Women's Health

In New York, reproductive rights are protected in law, but access still depends too much on your income, insurance, and where you live. 

Maternal health disparities remain severe: the New York State Department of Health reported that pregnancy-related deaths were five times higher among Black non-Hispanic pregnant people than white non-Hispanic pregnant people. 

Rights on paper are not enough if people cannot afford care, find a provider, or trust that their private health information will remain private. 

Protect Bodily Autonomy and Reproductive Freedom

• Provide funding, privacy enforcement, and provider protections for Proposition 1, which adds protections for pregnancy, reproductive healthcare, and reproductive autonomy to the State Constitution.

• Support and strengthen shield-law protections like A.5480-C / S.4914-B, which protects people who provide or receive reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care from out-of-state civil, criminal, or professional attacks

• Protect medication for abortion privacy by allowing mifepristone and misoprostol to be dispensed without the patient's or dispenser’s name and address on the prescription label

• Protect health data from being weaponized by strengthening protections for health information

Fund Reproductive Healthcare Access

Abortion and reproductive care cannot be treated as rights only for people who can afford transportation, childcare, lodging, time off, and out-of-pocket costs.

• Provide practical support for abortion access, including transportation, childcare, translation services, and doula support.

• Create a permanent reproductive healthcare access fund to ensure the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Grant Program has dedicated funding rather than relying on one-time budget allocations

• Direct funding to independent clinics, community health providers, abortion funds, and organizations helping patients navigate care, especially in underserved areas and communities absorbing increased demand from states with abortion bans.

Treat Maternal and Postpartum Health as Healthcare

New York cannot claim to support women’s health while Black mothers and birthing people face dramatically worse outcomes. Maternal health policy must include prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, mental health, substance use treatment, and long-term follow-up.

• Establish a Medicaid doula reimbursement workgroup to set rates and address implementation of doula care under Medicaid

• Require health insurance policies to include doula services as covered maternity care

• Expand postpartum coverage and mental health support 

• Require public notice and community engagement before hospitals close maternity, mental health, or substance use units, so essential services cannot disappear without meaningful public review.

Make Preventive and Reproductive Care Easier to Access

Women’s health includes preventive care, cancer screenings, contraception, STI testing and treatment, fertility care, pregnancy care, abortion care, postpartum care, and mental healthcare. These services should be easy to find, affordable to use, and available before people are in crisis.

• Create a Department of Health education and outreach program on women’s and reproductive health services, including family planning, contraception, pregnancy testing, STI testing and treatment, and related care

• Support comprehensive, medically accurate, age-appropriate consent education, including instruction on consent, bodily autonomy, healthy relationships, contraception, and prevention of intimate partner and sexual violence

Support Women Beyond the Doctor’s Office

Women’s health is tied to economic security. People should not have to choose between a paycheck and prenatal care, between childcare and a doctor’s appointment, or between paying rent and filling a prescription.

• Strengthen and expand New York’s paid prenatal leave law, which currently gives privately employed pregnant New Yorkers an additional 20 hours of paid sick leave for prenatal care.

• Support universal healthcare to guarantee comprehensive coverage and reduce the cost barriers that force people to delay preventive, reproductive, maternal, and mental healthcare.