President Obama took office just 48 hours ago, and the world is already a very different place for women and their reproductive health.

Global Gag Rule, Conscience Rule, and Ban on Stem Cell Funding on the Chopping Block

Word is that the administration will repeal the global gag rule today, on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  "This is a big victory for women overseas," said Tod Preston, vice president for government relations at Population Action International, told the LA Times. "We know their health has been severely impacted by the cutoff. If you want to reduce unintended pregnancies, abortion and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don't have access to family planning, you don't do it by cutting off U.S. assistance." 

The LA Times reportsthat the new administration also plans to "freeze" many of the midnight regulations promulgated by the Bush administration, including the Department of Health and Human Services's provider conscience expansion, which would enable health care providers to deny access to critical health care, including forms of contraception, to women.  But the New York Times says addressing this regulation may take more time, as it went into effect January 19: "A 1983 Supreme Court decision suggests that the new administration would need to go through a formal rule-making process, with an opportunity for public comment, if it wanted to revoke this rule."

The administration also has in its sights a Bush administration policy that "impeded state efforts to provide health insurance to children from low- and middle-income families," the New York Times reports.  "Under the Bush policy, the federal government said it would not allow states to cover children from families with annual incomes above 250 percent of the poverty level -- $53,000 for a family of four -- unless they met several preconditions. To qualify, a state must demonstrate that at least 95 percent of eligible children in families making less than 200 percent of the poverty level have already been enrolled in Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program...A career employee at the Health and Human Services Department said the Bush administration policy had 'prevented a lot of kids from receiving the health care they needed,' a concern echoed by many state officials."