Ruth J. Simmons Quotes

Every woman should have access to quality health care and compassionate abortion alternatives.

Every era in history has needed, and will need, reproductive health services.

Everybody goes to clinics, to hospitals, to doctors, and so on. Some people go to Planned Parenthood. But you don't have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.

Miriam Were has made outstanding contributions to public health in the developing world. She brings basic medical services to women and children in East Africa.

Because we spoke so loudly, opponents of reproductive health access demonized and smeared me and others on the public airwaves. These smears are obvious attempts to distract from meaningful policy discussions and to silence women's voices regarding their own health care.

We cannot afford to lose the Medicaid funding for low-income women.

Half a million women die each year around the world in pregnancy. It's not biology that kills them so much as neglect.

When the health of a woman is involved I think the government has to be respectful.

I've never personally had to use a Planned Parenthood. But I have many friends who have and do and did, and I think it's important that that access be there for everyone.

I have always stood up to protect women's access to safe and legal abortion, birth control and health care at Planned Parenthood.

This administration will have no tolerance for the type of brazen disregard that Planned Parenthood has shown for both the safety of women and the rule of law.

If you don't protect the NHS, you're going to have health ghettoes where people can't get treated.

Those that have received care here in Des Moines at the VA center or the VA hospital here have said that they do receive good care. However, it's getting into the system - the wait periods. We have to do something about that. The care here has been good. We're not seeing that in other states.

I think it's clear that Planned Parenthood has worked to mislead the public about who they are... they do not provide mammograms. They are the middleman, or middle woman, if you will.

I will always fight to ensure Kansas families have access to the full range of health care services they need, including reproductive health care.

I think we can all agree that women deserve access to life saving, early detection procedures.

We can help a whole lot of people if we could figure out a way to expand Medicaid and get people the care that they need.

I've been supporting Planned Parenthood all my life. I've even used it myself, back when I had no money. It's where I got my birth control. During college, every one of us got support from them.

If a woman goes to Planned Parenthood for birth control and discovers in the course of her visit that she has high blood pressure, Planned Parenthood can't help her. She has to be referred to a FQHC for treatment.

In the State House, we fought to protect reproductive freedom for all Mainers - I'll continue to fight for patients and providers in the Senate.

A majority, perhaps as many as 75 percent, of abortion clinics are in areas with high minority populations.

I think it's important for women to have a means to get health care. I think it's important that women have a place to go to get Pap smears and cancer screenings. And it shouldn't be considered extra. It shouldn't be considered something that can be "cut." It shouldn't be something that's in danger of going away. The idea that we're even thinking about cutting that off because somebody else isn't enjoying it themselves or somebody has extreme opinions about it is worrisome to me.

Every woman should have access to the healthcare that she needs.

A focus on people's health and well-being must be the core of family planning research and policy. This may seem self-evident, but the realities of program implementation in third world countries has often shown that the health and well-being of individuals is not a priority.

If instead policy makers and program managers participate in an interdisciplinary assessment team, make informal visits to local families and have in-depth conversations with local providers and health authorities, the real needs and complex challenges of organizing good reproductive health services become apparent.The first country that implemented this participatory program of assessment, research and policy development was Brazil. I was one of the outsiders who provided support to the initiative.