Reproductive Rights Blog

News Round Up (July 18)

I've been in and out of the office and working crazy hours the past two weeks, and I'm leaving for a no-internet vacation shortly.  In the meantime, in case you didn't know, here's what you should have been reading:

McCain is no more pro-choice than he used to be, including that he doesn't know anything about insurance not covering birth control.

But how pro-choice is Obama?  The antis say "very".

Catholic Charities signed off on a young woman having an abortion, contrary to Catholic values which don't include, um, sympathy.

Child bride in the middle east advocates for her own divorce.

Obese moms tend to have obese children.

I don't care if it's not politically correct, I still love Linda Hirschman and all her judgeyness.  Some folks say that women's empowerment has caused a backlash, and isn't staying at home better than working, and I don't really know, because I don't have kids and staying at home is kind of boring for me, plus, I have one of those jobs where I get paid to, do things like talk, and my hours aren't horrible, and I'm really not doing manual labor or doing the shit work no one else wants to do.  So yeah, I get that for most women, probably, staying at home seems better than working, it also seems a damned shame that women with the ability to do whatever they want in life (like this whole overblown opt-out thing) to make this planet better and make themselves real self-actualized full grown human beings choose to stay home and build tree forts daily.

Microbicides more useful for men than women.

A woman who maybe cut her own fetus's umbilical cord in utero is being charged with manslaughter.  But the facts still aren't clear.

EU developing more codes on embryo screening.

We've known for years that one of the fastest growing segments of the United States population getting HIV was senior citizens.  Now we hear that it's the middle aged folks getting STIs.  Kids, talk to your parents!

Actually, this week I was training some folks at the Choice USA leadership conference, and I'm so old, I said, that I had comprehensive sex education classes!  So maybe kids shouldn't be talking to their parents, if the kids are getting misinformed through ab only programs.

New fertility technique helps gather eggs from women with cancer.  Speaking of fertility, we already knew that men over 40 had fertility issues - higher rates of certain diseases like autism and schizophrenia were also seen in their offspring.  A new study shows that it is also more difficult for men over 40 to impregnate a woman.

The man who promulgated the Global Gag Rule, Jesse Helms, died.

Looks like the HPV vaccine is still safe, but still only for the kids.

There's more, of course, but I'm heading out; I'll be gone for more than a week, but send me articles on stuff I should know about!

Military Insurance (TRICARE) proposes to cover post-assault exams

TRICARE, the insurance for the uniformed services, has released a proposed rule today that would change coverage for the insurance system.  The proposed rule includes covering exams for sexual assault or domestic violence.  While the costs of these are often shared by the private co-insurance, some victims of assault were getting billed for the exams.  The coverage sheet reads:

However, there is a dual purpose of the examination process. One purpose is to address the needs of the individual disclosing sexual assault, which include evaluating and treating injuries; conducting prompt examinations; providing support, crisis intervention, and advocacy; providing prophylaxis against sexually transmitted diseases; assessing female patients for pregnancy risk and discussing treatment options, including reproductive health services; and providing follow-up care for medical and emotional needs. The other purpose is to address justice system needs. The needs for justice system are: obtaining a history of the assault, documenting exam findings, properly collecting, handling, and preserving evidence, and interpreting and analyzing findings (post exam) and subsequently, presenting findings and providing factual and expert opinion related to the exam and evidence collection.

I like that the proposed rule addresses both a psychological intervention, and a pursuit of justice.

At the link to the proposed rule are instructions for how to weigh in - please feel free.

AT&T Discriminates Against Women (Still)

In the late 1960s/early 1970s, Noreen Hulteen, Eleanora Collet, Linda Porter and Elizabeth Snyder took maternity leave from their jobs at AT&T.  Under AT&T rules during this time, pregnancy was considered personal leave, and counted against employees for promotions, vacation, and pensions.  Other types of long term sick leave, taken by men or women, were not counted against the employees.  This type of discrimination, against only pregnant people, is currently illegal under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Today, AT&T is counting the pregnancy leave against these women for purposes of their pensions.  In 2008!  Regardless of the fact that the treatment is illegal today, AT&T continues to fight this case, and has pushed for the Supreme Court to review its previous court losses.

AT&T is pursing a Supreme Court case to continue discriminating against pregnant women.  

AT&T doesn’t have to continue pushing for review of this case – it has every right to drop the case, and, ethically, shouldn’t it?  AT&T purports to be women’s friendly (http://www.att.com/gen/corporate-citizenship?pid=7752), but this clearly isn’t.

Here’s what you need to do: e-mail Nicole Pickens at [email protected] and Sue McCain at [email protected]. Also, Apple has given AT&T exclusive cell phone rights to the i-Phone.  Call Apple at 408.974.2042 or e-mail Susan Lundgren in Apple's PR department at [email protected].

Write that you want AT&T to withdraw its Supreme Court Petition, or you’ll withdraw service.  Ask why AT&T continues to discriminate against women, and why Apple supports this kind of corporate practice. If AT&T withdraws its petition to the Supreme Court, the lower court's ruling for women will stand.  Women must send a message to AT&T, a wealthy company, that discrimination against women is not an acceptable corporate practice.  Either AT&T withdraws its petition from the Supreme Court, or we'll withdraw our business from AT&T.

You can also call AT&T Customer Service to ask if AT&T has withdrawn its position. If the customer service representative doesn't know what you're talking about, say that AT&T discriminates against women, and you want to cancel your contract.  If they won't let you out of it, let me know ([email protected]) and we will handle it.  I am working with a large coalition on this.  You are welcome to join us!

If you are a blogger or part of the media, call 210-821-4105, press 3, for other, and ask for corporate media or you can e-mail folks directly.  Interestingly, there are no press releases about this case...funny, that.

[Ed. note: Washington Post covered the story here]

[Ed. again because I am going to keep updating what other blogs are saying about this: Lawyers Guns and Money, Feminist Law Professors, Women'sTake (NWLC)]

Things you should know - science

Not like you haven't heard it before (especially if you were hanging out with me this weekend) but vasectomies are totally safe.  And because this is my blog, I'll tell you my opinion on vasectomies: I'm all for them.  No one really wants me to go into it, but here's a quick rundown, from my perspective.  Heterosexual women have menstrual cycles, and all that brings.  They also bear the brunt of contraception, from what I gather.  Further, they are the ones carrying and birthing children, often breastfeeding them.  I don't feel it's an outrageous request for men involved with these women to consider vasectomies as fairly painless and totally reversible procedure.  The article talks about how men are squeamish about their boy parts, a concern for which I have little sympathy.  Somehow testicles became sacred, while women's fallopian tubes, uterii & etc became medically available.  It's a procedure that Jamaican men, for example, do not use.  You've heard it before.

Speaking of uteri, you may know my obsession with this from my previous posts, but the Picture of the Day from DCist a few days ago was a woman carrying three fetuses in her two uterii.  Awesome!

Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, hasn't been cleared for use in women 27 to 45.

Generic Yasmin available; Planned Parenthood going upscale, and that little Romanian girl finally got her abortion.

New way to freeze unfertilized eggs is better than the old way, in that eggs are more usable with this new method.  And scientists are saying they will be able to create sperm and eggs from stem cells in the next two decades.

And the animal story: coating birds' eggs with vegetable oil to keep them from hatching is a new method of population control in New York.