Skip to main content

Bonamici Bill Empowers Women to Make Informed Pregnancy Decisions

March 10, 2020

WASHINGTON, DC [03/10/20] – Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01) introduced legislation to improve the likelihood of healthy pregnancies and help women avoid unintended pregnancies.

The Enhancing Questions to Understand Intentions for Pregnancy (EQUIP) Act empowers women to make informed care decisions with initiatives that facilitate important reproductive health conversations with their health care and social service providers.

Bonamici crafted this legislation to support initiatives like One Key Question®, a transformative approach to help health and social services providers start a conversation with women about their pregnancy desires by routinely asking "Would you like to become pregnant in the next year?" Follow up counseling is patient-centered and tailored appropriately based on a woman's desire to become pregnant, desire to avoid becoming pregnant, or ambivalence about pregnancy in the next year of her life. This model began in Oregon and is now being implemented in at least 30 states, with support from Power to Decide.

"A woman's life and health can be improved by one question that starts an important conversation," said Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici. "Asking a woman about her goals for pregnancy will help her better plan for the future, improving both her health and the health of her family. The EQUIP Act will result in more of these conversations taking place with trusted providers."

"We are proud to support The EQUIP Act that takes a significant step towards ensuring that all women—no matter who they are or where they live—have the power to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant and have a child," said Ginny Ehrlich, CEO of Power to Decide. "This legislation will enhance and expand existing efforts to provide health care and social service providers high quality tools to start important conversations with women about their pregnancy desires and to ensure they get patient-centered counseling and care aligned with their goals regarding pregnancy. We know from the enthusiastic response to One Key Question® that there is transformative power in equipping providers to have these conversations about pregnancy in ways that meet women where they are so they can get the care they need."

A summary of the bill can be found here and the bill text is available here.

The EQUIP Act is endorsed by: Power to Decide, March of Dimes, 1,000 Days, R Street Institute, Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs, What to Expect Project, American Nurses Association, American College of Nurse-Midwives, National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health, The International Association of Forensic Nurses, The Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.

###

Issues:Health Care