Policy and Politics replies

reply to each post separately and add 2 references per resply. do not be biased in any way.

post 1: Margaret Sanger is regarded as one of the greatest emancipators in the United States in the early and mid-twentieth century. Her untiring efforts to fight for the reproductive rights of women were critical in setting up the family planning movement, which became acceptable all over the world. Sanger and her peers used different methods to effect changes in the reproductive health of American women. Sanger first employed civic disobedience in the form of pickets and protests to achieve economic and social justice. According to Rawls (2013), civil disobedience refers to the deliberate refusal by an individual to comply or obey with particular laws of a country (p. 244). However, Sanger moved to other ways of such as breaking the law by distributing contraceptives and direct tactics targeting punitive court rulings against reproductive rights of women where her appeals achieved milestone rulings. Besides, Sanger and her peers also lobbied among politicians, businesspersons, religious leaders, and professionals of the time to get backing for her birth control initiatives. A policy goes through several steps before it becomes law. According to Holzemer and Klainberg (2014), individuals who want to make policy changes typically engage in advocacy and lobbying activities to marshal support for changes needed (p. 89). After the policy change has been widely accepted by relevant authorities, it is introduced in parliament as a bill and goes through the relevant legislative processes until it becomes law. Expertise advocacy refers to activism carried out by professionals in the field such as Sanger and her peers. According to Ezell (2000), internal advocacy happens within the agency while external advocacy involves other agencies and people to lobby for particular changes (p. 26). An example of a policy change I would advocate for in reproductive health is to include women aged fifteen years and above in family planning initiatives.
References

Ezell, M. (2000). Advocacy in the Human Services. Cengage Learning.

Holzemer, S.P., & Klainberg, M. (2014). Community Health Nursing.Jones & Bartlett.

Rawls, J. (2013). The Justification of Civil Disobedience. Arguing About Law, 244-253.
post 2: Margaret Sanger exemplifies the process of change in her story about promoting reproductive health for women. It is notable that her initiatives had stemmed from her consciousness about social injustices. Deep within her, Sanger was aware of inequalities and general repression in society. Such hindsight allowed her to sense the injustice of banning abortion, which had pushed women to pursue illegal abortion in backstreet health facilities.

To begin with, policy requires explanations. This is visible in Sanger’s initial efforts in trying to explain to general audience that reproductive health has been connected to general welfare in the society (Nickitas, Middaugh, & Aries, 2016). Pushing for adoption of a policy is not an easy process. Social reformer such as Sanger made an extreme move on sensitizing the community through radical behavior such as distributing contraceptives to immigrant women and staging her arrest. In this sense, she could attain the attention of authorities (Oleske, 2009). Thereafter a policy should be presented before the government, as noted in Sanger’s move towards involving Eleanor Roosevelt to overturn the Comstock law. More essentially, Sanger exemplified the idea that making changes require external advocacy. Her idea of forming the International Planned Parenthood Foundation would help not only legitimize her ideals, but would also help entrench accountability among stakeholders in the US.

One of the policy changes I would advocate is for the society to form a different model of dealing with women’s health issues. Women are anatomically and morphologically different from men yet the healthcare system seems to have been designed to suit the needs of men (Nelson, 2015). One of such differences lies in the reproductive health of women, which predisposes them to unique health dispositions. Besides, issues such as ovary cancer in women ought to be addressed through a wholly different model of healthcare provision.

References

Nelson, J. (2015). More than medicine: a history of the feminist women’s health movement. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Nickitas, D. M., Middaugh, D. J., & Aries, N. (2016). Policy and politics for nurses and other health professionals: advocacy and action. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning

Oleske, D. (2009). Epidemiology and the delivery of health care services: methods and applications. New York, NY: Springer.