American Civil Liberties Union

Slavery. It’s an abomination. And it goes without saying that survivors of modern-day slavery — human trafficking — should be able to access all of the services they need to protect their health and rebuild their lives. That is, unless you’re talking to the powerful political lobbyist, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

They’re raising a ruckus about so-called anti-Catholic bias because they weren’t given a grant by the Department of Health and Human Services for aid to trafficking victims. Why? Because they refuse to allow sub-grantees (the bishops are middlemen here, regranting the money to on-the-ground service providers) to offer access to contraception and abortion to trafficked women. Women who have been raped repeatedly and controlled by their traffickers. Women who urgently need reproductive health care and the power to make their own decisions and retake command of their own lives.

It's a big week for birth control. This Monday marked World Contraception Day — a day that raises awareness about contraception access around the globe. Today is the deadline for weighing in with the Department of Health and Human Services on important new guidelines that ensure coverage of contraception in health plans without extra out-of-pocket costs — along with a narrow exception that allows certain religious institutions like churches, synagogues, and mosques, to exclude birth control from their health plans.

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted an amendment offered by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) which undermines medical education and threatens women's health.

The Foxx amendment bars new medical training grants under the Public Health Service Act from being used for training in abortion care. This ideological prohibition runs counter to the standards set out by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), which provides that medical education training should include training in abortion procedures.