Deborah McFarlane

University of New Mexico | UNM · Department of Political Science

Nearly one in four women in the United States undergoes an abortion during their life. In Regulating Abortion, Deborah R. McFarlane and Wendy L. Hansen uncover the history of the complex web of regulations surrounding abortion in the United States and shed light on the stark reality of this heavily regulated and politically divisive health care ser...

The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics: How Abortion Transformed the Culture Wars. By Andrew R. Lewis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 271p. $99.99 cloth, $29.99 paper. - Volume 16 Issue 3 - Deborah R. McFarlane

Objective: To assess the adherence of women's health providers in New Mexico to the Women's Preventive Services Guidelines and to examine how providers' knowledge, attitudes, and external barriers are associated with adherence. Design: Cross-sectional, descriptive survey. Setting: New Mexico. Participants: Women's health providers in New Mex...

Population, reproductive health, and environmental sustainability are inextricably linked. Growing populations place increasing demands on the environment, while meeting the reproductive health needs of populations usually slows their growth. Often, however, policymakers, scholars, and journalists discuss these issues separately, as if unrelated.

The 2010 Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) treats abortion differently than any other health service, precluding public funding for abortion and imposing other restrictions on American states. To determine whether the ACA’s abortion restrictions are uniquely American or have counterparts in other national health systems, this study employs a cross-s...

The world population surpassed the seven billion mark in 2011, yet many women and couples still lack access to reproductive health services. These facts have profound implications for maternal and child health, environmental quality, and food security. Global Population and Reproductive Health provides an introduction to an important and timely pu...

The 2010 Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) treats abortion differently than any other health service, precluding public funding for abortion and imposing other restrictions on American states. To determine whether the ACA's abortion restrictions are uniquely American or have counterparts in other national health systems, this study employs a cross-s...

As a rule, American states try to maximize their share of federal funds. This study addresses an unusual case of states rejecting federal dollars. Here, the spurned monies were block grants for abstinence-only education, intended to discourage adolescent sexual activity. These grants became available in 1998, but by 2009, twenty-five states had rej...

The publication of The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, detailing the negative impact that deplorable working and living conditions can have on population health, individual behaviors, and mor-tality, is one of the earliest academic treatments of the social determinants of health. After nearly two centuries, much of what Friedrich...

In recent years, new public policies toward reproductive health have been based more on faith and ideology than upon scientific evidence. This paper examines select American public policies toward both domestic and international sexuality education, contraception, and abortion. In so doing, the political genesis of each policy is described as well...

This book brings to life the remarkable story of how family planning programs developed in three continents (Asia, Latin American, and Africa) during the second half of the twentieth century. This is public health and social change on the macro-scale, and such a change never before occurred as quickly as the growth family planning did. The book inc...

Much of the current proliferation and political success of abstinence programs can be credited to a measure included in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), commonly known as welfare reform. Abstinence-only education was nested within this high profile welfare reform bill, suggesting that was part of a...

The article reviews the history of pregnancy disability legislation and links the recent Congressional action to include pregnancy discrimination under Title VII to women's increasing labor force participation.

As a rule, American states try to maximize their share of federal funds. This study addresses an unusual case of states rejecting federal dollars. Here, the spurned monies were block grants for abstinence-only education, intended to discourage adolescent sexual activity. These grants became available in 1998, but by 2009, twenty-five states had rej...

The current Bush Administration has made dramatic changes in US domestic and international reproductive health policies. This paper discusses the issues involved in some of these changes, and it considers likely developments in this area during the remainder of George W. Bush's second term. The first section of the paper defines the term reproducti...

Journal of Public Health Policy Review (Ruth Roemer) of Politics of Fertility Cntrol

Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 26.4 (2001) 803-806 Andrzej Kulczycki. The Abortion Debate in the World Arena. New York: Routledge, 1999. 246 pp. $80.00 cloth; $24.99 paper. Policy debates about abortion are no longer confined to Western liberal democracies; they have spilled over to the developing world and to the postcommunist societie...

"Governing Health" examines health care policy from a political perspective, describing how Congress, the president, special interest groups, bureaucracy, and state governments help define health policy problems and find politically feasible solutions. William G. Weissert and Carol S. Weissert provide a highly readable and comprehensive synthesis o...

The 104th Congress considered massive structural changes in federal aid to the states. Not only would federal categorical grants be consolidated into block grants, but entitlement programs would be converted to block grants too. Using family planning as a case study, this article examines whether program impacts change if different grant mechanisms...

This research examines 23 different laws passed by state governments in an effort to restrict the number of abortions. It assesses both laws passed and laws actually enforced after the Supreme Court permitted states to restrict access to abortion in 1989. None of the policy actions by state governments has had a significant impact on the incidence...

PIP Policy theory suggests that coherent statutes--those with precise, clear goals, supported by an adequate causal theory, with clear administrative responsibilities, clear implementation rules, and assigned to committed agencies--are more likely to have their intended impact. This paper examines US family planning policies with a pooled time seri...

Schools of public health have a proud history of educating personnel for leadership roles in the field of practice. Such personnel have played key roles in developing public health. Over the years, however, the missions of the schools of public health have become blurred. To a significant degree, a focus on health care has displaced public health a...

This study examines whether state family planning expenditures and abortion funding for Medicaid-eligible women might reduce the number of low-birthweight babies, babies with late or no prenatal care, and premature births, as well as the rates of infant and neonatal mortality. Using a pooled time-series analysis from 1982 to 1988 with the 50 states...

The American states have broad discretion in developing their respective abortion policies. This paper examines the determinants of 1990 state policies toward funding abortion for low income women and analyzes differences in the outputs of these state policies. Our findings show that the strength of advocacy groups as well as the political forces w...

After noting in its introduction that in Roe vs. Wade the US Supreme Court federalized (rather than nationalized) abortion policy with the result that states were given parameters in which they could develop their own abortion policies, this article reviews subsequent Supreme Court decisions about abortion from Doe vs. Bolton in 1973 through Bray v...

This research examines the politics of funding abortions for low-income women in the American states. State policies on abortion funding reflected the relative strength of citizen groups on both sides of the issue and an array of partisan forces. After policy adoption, the number of abortions funded was determined by public policy and the relative...

Through fiscal cutbacks and structural changes, Reagan's federalism assaulted the ethos of public health. In assessing the effects of Reagan policies on a basic public health program, family planning services, we find a substantial decrease in spending for this program, a reduction in the numbers of patients served, and increased variation among th...

This research examines the politics of funding abortions for low-income women in the American states. State policies on abortion funding reflected the relative strength of citizen groups on both sides of the issue and an array of partisan forces. After policy adoption, the number of abortions funded was determined by public policy and the relative...

Authors of the article "Financing Family Planning Services: Is Categorical Legislation Still Needed?" in the September-December 1991 issue of the American Journal of Gynecological Health, respond to a charge by the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Regional Family Planning Council that data presented on California's 1987 expenditures for family...

The Reagan Administration sought to decentralize many federal programs by (1) consolidating categorical grants into black grants; (2) reducing their funding; and (3) relying more upon state fiscal support. This study examines the effects of this decentralist policy upon the federal family planning program. Two periods are analyzed: (1) FY 1976-1981...

Because most public health endeavors in the United States are funded by the public sector, public health practitioners need to be adept at working within the political system. However, the 1988 Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Public Health, found that many public health professionals are ignorant or disdainful of political processes and...

Federal and state funds have provided for family planning services in American since the 1960s. Since 1976, services have been funded principally through federal statutes Title X of the Public Health Service Act and Titles V, XIX, and XX of the Social Security Act as well as various state appropriations. While these statutes aim to ensure that wome...

This article tests the statutory coherence hypothesis, derived from the Sabatier and Mazmanian framework for policy implementation, within the context of the national family planning program. The statutory coherence hypothesis states that effective implementation is a function of the extent to which a statute coherently structures the implementatio...

Dramatic changes in the structure and content of the grant programs that comprise the national family planning program were proposed and, to a certain extent, implemented by the Reagan Administration. These changes were intended “to enhance responsiveness to local needs.” This article tests the enhanced responsiveness hypothesis in two periods: 1)...

The purpose of this study was to analyze the implementation of national family planning policy in the United States, which was embedded in four separate statutes during the period of study, Fiscal Years 1976-81. The design of the study utilized a modification of the Sabatier and Mazmanian framework for policy analysis, which defined implementation...

Typescript. Dissertation Abstracts International order no. 84-19885. Thesis (doctoral)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 1983. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-216).

Working women who experience pregnancy do not receive the same benefits as they would for disabilities that are not maternity-related. Employers are legally compelled to provide unpaid leave for maternity, but most employers offer no income compensation during the time that a female employee is disabled by normal pregnancy. The U.S. Supreme Court i...