By: Sandra Y. Oketch The Kenya Medical Education Finance Trust (KMET) is a non-governmental organization founded in 1995 with a focus to promote innovative and sustainable health and education programs among underserved communities. KMET operates in 35 out of the 47 Counties in Kenya, as well as regionally in East and Central Africa. The organization engages in a number of sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) programs. Reproductive, Maternal, New-born and Child Health (RMNCH) KMET endeavors to promote maternal and child health (MCH) services through its RMNCH program. These include: increasing awareness to and use of contraception and comprehensive abortion care services and strengthening the capacity of the health care providers to offer youth-friendly services; Provide gynecological, antenatal and postnatal care services; wide range contraception methods, cervical cancer prevention efforts through early screening and treatment in partnership with the Cure Cervical Cancer Organization. KMET, in partnership with Harvard School and Izumi Foundation, has developed an innovative and affordable device in the management of postpartum...
Most cervical cancer is highly preventable and can be cured if diagnosed early, yet women across the world suffer high rates of cervical cancer. One such place is Zambia, where the Rakellz Dream Initiative was founded. After losing his wife to cervical cancer in 2015, Robert Zulu decided to launch a cervical cancer education program in Zambia. Now at 36 years old, he is the the founder and executive director of the Rakellz Dream Initiative, a non-governmental organization with a team of over 50 youth volunteers working to raise awareness around cervical cancer through outreach activities and informational films. The long-term vision of the Rakellz Dream Initiative is to help increase cervical cancer knowledge across Zambia to mitigate and prevent terminal diagnoses by the year 2025. When he spoke about his reasons for forming the Rakellz Dream Initiative, Zulu said he wanted to help reduce the ignorance about cervical cancer among the people of Zambia. “When I was nursing my late wife,...
A development to the U.S. visa policy instituted by President Trump occurred this past week on January 24th—officials now have the authority to deny a woman a tourist visa if they think that the woman is pregnant and coming to the U.S. in order to give birth (CNN). In analyzing this rule, it is pertinent to note the 14th amendment which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States," and it is relevant because even if a child’s parents are not citizens of the U.S., if they are born on U.S. soil, they can claim citizenship (NPR). The State Department defended the rule by stating “birth tourism poses risks to national security” and women wanting to secure citizenship for their children should not be allowed into the country (NPR). This rule however does not apply to 39 countries, the majority of which are in Europe, that...
Article by Diya Chadha The International Conference on Population and Development held in 1994 in Cairo, Egypt, brought 179 countries together behind the common goal of bringing improved reproductive health care and rights to the forefront of international policy and development efforts. Though the call for action primarily dealt with the state of healthcare access in more developing parts of the world, as well as the way women are structurally excluded from such accessibility, the inherent link between health and empowerment was established. Thus, the idea that this access to healthcare is instrumental in achieving women’s empowerment and further gender equality was highlighted. Now 25 years later, the ICPD met in Nairobi, Kenya for ICPD25 to “re-energize” the vision put forward back in Cairo. Specifically, they have resolved to end “all maternal deaths, unmet need for family planning and gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and girls by 2030.” The price tag for this task? $264 billion. Public sector civil organizations,...
Article by Diya Chadha In the wake of attacks on reproductive health rights over the past year, a number of states have taken countering actions by passing pieces of statewide legislation that protect such rights. This has manifested in different ways. Earlier this year, parts of New York listed sexual and reproductive health rights as protected under the New York City Human Rights Law, with coverage ranging from being able to use birth control and contraception to having access to an abortion. New Jersey has been looking towards allocating nearly $9 million worth of state funds to organizations like Planned Parenthood to cover the gap in their funding caused by the defunding of Title X. These are just a few examples among many across the country. Just this past week, New York has again added to this set of protections by passing an antidiscrimination law protecting laborers from discrimination because of their reproductive health decision-making histories. There are three overarching sections:...
Article By: Diya Chadha Over the past year, a series of restrictive anti-abortion legislation have been passed in states like Georgia, Kentucky, and Alabama. Courts have blocked their constitutionality, with the last case (Alabama) struck down this past month. Passage of such legislation would have resulted in a reversal of Roe v. Wade as many have called for six-week bans, which for many women, would limit their opportunity to get an abortion to a timeline before they may even realize they are pregnant. In other cases, states have called for outright bans on abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest. The actions that are taking place “behind the scenes” of this more publicized series of events is equally as problematic. What’s worse is that they receive far less recognition as a relevant force in the anti-abortion effort. These “incremental” laws are state-by-state restrictions that impose what may seem to be minor restraints on the capabilities...
Article by Sandra Y. Oketch Globally, access to sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR services) have been greatly hampered by social exclusion, more so in Africa. In November 2019, Kenya was privileged to host the United Nations summit - International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD 25) - which focused on diversity, abortion care, ending gender based violence, elimination of female genital mutilation, FGM, ending unmet need for family planning, comprehensive sexuality education, mental health and psychosocial support, HIV prevention for adolescent girls and women. Women and other minority groups experience social exclusion when women and girls get abortions, when girls fail to undergo traditional practices of some communities, like the FGM, and are considered outcasts, and when individuals identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender, LGBT. There exists high maternal morbidity and mortality in women due to unsafe abortion practices. In Kenya, abortion is illegal and only legalized in instances where the health care provider assesses that the life or health of the...
Article by Jackie Vicksman Earlier in 2019, the Trump Administration granted $1.7 million in Title X funds to a group of healthcare facilities in and around California, called Obria Medical Clinics. Title X was designed to provide funds for family-planning resources in lower income populations. Obria is a “Christian medical chain” which claims to provide reproductive healthcare services and is seeking to replace Planned Parenthood as a go-to service provider. Although Obria’s website makes no mention of a religious background, it does illustrate the chain’s emphasis on holistic care and “well-woman” services. Additionally, the woman that runs the organization, Kathleen Eaton Bravo, has been open about her pro-life views. The clinic itself does not perform abortion care services, nor does it provide condoms or hormonal birth control options for patients. Instead, the clinic focuses on more “natural” methods of family planning that consist of timing menstrual cycles and an emphasis on abstinence-only sex education. Critics fear that the government-funded group’s misleading...
Article by Jackie Vicksman On October 2, 2019, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri announced that it is planning on opening a new facility in Illinois, near the Missouri border, in order to increase access to reproductive healthcare (specifically family-planning and abortion services) for women in this region. The large facility will replace a smaller one in the region and will expand care to provide both medical and surgical abortion services. This plan comes after several restrictive abortion laws have been passed in Missouri, where state legislature officials also attempted to make abortion after eight weeks illegal. This move failed in court but other restrictions such as a 72 hour waiting period and parental consent for minors, are currently in place to reduce women’s access to abortion and abortion care services. There is currently one facility that provides abortion services in Missouri, and Planned Parenthood officials believe that this new “mega-facility” will address access issues for women living...
Article by Jackie Vicksman On March 19, 2019, the FDA approved a new drug called Zulresso (brexanolone), manufactured by a company called Sage Therapeutics. The drug is meant to treat moderate to severe postpartum depression (PPD) and claims to begin alleviating symptoms in 2.5 days. It is also the first FDA-approved drug for PPD. At this point, the FDA has only approved the drug for distribution in a closely-monitored program known as Zulresso Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) at an enrolled health-care facility. This is due to the fact that Zulresso’s side effects include “excess sleepiness” and “sudden loss of consciousness” which can prove dangerous and/or fatal while patients drive or operate heavy machinery. While the drug has proved successful in treating PPD, it is difficult to obtain for lower income populations. The drug is not covered by Medicare, and costs $34,000 for one round of treatment. Medicare covers up to 50 percent of births in America and therefore, while...
