More than 200 U.S. foreign and aid officials have signed a letter accusing the State Department of blocking the provision of medically necessary and life-saving reproductive health services to its employees abroad.
The letter, signed by 206 employees of the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), warns that diplomats and aid officials, often women, are “often denied access to comprehensive reproductive health care,” including family planning services,” An erratic supply of “rape kits,” a blocked return to the U.S. for emergency health care procedures, and inconsistent access to trained health care professionals.
this letter In December 2021, both USAID and USAID senior managers received the report. The U.S. Department of State’s Health Service responded in April, according to several current and former diplomats familiar with the matter.
More than 200 U.S. foreign and aid officials have signed a letter accusing the State Department of blocking the provision of medically necessary and life-saving reproductive health services to its employees abroad.
The letter, signed by 206 employees of the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), warns that diplomats and aid officials, often women, are “often denied access to comprehensive reproductive health care,” including family planning services,” An erratic supply of “rape kits,” a blocked return to the U.S. for emergency health care procedures, and inconsistent access to trained health care professionals.
this letter In December 2021, both USAID and USAID senior managers received the report. The U.S. Department of State’s Health Service responded in April, according to several current and former diplomats familiar with the matter.
The letter cites examples of the State Department’s failure to help employees facing medical emergencies, from someone “suffering a near-fatal ectopic pregnancy” to a “miscarriage in one of the world’s most polluting jobs” in a Abortion is an illegal state service and is referred by a medical unit to an illegal local provider”.
USAID officials this month for Diplomatic Service Magazine, the magazine of the American Foreign Service Association, which represents foreign service personnel. “This is the story of a group of women who have decided not to remain silent, despite the shame, sadness, fear, anxiety and trauma we feel following the experiences we share below,” wrote Andrea Capellan, a USAID official.
“Diplomats representing the United States in countries around the world are denied access to the same services that are lawful and readily available in the countries we represent and are told, you can only rely on yourself. We will no longer support this,” she wrote.
Capelin wrote that the State Department’s Medical Service, commonly referred to by the U.S. diplomatic and aid community as “MED,” “actively and repeatedly forces patients to make impossible decisions and enormous financial burdens, and places them in life-threatening situations. .”
A State Department spokesperson responded that the State Department “takes very seriously our responsibility to provide care for our employees, which includes providing reproductive health care on the job.”
The spokesman said after receiving the letter that the State Department began investigating the complaints outlined in the letter. MED began reforms to allow for direct communication between patients and MED leadership, and after responding to an initial letter in April, implemented a plan to begin delivering a “Plan B” emergency to U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world Contraceptives.
A State Department spokesman said the department had “developed policies” to ensure emergency contraception and rape kits were available at every medical office and “maintained a regularly updated list of local health care providers.” The spokesperson also stressed that the department must comply with the Hyde Amendment, a federal law that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger or the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest.
USAID did not respond to a request for comment.
Without adequate reform, the allegations outlined in the letter could undercut the Biden administration’s proposed policies on sexual and reproductive health on the domestic and foreign policy agenda, including U.S. funding of global sexual and reproductive health programs in developing countries .
“The empowerment and protection of women and girls, including the promotion of their sexual and reproductive health and rights, is a central part of U.S. foreign policy and national security in a Biden-Harris administration,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement during the government’s first week in office in 2021.
The letter was released against the backdrop of a nationwide debate over access to reproductive health care in the United States. politics A leaked draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion was released this month suggesting it could overturn federal abortion rights. However, only a fraction of the cases listed in the letter to the State Department were related to abortion.
The diplomats and aid officials who signed the letter called on the State Department to provide better health care and support for its employees, including allowing medical evacuation for reproductive health services or abortion services before 12 weeks of gestation, and asked the State Department to “prescribe [MED] leadership on behalf of its constituents,” Capelin wrote.
Although the State Department and USAID are separate agencies, the State Department oversees and coordinates certain aspects of USAID, including the management of budget and human resources issues. The MED, which oversees the medical issues of State Department and USAID employees, can play a huge role in monitoring the health of U.S. government personnel in embassies in developing countries or conflict areas that lack adequate medical infrastructure.
In recent years, the MED has come under fire from U.S. diplomats and even some U.S. lawmakers for its claims that it Mishandling and cutting support For U.S. diplomats with disabled children, the MED’s response to the needs of these diplomats and their families has improved over the past year, although several diplomats familiar with the matter said.
The latest debate over how the MED treats its employees began in late fall 2021, when a diplomat posted a post on a private Facebook group of women at the State Department and USAID asking them to access reproductive health or abortion services abroad experience.Four current and former U.S. diplomats told the post that it went viral foreign policyAll spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media or did not want to share publicly about their own reproductive health crisis.
In the Facebook group, dozens of people began sharing experiences of MEDs denying emergency medical procedures or being sent back to the United States. In one case Capelin recounted in her opinion piece, the MED denied sick leave to a woman facing a dangerous pregnancy at a U.S. diplomatic outpost in a country facing civil unrest. Medical facilities in the country were set on fire amid widespread protests. Faced with severe abdominal pain, the woman took unpaid leave and returned to the US at her own expense, where the hospital told her “due to severe umbilical cord prolapse, if she waited any longer, her child could die.”
foreign policy The examples could not be independently verified, but four former diplomats who tracked stories shared in private Facebook groups said they matched their own experiences.
Eric Rubin, director of the American Foreign Service Association, told foreign policy The State Department “should pay as much as the law allows to enable people to access much-needed health care.”
“It’s an equity issue and it’s also about how we treat our employees serving overseas in difficult conditions,” he said.
