The Midwest has some unique barriers to getting that training out to providers who need it, partly based on Catholic-based health care, more spread out geography and more conservative policies. But we were a bunch of doctors, lawyers and other busy people with an important idea and no time to implement it. We really needed resources to do the groundwork.
Debra Stulberg, a family physician and co-founder of the Midwest Access Project
Collaboration has been a cornerstone of AAP’s strategy and success since our inception, enhancing resources, promoting innovation, and helping us ensure that our contributions are unique and relevant.
Local Collaboration
Because access to abortion by nature local – determined locally, by a unique combination of geographic, political, economic and other conditions – making this critical service accessible to women who need it requires locally developed strategies and action.
AAP builds stakeholder coalitions and establishes formal partnerships with state level groups. We offer resources such as small grants, shared staff and technical support. Partners work with both AAP’s field staff and the national office to share their needs and concerns, and develop and implement strategies that complement existing work.
Current collaborators include:
National Collaboration
Working in collaboration can be extremely frustrating and difficult,
but our partnership is consistently respectful and professional. I’ve been in
the movement a long time and have worked with a lot of groups, and the
relationship I have with AAP is exceptional.
Sharon Breitweiser, executive director of
NARAL Pro-choice Wyoming
A longtime convener of working groups and other forums, AAP co-founded several active working groups, including the Training and Access Working Group, the APC Working Group, the Misoprostol Alone Working Group, and the ROE Consortium for Nursing.
Other national partnerships have included:
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ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project/Robert Baldwin Center ACLU of Illinois
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Association of Reproductive Health Professionals
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Gynuity Health Projects
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Ibis Reproductive Health
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Ipas
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National Abortion Federation
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National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
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Northwest Women’s Law Center
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Planned Parenthood Federation of America
 West Virginia FREE (Focus: Reproductive Education and Equality)
seeks to further and protect reproductive rights of all West
Virginia women, including a primary goal of ensuring access to
reproductive health care for all West Virginians,
especially low-income women and teens.
AAP and West Virginia Free collaborate to create
interventions that expand access to abortion services for rural women. With 54% of West Virginia's population living in rural
areas, this partnership is critical to address the gap in access that West
Virginian women face.
 The
Midwest Access Project
(MAP) envisions a society in which integrated, comprehensive reproductive
health care is fully accessible to all.
MAP exists to increase the provision of full-spectrum reproductive
health care in the region, without barriers to access, through education and
training of health care providers and the public.
MAP collaborates with AAP to assess the training needs of
family medicine residents in the Midwest and
to increase the number of abortion providers in the region. This
collaboration includes shared staff, field consultant Katherine McElweee.
 NARAL Pro-Choice Wyoming develops
and sustains a statewide constituency which effectively uses the political
process at the local, state, and national levels to guarantee every woman the
right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive
choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children,
and choosing legal abortion.
AAP collaborates with the NARAL Pro-Choice Wyoming Education Project. This project supports and protects, as a
fundamental right and value, a woman's freedom to make personal decisions
regarding the full range of reproductive choices through education, training,
organizing, legal action, and public policy.
This partnership focuses on abortion access for rural women in Wyoming, a state with a
35% non-urban population.
 Planned
Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) seeks to improve the
quality of life by enabling all people to exercise individual choice in their
own reproductive health.
PPRM collaborates with AAP to respond to the training needs
of clinicians in the state and improve access to abortion for rural women. This
collaboration includes shared staff, field consultant Anne Devereux.
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