Policy Matters is a series of papers dedicated to social policy issues in the state of Oregon. There are currently three issues.
Policy Matters #1
Valuing Families: The State of Oregon’s Families
by Leslie Harris, Dorothy Kliks Fones Professors of Law, softbound, 91pp. Sandra Morgen, editor. Eugene, OR: Center for the Study of Women in Society, 1999.
This issue is available online in pdf format.
The first publication in the series, authored by family law expert Leslie Harris, was published June 1999 and is packed with charts, graphs, and text that illustrate the struggles and successes of families in meeting their day-to-day needs such as:
• availability of affordable, accessible health care and child care
• the impact of taxation on household income,
• affordability of housing
• childhood poverty rates
• use of cash assistance, food stamps, and other services
• domestic violence rates, shelter availability
Policy Matters #2
Welfare Restructuring, Work & Poverty: Policy Implications from Oregon
by Joan Acker, Sandra Morgen, and Lisa Gonzales with Jill Weigt, Kate Barry and Terri Heath softbound, 66 pp. Sandra Morgen, editor. Eugene, OR: Center for the Study of Women in Society, 2002.
This issue is available online in pdf format.
The second paper of the series looks at the experiences of families who left or were diverted from cash assistance (TANF) or Food Stamps in the first quarter of 1998. The data reveal that the effects of welfare restructuring programs are both more complex and less rosy than many policy makers admit.
This report was developed from a three-year study which is also accessible online in two volumes in PDF format (forthcoming).
Policy Matters #3
Understanding Medical Abortion: Policy, Politics, and Women’s Health
co-authored by S. Marie Harvey (Director of CSWS’s Research Program on Women’s Health), Christy A. Sherman, Sheryl Thorburn Bird, and Jocelyn Warren, softbound, 66 pp. Eugene, OR: Center for the Study of Women in Society, 2002.
This issue is available online in pdf format.
Policy Matters is a series of papers dedicated to social policy issues. When mifepristone (RU-486) was approved by the FDA in September 2000 for medical abortion, many in the pro- choice movement hoped that it would improve access to abortion by increasing the numbers of providers and making abortion services more widely available in underserved areas. However, medical abortion has not yet fulfilled these hopes. In Understanding Medical Abortion, the authors review the short history of mifepristone in this country, as well as the history of methotrexate, another drug used in medical abortion; explain the medical regimens involved in both mifepristone and methotrexate abortions as supported by research and practice; examine the legal and political barriers to medical abortion access and provision in the U.S., and make recommendations to overcome these barriers.
