‘I鈥檓 Not As Much Use In California’: Doctors Travel Across State Lines To Combat Abortion Deserts
There's a great disparity in abortion access in the country. In an attempt to address that imbalance, abortion rights activists created a program in 2016 to match clinics needing doctors with providers who could travel to work. The Los Angeles Times follows one of those doctors.
The protesters are already positioned when she pulls up in her rental car. One lurches at women approaching the clinic, rosary beads dangling from her outstretched palm. Another hands patients tiny fetus dolls that match their skin color. The doctor tries to ignore them. There are demonstrators at every abortion clinic and they鈥檙e all the same, she thinks: a nuisance. In Northern California, where she lives, a man yells, 鈥淒on鈥檛 take the blood money,鈥 as she arrives at work. At least here, in Dallas, the protesters mostly stay on the sidewalk. The doctor slips inside the mirrored glass doors of the clinic 鈥 one of the busiest abortion facilities in the United States. (Karlamangla, 1/24)
In other news, Planned Parenthood is working to reach out to young people聽鈥
Planned Parenthood has developed a chatbot that can answer questions about sexual health, part of a larger communications effort by the health-services group to bring sex education to the young masses. The artificial-intelligence-powered tool, created by a design shop that sought guidance from high-school students, comes as the organization defends its role in a country divided on approaches to sex education for teens and issues related to women鈥檚 health, such as abortion and government funding for certain health services. (Bruell, 1/24)
