New York Metropolis is now providing free abortion tablets at public clinics, turning into the primary metropolis within the nation to take action.
The free tablets will likely be obtainable at 4 public clinics across the metropolis, Mayor Eric Adams introduced Tuesday, simply days earlier than the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Courtroom resolution that granted the constitutional proper to abortion. On Wednesday, a Bronx clinic turned the primary to supply the tablets, and they are going to be obtainable at clinics in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens by the top of the 12 months.
Town already provides medical abortions at its 11 public hospitals. The brand new program expands entry to all 4 clinics and supplies a means for individuals to entry the process without spending a dime.
“No different metropolis within the nation or on this planet has a public well being division that gives medical abortions,” Adams mentioned. “We’re the primary.”
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What are the small print of the New York Free Abortion Tablet Program?
This system is funded by a $1.2 million bundle for sexual well being providers, town’s well being division mentioned.
As soon as the medical abortion applications are up and operating, the 4 clinics will have the ability to present as much as 10,000 medical abortions a 12 months, Ashwin Vasan, commissioner of town’s Division of Well being and Psychological Hygiene, mentioned at a information convention Tuesday.
Vasan mentioned the clinics permit scheduled and walk-in appointments, and medical abortion care will likely be “open to anybody,” whether or not from New York Metropolis or not. Town additionally supplies abortion providers to anybody, no matter immigration standing, Vasan mentioned.
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Mayor Eric Adams declares a imaginative and prescient for girls’s well being
Free medical abortions are a part of Adams’ imaginative and prescient of a “New York Metropolis Ladies’s Well being Agenda,” she mentioned at Tuesday’s information convention. The initiative “goals to dismantle many years of systemic inequity which have negatively affected the well being of ladies in all 5 boroughs,” in accordance with a press release from her workplace.
Citing a number of examples of disparities in ladies’s well being, Adams mentioned the common maternal mortality charge amongst black pregnant ladies is greater than 9 occasions the speed for white pregnant ladies.
“For too lengthy, well being and medical care have been centered on males, however that adjustments immediately,” Adams mentioned. “We have now been on the sidelines of ladies’s well being for too lengthy, and I’ve personally seen firsthand how the well being system is letting our ladies down. We’re lengthy overdue to interrupt taboos and make New York Metropolis a mannequin for the way forward for ladies’s well being care. Let’s construct a metropolis that’s right here for all ladies and women.”
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Wendy Stark, president and CEO of Deliberate Parenthood of Higher New York, known as this system “crucial… to our bodily autonomy and fundamental human rights.”
“A more healthy New York Metropolis requires intentional investments to scale back well being care disparities that systematically damage Black, Latino, and underserved communities,” Stark mentioned in a press release. “This consists of guaranteeing equal entry to sexual and reproductive well being providers and compassionate abortion care.”
In a press release, Dr. Herminia Palacio, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, a analysis and coverage group that helps abortion rights, applauded this system as a step to “prioritize the well being, well-being, and reproductive autonomy of our ladies and women. .’
“New York Metropolis can solely be as sturdy because the well being of the thousands and thousands of ladies and women who stay and work right here and make this place the more and more resilient and affluent city heart that we’re,” mentioned Palacio, who was additionally New York resident. Metropolis Deputy Mayor for Well being and Human Providers.
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New York Metropolis applications concentrate on abortion entry
The medical abortion effort is one in every of a number of New York Metropolis applications launched after Roe v. Wade.
In March, Adams introduced a citywide growth of doula providers, a midwifery initiative and a maternal well being providers program. In August, she signed the New York Metropolis Abortion Rights Act legislative bundle, strengthening abortion protections and paving the best way without spending a dime medical abortions. And in November, town launched the Abortion Entry Heart, which confidentially connects ladies looking for abortion providers with suppliers all through town, in addition to monetary assist, transportation and lodging providers.
What are the opposite components of the Adams Ladies’s Well being Initiative?
Different elements of Adams’ “blueprint for the way forward for ladies’s well being in New York Metropolis” embrace:
- Relaunch of a intercourse training activity drive geared particularly towards younger New Yorkers and faculty personnel.
- Monitoring charges of most cancers, psychological well being, coronary heart illness and different circumstances, in addition to life expectancy and key indicators differentiated by age and race
- Name for Ladies’s Well being Leaders for a Ladies’s Historical past Month Summit in March
- Launch a marketing campaign centered on supporting New Yorkers with hypertension and diabetes, particularly in neighborhoods within the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan that have well being and socioeconomic disparities.
- Launch of a family-based substance use dysfunction program
- Increasing entry to pelvic flooring physiotherapy
Contact Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or comply with her on Twitter at @christinetfern.