Reproductive Rights Blog

News Round Up (Dec. 13)

So a week of almost vacation and almost a week of catching up, and boy oh boy is there a lot going on.  Let's see if we can get to it all:

Legislative:

There's some work being done on the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill in terms of getting rid of the Global Gag Rule.  And while that's all but impossible right now, there may be a provision that allows donations of contraception to groups that are ineligible for US funding due to providing abortions.  Of course, the appropriations bills are a complete mess, and we'll see what gets done in the next week or so.

Speaking of federal legislation, the  federal laws about the cost of contraception are still out there.  Princeton is helping students out with the increased cost.  Of course, HHS could do something about, but why bother?

And on the state side, we have the Wisconsin bill that would require EC in the ER,  Utah is considering  throwing out the judicial bypass option for minors (is that Constitutional?), Colorado is considering declaring a fertilized egg a "person", Missouri is looking at an ballot initiative that would prohibit abortion, Pennsylvania EC in ER bill stalled.

Lawsuits:
Barr settled a lawsuit with the FTC alleging that it delayed introducing a generic birth control bill.

Kansas abortion case moving forward; appeal in Washington state case about pharmacists not having to dispense EC.

Science:
Ab-only still doesn't work.  So while this is by no means breaking news, it's good to have out in the public constantly, in case anyone's been under a rock, or has some sort of issue with it.  And yet, the US purity ball phenomenon is being covered as far away as South Africa.  It's almost embarrassing.

Early and late starters of sex have problems with sexual function.  Did we already talk about the new STD: Mycoplasm genitalium?  Women have slightly different hips and spines from men, which is why pregnant women don't topple over.  Another article on the fact that more women are having kids later in life.  OTC paternity test.

Foreign:

Tanzania multiple births, Slovakia refuses to declare abortion unconstitutional, late term abortion in Spain leads to arrest, France has great postpartum health care, UK considers making abortion more accessible, woman in Uganda jailed for helping another get an illegal abortion, paper on abortion in Nicaragua,  woman with eating disorder on the lam to keep her baby,

I don't understand how this is possible, given that sex-selective abortions are illegal in India, but a news article alleges that women of Indian descent living in England are travelling to India to have female fetuses aborted.  Also, lots of illegal abortions in India (one lakh = 100,000).

Other:
Abortion in pop culture - it's not as common as maybe it should be.  p.s. I totally want to see that movie.

New Mexico abortion clinic set on fire.  Some argue that the rights of boys are being violated by their early circumcisions.  Reporter gets circumcision live to show that it's not painful.   

And the animal story: Elephants in South Africa to  get birth control (vasectomies for the bulls, pills for the cows).

Vacation Blogging

I'm out of town on vacation, and haven't been online in a few days b/c I was at a conference.  If, like me, you've been out of the loop, here's what you need to know (besides the fact that you can get alcohol in Florida before noon!)

First, I've been talking about gender roles for a while now, and I ran into a young woman at that conference, and we talked about all kinds of things, including the fact that women our age may be the first generation of women for whom all options seemed possible.  We both laughed at the fact that, as children, we thought about being President; our mothers would never have done that, and our grandmothers remember when women couldn't vote.  We discussed domestic violence law, and it's basis in property law - at the time the laws were originally developed, a woman was a man's property.  The exceptions to crimes like murder were written by men - exceptions included killing a man you find in bed with your wife, and killing someone in a bar fight.   

In a similar vein, Lisa and I were talking about a woman changing her last name when she marries.  While I'm sure it's rooted in concepts of women being men's property, the custom has taken on some sort of traditional status in American culture.  This, however, is declining in popularity.  Only about 80% of women with college degrees took their husbands' names in 2000;

And speaking of women President's, Our Bodies Our Blog has interviewed Hilary Rodham Clinton.

There's actually a whole bunch of news, but I'm on vacation, and I think I see my friend's plane.