A recent NYTimes article featured Dr. Carmen Divertie, an internist from Peru who started a sliding scale clinic for Spanish speaking patients at the Hennepin County Medical Center fifteen years ago. This Minnesota clinic was part of an attempt to provide culturally competent services for the Latino immigrant community. Dr. Divertie discusses the health concerns she identifies in this population, such as diabetes, hypertension, and somatic ailments due to stress, anxiety and depression. Another doctor featured in the piece, Veronica Svetaz, an Argentine physician at a Hennepin neighborhood clinic also highlighted the challenges around teen pregnancy and access to funding for abortions. Dr. Svetaz recounted this story:
…treated a 13-year-old girl who had been raped and made pregnant by a coyote. The girl was so ashamed that she did not tell her mother what had happened until she realized she was pregnant. The family wanted to end the pregnancy, but by the time the decision was made, a late-term abortion was needed, requiring a trip to Chicago. The family could not afford it. The girl had the baby, and kept it.
This article provides a prime example as to why the Hyde Amendment must be overturned. Even though Medicaid covers prenatal services for pregnant women in most states, it still does not cover abortion services, since the ratification of the Hyde Amendment in 1976. It is unjust that any woman who does not want to continue her pregnancy is denied federal funding for an abortion. NLIRH has been part of a larger effort to overturn the Hyde Amendment, and you can help too. So, click here to join the fight against one of the most discriminatory amendments in United States history.
–Robin Mangini, Research Intern