Women and Girls/Gender

To qualify for federal grants to address violence against women, states are required to ensure that rape kits, or Medical Forensic Exams (MFE), are provided at no-cost to survivors. However, there are often gaps in coverage for health care services that are outside of the MFE.

Although federal legislation intends to provide no-cost rape kits to all survivors of sexual violence, some survivors still face out-of-pocket charges for minimum standard rape kit services as well as other medical care that takes place following a sexual assault. This brief examines the policies that impact coverage of health care services for survivors of sexual assault and identifies gaps in those programs and coverage for their care, particularly for women with private health insurance.

This brief examines abortion laws in countries that received certain U.S. foreign assistance to better understand the implications of the Helms Amendment (which prohibits the use of foreign assistance to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortion) for abortion access globally.