a proposal to support reproductive rights in Columbus.

Members of Columbus City Council's new women's caucus announced a proposal Friday to support abortion access in Columbus that would include a $1 million fund to limit barriers for reproductive healthcare. 

The caucus hopes the council will pass the 30-day emergency legislation package Monday, Councilmember Shayla Favor said.

If passed, the proposal would provide a $1 million access fund to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, Ohio's Women Alliance and Abortion Fund of Ohio (formerly Women Have Options Ohio), to mitigate financial barriers to abortion access and improve reproductive healthcare education citywide. Financial barriers can include transportation, childcare or lost wages.

The fund would be paid for through the city's Reimagining Safety Fund and Citywide Transfer Fund.

"We definitely want to defer to the experts in this space," Favor said. "And so we have full faith and trust that they're going to take these funds and use them to serve the residents and those who can give birth to the best of their ability."

Iris Harvey, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, said the city has been a great partner. 

"It's incumbent on us and it'll be great to have the funds to support education inviting patients back in to have a conversation about their reproductive life plan," Harvey said.

The proposal also would direct all city agencies to not share, store or gather surveillance relating to residents' pregnancy outcomes or reproductive healthcare procedures, Council President Pro Tempore Elizabeth Brown said during the news conference outside City Hall. This will deprioritize the enforcement of laws that aim to criminalize abortion throughout the city, she said.

As part of the legislative package, city council would enter a contract with Pro-Choice Ohio on a $26,500 study to combat false information regarding reproductive healthcare, such as fake clinics or crisis pregnancy centers, Brown said.

"They often target low-income women. They target women of color. It's a concern to all of us if lies are told in these exam rooms up to and including claims of an association between abortion and adverse health consequences, or even encouragement not to seek immediate prenatal care," she said.

The proposed legislative package comes nearly a month after the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade. 

Read more: Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, eliminating constitutional right to abortion

"This decision was an attack on people of color, people of low income, marginalized individuals with no health insurance, victims of rape and incest and fertile people and those who live in health care deserts," Favor said.

The court's decision fails to address racial disparities in health care, she said.

Black women accounted for 17% of women giving birth, but 34% of pregnancy-related deaths in Ohio from 2012 through 2016, according to a statewide study

"We know that this is only going to increase with abortion rights rolled back," she said. "We need to admit and acknowledge the reality of racism in our country to stop denying and stop letting people erase our country's history. Nothing can or ever will change unless we look that in the eye." 

Friday's news conference was attended by Mayor Andrew J. Ginther, Council President Shannon Hardin, Councilmember Rob Dorans and a number of abortion advocacy organizations and supporters. 

The women's caucus members consisted of Brown, Favor and Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla, who said the group intends to implement a comprehensive reproductive health education campaign later this year. It would target "people furthest from justice," including Black and brown communities, immigrants, migrants, refugees and low-income and uninsured individuals. 

zjohnson@dispatch.com

@zariajohnson24