Advocacy History & Timeline

2012

January 17, 2012---The Research Center for Women and Families/Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund asked AMWA as part of the Patient, Consumer and Public Health Coalition to sign onto a letter to the FDA on proposed rule changes to reclassify External Pacemaker Pulse Generator Devices. As members of the Patient, Consumer, and Public Health Coalition, we strongly oppose the reclassification of External Pacemaker Pulse Generator Devices (Product code DTE) from class III (high risk devices) to class II (moderate risk devices). These devices are among the ?pre-amendment? class III devices, which have been cleared by the less-than rigorous 510(k) process. External Pacemaker Pulse Generator Devices should remain class III devices and they should require Premarket Approval Applications (PMAs) because they are life-sustaining devices.

January 22, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by SWHR, American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, and WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease which are planning to send to Members of Congress in support of the bill re-introduced in the 112th Congress by Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-CA). This legislation seeks to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart disease, the leading killer of American women, as well as stroke and other cardiovascular diseases and the organizations are encouraging them to co-sponsor this legislation.

January 26, 2012---Susan Scanlon, President of the National Council of Women's Organizations, asked if AMWA could issue a statement regarding President Obama's decision not to exempt religious organizations from reproductive health coverage. In response to that request AMWA sent the following: The American Medical Women's Association applauds President Obama's decision to reject religious exemption on cost-free birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act. "To prevent unintended pregnancies, all women of reproductive age should have access to safe and effective contraception," said Dr. Mary Guinan, AMWA President. Cost of contraception has been a major factor in limiting access for uninsured and low income women, and responsible for disproportionately high unintended pregnancy and abortion rates in these woman. Currently, even insured women are often denied coverage of IUDs and implants, the most effective forms of contraception. With insurance provision of all available methods, American women will have equal access to contraception for the first time in history.

January 30, 2012---The Research Center for Women and Families requested a sign onto a letter to members of Congress advocating for change in the rules for reviewing all devices in the SOUND Devices Act of 2012.

February 6, 2012---AMWA signed onto a statement advocating the use of noninvasive measurement of central blood pressure as a more accurate measure of blood pressure.

February 19, 2012---AMWA signed onto a coalition of women’s organizations to protest the fight against the use of birth control and its inclusion in the ACA as preventive services and therefore not subject to additional payments. The Coalition to Protect Women’s Health Care is proposing several activities to demonstrate the displeasure of the 49 organizations which have joined.

February 27, 2012---AMWA signed onto a National Research Center for Women and Families as a member of the Patient, Consumer, and Public Health Coalition to express our concerns about the use of the de novo process for high-risk medical devices to which the FDA will apply to approve an endovascular suturing system “used in patients whose endovascular grafts have exhibited migration or endoleak, or are at risk of such complications, in whom augmented radial fixation and/or sealing is required to regain or maintain adequate aneurysm exclusion.” AMWA thinks the PMA process should apply to this device.

February 27, 2012---AMWA opposes any amendment restricting a woman’s access to full reproductive healthcare including the Blunt Amendment and have signed a petition signed by many other women’s groups during TRUST WOMEN WEEK expressing such.

February 27, 2012---AMWA signed onto a National Council of Women’s Organizations” Campaign to stop gun violence.

March 5, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter to Chairman Walberg and Ranking Member Woolsey of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee House Education and the Workforce Committee U.S. House of Representatives in strong support of the rule proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations to extend basic labor protections to nearly 1.8 million low-wage home care workers. This proposed rule (RIN 1232-AA05) will ensure that these workers are finally entitled to minimum wage and overtime premium pay, correcting a longstanding injustice and advancing economic security and fair pay for women, especially women of color. We oppose any delay in implementing these long-overdue regulations. This letter was proposed by the National Women’s Law Center.

March 15, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by the National Women’s Law Center for its I Will Not Be Denied Campaign to foster women’s health which includes a video. AMWA’s logo will be part of the program materials. The campaign will start Monday March 19th, 2012 with a press conference on the anniversary of the ACA act’s passing with the video becoming available for the public on March 20th.

April 12, 2012---AMWA signed onto an AMICUS brief on behalf of a mother of four named Juana Villegas who won a civil rights suit against the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County after she was shackled during transportation, while in labor, and immediately postpartum despite a "no restraints" order signed by her physician and known to the defendants. Ms. Villegas' only offense was being an undocumented alien who was arrested for a minor traffic offense. Her punishment was to labor in chains and experience the terror of thinking that her baby would die inside of her because she would be unable to open her legs to give birth, which led to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She was not allowed to see her baby or her family. Her infant was taken away from her and without any updates on his condition, or whether she would ever see him again. In jail, although she was suffering painful engorgement, she was denied a breast pump that would allow her to relieve the pressure. For all of this, she was granted a small award of $200,000 by a jury to cover the costs of her future mental health treatment. AMWA has been asked by Ms. Villegas' attorneys to sign an Amicus Brief organized a group of experts and advocates to bring to the court's attention the fact that experts in maternal, fetal, and neonatal health and advocates for healthy birth stand opposed to the dangerous and degrading practice of shackling women who pose no safety risk. This effort is being spearheaded by the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

April 12, 2012---AMWA has signed onto a letter the Patient, Consumer, and Public Health Coalition is writing to comment on the bipartisan HELP committee’s “Incentivizing New Antibiotic Development” discussion draft. The proposals in this may not benefit patients and may harm them. The reason is because the incentives the draft provides will encourage drug companies to develop antibiotics that are not necessarily needed or life-saving, and may promote even more antibiotic resistant toward existing drugs. The Coalition believes that the HELP Committee should give priority to drugs that save lives, not including antifungals which need no incentive for development. The overuse of antibiotics should be addressed and the resulting resistance and the availability of generics in a timely manner.

April 15, 2012---AMWA signed onto testimony to the FDA from the National Research Center for Women and Families in which user fees for devices are discussed. Although the coalition is not enthusiastic about user fees, in today’s budgetary climate, they are necessary, especially since the FDA has been under-funded for years. In particular, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) has struggled to manage an expanded demand for more complex devices with inadequate appropriations. The coalition will continue to advocate with Congress for increased funding for the FDA to ensure the agency has the resources it needs to carry out its mission of protecting and promoting the public health.

April 25, 2012---AMWA signed onto an Amicus Brief generated by the National Advocates for Pregnant Women in the case of S.P in Kentucky who is being denied custody of her child because she used methadone while pregnant and ultimately became enrolled in a drug treatment program where she continued prescribed methadone maintenance until the birth of her child. She remained free of illegal drugs while in the program and became pregnant while in recovery. Methadone is the preferred method of treatment for opiate dependent pregnant women. Unable to enroll in a treatment program because of finances S.P. used a low dose of methadone she obtained unlawfully until she was able to enroll in a methadone maintenance program, which she did before her baby was born. Her daughter was born perfectly healthy with no symptoms or signs of neonatal abstinence syndrome and both mother and daughter tested negative for all unlawful substances at birth. An ill-informed hospital employee, however, reported S.P. to child welfare authorities based solely on the fat that her daughter was "presumptively positive for methadone."

May 8, 2012---AMWA signed onto an amicus brief generated by the Advocates for Pregnant Women in the case of Juana Villegos who was held in shackles in Nashville/Davidson County after a minor traffic offense as she was an undocumented alien. She delivered in jail in those shackles and was not allowed to feed her baby to relieve the breast engorgement and could not see him at all. The brief is asking for damages due to the shackling and a ruling against such.

May 8, 2012---AMWA signed onto the Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act being introduced in the House of Representatives This bill would promote nondiscrimination by ensuring that pregnant workers are not forced out of their jobs unnecessarily or denied reasonable job modifications that will allow them to continue working and supporting their families. This request originated for the National Women’s Law Center.

May 13, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter drafted by the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women opposing the Adams VAWA bill (H.R. 4970) headed to the House floor for a vote next week. We support these tenets of the previous bill to:

Train over 500,000 law enforcement personnel every year,
Help advocates to respond to urgent calls for help with the establishment of the National Domestic Violence Hotline that answers 22,000 calls each month,
Support sexual assault services in every state; when victims receive advocate-assisted services following assaults, rape survivors are 59 percent more likely to have police reports taken than survivors without advocates whose reports are only taken 41 percent of the time, and
Support programs that reduce domestic violence homicides; as an example, between 1993 and 2007, the rate of intimate partner homicides of females decreased by 35 percent and the rate of intimate partner homicides of males decreased 46 percent.

We all support a strong, bipartisan VAWA reauthorization bill similar to what the Senate passed last month, which would continue the life-saving protections and services needed by victims and their families. Again, H.R. 4970, which recently passed out of the House Judiciary Committee by a near party-line vote, would be a rollback of years of progress and likely increase the number of women and children who could be hurt. H.R. 4970 is genuinely dangerous for immigrant women and their families. It includes damaging provisions that create obstacles for immigrant victims to report crimes, increases danger for immigrant victims by eliminating important confidentiality protections, and undermines effective anti-fraud protections that exist in current law. It expressly rejects protections for men and women who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender and eliminates strong protections and justice for women and children who are beaten or abused on Tribal lands by perpetrators who are not members of a particular tribe. And it removes a key requirement that would more easily allow victims to move from one subsidized housing program to another in order to avoid an abuser and drops an important provision that would tackle the violence that occurs on our nation’s college campuses.

May 16, 2012---The American Diabetes Association is spearheading a sign on campaign for the Gestational Diabetes Act which was reintroduced in the House and Senate in June 2011 and is bipartisan legislation which seeks to reduce the incidence of gestational diabetes through improved tracking, surveillance, and public health research. Up to 18% of all pregnancies in the U.S. are affected by gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes carries dangerous health consequences during and after pregnancy, including an increased risk of developing type 2 Diabetes for both mother and child. As AMWA is very supportive of prevention, disease management, and reducing health disparities for women which are issues of concern in gestational diabetes and areas which are covered by this legislation, it will sign on.

May 30, 2012---AMWA is supporting the American Heart Association, the Society for Women’s Health Research, and WomenHeart as the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease in writing to Congress in support of Section 908 of the Senate’s version of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Safety and Innovation Act (S. 3187), which would require the FDA to report on the availability of new drug and device safety and efficacy data by sex, age, and racial and ethnic subgroups. As you work to reconcile differences between the House and Senate legislation, we strongly urge you to include this provision in the final FDA User Fee bill.

May 30, 2012---The Research Center for Women and Families is generating testimony for the FDA for the draft guidance “Limiting the Use of Certain Phthalates as Excipients in CDER-Regulated Products,” which recommends that industry avoid the use of dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) as excipients in drug and biologic products. The draft guidance recommends that industry should avoid the use of DBP and DEHP as excipients in drug and biologic products. This recommendation is not strong enough. The FDA should ban the use of DBP and DEHP in excipients especially since “safer alternatives are available.” FDA should also ban the use of these phthalates in packaging materials since DBP and DEHP can leach from the packages into the drug and biologic products. Banning DBP and DEHP will help to reduce the “widespread exposure of the general population to phthalates,” and reduce the real-world, cumulative negative effects of phthalates in the health of children and adults.

June 19, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by the National Partnership for Women and Families to the Congress to urge support of women’s reproductive health programs in the Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) appropriations process and rejection of any policy riders and funding cuts that would limit access to critical women’s health services. We are deeply concerned that the appropriations process will once again be used as a tool to restrict women’s health and access to reproductive health care. In this Congress, there have been multiple attempts to use the appropriations process to incrementally chip away at women’s health. For example, the appropriations process has been exploited to prohibit the District of Columbia from using its own locally-raised funds to provide abortion care, to weaken the evidence-based standards for sexuality education that help ensure our young people have access to comprehensive and medically accurate information, and to attempt to create additional barriers to care for rural women by banning abortion providers who use telemedicine from receiving telehealth grants. As a coalition of organizations that care about the health and economic security of women and their families, we strongly oppose any efforts to attack women’s health through the appropriations process.

June 20, 2012---AMWA wrote a letter to urge support of AB 2348 authored by Assembly member Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), which will benefit the women of California by improving access to birth control. AMWA is willing to sign onto this state bill because of its importance as a prelude to action which may be needed in other states. AB 2348 would increase birth control access by authorizing registered nurses in community clinics to dispense birth control under a standardized procedure. Simply put, after taking a routine health assessment, a registered nurse would be able to safely dispense birth control to the more than 90 percent of women who have no complicating factors. For the small percentage of women who have more complex health issues, RNs would refer them to a nurse practitioner or doctor for contraceptive care. AB 2348 would apply to the pill, patch, ring, and depo injection. It would not apply to methods like IUDs or implants that need to be inserted.

June 24, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter to Representative Markey as a member of the Patient, Consumer and Public Health Coalition, which includes non-profit organizations and individuals that represent patients, consumers, physicians, scientists, and researchers to express our strong support for the Trial and Experimental Studies Transparency (TEST) Act of 2012. This legislation will ensure that patients, consumers and health care providers have better information about the drugs and devices available to them. Representative Markey’s bill would ensure that the transparency goals regarding disclosure of clinical trial information established by the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA) are fully implemented by closing definitional loopholes and requiring the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to report enforcement actions they have taken against non-compliers. In addition, the bill makes great strides towards transparency in an ethically contentious area by requiring better reporting of study results, rulemaking on registration of foreign clinical studies, and public disclosure of informed consent documents and protocols.

July 3, 2012---AMWA has signed on to be listed as a supporter of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s 10th annual National Memory Screening Day (NMSD) on November 13, 2012. Last year, over 96,500 people participated in NMSD at over 2,540 sites nationwide. This is a 12% growth over the 2010 volume, and is evidence to the growing public awareness of early detection and intervention for memory problems. In addition, AFA is increasingly using NMSD as a jumping off point to start and continue dialogue with Congressional leaders and other policymakers about developing a national dementia screening policy and the importance of early detection, and in late November 2011, AFA convened top experts and government leaders for a one-day symposium on cognitive assessment and is currently drafting a white paper to submit to medical journals.

July 12, 2012---AMWA signed onto an Amicus Brief generated by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and its coalition of organizations of leading Illinois and national medical and public health organizations in the case of parental notification for abortion when the patient is a minor in the state of Illinois. The coalition holds that such notification is not necessary and is harmful to the child and they submit this brief as amici curiae in support of Plaintiffs’ challenge to the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 (the “Act”). As leading experts in their fields, amici write to correct the inaccurate and misleading data set forth in the Amicus Curiae Brief of Illinois Legislators, the Amicus Curiae Brief of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, the American Association of Pro Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Catholic Medical Association, and the Amicus Curiae Brief State’s Attorneys filed in Support of Defendants-Appellants. As demonstrated and described in the Brief of the Plaintiffs-Appellees, the Act does not further or protect the best interests of minors.

August 8, 2012---As the nation continues to mourn for the victims and survivors of two recent shooting massacres—in Aurora, Colorado on July 20th and Oak Creek, Wisconsin on August 5th—over 90 organizations have joined together to call for stronger gun laws to prevent the next tragedy. The Campaign to Stop Gun Violence is a coalition of national organizations demanding that policy makers enact better laws to keep our communities safe and free from gun violence. AMWA is a member of the coalition.

August 12, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by the American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Diabetes Association, in support of bipartisan legislation which seeks to improve the health of women and their babies by investing in the tracking, surveillance, and study of gestational diabetes. The Gestational Diabetes Act (S. 1221 / HR 2194), sponsored by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME) and Representatives Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Michael Burgess (R-TX), seeks to reduce the incidence of gestational diabetes in women and supports prevention programs to improve the health of women and their babies.

August 19, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by the Government Accountability Project to Members of Congress to ask them to ensure that PHS whistleblowers have the same protections from retaliation now afforded all other employees of the FDA and other public health agencies, a state of affairs that had existed more than 30 years before the courts questioned their eligibility for protection under this statute. PHS workers historically have been under the jurisdiction of the Whistleblower Protection Act, a law which Congress now is working to strengthen and revitalize. Congress should restore to PHS workers the protections they have enjoyed for more than three decades. PHS whistleblowers were responsible for warning that 80% of commercial milk supplies had illegal animal drugs, and caused a testing program that has cleaned up America’s milk supply. They have exposed dangerous, life-threatening practices with vaccines and prescription drugs that saved countless lives. They even saved thousands of pets after revealing that approved veterinary medicines were leading to dangerous and fatal adverse reactions.

August 25,2012---AMWA signed onto the National Center for Research on Women and Families’ statement as a member of the Patient, Consumer, and Public Health Coalition, to express our strong opposition to the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association’s (JPMA) petition requesting that the US Consumer Product and Safety Commission adopt a rule to distinguish “hazardous pillow-like crib bumpers from “non-hazardous traditional” crib bumpers.[i] The best way to eliminate the very real hazards of crib bumper pads, which include suffocation, is to eliminate the pads entirely. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has stated that bumper pads should not be used in cribs because they can kill infants and there is no evidence that they prevent injuries.

August 30, 2012---

"In a recent interview, a member of the US Congress, Todd Akin, and candidate for US Senate, suggested that women cannot become pregnant from “legitimate rape”: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” His stunning comments are repugnant and medically incorrect. Thousands of women in the US become pregnant every year as a result of rape – up to 32,000 women, according to one study. A woman’s body has no magical defenses against pregnancy after forced intercourse. The perpetuation of such blatantly false information is harmful to women, and threatens women’s health.

Further, the egregious reference to “legitimate rape” perpetuates the kind of stigma that adds to the suffering of victims. Any forced intercourse is rape. To claim otherwise is offensive and demeaning, to victims of either gender. AMWA recognizes that rape is a traumatic and devastating experience, and that the possibility of pregnancy after forced intercourse is very real.

AMWA condemns the comments made by the representative. We assert that our elected officials, regardless of political affiliation, have a grave responsibility not to misrepresent medical facts for political purposes."

AMWA released this statement as a press release.

September 18, 2012---Dr. Omega Silva attended the Tea Dinner at the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC which preceded the scientific Symposium at the US Department of Agriculture on the health effects of tea. Along with the Tea Council of the US, the Tea Board of India and some representatives of independent tea companies from India, Dr. Silva enjoyed a wonderful Indian meal and was delighted to become reacquainted with some of the people who had participated in the afternoon symposium presented by the Tea Council of the US at the GWU a few years ago in which she was the moderator.

September 24, 2012--- As a follow-up to the entry on August 25, 2012, AMWA signed on to a letter stating that in the ideal world, parents would understand the risks of crib bumpers and would decide not to use them. However, in the real world, not all parents understand these risks and it is not uncommon for crib bumpers to be given as baby gifts, especially by adults who are not new parents and therefore unaware of the risks. The ASTM standard that claims some bumper pads are less risky will muddle the safety issue even more and give parents a false sense of security. Maryland’s proposed ban on crib bumper pads will help to protect more than 70,000 babies born in the state each year, and that is a bottom line upon which we should all agree.

September 30, 2012---AMWA joined the Amicus Brief being done by the Drug Policy Alliance in the case of Nina Buckhalter to be presented in the Supreme Court of Mississippi. Ms. Buckhalter suffered a stillbirth and is being charged with manslaughter because of alleged drug use during her pregnancy. A conviction here could create far-reaching bad legal precedent that brands as potential criminals any woman who suffers a lost pregnancy, thus endangering the health and well-being of Mississippi women. We plan to file an amicus brief on behalf of legal, medical, and public health organizations and experts in opposition to the State of Mississippi’s appeal of an order dismissing Ms. Buckhalter’s indictment for manslaughter. The amicus brief we are drafting will address the following issues, among others:

Imposing criminal sanctions on women who continue pregnancies in spite of drug dependency problems contradicts broadly accepted principles of law and is ineffective in halting drug abuse;
The prosecution of Ms. Buckhalter is based on medical misinformation and myth rather than peer-reviewed, accurate medical evidence;
The prosecution of Ms. Buckhalter endangers public health by jeopardizing the therapeutic relationships between women and their health care providers and deters access to important services; and
The overwhelming majority of state courts have concluded that application of homicide laws to reach pregnant women violates legislative intent, undermines public health, and implicates constitutional principles of due process and privacy.

Linsay LaSalle is the law fellow leading this case.

2011

January 3, 2011---AMWA signed onto, cosponsored, and reviewed the American Heart Association's Effectiveness-Based Guidelines for the Prevention of CVD in Women. It encompasses clinical recommendations for risk factor management targeted to primary care physicians and women's health care providers and is based on current evidence. More than 30 experts representing a dozen cosponsoring organizations have voted to rate evidence and have come to consensus on the clinical recommendations. (Note: Dr. Debra Judelson is AMWA's representative on the Expert Panel.) All cosponsoring organizations reviewed the paper, and in addition, 3 peer reviewers have evaluated the guidelines.

January 8, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter to the House of Representatives from organizations committed to protecting and improving women's health strongly urging the House members to vote against HR2 and HR9, which would repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (collectively referred to as ?the Affordable Care Act.?) These two laws are already providing critically important benefits and protections for women and their families. In short, repealing these critically important laws would harm women and their families, and would once again allow insurance companies to treat women like a pre-existing condition. Repeal would harm women in many specific ways.

Repeal would allow unfair and discriminatory insurance practices that are particularly harmful to women to continue. Repeal would make obtaining insurance harder and more expensive. Repeal will make finding comprehensive health insurance more difficult. Repeal will eliminate critical tax credits for small employers, making it harder for them to provide insurance coverage for their employees.
Repeal will reinstate the Medicare drug coverage gap. Repeal will eliminate many additional
provisions providing important benefits to women and their families.

January 16, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter to the FDA as a member of the Patient, Consumer, and Public Health Coalition, which wants to emphasize that its appreciation for the wonderful life-saving benefits of many medical devices, even while it expresses concern that improvements to the 510(k) process are needed to reduce the number of patients whose lives are put at risk by medical devices whose risks outweigh the benefits for them. The letter was generated by the National Research Center for Women and Families. The Coalition supports the following:

1. Public health will be improved if FDA requires clinical trials for high risk devices. FDA needs to rethink its risk categories for medical devices, and should determine the risk level of device based on what happens if it fails, as well as what happens if it works. In other words, if an elective device can kill you if it fails, that's a high-risk device.

2. FDA needs clear and expanded authority to do pre-market and post-market inspections of 510(k) devices.

3. FDA needs clear and expanded authority to require post-market studies of 510(k) devices.

4. FDA needs to make better use of its rescission authority for 510(k) devices, and improve or expand that authority if necessary.

5. FDA needs a more stringent definition.

February 7, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by Planned Parenthood to the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, asking that he and the House focus on providing healthcare for women and families and not on attacking the 90 year old organization with coordinated efforts to defund it. 3 million persons now depend on Planned Parenthood for their primary in many cases in 850 centers throughout the States.

February 7, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter to Secretary Clinton (State Department) generated by Women Thrive concerning the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) which was unveiled in December 2010. It is essentially an assessment of all U.S. diplomacy and international aid efforts and a comprehensive blueprint for how to do it better going forward.

What is historic is that the QDDR puts women and girls at the center of the strategy which impacts tens of billions of dollars worth of funding. Women are usually the ones left behind, so the QDDR's emphasis on ensuring that both women and men's unique circumstances are considered in the breadth of all U.S. foreign policy and aid is a landmark change. When implemented, these reforms will result in real improvements in the lives of countless women, girls, and also for their families and communities around the world, especially since investments in women yield greater benefits in terms of the health and education of children and families. This letter outlines recommendations regarding integration of gender in the QDDR.

February 8, 2011---AMWA created a statement for Senator Barbara Boxer to use for her committee's fight to preserve the Affordable Care Act.

AMWA's Position on HR 3 and HR 217

AMWA supports unrestricted access to and insurance coverage for reproductive healthcare for all women. This includes access to and payment for legal abortion. One in three American women will have an abortion in her life time. AMWA strongly opposes Bills HR 3 and HR 217 as they will further restrict access to a procedure that is legal and should be safely available to all women.

February 23, 2011---AWMA signed onto a brief by the National Women's Law Center supporting the Affordable Care Act in the Fourth Circuit Court.

March 29, 2011---Representing AMWA, Dr. Omega Silva attended the reception of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Griswold vs. Connecticut which resulted in the later passage of Title X, the federal program for family planning.

April 3, 2011---On March 31, 2011, the beginning of AMWA's annual meeting, AMWA members participated in a Capitol Hill Advocacy Day with the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. Groups according to geographic location met with federal legislators. The topic for this year was legislative efforts to restrict funding for Title X, the federal family planning program. AMWA signed onto a letter to be given to each office stating the position of the groups. As a group, we had over 50 meaningful and productive meetings, educating legislators and their staff about the importance of funding Title X and Planned Parenthood. Thanks to your enthusiastic participation, Federal Advocacy Day was a great success.

April 6, 2012---AMWA signed onto a letter of support for Representative Louise Slaughter who plans to introduce a bill to reauthorize the Health programs of The Violence Against Women Initiative Act of 2011.

April 12, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter supporting Dr. Donald Berwick to head CMS generated by the National Physicians Alliance.

April 12, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter supporting the funding of Planned Parenthood and a vote against the Pence Amendment to be sent to selected members of Congress. ?The American Medical Women's Association, an organization of women physicians, medical students, and residents values equality for women and equal opportunity for women to achieve their full professional and personal potential. AMWA's mission is to support policies and programs that improve women's health.

Planned Parenthood provides important services for women's health. As noted by the President of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, ?The fact is that 97 percent of the health care Planned Parenthood provides is preventive, and every federal dollar Planned Parenthood receives goes toward providing preventive health care to women.? Defunding Planned Parenthood will be a detriment to women's health and is not something that the American Medical Women's Association can support.?-----Our statement.

April 25, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter opposing a bill, HR3, a dangerous and extreme bill that would threaten women's health by denying access to health insurance that includes coverage for abortion services, whether that insurance is public or private. The bill represents an unprecedented, radical new level of governmental intrusion into private medical decisions, and would impose new tax penalties on millions of families and small businesses. The American Civil Liberties Union is leading this effort.

The harm from the delay comes in two distinct forms:
(i) increased risks posed by a later abortion and
(ii) inherent risks of remaining pregnant under certain circumstances. Significantly, these harms are most pronounced for the very population of women who come to CPCs. This brief opposes the centers in Baltimore, MD and the Diocese of Baltimore and is to be heard in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Case No. 1:10-cv-00760 MJG, The Honorable Marvin J. Garbis. This amicus brief is in support of Baltimore City Ordinance 09-252, a first-in-the-nation ordinance that demands truth in advertising from limited-service pregnancy centers. This court process will be important for the country should it be decided in favor of Baltimore city.

May 3, 2011---AMWA signed onto a similar letter as the one on April 25th, this one generated by Raising Women's Voices for the Health Care We Need to oppose HR 3, a bill which denies many benefits for women's reproductive health.

May 5, 2011---AMWA signed onto a similar letter as the one on April 25th, this one generated by the Women's Health Network to oppose HR 3, a bill which denies many benefits for women's reproductive health. The more March 29, 2011---Representing AMWA, Dr. Omega Silva attended the reception of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Griswold vs. Connecticut which resulted in the later passage of Title X, the federal program for family planning.

April 12, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter supporting Dr. Donald Berwick to head CMS generated by the National Physicians Alliance.

April 25, 2011---AMWA signed onto an amicus brief being generated by Melissa Derr and others at the firm, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, 2550 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, California 94304 which concerns women who come to CPCs (Community Pregnancy Centers) to obtain an abortion and then discover that the CPC will not provide it (or refer them to a place that will) and are harmed from the delay inherent in this process. That delay can be prolonged – and the harm to these women thereby increased – if the women are not informed as soon as they enter a CPC that they must go elsewhere. The harm from the delay comes in two distinct forms:
(i) increased risks posed by a later abortion and (ii) inherent risks of remaining pregnant under certain
circumstances. Significantly, these harms are most pronounced for the very population of women who come to CPCs. This brief opposes the centers in Baltimore, MD and the Diocese of Baltimore and is to be heard in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Case No. 1:10-cv-00760 MJG, The Honorable Marvin J. Garbis. This amicus brief is in support of Baltimore City Ordinance 09-252, a first-in-the-nation ordinance that demands truth in advertising from limited-service pregnancy centers. This court process will be important for the country should it be decided in favor of Baltimore city.

May 5, 2011---AMWA signed onto a similar letter as the one on April 25th, this one generated by the Women's Health Network to oppose HR 3, a bill which denies many benefits for women's reproductive health. The more organizations oppose the bill, the more likely it will not pass in the House and certainly will not in the Senate and President Obama will veto it.

May 12, 2011---AMWA endorsed the Futures Without Violence coalition's letter to garner supporters on the Hill for a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act with minor changes.

May 23, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter to thank Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) and some others who are filing an amendment for the Defense Authorization bill that will be on the floor starting tomorrow which strongly urges repeal of the ban on the military's insurance coverage for abortion care for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012.

May 27, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter strongly opposing the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture 11.5% cutting the FDA's 2012 FY budget. The agency has been underfunded for years and the cuts will cost the government more than they will save. The result will cost the federal government much more than it saves, because of increased costs of Medicare, VA medical care, medical care for our armed services, Medicaid, and other health care costs. In addition, the delays in getting FDA approval and the recalls that will become necessary because of unsafe food and medicine will cost companies in every state in our nation billions of extra dollars each year. This letter was generated by the National Research Center for Women and Families.

June 2, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter in support of the District of Columbia's ability to use its own money as decided by the democratically elected officials of DC, including supporting the provision of abortions for low-income women.

June 2, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter thanking Senators Inouye and Cochran and Representatives
Rogers and Dicks for their leadership in building a health care system that meets the needs of all Americans. Working towards that goal, the Family Planning Coalition respectfully requested that a modest investment be made in the Title X family planning program, with an increase of $10 million in FY 2012 over FY 2010 funding levels. The Title X program is under increasing pressure, as the safety net system aims to serve more patients than ever with fewer resources.

June 10, 2011---AMWA signed onto an amicus brief generated by the National Women's Law Center a nonprofit legal advocacy organization dedicated to the advancement and protection of women's legal rights since its founding in 1972. Women have long faced great difficulty obtaining comprehensive, affordable health coverage due to harmful and discriminatory health insurance industry practices. NWLC is profoundly concerned about the impact that the Court's decision may have on women's access to health insurance. This brief supports the tenets of the ACA which improve the lives of women and is to be presented in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals (Susan Seven-Sky, et al. v Eric Holder Jr., et al.) in July.

June 22, 2011---As an AMWA representative, Dr. Omega Silva attended a reception held at the headquarters of Planned Parenthood on Vermont Avenue in Washington, DC to honor and welcome the new Representative from New York, Congresswoman Kathy Hochul. She is a champion of women's health in congress. In her remarks she mentioned the need to keep and strengthen Medicare, to protect reproductive choice, and her sincere thanks to the many women's groups and organizations which helped to get her elected.

July 3, 2011---AMWA signed onto a statement generated by the National Women's Law Center to the Centers for Medicare applauding CMS's attempts to ensure that Medicaid beneficiaries – most of whom are women -- have access to critical care. These proposed regulations, as written, take an important first step in addressing access issues. By expanding their reach to managed care organizations, requiring that data be analyzed and reported out by the gender and other characteristics of beneficiaries, the final regulations could be an even stronger way of ensuring access to care. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the Proposed Rule entitled ?Medicaid Program: Methods for Assuring Access to Covered Medicaid Services,? published in the Federal Register on May 6, 2011 (76 Fed. Reg. 26342).1 The proposed rule would create a process for states

Portions of the discussion and recommendations below – including the recommendations related to application to managed care and timing -- were drafted by, and adapted with permission of, the National Health Law Program (NHELP)1 to use to evaluate their fee for service Medicaid provider payment rates to determine whether such rates provide equal access to services through Medicaid under Section 1902(a)(30)(A) of the Social Security Act (hereinafter Section 30(A)). Issues of access to care are particularly important to women who constitute a majority of Medicaid beneficiaries and those likely to care for beneficiaries.

July 11, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by the National Women's Health Network asking HHS to act quickly to extend to contraception the rules prohibiting insurance companies from charging co-payments and other extra fees. HHS is now getting ready to make a decision about this -- in the next couple of weeks, the Institute of Medicine will release its recommendations for Women's Preventive Health Services and after that HHS will be come out with its new policy.

July 11, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter that Doctors for America drafted to showcase strong physician opposition to cuts in Medicare and Medicaid -- particularly the Medicare voucher program and Medicaid block grants.

July 11, 2011---AMWA endorsed efforts to achieve a legislative repeal of the Global Gag Rule supporting efforts underway to ensure that a new Administration cannot reinstate the Global Gag Rule with the stroke of a pen. The Global Democracy Promotion Act will soon be reintroduced in the House of Representatives by longtime champion Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and other original cosponsors. The legislation text will be the same as was introduced in the 111th Congress.

July 23, 2011---AMWA endorsed Congressman Nita Lowey's (D-NY) bill, the Global Democracy Promotion Act, to be reintroduced July 25, 2011 by Rep. Lowey and the more than 90 original cosponsors garnered ahead of reintroduction. This is a fantastic number of original cosponsors for a bill and a testament to all the hard work of many organizations and the level of support that exists in the House to address this issue!

August 2, 2011---Drs. Omega L. Silva and Eliza J. Taylor attended a reception and educational session on Breast Tomosynthesis, one of the new imaging technologies, sponsored by one of our corporate sponsors, Hologic, today at the JW Marriott in DC. The new technology is like a digital CAT scan of the breast done in 4 seconds along with the regular two dimensional two view mammogram. It allows the radiologist to view different levels of breast tissue and more precisely evaluate and localize lesions. The Newsletter will publish an explanation of the technique.

August 3, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by the National Research Center for Women and Families to the FDA opposing any efforts by the FDA to loosen the current conflict of interest rules for members of FDA advisory committees. In fact, we believe that the agency's management of such potential conflicts of interest needs to be made stronger.

August 25, 2011---AMWA endorsed the call of the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to define the Essential Health Benefits (EHB) package and to create a set of coverage standards that conform with ACA provisions.

August 31, 2011---AMWA endorsed the health, education, job training, children's and social services programs as critical national priorities as the Congress determines the final 302(b) allocations for the FY 2012 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations bills. Additional investment in these domestic programs will boost the economy and reduce the deficit through prevention of costly chronic diseases, increased earnings, and reduced expenditures for unemployment and other social service programs.

September 8, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter from The Center for Health and Gender Equity inviting members of the National Council of Women's Organizations to join the Action Council for Women's Health and Rights, a CHANGE initiative designed to mobilize U.S. groups on women's health and rights globally. Since 1994, CHANGE has provided critical analysis and advocacy to ensure that U.S. foreign policies and programs promote sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls worldwide

The National Women's Law Center also endorses the rest of the comments submitted by NHELP that are not addressed. The Action Council will add a chorus of voices to the struggle for women's health and rights around the world by expanding collaboration across a large group of nonprofit organizations including AMWA.

September 10, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter generated by the Center for Reproductive Rights questioning the Congressional debates on the FY 2012 budget with respect to policy riders which the signatories from across the progressive community oppose. AMWA joined the previous letter in April to oppose these harmful riders.

October 19, 2011---The National Center for Research for Women and Families is applying to the AHRQ for a grant to study the need to increase consumer and patient acceptance of comparative effectiveness research, which has been renamed Patient Centered Outcomes research in an apparent attempt to sound less frightening (e.g. less like death panels). This research is considered an important part of health care reform. The Center will organize patients, consumer groups and public health workers. AMWA signed on as part of the coalition.

October 19, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter from the Maternity Care Coalition of Pennsylvania to advocate for the passage of a bill which corrects the notion that pregnancy is a pre-existing condition for insurance purposes.

October 19, 2011---AMWA signed onto a letter to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Program bill now in committee in the Senate under Senator Leahy. It incorporates the Obama administration's ideas.

October 30, 2011---AMWA endorsed the letter to Congressional appropriators outlining sex education requests for the final Fiscal Year 2012 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education spending bill. In it we strongly oppose the $85 million cut proposed in the House Chairman's bill for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative. We support the President's budget request to fully fund the initiative at $110 million. We note that the Senate bill maintains current the current funding level of $105 million and request that the program be funded at least at this level. We urge you to continue providing dedicated funding for the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a separate and dedicated funding stream and include $40.2 million for DASH HIV/STD Prevention Education as was proposed in the President's Budget and supported by the Senate Committee bill. Given the evidence and the ethical concerns, we strongly oppose the resurrection of dedicated discretionary funding for ineffective abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which is in the House Chairman's Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill.

December 11, 2011---AMWA endorsed a letter to the Senate and House Leadership and the Appropriations Committee Chairmen and ranking members generated by the National Partnership for Women to delete dangerous riders for the following:

The elimination of federal funding for preventive and primary care services provided by Planned Parenthood affiliates;
The elimination of funding for the Title X family planning program;
The elimination of existing language providing strong evidence standards for teen pregnancy prevention funding;
The reinstatement of the ?Global Gag Rule? on foreign aid;
A prohibition on contributions to the United Nations Population Fund;
A ban on local funding of virtually all abortion services in the District of Columbia;
A ban on insurance coverage of virtually all abortion services for federal employees;
The potential elimination of abortion coverage in plans sold through health insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act; A broad expansion of current refusal law with potentially significant implications for women's health.

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