Why it’s so easy for the US to cut children’s access to healthcare: ‘There’s no right to these programs’

Experts say the push to cut federal funding for programs that provide health coverage to children speaks to the lack of youth protections in the US

Every school year, midwife Lisa Isman meets dozens of eighth graders for an annual tour of the clinic where she works. Students gather first in the office’s waiting room, where neon green couches, young adult romance novels and pamphlets on loneliness and sexual wellness greet them. On the tour of the Ungdomsmottagning – Swedish for “youth clinic” – the students in this suburb of Stockholm, Sweden, will take a peek at the different exam rooms, meet clinic counselors, and pay a visit to the clinic’s “kondomeria”, a cupboard decorated with condoms posed like action figures and stocked with a variety of brands.

The required school tour is an opportunity for Isman and her colleagues to explain to students that, from ages 12 to 22, this is their clinic. And “they can decide for themselves” whether to book an appointment, with or without their parents’ involvement, Isman says.