Reproductive Rights Blog

News you should know

 It's going to take me a long time to catch up, but here's some cool stuff I've been saving:

Really, the first good pictures and view of ovulation.

Also, you know how I've been talking about HPV and other cancers, besides cervical, for like, a billion years now?  My sister sent me an e-mail today saying that my theory re: anal cancer might be right. (I told her that, um, it's not a theory, it's just not common knowledge)  She sent me an article from an Australian paper on oral cancer and HPV.  Again, it's not news, but whatever.  The Canadian government is now thinking about vaccinating men against HPV too. 

Speaking of HPV, y'all know that I have ties to Qiagen, which makes the only HPV test on the market in the US.  Anyway, Qiagen is appealing a patent loss which would allow another company to make an HPV test.

Should we talk more about patents?  Barr won a patent suit against Bayer for Yasmin.  Since this happened months ago, you probably already have a generic pack of Yasmin in your hands if you want one.  Bayer stock fell after the news. 

I'm really not going to talk about FDA preemption here, but I do want to let you all know what's going on in the courts.  Here's the quick and dirty version of the recent Supreme Court case: This guy had a balloon angioplasty, and depending upon which case you read, his doctor either did or did not inflate the balloon properly.  In any case, the thing blew up in his heart, almost killing him (but didn't).  He sued the manufacturer of the balloon catheter, and in February the Supreme Court ruled that federal FDA law didn't allow for state tort suits, which is how you sue someone when crap like this happens.  There is a Supreme Court case coming up testing the same law, but with respect to drugs, not devices.  The reason I'm telling you this is that it's J&J's defense for suits regarding Ortho-Evra, the patch.  Plus, it's one of the things I've been geeking out about lately.

Have you or anyone you know had a hard time paying for an abortion?  A clinic in Iowa wants to know.

We don't have a lot of deaths from abortion anymore, thanks, largely, due to legal abortions and antibiotics.  Occasionally, we do, and it's just tragic.  Of course, there's more here than just a teenager dies of abortion.  She had a legal abortion and bled to death waiting for a transfusion, and, it sounds like it was also an incomplete abortion.  Plus, she didn't want to have an abortion, but her boyfriend (and maybe his family) wanted her to. 

Okay, I'm going to have to sort through a whole lot of stuff, and figure out how to use this upgraded software. 

Love,
C

Today's News - Still catching up

Of course there's stuff going on, but none wackier than this.

State News:
Illinois has a law requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception (Plan B).  This law is being challenged in Illinois Supreme Court.  According to the article, this may become a procedural issue, one of standing, rather than on on the merits.  Nonetheless, it will have ramifications on similar state laws, or on state legislatures considering similar laws. 

Kansas is considering some restrictive laws, New Hampshire is looking at mandatory counseling for teens, 

Foreign News:
Abortion rates in Australia are declining.  The abortion debate in Jamaica continues.

That's all I'm going to post for today, and every day I'm going to try to post a bunch more stories that I have bookmarked for y'all.

News Round Up (Jan. 25) Roe v. Wade Day Edition

This week was not only MLK Day, but Roe v. Wade Day.  Additionally, I lost another family member to cancer.  In any case, there was a lot you should have read about:

Roe v. Wade Day/Abortion:
Frances Kissling (formerly of CFFC) and Kate Michelman (formerly of NARAL) wrote an op-ed in the LA Times about abortion, and, really, the shift in perception around abortion.  They say that one thing the pro-choice folks need to engage in is a discussion about the "challenges" of the movement, including the judgment of women for getting pregnant in the first place.

Saletan says that pro-choicers need to message abortion with the goal of zero, same as teen pregnancy.

We've already discussed that the abortion rate is dropping, there's a rise in the use of RU-486 for medical abortions.

A new movie, "Silent Choices" is about abortion and African Americans.  Good article, go read it.

Pictures from the "March for Life" in DC.

Reproducing:
Related to the LA Times op-ed, a study out about Indiana shows that about 80% of black babies are born to unwed mothers.  Single mothers have lower levels of education and higher rates of poverty than married mothers, although that doesn't necessarily include those older single moms.

Italy has ruled that it is now legal to do pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of embryos.  The ruling, applicable only to the Rome area, will be reviewed by a higher court.  Also, don't forget, that in Italy only 3 embryos can be implanted at a time. 

This type of diagnosis, however, is not foolproof.

Gender/Work:
We're learning that ancient Mayan sacrifices were of young boys, not girls.

Slate had a great series on economics and gender and all of that lovely Gary-Becker-type-stuff.  Included were articles on why Divorce is Good for Women and the Economics of Marriage.   The articles are actually excerpts from a new book that's now on my wishlist.  In Japan, the introduction of divorce means that men have to treat their wives with more respect.

So while feminism opened up options for a lot of women, there was an ensuing backlash against feminism, and now there's this embrace of everything under the sun as feminism.  Want to walk around with a dog collar being led by your boyfriend?  Who's to say that's not feminist?  Stripping?  Feminist.  Housewife?  Totally feminist (not by all).   I'm not about to make any statements about it right now, but it certainly seems to be a trend that the idea of "choice" whether related to feminism or abortion, is in the eye of the beholder.  I mean, is one's choice really off bounds for social comment?

Science:
The Pill has an extended effect on preventing ovarian cancer, the number one cause of gynecologic cancer deaths in the United States.  Apparently, this is leading folks in the U.K. to renew a call to make the Pill available over-the-counter.  Additionally, caffeine decreases the risk of ovarian cancer, while alcohol and tobacco use play no role in it.

As always, there's way more to blog about, but I have to get moving.  Have a great weekend!

And the animal story: Pigeons in Paris

Abortion in the News

The papers are all abuzz with the recently-released study showing that abortion is down in the United States - at the lowest rate since abortion was Constitutionally protected.  Since 1990, surgical abortions are down 25%.  The decline in abortion could be positive (more access to contraception, fewer unplanned pregnancies) or negative (less access to abortion, less access to contraceptives) and part of it could be a substitute to RU-486 - we really don't know what's causing the decline.  Read the full report (.pdf).

However, we do know that the US has higher fertility rates than other Western countries, due to "a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty." 

In other countries, the stigma of abortions, even legal ones, has led to a rise in illegal abortions, which, as you all know, are not safe.  Both medical staff and patients feel this societal sting, and don't want to take part in it.  "It is poor women who cannot countenance another mouth to feed."  The women who have the lowest access to medical care and education are the ones hardest hit by the criminalization of abortion. 

News Round Up (Jan. 15)

Reproductive Rights:
So, I guess this comes as a surprise, but women who have abortions think about the kind of life they could provide for a child, and the lives they want to provide for their existing children.  I'm not sure how I feel about this report.  I think it's still in that vein of "abortion is a hard decision" and tries to un-demonize women who have abortions.

I can't find the original article, but a letter to the editor in a Massachusetts newspaper criticizes a man whose girlfriends had four abortion for his "conversion" to anti-choice advocacy.  The author writes that the man should have been responsible then, not now, and includes being responsible to mean sticking around.  The author seems to imply that if men would stay with women more, they would continue their pregnancies, which I'm not so sure about.  I do, however, agree that anti-choice advocates could emphasize the role of men in unplanned pregnancy as much as the abortion itself. 

Kentucky is considering a bill that would require women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound.  At my old clinic, every woman had an ultrasound, at the least, to measure fetal size/age.  I would think that's important for knowledge of the type of abortion needed, the amount of drugs, etc.  But I also am not a doctor, so I don't know.  Nor is Senator Jack Westwood, so I don't know why he's bringing this up. 

For information on what it's really like to be an abortion doctor, read "This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor" by two doctors from Montana.

In other state news, Tennessee is thinking about amending its Constitution to shrink abortion rights.  The Constitution has been interpreted to provide greater abortion rights than the U.S. Constitution, and therefore invalidated a law requiring a waiting period.  The amendment would read that nothing in the Tennessee Constitution protects a right to abortion. 

Of course, reproductive rights are about more than just abortion - parenting, birth control & etc.  In that vein, the Alaska Pro-Choice Alliance has renamed itself the Alliance for Reproductive Justice.

The American College of Ob-Gyns has released a new ethics opinion on doctor refusals, calling for limits on conscientious refusals, especially those that impose religious or moral beliefs, or are not scientifically based. 

Science & Health:
Following a Mediterranean diet when pregnant lowers the risk for the babies to have asthma.  That could be better worded, but it's not.

I'm reading this book called The Humble Little Condom, and I'm learning a little more about syphilis, which, apparently, Christopher Columbus brought back to Europe with him.  The New World syphilis wasn't fatal, I guess, but it mutated somewhere along the way to a potentially deadly disease.

International:
Illegal abortion "clinic" found in South Africa.

Kids Today: 
A state representative in Wisconsin would like to end Wisconsin's family planning waiver to 15, 16 & 17 year old girls, which pays for their birth control.

Generally, we know that young college-educated women are waiting to have children, and, often putting less emphasis on romantic relationships.  Additionally, the idea that couples in love must get married is no longer a given, as almost half of Americans say they don't need a marriage certificate to prove their love.  The Post writes about those who aren't waiting to have kids - but these are still women in their late 20s.  My friend RJ & I wonder if the model of college/graduate school/marriage/family really works for women.  We're in our 30s by the time we're having kids, with fertility issues, less energy, and a body that doesn't bounce back as easily.  I wonder if the college/marriage/family/graduate school model wouldn't be better?

After all, teens start having sex at 15 nowadays (wow, I sound old) and reaching sexual maturity earlier.  So we have an increase in the time between sexual maturity and marriage, making the idea of abstinence, frankly, near to impossible. What's also interesting in the cyclic nature of abortion for teens, showing that opportunity, especially in the form of school vacations, not much to do, and no parental supervision. 

And, lastly: elks on birth control.

Happy New Year

It's a new year, and a new legislative session, not to mention that a whole bunch of laws go into effect this week. 

As for me, I'm getting over a cold which had me on the couch watching the History Channel's marathon The History of Sex, which has a few errors in it, but was overall an enjoyable quick tour through the ages.  My New Year's resolution is to cut out dairy, and start eating more organic food.

So anyway, what do you need to know for this upcoming year?  First, vote (make sure you are registered to vote in your state).  Today are the Iowa Caucuses, then the New Hampshire primaries, and February 5th is Super Tuesday.   Do I really have to tell you what's at stake (like, Roe)?

So let's talk about local laws:

• Virginia will hear about increased penalties for domestic violence offenders and repealing the requirement that women take lie detector tests when they report a rape.
• Oregon's contraceptive equity act goes into effect this week.
• The Montana initiative regarding life beginning at contraception may be voted on this year.
• New Jersey just started testing all pregnant women for HIV (it's an opt-out law)

For more on state issues, see Who Decides?

Federally, we'll be working on a fix for the cost of contraception on college campuses, again, hopefully led by Mr. Crowley (D-NY) and Mr. Obama (D-IL).

We'll see more about jurisprudence for civilians serving overseas, as more stories like this one come to light.  Congressman Poe's office tells me that the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act is the law on the books that would cover this, but many others have said the law is too narrowly crafted to create any kind of legal punishment.

And now for part one of this week's News Round Up:

Science
An enzyme naturally found in semen may aid in the furtherance of HIV infection.  There's also a marker on the sperm that inhibits the female's body from attacking the sperm as foreign invaders, which will be useful to study in combating infections and cancer.

Abortions & miscarriages may indicate a higher risk of future miscarriage.  While TIME runs the full on headline, only a few sentences down it admits that the study has numerous flaws.  Speaking of procreation issues, children of obese mothers have higher rates of infant mortality. 

The Times reviews a book on a fertility diet, and not very favorably.  I guess people are more interested in fertility, as it seems birth rates are on the rise in the US.   The article says that more affluent people are having more children, and calls children a luxury good.  I'd be curious to see more about the rates related to income, and if the US has a higher rate of fertility than many other industrialized nations because of our immigration policies.

Schizophrenia may start in utero, and may be linked to maternal diseases like the flu.

Foreign
Teen will have access to birth control over the counter in Britain.  Meanwhile, South Africa is taking the opposite tactic, and outlawing teens kissing in public.  (The actual law, all 80 pages of it, is here as a .pdf.  I didn't read it, so I don't know the exact language used.) 

You all, I'm sure, have been following the rape case in Saudi Arabia.  Slate asks why there isn't more of an uproar over how Saudi (and many other countries) treat women, generally.  The article references the huge boycotts of South Africa regarding its policy of apartheid.

Syphilis is back in Europe.   

Tomorrow I'll have more on birth control and abortion.  But today I'll end with the animal story: Pigeons in Hollywood on the Pill.

News Round Up (Nov. 25)

So I'm watching the post-Thanksgiving morning news shows, debating with myself whether or not it would be a good thing if Roe fell, as many Presidential candidates hope for. On one hand, Roe being overturned would certainly be bad for access to abortion. On the other hand, if voters continuously choose to elect anti-choice legislators, why should they be immune from the consequences of those bad choices. Were Roe to fall, voters as well as legislators would have to walk the walk. Right now, for example, there's a man in Ohio that continuously gets re-elected, and his only issue is abortion. The people of Ohio are insulated by his election in part by the other Ohio legislators, but also, to a large extent, by the federal judiciary, upon whom we too greatly rely on for the protection of our rights. It's probably a little Old Testament of me, but I'm wondering if actually giving these anti-choicers more leeway won't actually mean that people eventually vote against them, once they have to deal with the consequences of the vote...

Anyway, the news:

U.S.
Denver, due to its high teen pregnancy rate, is considering making birth control available in high schools.
The Guardian explores the seeming change in Hollywood's depiction of abortion. A sociologist who writes for the Huffington Post, Lisa Wade, said that "It is as if all decisions to have an abortion are fraught with internal conflict, and then follow all women around like a dark cloud until the day they die." This is something we've discussed on this blog repeatedly: abortion isn't always a hard decision, and it's not always the wrong decision, and we don't have a lot of room in our discussion to admit that abortion can be easy, happy and/or freeing.
No surprise to most of us, but a good article on the strategy of the anti-choice movement that involves expanding the definition of "personhood". A good example is the Texas feticide law, which was upheld in a recent court decision regarding the killing of a women and her 4 - 6 week old fetus. On a more insidious note, Colorado is considering adding a provision regarding life beginning at conception that would make abortion illegal.
There's been a lot more coverage of the Crowley/Obama solution to the line in the Deficit Reduction Act that has raised the cost of birth control on college campuses. Make sure your legislator supports these efforts through ChoiceUSA or Planned Parenthood.

Parental Rights
In Kansas, a gay man agreed to donate sperm to a friend for artificial insemination. She filed papers to terminate his parental rights, which is appears is the default for Kansas sperm donors. He is fighting, and wants to be involved with the children and pay child support.
In the UK, a woman has received court permission to keep her pregnancy a secret from the man who impregnated her, as it was a one-night stand. The court ruled that she alone has the decision-making power regarding the adoption she seeks.

Foreign:
Regardless of the fact that abortion is legal in the UK, there is nonetheless a black market for herbal abortifacients. Speaking of, a website is selling what I think is RU-486 to Irish women; the drug is, as are abortion procedures, illegal.
RHRealityCheck has a whole section on one of our topics of conversaion, sex selective abortions.
I wish I had a better news source, but it appears that Sweden will allow foreign women to get abortions, up to 18 weeks gestation.

Science:
I hope you all have heard, by now, that scientists have created embryonic stem cells through adult cells. I wonder what will happen to the legal status of those cells, especially if they are pluripotent and could become a fetus...or maybe I just need someone to explain this all to me. In any case, it looks like scientists will no longer need embryos to do research on embryonic stem cells!
Totally useless news: sleep helps new moms lose baby weight. New moms would love to get more sleep anyway, but thanks for the information.
Apparently Chinese doctors have come up with a new form of male birth control that blocks sperm from travelling to the penis. It is totally reversible, and only takes 10 minutes. On a similar note, it looks like there's a new FDA-approved device that is a permanent method of female birth control. The device is inserted into a woman's fallopian tubes, and within three months the tubes are completely blocked.

There's a whole lot more out there right now, so I'll post again shortly.

News Round Up (Oct. 31)

Happy Halloween!  As the end of the year approaches I'm filled with thoughts of what I need to do, want to do, and have to do before the calendar rolls over.  Such an arbitrary date, but it means something to me nonetheless.  And what about the feminist movement?  What have we actually accomplished this year?  What's my role in all of this?  What do we have left to do?  And what can we get done in the next 8 weeks?

In spite of all of this, here are some news stories:

United States:
In Kansas, the investigation of Dr. George Tiller was blocked. Dr. Tiller performs abortions, and has been the target of much anti-choice maneuvering.  A report by the Denver Public School system recommends that birth control be available at schools in order to reduce the teen pregnancy rate and STI rate.  AGI publication on the role of Medicaid in family planning (.pdf)  The LA Times debunks the idea that women will substitute adoption for abortion if given information and access to services.  Teen pregnancy rates in DC dropping.

George Will has a column about abortion in America, including the make-up of SCOTUS, the Presidential election, and the majority's support for abortion.   

Foreign:
Abortion illegal in Northern Ireland.  Cardinal Corman Murphy-O'Connor pens an article about abortion in England and Wales.  He writes that he supports decreasing the time limit after which abortion is banned (from 24 weeks to 22 weeks, is the current proposal.)  Access to abortion, even in Canada, is limited.  The Pope is calling on pharmacists to stop dispensing RU-486.  Latin American abortion bans don't stop women from having abortions. 

Science/Medical:
Cellcept, an immunosuppressant drug used for transplant patients, may cause miscarriage and birth defects, warns the FDA.  Skipping the stirrups?   A study was done in Georgia on about 200 women who had pap tests either using stirrups or not; the accuracy of the pap was not affected.  Pre-cancerous lesions indicate high risk for cervical cancer up to 25 years after the lesion is removed.  Twins separated at birth for experiment reunite.

Requisite animal story: birth control for pigeons on Staten Island.

Parental consent for contraceptives

This Maine middle school that is going to allow girls to get the Pill without parental consent is big news. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. One of the issues, besides the fact that these are young girls, is that they won’t need parental permission to get the Pill. In most schools, kids need parental consent to take an aspirin.

Reproductive health is different. Twenty five states allow minors to have access to contraception without parental consent, and all states allow minors to access STI services. Of course, AGI has a great chart, by state. Maine, the chart shows, allows minors to access contraception for health reasons, if the minor is married, or if the minor herself is a parent.

The UK allows for minors to access contraception confidentially (and free!), and the General Medical Council has released guidance on when it’s appropriate. There were some issues regarding a minor’s ability to consent to sex, and a doctor’s furtherance of that potentially being a crime, which is addressed in the Child Protection Sexual Offences Act of 2003.

In at least one study, parental consent laws increased the teen pregnancy rate, and certainly, that’s the fear. So, again, while I think most people aren’t wholly comfortable with the idea of an 11 year old getting contraception, or having sex, I think most of us would be less comfortable with the idea of a 12 year old mom.

News Round Up (Sep. 27)

I hadn't planned on doing another news round up so soon, but I have all these e-mails!

First, though, Happy Birthday to my sister, who, no matter how old she is, will always be my little sister!

Okay, and the news!

So let's go back to some recent news round ups and follow-up on two things.  One, the woman who was suing about having time to breast feed during her medical boards won.  Also, we talked about the Global Gag Rule.  I'm not going to get into it here again, but it's a big political mess, and the chances of President Bush doing right by the women of the world are slim.  Nonetheless, urge him to sign the Foreign Ops appropriations bill, with the Boxer/Snowe amendment, should he ever receive it from Congress.   The impact of the Global Gag Rule has been well-documented by, among others, IPAS and PAI.

And the new stuff:

I was at a friend's house the other day, and while we were flipping through the TV stations, we heard O'Reilly talking about the Maryland case where the woman maybe killed her fetuses and how she can't be prosecuted, and people were all angry about it, but it's not unique to Maryland.  I think all states that have feticide/fetal homicide laws have exceptions for the woman.  Including, recently decided, Missouri.

EC isn't available in all NYC teen health clinics, and a federal court has ruled that dispensing EC to teens without parental consent is legal.   Speaking of constitutional issues, Verizon has denied NARAL's request to use Verizon for a text messaging program.  NARAL already has a campaign going about this. [Ed. Verizon has already reversed its earlier decision!]

CNN gives a run down on gyn disorders and possible treatments, the Beeb tells pregnant women to exercise, but not too strenuously, the oh-so-predictable baby boom 9 months after a blizzard, chewable birth control may become more widely available shortly, enforcement of TRAP law in Missouri blocked.

In Foreign News, Hungary has issued prostitution permits, and the EU has approved GSK's HPV vaccine, Cervarix.  Also, biggest baby ever born in Russia (17.5 lbs!), the Archibishop of the Church of Mozambique says that condoms from Europe are infected with HIV to kill off Africans, the UK health system says women should have greater control over their childbirth, man hit by lighting and told he was sterile is expecting a baby,