Ann Rose, Executive Director
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3613 Haworth Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 800-532-5383 P.O. Box 500788 Atlanta, Georgia 800-455-8130
National Women's Health Foundation
Mission of the NWHF
The National Women's Health Foundation was formed in 1998 as a support foundation to the National Women's Health Organization (NWHO). NWHO is an organization of eight clinics around the country, and has been the leader in providing abortion services to under-served areas of the Unites States since 1976. NWHO has clinics in Raleigh, North Carolina; Fargo, North Dakota; Jackson, Mississippi; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Ft. Wayne, Indiana; Orlando, Florida; Columbus, Georgia; and Wilmington, Delaware. For twenty-five years, NWHO's mission has been to make high quality abortion and other women's health care services available in every area of the country.
NWHO has provided abortion services to over 600,000 women in under-served areas, and low cost GYN services to another 600,000 women. NWHO has often been the only provider in an area, and sometimes the only provider in the state. It is a much more difficult and expensive task to provide abortion services as the only abortion provider in a state than to be one of 50 providers. Anti-abortion forces often focus on NWHO clinics and staff, recognizing that if they shut down that particular clinic, there will be no abortion services in that area or state. Despite the economic and political pressures and the often violent attacks against the clinics and staff, NWHO provides abortion services in high quality facilities with high quality staff.
Given its mission and its leadership role, NWHO clinics have been plaintiffs in over 30 lawsuits. NWHO has spent well over $1 million of its own money in important cases to establish the clinics' right to provide services. For example, NWHO recently won a landmark nationwide class action case (NOW v. Scheidler), holding several lead anti-abortion extremists liable under the racketeering laws. In addition, NWHO has successfully litigated false advertising cases against fake clinics run by anti abortionists. All of these cases were important steps in ensuring women's access to abortion services.
Consistent with its mission, NWHO was one of the first organizations in the country to recognize the need to send high quality physicians to small towns for the provision of abortion services. Local physicians often feel it is not safe for them to work at local clinics. As a result, NWHO has been flying physicians on a weekly basis to cities such as Fargo, ND, Columbus, GA, and Jackson, MS, since its inception. NWHO also has supplied physicians to other facilities as well as their own on an emergency basis.
NWHO was the first organization to centralize the management of small clinics. Through this central management, the organization has provided high quality technical training and skills to clinics in needed areas in a more organized, thorough and cost-effective manner. In addition, teams of skilled clinic workers are available for training staff at other clinics and for backup help.
NWHO was also the first clinic group in the country to recognize the power of the internet to education patients and provide 24-hour a day information about its services. The NWHO website at www.nwho.com was first online in September of 1995, thus leading the way for other clinics to recognize the importance of this medium to abortion services.