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- 29 - accessHealthNews.net December 2023 Volume 10 | Issue No. 79 In the wake of the Dobbs decision, confusion, fear, and uncertainty about abortion and contraceptive options have interfered with people's ability to access critical reproductive health services, especially in Missouri, a state which has implemented many laws and legislative measures unfriendly to reproductive health care access. Recently, the Missouri Family Health Council (MFHC) launched a program that provides free emergency contraception, called the Free EC Program. Michelle Trupiano, executive director at the MFHC, spoke about the program. The organization has been around for over 40 years. Its network includes 20 different health centers that operate around 70-75 health centers across the state and collectively serve over 40,000 patients per year. "Our mission is to champion access to every individual to culturally sensitive quality sexual and reproductive health services," Trupiano said. The MFHC operates in two ways. The first way is in the programmatic service delivery side, where they work as an administrator of grants to find opportunities to help the safety network provide quality family planning services to anybody who needs them, especially under- resourced people who may not be able to access them otherwise. They have also run the Title X federal Family Planning Program for over 40 years. Though they do not provide direct services through that, they put together a network that they flow funding to. They work with health departments, federally qualified action agencies, community action agencies, planned parenthood, and other standalone clinic sites. It also runs an initiative funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health called The Right Time, a contraceptive equity initiative that aims to remove all financial barriers and any other barriers on the clinic side that may impede people from accessing the care that they need and deserve. They run training and a host of support activities to clinics to ensure that they have all the tools they need to provide quality services. The other side of the MFHC's work is an advocacy program that they run. "We know that there's a lot of systemic and racist barriers that prevent people from accessing care," Trupiano said. "We know that it doesn't really matter how great of a job we do on the service delivery if people can't get the care that they need due to a whole lot of obstacles in front of them, so we try to do a lot of work in Jefferson City and with lawmakers to try to break down some of those barriers and to look holistically at what that looks like." The Free EC (emergency contraception) Project launched on June 1, but it had been in the works for several months. The MFHC borrowed the idea from a model in Texas and launched it because of the Dobbs decision, wherein abortion became illegal immediately in the state of Missouri and many other states across the country. READ MORE "Our mission is to champion access to every individual to culturally sensitive quality sexual and reproductive health services," -Michelle Trupiano Executive Director MFHC

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