Just over a year ago, the bipartisan Women’s Health Caucus of the Pennsylvania Legislature initiated the Pennsylvania Agenda for Women’s Health, an ongoing, pro-choice campaign that addresses women’s equality, safety and economic stability. This ambitious initiative is led by Women’s Health Caucus co-chairs state Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, and Sens. Judy Schwank, D-Berks, and Chuck McIlhinney, R-Bucks. Its inclusive definition of women’s health recognizes that women and their families cannot be healthy if they are financially insecure, physically unsafe, or otherwise subjected to gender bias and discrimination.
As the Women’s Law Project found in its 2012 report, “Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women”: “Despite decades of incremental progress on women’s rights, the inextricable link between women’s health and their legal status cannot be denied. As discrimination, bias, and violence against women persist, women have—and will continue to have—significant, inequitable, and avoidable health problems.”
