In May, we'll be talking about women with disabilities and healthcare. What are your experiences with healthcare as a woman with a disability? Tell your story, or learn from others. Share resources, opinions, myths, and facts.

Healthcare for women with disabilities varies greatly from place to place, and culture to culture. Most agree that women with disabilities are still greatly underserved. And our needs are as complex as we are, varying by age, disability, and access to healthcare, among other things.

We want to talk about the issues surrounding women with disabilities and healthcare. During the month, we'll also have a chance to make our opinions known to people in the medical profession (based in the U.S.), and those who are studying to become medical professionals. We can give them a head start to understanding the needs and barriers faced by women with disabilities when it comes to receiving respectful and appropriate healthcare.

Feel free to share your thoughts in this forum, or any of our communities online (see GimpGirl Communities for a list of where you can interact).

We'll be having our first online support meeting of the month on Friday, May 2 (see our calendar for details). Join us and start the conversation, which will undoubtedly lead to many other topics along the way.

Here are a few links which may be useful, or worth discussing. Feel free to suggest others (particularly with info about issues outside of the U.S.):

• Medical Care Often Inaccessible to Disabled Patients (NPR Morning Edition, September 13, 2007)
• Women with Disabilities: What You Should Know About Preventive Health Care (New York State Department of Health)
• Access to Health Care (from womenshealth.gov)
• Women First: Breast Health for Women with Developmental Disabilities Handbook (Developed by the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND))
• Women with Disabilities: Health, Reproduction, and Sexuality (by Laura Hershey)