Focusing on Urban Reproductive Health
The health care debate is happening all across the country with a deafening silence in one key area, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH. Check out this quick report back from the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative regional summit in Denver, CO.
Kalpana Krishnamurthy
Kalpana Krishnamurthy is the Gender Justice Program and RACE Program Director at Western States Center.
On September 24, policy makers, health advocates, reproductive rights organizers, and others met to discuss urban reproductive health issues for communities in the inter-mountain west. Organizers and leaders from states like Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico came together to discuss promising practices, emerging issues, and policy solutions to urban reproductive health issues.
I was asked to present on sex education--and I have to admit I was a little lost. I went to a very progressive Catholic all-girls high school that had comprehensive sex education, but it's been about that long since I've really thought about sex education.
Fortunately, many groups in our region have talked with us about sex ed (or the lack thereof). About how it doesn't have the real information that teens want, that parents feel uncomfortable answering questions from youth, and that the curriculum seems to gloss over real cultural differences for immigrant and refugee communities.
After my gig, I went to a panel with our friends from Montana. Erin Switalski from Women's Voices for the Earth disturbed all of us with facts like: most breast milk wouldn't pass FDA regulations to be sold on store shelves because it has too many chemicals that get processed through our bodies. Yuck! She was quick to point out the benefits of breast feeding, but raised a critical question: why aren't more than 78,000 chemicals being tested and regulated for their impact on reproductive health?
Kim Abbot from Montana Human Rights Network rounded out the panel with a great presentation on health care as a human right. Given the crazy proposals that are passing for health care reform, it was a great reminder that the human rights framework can be incredibly useful in dealing with the punitive, inhumane, and really dumb proposals that cut immigrants, undocumented folks, and others out of various health care proposals.
Click here to read an article on the event.
Click here to find out more about the Urban Initiative for Reproductive Health.
For more information about organizing on sex education, check out Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice's Tools for Sexuality Education.
