CM Narcisse on abortion access hub and reproductive health services
Councilmember Narcisse asks about the $5M baseline for abortion access services. Martin describes the abortion access hub answering nearly 10,000 calls and referring 8,000 patients, with 25% of callers from outside NYC. Anderson details $1M for the hub and $4M for clinic medication abortion services.
Thank you again, Chair.
Recent federal court activities surrounding access to my first on medication has brought back national attention on reproductive health and access to abortion services.
DOHMH operate the abortion access hub, which connects individuals to abortion providers and reproductive health resources.
And medication abortion services are currently available at four sexual health clinics.
The executive plan includes $5 million baseline starting in FYI 27 for abortion access services.
How will the $5 million baseline funding be used to support abortion access and reproductive health services?
Yeah, thank you very much for this question, Council Member.
We take seriously our responsibility to provide access to safe abortion services.
And that means not just providing those services ourselves, as you've said, but we also make sure to provide a network.
of providers that patients can call.
This is funded through our abortion access hub.
We've been able to answer nearly 10,000 calls and refer over 8,000 patients to a whole network of providers who can help them if they need.
And so we're not going to stop providing these services no matter what we hear from the federal administration.
I'm going to pass it over to Aaron to share more.
Yeah, thanks, Councilmember Narcisse.
Right, so just to reiterate, yeah, the $5 million baseline funding actually came a couple years ago, so this helped us stand up the abortion hub work.
And of the $5 million, it includes $1 million for the abortion access hub itself, and then about $4 million of that is for our public health clinics to provide medication abortion services.