It's Cleaning-Out-My-Inbox time, in anticipation of the weekend, and possible crab fest, and being a Cara & Karen Cloud on all things festive. DC Feminist Happy Hour planning in the works for an end of the year bash.
In the news:
Schoolgirls in Britain will get the HPV Vaccine. While the vaccine has great results in clinical trials, we still don't really know how long it works.
J&J settles lawsuit over Ortho-Evra (The Patch) death. Massachusetts is looking at wider clinic buffer zones while Oakland is thinking about instituting them in the first place.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs an absolutely amazing column on abortion in the UK (originally in The Independent) It covers the idea that women "deserve" going through an abortion for "irresponsible behavior", the fact that the delay in access to abortion by anti-choice, misogynistic lawmakers contributes to later-term abortions, and the need for better information and access to contraception. Joan Smith is my crush of the week. Month, maybe.
Some weird news out of Florida: a surrogate mother has been told by the courts that she can keep the baby. This is unusual, because it's my understanding that the intentional parents are usually the legal parents (e.g. those who intended to be the parent, regardless of the biological materials used) although there's no national policy. Anyway, very interesting, and each state handles the issue differently.
Condom testers wanted. Sex lessons part of health lessons for miners in Australia. The influence of the Catholic Church's ban on condoms is helping HIV spread in Latin America. South Africa is recalling million s of condoms.
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