Sequestration Is a Women's Health Issue

Abstract

The term, women's health, was historically synonymous with reproductive health. When the prevailing thought among scientists and physicians was that women were just little men and reproductive organs were the only difference between the sexes, the Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR) was formed to change this conventional wisdom. SWHR realizes that austerity measures are necessary during hard economic times; however, we believe that sequestration is not the appropriate tool to reduce our federal deficit. Medical research, while vital to the scientific community, is also fundamental to the U.S. economy. Biomedical research and research on health statistics, surveillance data, and disease tracking are critical to maintaining a healthy society and are the difference between sickness and health for all women and their families.

Gender Audit: Whim or Voice

“…1. In South Africa, for example, only general overviews are available (Stevens, 1997) which nevertheless reveal that women have less access to health care than men. This is so, because more women live in rural areas where transport and ambulance service is of poor quality only.…”

“…The most important finding, however, is that the large informal health care sector is missing in the general accounts. As several studies stress (Stevens, 1997; women are not only consumers of health care services, but also providers of health care, particularly in terms of nursing (sick family members), child health care, and disease prevention via hygiene and nutrition. Not unlike what we observe in the Western world, only those data are collected which support the "general" assumption that women are mainly consumers of public health care -if not a drain on the public purse.…”