The big news, I guess, is that Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primaries, and most of the women's groups are pretty happy about that.
International:
Did y'all see this new Always campaign about young women in Africa? I saw the ad on TV, and the website is through the Canadian affiliate. Anyway, it's been well-documented that the lack of access to toilets is a barrier for girls going to school in Africa. This does, then, affect the ability to care for oneself during menstruation. So while I'd like to be more skeptical, I'm totally eating this up.
Italy is considering restricting abortions, which is now only available until the 90th day of pregnancy (that's about 12 weeks).
There is an effort to increase circumcision among boys in developing countries in order to reduce the spread of HIV. Some compare female circumcision to male circumcision, which I think is crap. They do so based on the thought that male circumcision, like female circumcision, takes away from sexual pleasure. Read and weep, jerks.
Regardless, I don't think you should go around circumcising people by force, which is apparently going on in Kenya. One group circumcises, the other doesn't, so to see who your enemies are in this chaotic region, the penis has been a target.
I think we've seen this before, but the Beeb is reporting that a British fertility clinic is offering reduced price fertility treatment to women who donate eggs for research. These eggs will be fertilized and the embryos will be used for stem cell research.
Spanish abortion clinics are on strike. This is in response to increasing anti-activity, including government inspectors. While this will decrease access for many women, I really do admire this. We would have women come into our clinic so ashamed, and disrespectful, and it's just baffling. Not only because so many women have abortions, but because we lived in an anti-choice state, which continuously put forth anti-choice laws. If the women, partners, and families actually voted, protested, whatever, things could be so different.
Oy. Full-term, forced abortion alleged in China.
Science:
The mess in Texas over mandating the HPV vaccine has actually been a good thing, as it has piqued the interest of many parents and teens in the state, leading to an increase in vaccination. In other news, the American Cancer Society has a press release on the vaccine (from May 2007) and screening guidelines (on the bottom). The CDC also has guidelines on cervical cancer screenings, in light of the fact that there is an HPV test, which reduces the frequency of screenings for those who have both normal Pap results and a normal HPV test.
Speaking STIs, there's a mutated strain of chlamydia that is causing some serious problems. The article indicates that the problems are in men's rectums, which I guess means this might be somewhat isolated to the gay male population? In any case, LGV seems to be different than the average garden-variety chlamydia which is easily treated with antibiotics.
Speaking of, did you know that the CDC tracks numbers of STI infections, but not genital herpes or HPV?
More news on what hurts you during pregnancy. Not moderate coffee intake, a new study shows. I feel so badly for pregnant women, what with all the physical changes, plus a list a mile long of restrictions on food, behavior, drinks. And it turns out some of it is bunk.
There are a bunch of animal stories, but this one is just so odd: unemployed youths in India are going to be taught to sterilize monkeys. It sounds like the makings of a horrible situation.
Next time we'll have a whole lot on population, teen pregnancy, and related issues.