The Girls' Guide To The Economy Part 7--Health Is Not A Luxury Item

As we have noted previously, when the statistics are eventually compiled, we will likely find that the economic downturn is a hazard to women’s lives and safety. A bad economy is also bad for women’s health.  A recent study by the National Women’s Health Resource Center (NWHRC) found that,

“(M)any women have failed to seek health care for themselves or their families to save money. Findings also indicate that many women say their health has gotten worse over the past five years and that the primary cause women cite for this decline is stress. In addition, while the vast majority of women are emotionally prepared to grow older, the majority do not feel financially prepared.”

In addition, as Carol Joffe points out on RH Reality Check, there are other specific ways in which women’s health is impacted by financial insecurity:

(A)s we enter a new era, with the end of the Bush presidency coinciding with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,  I see different types of reproductive horror stories emerging. These stories transcend the abortion divide. They speak squarely to the economic devastation facing Americans across the political spectrum, and how this crisis impacts people’s reproductive lives.  Three recent items in the news serve as examples.

The first is the story of Starla Darling, a pregnant Ohio woman, who was informed she would soon lose her job and her health insurance.  She rushed to a hospital, requested a medication to induce labor, and had an emergency Caesarean section, two days before her health insurance expired. Not only was Darling upset about having a C-section birth — “I was forced into something I did not want to do” — her insurance company refused to pay for the birth.   Now this unemployed woman, two months behind on her rent, is facing medical bills of more than $17,000.

The second story, from the Wall Street Journal, concerns the increase in women seeking to donate eggs or serve as surrogate mothers, a rise attributed to economic hard times.  “Whenever the employment rate is down, we get more calls,” said an said a spokeswoman for an agency in Chicago, who reported a 30% rise in calls. “We’re even getting men offering up their wives.”

We have no doubt that many more stories like these will emerge as the damages are added up.