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Lessons from the Front: Abortion and the Battle for Health Care Access

DifferenTakes Series
63 ~ Reproductive Justice
[PDF Version]
By Eesha Pandit

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Editors’ Note: In the battle for health care reform this past fall the rights to safe, accessible abortion and bodily integrity were among the first casualties. Eesha Pandit looks at the legacy of the Hyde Amendment and the role of the privacy doctrine of Roe v. Wade in this development. The proposes a way forward, not only for political organizing but for thinking about how to reframe the right to abortion and health care. — Co-editors Betsy Hartmann and Ellen Gattozzi

Eesha Pandit is currently Director of Advocacy at Mergerwatch, a national organization that works to ensure patients’ rights to comprehensive health care. She is active in MergerWatch’s Raising Women’s Voices initiative. Raising Women’s Voices is a national initiative working to make sure women’s voices are heard in the health reform debate and women’s concerns are addressed by policymakers developing national and state health reform plans. She has formerly been a weekly staff writer for RH Reality Check. Recently, Eesha served as Associate Director of Programs at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, and has also worked with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University and Amnesty International USA’s Women’s Rights Program. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and the University of Chicago.