Indigenous Women’s Reproductive Justice A Survey of Sexual Assault Policies and Protocols Within Indian Health Service Emergency Rooms

The Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center has worked on the reproductive justice issues of Native American women for eighteen years. Over time the Resource Center has addressed such issues as sterilization, contraceptive abuses pertaining to the Copper 7 IUDs, Depo-Provera and Norplant, lack of public health education and services concerning STD’s, RTI’s and HIV/AIDS, the increase in cesarean births, a lack of education on breast feeding combined with the promotion of commercial formula, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the lack of abortion services provided to Native women within the Indian Health Service. The Indian Health Service has a long history of providing reproductive health services to Native American women in a manner that challenges a woman’s right to services and violates her basic human rights. Human Rights abuses have included but are not limited to: forced sterilizations, failure to remove Norplant on demand, withholding critical medical information, denial of abortion services and more.