Mayor Adams slams stigma against ‘the word vagina’ as NYC expands access to free abortion pills
Abortion pills will soon be available free of charge at four public health clinics in the city, Mayor Adams announced Tuesday while lamenting what he described as a societal stigma against vaginas.
The pills, which can abort a fetus for upward of 12 weeks into a pregnancy, have been available for free at the city’s 11 public hospitals since last summer, but Adams said Health Department-run clinics in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx will now also start offering them.
The Morrisania Sexual Health Clinic in the Bronx is the first one that will be able to provide the pills, starting Wednesday, Adams said. Three other clinics in Crown Heights, Central Harlem and Jamaica will follow suit and start dispensing the meds in coming months, according to City Hall.
The clinic initiatives will enable the city to provide an additional 10,000 medical abortions per year — “on top of what our public hospital system already does,” Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan told reporters.
“This is open to anyone,” Vasan said at a women’s health-focused press conference with Adams and other administration officials, adding there will be no New York residency restriction on accessing the pills.
In prepared remarks before the news conference, Adams described the service expansion as part of his mission to “make New York City a model for the future of women’s health care” in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.
He said another important aspect of improving women’s health services is breaking down taboos around speaking frankly about female body parts.
“We would have a lot more research and care options for women’s health if we weren’t so afraid of saying the word vagina,” he said.
He continued: “If men had periods, pap smears and menopause, they would get a paid vacation, and if men could get pregnant you wouldn’t see Congress trying to pass laws to restrict abortion.”
Talking openly about female sexuality is important, too, the mayor said.
“We can talk about erectile dysfunction but not clitoris stimulation — something is wrong,” he told reporters.
Before Adams’ remarks, several top female members of his administration offered personal anecdotes about their own complicated encounters with the health care system.
Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said it’s refreshing that Adams has put a renewed focus on the need to “talk about vaginas.”
“He never ceases to amaze me,” Williams-Isom said.
While Adams’ team took a victory lap over the abortion access announcement, politicos connected to the City Council were taken aback.
Camille Rivera, a Democratic strategist who has worked for several current Council members’ campaigns, said it was poor taste for Adams not to give accolades to the Council.
The body, run for the first time by a female majority, played a major role in passing legislation last year that paved the way for Tuesday’s announcement, she noted.
“This mayor’s health agenda not mentioning our city’s first women-majority NYC Council feels a bit like the man in a meeting saying exactly what a woman said and then acting as if it’s a great idea,” Rivera said.
