Once in a while, we come across a guest Expert who has something impactful to contribute to the Savvy Auntie Community. Risa A. Levine is an attorney in private practice in New York City, a Board Member of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, and the 2011 Chair of RESOLVE's Advocacy Day. Risa is an Auntie by Relation to four nieces and four nephews who she loves and adores, and an Auntie by Choice to her friends' children who are her friends too. This year's Advocacy Day on May 5, 2011 marks an important opportunity for women's rights on infertility treatment, and here Risa tells us why.

Americans recently filed their tax returns and many of us had to include a check with those pesky forms. As a child, my father always told me that it was a privilege to pay taxes in the United States, but I didn't really understand why until I started to discover problems in the world and learned about various inequities that are suffered by different communities because of their religion, gender, or place of origin.

During my college years, I became a regular on Capitol Hill on issues ranging from international human rights issues to women's issues to foreign aid. I loved the click clack of my heels on the marble hallways of Congressional office buildings, and looking at the plaques of famous names outside the offices I was entering. It wasn't until I started walking into my elected representatives' offices that I realized my Dad was right: it was a privilege to pay taxes in a country where I could walk into government offices and demand that some big politico address my concerns.

As years passed, I began to realize that it wasn't just a privilege to stride through those imposing hallways, but an obligation. America's greatness lies not in having attained the goals of freedom and equal opportunity under the laws, but rather, in her constant and ongoing quest to further achieve those ideals.

It has been a tougher route for women in this country to achieve certain equalities, and as such, there is a greater obligation on us to fight for them. In the 70s and 80s, when I was "coming of age" as a feminist, it seemed that we were fighting not to be women with equal opportunities in corporate America, but to be men in that world, dressed in gray pin striped suits with little bow-ties on our white blouses while we suppressed the unique attributes of women's communication and problem-solving skills, and even believed that we had to delay family choices to climb the corporate ladder. That's reproductive choice? That's progress?  It has taken most of my professional life to learn that women bring a different set of skills to the corporate and political worlds, and in many cases, the female way of doing things is more appropriate to the task - it is no accident that the position of Secretary of State, a post that requires advanced diplomatic and negotiating prowess, has been held by women in the last three administrations. Nevertheless, until recently, my sojourns on Capitol Hill where always on behalf of others, whose voices weren't as free to speak as mine.

Until, that is, I was diagnosed with infertility. When I discovered that not only was I going to have to undergo arduous, painful, extensive, invasive medical procedures to have a baby, but that my expensive health insurance didn’t cover infertility and I was going to have to pay for all of it out of pocket, I got angry. And motivated.

I took my anger and began collaring elected officials wherever I could find them: at fundraisers, charity events, when they spoke as guest lecturers, and even booked a few trips to D.C. to meet them in their offices to discuss the disease of infertility. Infertility, and the contributory diseases and medical conditions, affects 1 in 8 families in the United States and doesn't discriminate by age, race, religion, gender, and economic status. Legislation is required to remove the barriers to access to proper treatment for so many families because of financial considerations and address the lack of a concerted research effort on causation. But I cannot fight this fight alone.

Today, I reach out to the broader Savvy Auntie Community to ask for your help and support in our efforts to gain greater rights for the members of the infertile community, to broaden access to necessary health care by reducing financial barriers, for more funds for research for cure and treatment, for more awareness for the disease of infertility. Until women join together to fight for access to treatment for all health issues, we won't have adequate and affordable treatment.

Things are good in this country, overall. And that makes us lazy. We think it’s someone else’s job to do the heavy lifting: why don’t our elected officials "know" that we need their actions to alleviate our suffering? Why don't "they" do something? Take better care of us?  Why aren't all of those celebrities having babies in their mid 40’s telling the truth about how they really got pregnant and pushing for legislation to help the rest of us out?

It's not someone else's job. It's our job to do the heavy lifting. Women's voices raised together create beautiful music  - and get things done.  And on May 5, you have the opportunity to join the volunteers of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association to start working toward this change down in Washington D.C.  

For more information and to sign-up, click here. I look forward to meeting you in Washington, DC on May 5!

By Risa A. Levine
Published: April 24, 2011