Here’s the letter I’m sending to relevant politicians in Tennessee regarding a bill to collect very specific abortion data, with little consequence for those who disclose it illegally, and creating targets for violence out of women, their children and spouses, and providers, their families, coworkers, and other patients.

I am writing to express my opposition to HB 3808, the so-called “Life Defense Act,” which requires the collection and reporting of detailed data about women having abortions and their providers.

Data is already collected about the number of abortions provided in the state. It is reasonable to make that data available in aggregate, as the state already does. Reporting more specific data by the county level is much more likely to allow identification and targeting of specific women and their families, as Tennessee has many rural counties in which crossing the categories of race, education, age, and other demographics can get you close or exactly to a specific woman if you have an interest in terrorizing her. Such identification is a violation of privacy, and likely to incite harassment of women and their families.

Although the proposed law includes some provisions that are superficially intended to protect privacy, it also makes clear that the consequences of disclosing such data is simply a misdemeanor, a relatively mild consequence when we’re talking about people whose plans may include harassment, stalking, and violence. The barrier between collection and disclosure is thin, and the consequences for any leaker of the data are small. Regardless of the final form of the actual data reporting, though, the law will serve the purpose of intimidating women seeking a legal medical procedure with implied threats of these consequences.

Publishing the names of all providers is also likely to result in violent consequences. Just in case you think that people who provide abortions are bad, made a choice, and deserve whatever consequences they suffer – these are not “shunned at the church supper” consequences. These are “shot in the face at home” consequences.

Anti-abortion extremists are well-known to have threatened, stalked, kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered providers and have committed crimes against their homes and family members. They make online hit lists of providers to make it easier for anti-abortion terrorists to target, harass, and murder doctors throughout the country.

These expected violent consequences will not just affect abortion providers themselves – they will affect spouses, children, and other loved ones. The children of known providers have been barricaded into their homes, stalked at school, and subjected to other harassment and threats, and this bill endangers them, their friends, and their families. While supporters of bills like this often claim to be protecting “babies,” HB 3808 could in reality incite a threat against the born children of both women choosing abortion and their providers.

It would also not just affect the much-demonized providers at Planned Parenthood. When a woman experiences a pregnancy complication, in some cases a non-clinic provider will perform a necessary abortion out of compassion for and duty to the patient. This might occur in a hospital or private medical practice. These are providers who have not elected to life a life of wearing bullet-proof vests and constantly worrying about threats of violence. They are physicians who provide a legal service to a single woman in a time of need. Making their names potentially public will cause some of these providers, their spouses, their children, their everyday non-abortion patients, and their coworkers to be subjected to the same threats of and actual violence.

This is of course the point of this provision in the bill – to intimidate doctors into not providing needed medical care, and it is unacceptable. When a physician is deciding how to best provide care for a woman with a pregnancy complication, his or her first thought should never be, “If I provide needed and legal medical care, that my patient and I both agree is the best course of action, will I be putting myself and my family in danger because of the Tennessee state legislature?”

There are other problems with this bill. Because threats of violence have so limited the number of providers in the first place, many areas of the country only have providers who travel in to perform this legal medical service. The admitting privileges provision is not for a medical purpose, as facilities and providers capable of handling unexpected complications exist throughout the state. This provision is specifically designed to prevent such providers from offering legal abortions to under-served areas.

I urge you to reject HB 3808. Let’s be clear – the intent of this bill and bills like it has never been to collect better data about abortion. It has always been to intimidate women and providers making personal, legal choices with implied threats of privacy violation and violence. The Tennessee state legislature should not be in the business of harassing its citizens and making them targets for anti-abortion terrorists. Vote no on HB 3808.

I’ll be sending this letter to the members of the Health and Human Resources Committee, who are expected to consider it tomorrow (including bill sponsor Matthew Hill), as well as my own House reps. Find your TN legislator here.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Ethics, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts

Here’s my note to the local Nashville, TN newspaper, The Tennessean, which decided not to run this week’s Doonesbury strips that focus on forced ultrasound for abortion. I’m sending a copy via email in addition to posting here.

I am writing to express my disappointment that you chose not to publish this week’s Doonesbury strips in the print edition of the paper. You explained that the Wednesday strip was not published due to “graphic wording,” but it is baffling as to what the supposedly offensively graphic word might have been. I can only assume it was “transvaginal,” but The Tennessean has previously permitted this word in at least three previous articles, including a recent one on papers electing not to carry the strip.

Tuesday’s installment, in which a woman is called a “slut,” was obviously not too provocative to carry in print, yet the proper name of a medical procedure being forced upon women seeking abortion apparently offended your sensibilities. It’s okay to call women seeking abortion disparaging names, but it’s not okay to mention their vaginas?

Doonesbury is meant to be provocative, political, and satirical, something you surely realize in carrying the strip. Many papers place it in the opinion section for this very reason. There is an argument to be made, I think, about not carrying Thursday’s strip in the comics sections, given the concluding line about rape. Many people believe that rape should never be a punchline. There is legitimate debate to be had about whether its use in this instance is inappropriately meant to be “funny” or is simply a reflection many women’s expressed perspective – that being forced to have an object inserted in one’s vagina for non-medical purposes to serve the agendas of anti-abortion politicians is indeed a form of rape or assault.

The Tennessean did not choose to run the strip and allow it to foster debate about this question or questions of abortion, politics, or the ethics of forced ultrasound. Instead, The Tennessean decided it was important to protect print readers from being exposed to medical terminology and a real rights issue facing women who choose to terminate pregnancies. When our local newspaper is deciding that its readers can’t handle the subject of a national debate, concerning itself more perhaps with advertisers sharing space with even slightly provocative content, and determining that “slut” is okay but “transvaginal” is not, it simply reinforces the perception that real Tennesseans are not being served by the newspaper sharing their name.

You can see the strips over at Slate, write your paper with thanks if they’re carrying it or complaints if they’re not. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which has been fighting the Texas forced ultrasound law, is asking people to sign a letter of thanks to papers that are carrying the strip, and to let them know about papers that aren’t.

I also have a post on the Doonesbury controversy over at the Our Bodies Ourselves blog.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Ethics, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts

A couple of weeks ago, I posted that I sent a letter to various Tennessee state Democratic and Republican leaders asking them to publicly denounce the comments made by state Rep. Richard Floyd, in which he threatened violence against transgender women.

I noted at that time who had received the message (sent Jan 22), and am repeating them now simply to illustrate who has not bothered to respond – which was all of them, Democrat and Republican alike. I would count a dismissive email from a staffer as a response, although I’d probably post that here. Here’s who still couldn’t be bothered:

• House Speaker Beth Harwell, Republican
• TN Republican Party Chair Chris Devaney
• TN Democratic Party Chair Chip Forrester
• House Democratic Leader Craig Fitzhugh
• House Republican Leader Gerald McCormick

The silence is deafening. There is something seriously wrong when not one of these folks can manage to state publicly that having our Reps threaten segments of our citizenry is egregious. It’s even worse when it’s the Democrats doing it.

It’s no wonder we keep losing ground on women’s rights in this state, when an explicit threat to harm transgender women doesn’t even merit a strongly worded “this is unacceptable” message, and Dems in charge can’t find a way to spin *explicitly threatening violence against constituents* into an example of dangerous Republican narrow-mindedness they can use for political gain.

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Government

Recently, TN state rep Richard Floyd declared he would “stomp” any transgender woman who happened to be around him and his family. This past week, he complained mightily about the reaction he’s getting, and declared,

I never said anything about violence. I said what I would do personally if my family was involved, and I meant every single word of it….Do I regret saying it? No, I don’t regret saying it. Would I do it? Yes I would.

No, you don’t get to threaten to “stomp” a segment of your constituency just for being around, then claim you “never said anything about violence.” You did, on the record, to a reporter. And then you immediately reiterated that you would in fact attempt violence and don’t regret saying so.

I’m also extremely bothered by the silence from other politicians on this matter. I sent a message to leadership folks in *both* parties encouraging them to denounce his statements, which read in part:

It should not be controversial in the least that politicians should expect rebuke when threatening physical violence against our citizens simply for existing. When an elected state Representative declares publicly his plans for violently attacking certain types of Tennessee residents because of his own discomfort with how they are, that should be an obvious target for disapproval, from either side of the aisle… all people deserve to be free of threats of violence from the people who are expected to represent them.

Here’s who hasn’t bothered to respond:

• House Speaker Beth Harwell, Republican
• TN Republican Party Chair Chris Devaney
• TN Democratic Party Chair Chip Forrester
• House Democratic Leader Craig Fitzhugh
• House Republican Leader Gerald McCormick

That would be everybody who received the message in the first place.

I see that someone has also put a petition online asking that Floyd resign.

Meanwhile, state senator and misogynist-in-chief Stacey Campfield (R) claimed that it’s “virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex” (among other misinformation he spread while speaking on the topic).

Let me be clear: this is absolutely, demonstrably false. In our own state, heterosexual transmission is thought to account for nearly a quarter of AIDS cases, and if you look at women living with HIV/AIDS specifically, it accounts for 65% of cases among white women and 74% of cases among black women. While men having sex with men have been disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, transmission via men and women having sex is a significant and growing category, one that puts women and especially non-white at risk when we ignore it. Or, as B notes, “Oh, I See. ‘You’ Doesn’t Include Women.”

Campfield has been called on it by local public health and AIDS education folks – people who know HIV/AIDS and know the stats.

In the face of being corrected by experts, Campfield responded: “I didn’t say I was a gay/AIDS historian. I didn’t say I know the facts backwards and forwards I just said what I’ve heard and the facts back me up.”

Well, actually the facts don’t back him up. That’s the whole problem.

Send ‘em a letter:
Campfield’s contact info
Floyd’s contact info

In other state issues, I’ve been mulling over how to prevent a bill barring telemedicine for abortion from taking effect early, and then how to overturn the already-passed law doing this. See my Blog for Choice Day post for background and why I think this law is a bad idea. Are any of you readers part of medical, nursing, reproductive health, telemedicine, informatics, or other health or technology organizations (either in Tennessee or nationally) that might sign on to a letter framing it as inappropriately stifling technological innovations in healthcare delivery and inappropriately interfering with clinical practice?

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Government, HIV/AIDS, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, News Round-Ups

Tennessee State Representative Richard Floyd has introduced a bill that would make it a crime for people to be in a sex-specific bathroom or dressing room (i.e., one designated for men or women) that doesn’t match the sex given on their birth certificate.

Tennessee does not allow transgender people to have their birth certificates changed, so if the bill were passed, there would actually be no legal bathrooms for transgender men and women to use in any state government building. (It’s unclear to me whether this might also apply to other public restrooms in non-governmental buildings)

Practical people have noted other problems with this bill. It would be impossible to enforce, because there is no chance we’re going to set up checks outside of restrooms. It could hypothetically criminalize parents who need to take a child into a restroom, other caregivers in similar situations, maintenance workers, and others.

But let’s be clear – mom taking her male-appearing son into a women’s restroom is not the target of this bill. Transgender men and women are, because of the small-minded bigotry of Floyd and others like him.

To make that point perfectly clear, Floyd said this, clearly illustrating his bullshit fears and hatred of transgender women:

I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.

You know, because transgender women are really all predators out to harm cis women, a belief Floyd emphasized by continuing, “Now if somebody thinks he’s a woman and he’s a man and wants to try on women’s clothes, let them him take them into the men’s bathroom or dressing room. Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk.”

This is not a secret email remark made by Floyd. It’s not a comment he thought was off-the-record, between friends. This is what he said on-the-record, for public consumption.

So, Chattanooga, who are you going to run against this asshole this year? And if this nonsense is not quickly withdrawn or defeated, who wants to go pee in the “wrong” bathrooms in the state capitol building with me?

[Note: it looks like the Senate version of the bill has already been withdrawn after public reaction began; it could potentially be reintroduced by someone else, and Floyd's House bill remains. Here's Floyd's contact information if you'd like to let him know what you think of him and his bill.]

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts

Over the last couple of weeks, many women’s health, feminist, and reproductive rights-oriented organizations have been running campaigns and articles urging people to contact the White House to preserve the no-cost coverage of birth control as part of the preventive services covered under the Affordable Care Act.

I understand why they’re worried.

The Roman Catholic Bishops met with the President, and one of them came away saying, “I left there feeling a bit more at peace about this issue than when I entered.” The big worry, and what people are supposedly hearing, is that Obama might back off on birth control coverage requirements, and that’s why the Bishops feel better now.

Obviously this would be a bad thing and would generally piss me off.

Now let’s take a few minutes for optimism:

The CDC released its 2008 abortion surveillance data. These reports are full of info on who has abortions at how many weeks of pregnancy and after how many previous live births, but I want to highlight this rather long Public Health Implications section of the Discussion. I’ve removed reference numbers, added some breaks for ease of reading, and bolded some key points (see the original):

According to the most recent national estimates, nearly one fifth of all pregnancies in the United States end in abortion. Multiple social, cultural, economic, and political factors are known to influence the incidence of abortion: the availability of abortion providers; the adoption of state regulations, such as mandatory waiting periods and parental involvement laws; increasing acceptance of nonmarital childbearing; shifts in the racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. population; and changes in the economy and the resulting impact on fertility preferences and access to health-care services, including contraception.

However, in spite of these multiple influences, efforts to reduce the incidence of abortion need to focus on preventing unintended pregnancy. Indeed, nearly all abortions are preceded by an unintended pregnancy, with most recent estimates suggesting that intended pregnancies account for <5% of all abortions, including those which presumably are performed for maternal medical indications and fetal abnormalities. Providing women with the knowledge and resources necessary to make decisions about their sexual behavior and use of contraception can help them avoid unintended pregnancies. However, efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy in the United States have been challenging. Findings from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), the primary national source of data on unintended pregnancy in the United States, suggest that unintended pregnancy decreased during 1982–1995 in conjunction with an increase in contraceptive use among women at risk for unintended pregnancy. However, data from the 2002 and 2006–2008 NSFGs suggest that no additional improvements have occurred: contraceptive use among women at risk for unintended pregnancy has decreased; only small gains have been made in the use of the most effective forms of reversible contraception, such as intrauterine devices and hormonal implants; and no additional progress has been made toward reducing unintended pregnancy.

As part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the U.S. Department Health and Human Services charged the Institute of Medicine with identifying which preventive services are important to women’s health and should be covered at no cost to patients. Following the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation, the full range of FDA-approved contraception methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for women with reproductive capacity will be covered without cost sharing in new health plans beginning in August 2012. The removal of cost as one barrier to correct and consistent contraceptive use might contribute to a reduction in the number of unintended pregnancies and consequently the number of abortions that are performed in the United States.

What if this is the message the Bishops got, and they feel better not because the birth control coverage is going away, but because they were sold on an argument that the provision would reduce a stalled out abortion rate?

I have huge, huge problems with my argument here. Most of the folks currently advocating to keep no-cost contraception coverage are about a million times more politically connected than I am. They’re more likely to have inside information, and also more able to mobilize on delivering voters in response to either a birth control win or loss. I’ve read some stuff on the internet and thought about it, and decided not to be completely cynical in this one case. To be even more explicit: I’m in a position of knowing less than people I’m disagreeing with.

Also, the CDC report is attributed to a bunch of MPHs, people who in my experience tend to be very practical about public health in a way that gets read as “liberal.” They have their own opinions, and may have expressed them in this surveillance report with absolutely no input from the Administration. The 2007 abortion surveillance data was the subject to political scrutiny even before it was released, so there must be an awareness that this simple government report has become politicized and more widely known, but that doesn’t suggest there was any high-level coordination on it’s content.

And sure, the Bishops are against birth control. They’re against abortion, too, but also against birth control. A “let’s increase use of birth control” argument is a hard one to win with them, even though most women, including Catholics, do use birth control at some point. They’ve specifically campaigned against the birth control coverage provision.

But.

I think it’s just *possible* that what made that Bishop come away feeling more at peace is a clear argument that increasing access to contraception has the effect of reducing abortions. I could see the case being made that, “Look, abortion is no longer declining. Contraception use is. These are women who would use birth control anyway, they don’t share your perspective, and this way we get them birth control instead of abortions.” And the Bishops were reasonable enough understand and agree to some mutually beneficial politically expedient course of action once the “we’re keeping birth control” announcement is made.

Whew.

Okay, my supplies of optimism and willingness to make a possibly absurd argument have been exhausted for about the next two weeks. Later.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Contraception, Government

Today marks Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is “set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.”

Transgender people face increased risks of violence and other adverse effects of discrimination. According to a recent report [PDF]:

• The report’s sample was nearly four times more likely to have a household income of less than $10,000/year compared to the general population.
• “Over one-quarter (26%) reported that they had lost a job due to being transgender or gender non-conforming and 50% were harassed.”
• “41%…reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6% of the general population, with rates rising for those who lost a job due to bias (55%), were harassed/bullied in school (51%), had low household income, or were the victim of physical assault (61%) or sexual assault (64%).”
• “One-fifth (19%) reported experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives because they were transgender or gender nonconforming; the majority of those trying to access a homeless shelter were harassed by shelter staff or residents (55%), 29% were turned away altogether, and 22% were sexually assaulted by residents or staff.”

This page provides some ideas for actions you can take to support the human rights and safety of transgender people. What the statistics above – and the action suggestions focusing on schools, police, prisons, housing, and healthcare – make clear is how anti-transgender hatred and discrimination affects every part of life for a transgender person. How inescapable the possibility of being crushed in everyday life might seem, and how such pervasive oppression deserves my and our attention.

The names of the people being remembered this year (since last Nov 20) are:
Luisa Alvarado Hernandez  (Comayaguela City, Honduras)
Lady Oscar Martinez Salgado (Tegucigalpa, Honduras)
Reana ‘Cheo’ Bustamente (Tegucigalpa, Honduras)
Génesis Briget Makaligton (Comayagüela City, Honduras)
Krissy Bates (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Fergie Alice Ferg (San Pedro Sula, Honduras)
Tyra Trent (Baltimore, Maryland)
Priscila Brandão (Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
Marcal Camero Tye (Forrest City, Arkansas)
Shakira Harahap (Taman Lawang, Jakarta, Indonesia)
Miss Nate Nate (or Née) Eugene Davis (Houston, Texas)
Lashai Mclean  (Washington, D.C.)
Didem  (Findikzade, Istanbul)
Camila Guzman (New York, New York)
Gaby (Jalisco, Mexico)
unidentified male dressed in women’s clothes (Paris, France)
Gaurav Gopalan (Washington, D.C.)
Name Unknown (Gaziantep, Turkey)
Shelley Hilliard (Detroit, Michigan)
Jessica Rollon (Bergamo, Italy)
Astrid Carolina López Cruz (Madrid, Spain)
Cassidy Nathan Vickers (Hollywood, California)

See also: Natalie’s post at skepchick.

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Events & Observances

Some things that caught my attention this week, with bonus “this week in misogyny” content.

I don’t know how many people noticed, and I assume it won’t go anywhere, but Michele Bachmann introduced a forced ultrasound for abortion bill in the House. It’s been sent to the Subcommittee on Health.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has launched a new website, Bedsider, about birth control and says it’s intended for women ages 18-29 years. I haven’t looked through it thoroughly, but it includes comparisons of different methods of preventing pregnancy by factors like cost, immediacy, STI prevention, ease of getting and using the method, ease of hiding it from a partner, and degree of mistake-proofed-ness. It is focused through a pregnancy prevention lens, so the site is focused on penis-in-vagina sex, not other forms of sex or prevention. I haven’t reviewed the site thoroughly, but let me know what you think. Some of the language seems a little, uh, teen magazine-y for my tastes and for a target audience that is actually made up of adults, but perhaps it’s my advanced age talking there (early 30s).

Over at OBOS, between C and I we’ve covered Mississippi, personhood, and reproductive justice, and new research on in vitro fertilization and ovarian cancer risks.

The CDC released the final data on 2009 births [PDF] in the United States. It’s full of data on the number of births, birth rates by things about women, like their age and marital status, and rates of cesarean (another all-time high), low birth weight, preterm, and out of hospital births. [hat tip to Jill]

Jaclyn Friedman, who I met briefly at the Our Bodies Ourselves 40th, has a new book out, What You Really, Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety. I haven’t read it yet, but there’s a Twitter chat happening at 9pm Eastern tonight using the hashtag #shamefreesex.

B points out the ridiculousness of news coverage taking the “vodka-soaked tampon” story seriously. Notably, liquid-soaked tampons expand and are not exactly convenient for insertion. Aside from which, alcohol+mucous membranes would probably hurt. And the likelihood of it being widespread for teenage boys to be inserting said vodka-soaked tampons rectally is just absurdly small. And then there was the follow-up to B’s post, which takes a quick downward spiral in the comments to “if we take your picture without permission but link to you, you should be glad of the traffic”-land.

The FDA released a new statement on Makena, a drug intended to help prevent preterm birth. It has been the subject of controversy because versions of the same ingredient in Makena has been available for pretty cheap through compound pharmacies for a long time. FDA’s approval of Makena with it’s extremely high price, have generated strong reactions and concerns about access. The FDA’s new statement basically says, “The company that makes Makena says those vastly cheaper compound pharmacy products vary in their strength and purity, so we’re going to look into it.”

The agency also approved the first therapy derived from cord blood cells.

Jill at Feministe had a note left in her suitcase by the TSA when she checked what she’s referring to as a “personal item.” A note that read, “get your freak on girl.” Jill follows up that the TSA agent who left that note has been suspended, and Jill responds to the lack of response to the real problem here: “…I get no satisfaction in hearing that someone may be in danger of losing their job over this. I would much prefer a look at why ‘security’ has been used to justify so many intrusions on our civil liberties, rather than fire a person who made a mistake.”

This week, the CDC is running a campaign focused on the smart and appropriate use of antibiotics. Go to the website to learn more about why you don’t always need antibiotics and why it’s bad for all of us to use too many.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is coming up on November 20th.

The Abortioneers ask when to speak up, when to keep your mouth shut, and how to know the difference.

The fact that women prisoners often get shackled during labor is discussed at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, in an interview with a fiction writer who covered this practice in a book.

Sometime this week, I stumbled across #occupyhealthcare and the accompanying website. The contributors seem to be mostly healthcare providers and adjacents, focused on increasing access to healthcare.

The government has issued a “Leading Health Indicators App Challenge,” soliciting developers to create apps that promote the use of key measures of health (“indicators”) to improve the health of communities.

The Census released new data with the headline, “Half of First-Time Mothers Receive Paid Leave, Census Bureau Reports.” Before you get too excited, “paid” leave included not just official paid maternity leave, but using up your own existing balance of paid sick and/or vacation leave, if you’re fortunate enough to have that. They also noted that women who got some type of paid leave were *more* likely to return to work within 3-5 months, making me wonder if they are often returning to work when they exhaust their reserves of paid sick or other time. Then there’s this limitation: “Given that FMLA and other leave policies in the United States do not allow for leave for more than 12 weeks, it is not entirely surprising that new mothers return to work relatively soon.”

ePatientDave writes about how impossible to understand an “explanation of benefits” document can be and how we’re prevented from stopping errors and reducing costs because of this lack of transparency.

This week in misogyny:
Rick Perry’s “departments I would close” gaffe has received most of the news coverage, but in the same GOP candidate debate, Herman Cain referred to Representative/former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “Princess Nancy.” He or his team reiterated this remark on Twitter, before offering the fauxpology that he “probably shouldn’t have” made the remark, but “was trying to make a point.” A point that required a gendered diminishing and dismissal of a powerful woman politician, apparently. I guess he thought he had built up too much goodwill with women over the course of his sexual harassment scandal.

Using the #mencallmethings hashtag (which Sady Doyle apparently started), feminist women bloggers took to Twitter to talk about some of the vile things that have been said to them in the course of their writing, including rape and death threats. I contributed a rape threat I received through the comments here because I had the temerity to dislike a rape joke on tv. Just another humorless feminist who deserved threats of violence because of it, right? @metalmujer and others pointed out that the hashtag itself would be better focused on misogyny rather than “men.” Yes, most of the excessively hateful and threatening remarks I’ve been subjected to have been made by men, but the problem is not something about all men, it’s the misogyny these particular men have carried out and a culture that encourages them to do so.

I also keep seeing this image on Facebook intended at a critique of dubstep and its fans. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other about the actual quality of dubstep or its fans over time, but I do know that when the main critique is presented as “it was good when it was a bunch of men standing around, now it sucks and is by/for little girls,” that’s misogyny.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Contraception, Drugs, Events & Observances, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Sex & Sex Education, Web Resources

First up, links on the Memphis/family planning situation I wrote about last week. As a brief reminder, Title X family planning funds have been assigned to a Christian religious organization that has expressed an intent to deny services, information, and referrals to women based on the organization’s religious beliefs.

LeftWingCracker points out that three Democrats voted for this nonsense. Also: CCHC is going to need more than prayers; CCHC is talking out of both sides of their mouth.

Aunt B, in Early November is in Two Weeks, looks at Christ Community *complaining* because patients are being sent to them and they don’t have the capacity to deal with them yet.

At the DowntownMemphisBlog, Planned Parenthood Responds to the CCHS Debacle – includes suggestions for action.

Wendi Thomas at the Commercial Appeal: “Poor patients seeking family planning care have lost access to free services at the familiar agency that had been federally funded to provide them for more than 35 years, and the new, evangelical one isn’t yet able to help.”

On to the rest…

Look, I think we all said profoundly obnoxious, ill-informed things as young people. Some of us continue to say profoundly obnoxious, ill-informed things well into adulthood. If you’re a nursing student, though, you probably ought to think twice about expressing extreme animosity towards women and their healthcare needs in a public forum. Ema at the Well-Timed Period covers the case of Ben Cochrane, ECU nursing student who wrote that women getting birth control through the campus student health clinic should “Go read your Redbook in the lobby of a specialist as you wait to get your lady-bits inspected. Leave Student Health for those of us that are in actual need of medical attention.” See Ema’s two posts.

Birthing Beautiful Ideas makes a list of What Pregnant Women Want, and Deserve.” I’d add a lot more race, justice, and privilege-related things to it.

On that note, Miriam Zoila Pérez writes about work to stop women prisoners from being shackled during labor.

HealthNewsReviews critiques recent coverage of a mammography/false positives study.

A baby health thing: the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that parents should not use any type of crib bumper pad: “Bumper pads should not be used in cribs. There is no evidence that bumper pads prevent injuries, and there is a potential risk of suffocation, strangulation or entrapment”

Wal-Mart is reverting back to providing no and shitty health insurance coverage for its workers. Hey, if people can’t find other jobs, might as well screw ‘em, right Wal-Mart?

Gender Focus lays out some reasons Why Abortion Care Needs to be Fully Funded.

From Latoya Peterson at Racialicious: The Tits Have It: Sexism, Character Design, and the Role of Women in Created Worlds – “And there it was, the truth about character design that so many players know but most designers wouldn’t usually articulate: most of the egregiously sexist character designs are based on fuckability, rather than playability.”

Renee at Womanist Musings points to a calendar in which men are posed in ways that women are stereotypically posed as objects for viewing. It’s easy to see how awkward, unnatural and ridiculous these poses are when you see men performing them. She also has a great post on a controversial, bullshit poster from one of the SlutWalk events.

It’s about time: “The subcommittee recommends a broader definition, to include anal and oral rape, as well as rapes involving male victims.” – FBI may expand its definition of rape.

On the abysmal state of LGBT curricula in medical schools: “The median reported total time dedicated to LGBT topics in all four years of medical school was five hours. 76 percent of programs self-rated their curriculum as “fair” or worse.”

This week’s edition title: After going to Boston for Our Bodies Ourselves’s 40th anniversary shindig, I caught a cold/respiratory infection that has left me feeling awful for the past two weeks. I actually took sick time from work, which I’m lucky to have but almost never use. I skipped my drawing class, wouldn’t drink coffee, and sat around complaining about how I couldn’t hear out of my right ear. Things are mostly back to normal now.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Body Image & Eating Disorders, Contraception, Government, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy

SlutWalks are marches protesting the blaming of victims of sexual assault, often with tired refrains about whether women were “asking for it,” such as by what they wore or looking like a “slut.”

While the anti-victim-blaming message is a good one, the walks not uncontroversial or unproblematic – I found this Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk particularly compelling. In it, anti-violence advocates make clear that naming oneself “slut” is an action of privilege, one that is not safe for many or most women of color and which flies in the face of a long legacy of work against attitudes, languages and actions that sexually objective and violate women of color.

From the letter:

As Black women and girls we find no space in SlutWalk, no space for participation and to unequivocally denounce rape and sexual assault as we have experienced it. We are perplexed by the use of the term “slut” and by any implication that this word, much like the word “Ho” or the “N” word should be re-appropriated. The way in which we are perceived and what happens to us before, during and after sexual assault crosses the boundaries of our mode of dress. Much of this is tied to our particular history. In the United States, where slavery constructed Black female sexualities, Jim Crow kidnappings, rape and lynchings, gender misrepresentations, and more recently, where the Black female immigrant struggle combine, “slut” has different associations for Black women. We do not recognize ourselves nor do we see our lived experiences reflected within SlutWalk and especially not in its brand and its label.

As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves “slut” without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is. We don’t have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations. Although we understand the valid impetus behind the use of the word “slut” as language to frame and brand an anti-rape movement, we are gravely concerned. For us the trivialization of rape and the absence of justice are viciously intertwined with narratives of sexual surveillance, legal access and availability to our personhood. It is tied to institutionalized ideology about our bodies as sexualized objects of property, as spectacles of sexuality and deviant sexual desire. It is tied to notions about our clothed or unclothed bodies as unable to be raped whether on the auction block, in the fields or on living room television screens. The perception and wholesale acceptance of speculations about what the Black woman wants, what she needs and what she deserves has truly, long crossed the boundaries of her mode of dress.

I would encourage you to read and think about the entire letter.

A Nashville, TN SlutWalk happened last weekend. I didn’t attend, and didn’t have to make a decision about whether to attend, by way of being out of town for the Our Bodies Ourselves 40th anniversary symposium. One website has some compelling photos from the event. In checking out the photos post-event, I was particularly taken by an image of a walker with a sign reading, “I was 4 years old and wearing overalls and tennis shoes. Clothes are irrelevant. Rapists cause rape.” Another woman held a sign reading, “This is what I was wearing when I was assaulted. Was I asking for “it” too?” Yes, there are a lot of apparently white women in full set of photos. The problematic aspects aren’t erased, but I wanted to point to a couple of images I found powerful from the event. Imagine how much more powerful they could be if all women felt included in visible actions against sexual assault.

Also in Nashville, there is coverage at the local alt weekly’s blog of some of the vile comments left on stories about the event. Comments that blame victims for “tempting” violence, that encourage women to change their dress so “he might choose a different target.” Ugh. As a reminder, let me point everyone to these excellent tips on how to prevent rape and sexual assault (origin unknown to me). For example:

If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.

The usual tips to dress a certain way, be in certain places, etc. aren’t intended to stop rape – they’re intended to make women feel that there is something they can do to encourage rapists to pick a different victim, and that they’ve done something wrong if a rapist picks them.

Please be aware that comments here are moderated and anyone suggesting that women “ask for it” or that anyone except rapists is responsible for rape will be deleted/unpublished.

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Events & Observances

SlutWalks are marches protesting the blaming of victims of sexual assault, often with tired refrains about whether women were “asking for it,” such as by what they wore or looking like a “slut.”

While the anti-victim-blaming message is a good one, the walks not uncontroversial or unproblematic – I found this Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk particularly compelling. In it, anti-violence advocates make clear that naming oneself “slut” is an action of privilege, one that is not safe for many or most women of color and which flies in the face of a long legacy of work against attitudes, languages and actions that sexually objective and violate women of color.

From the letter:

As Black women and girls we find no space in SlutWalk, no space for participation and to unequivocally denounce rape and sexual assault as we have experienced it. We are perplexed by the use of the term “slut” and by any implication that this word, much like the word “Ho” or the “N” word should be re-appropriated. The way in which we are perceived and what happens to us before, during and after sexual assault crosses the boundaries of our mode of dress. Much of this is tied to our particular history. In the United States, where slavery constructed Black female sexualities, Jim Crow kidnappings, rape and lynchings, gender misrepresentations, and more recently, where the Black female immigrant struggle combine, “slut” has different associations for Black women. We do not recognize ourselves nor do we see our lived experiences reflected within SlutWalk and especially not in its brand and its label.

As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves “slut” without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is. We don’t have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations. Although we understand the valid impetus behind the use of the word “slut” as language to frame and brand an anti-rape movement, we are gravely concerned. For us the trivialization of rape and the absence of justice are viciously intertwined with narratives of sexual surveillance, legal access and availability to our personhood. It is tied to institutionalized ideology about our bodies as sexualized objects of property, as spectacles of sexuality and deviant sexual desire. It is tied to notions about our clothed or unclothed bodies as unable to be raped whether on the auction block, in the fields or on living room television screens. The perception and wholesale acceptance of speculations about what the Black woman wants, what she needs and what she deserves has truly, long crossed the boundaries of her mode of dress.

I would encourage you to read and think about the entire letter.

A Nashville, TN SlutWalk happened last weekend. I didn’t attend, and didn’t have to make a decision about whether to attend, by way of being out of town for the Our Bodies Ourselves 40th anniversary symposium. One website has some compelling photos from the event. In checking out the photos post-event, I was particularly taken by an image of a walker with a sign reading, “I was 4 years old and wearing overalls and tennis shoes. Clothes are irrelevant. Rapists cause rape.” Another woman held a sign reading, “This is what I was wearing when I was assaulted. Was I asking for “it” too?” Yes, there are a lot of apparently white women in full set of photos. The problematic aspects aren’t erased, but I wanted to point to a couple of images I found powerful from the event. Imagine how much more powerful they could be if all women felt included in visible actions against sexual assault.

Also in Nashville, there is coverage at the local alt weekly’s blog of some of the vile comments left on stories about the event. Comments that blame victims for “tempting” violence, that encourage women to change their dress so “he might choose a different target.” Ugh. As a reminder, let me point everyone to these excellent tips on how to prevent rape and sexual assault (origin unknown to me). For example:

If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.

The usual tips to dress a certain way, be in certain places, etc. aren’t intended to stop rape – they’re intended to make women feel that there is something they can do to encourage rapists to pick a different victim, and that they’ve done something wrong if a rapist picks them.

Please be aware that comments here are moderated and anyone suggesting that women “ask for it” or that anyone except rapists is responsible for rape will be deleted/unpublished.

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Events & Observances

I know I’ve been posting infrequently when I get an email from a reader saying they thought I might be on vacation. I’m not. That message was about updates in the Juana Villegas case, which I’ll post about separately later this week. In the meantime, here are some things that have caught my attention recently:

New York City is going to make sure middle and high school students get at least a little sex ed as part of their health education classes. Good.

Maternal mortality for Black women got a bit of attention at BET.

The New York Times explores the issue of pregnancy reduction when there are twins/two fetuses. “Selective reduction” is pretty well accepted (but not uncontroversial) when there are many fetuses, but it apparently seems more complicated to some folks when there are fewer/two.

More race-focused anti-abortion billboard crap (via Trust Black Women). The billboards offer a link to a site that Jesse Jackson has betrayed Black people by supporting abortion rights and implying that something is necessarily wrong *about abortion* when Black women have a higher percentage of the abortions in a state than their percentage of the population (i.e., if Black women are 15% of the state’s population but have 30% of the abortions). Of course, nothing on the site explores the systemic reasons Black women might choose *for themselves* to have abortions.

From Wisconsin’s Journal Sentinel: “Wisconsin’s attempt to ban hormone therapy for transgender prison inmates is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.” It was apparently the only state with such a ban on this specific medical treatment for prisoners.

NPR covered birth control and religion in Pakistan.

In Murfreesboro, TN (where I used to live), two women were arrested and charged with reckless endangerment after their babies were born with opiates in their system and needed special care for opiate withdrawal. I feel pretty strongly that – while drug use in pregnancy can have negative affects on both woman and child – criminalization of pregnant women with drug use/addiction problems may cause these women to actually avoid medical care, making the situation worse for everyone involved. I think treatment is a much better option. National Advocates for Pregnant Women is a great resource on this issue – see their website for further exploration of the topic.

This item at Microaggressions reminds those of us who ever have input into website creation to think about what we’re doing when we force people to select a gender to participate, and only give them the binary choices.

At Queer Musings, “How to Be a Friend to Trans Folks Without Putting Your Foot in Your Mouth: A Short Guide for Cis People” (via Womanist Musings).

Renee at Womanist Musings also has an important post, “A Forced Eugenics Survivor Speaks Her Truth.”

I recently watched the documentary, “12th & Delaware” – the title is a reference to the Florida corner where a “crisis pregnancy center” sits across from an abortion clinic, the focus of the film. Anybody else seen it?

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent Health, Birth, Contraception, News Round-Ups, Sex & Sex Education

I haven’t done one of these in a while, having been distracted by the heat, the carless situation, dad’s cancer, mom’s hip replacement re-replacement, work, leveling my first character in Warcraft (now a level 71 undead frost mage – I don’t want to duel you!), and life in general. Tonight, though, I’m at my parents’ house (sitting with mom after said re-replacement), in a town with <30 thousand people that gets really, truly dark at night, World of Warcraft won't run on this computer, and I think I've reached the end of the internet. Might as well do something.

The FDA has issued a warning not to use emergency contraception labeled as Evital. The agency says,

These products may be counterfeit versions of the “morning after pill” and may not be safe or effective in preventing pregnancy. Evital has not been approved by the FDA for use in the United States. This potentially ineffective and suspect counterfeit emergency birth control may also be in distribution in some Hispanic communities in the United States.

The FDA announcement linked above has an image of the packaging for the drug in question and further details.

The FDA is also proposing guidelines for mobile medical apps (like you use on a smart phone). I haven’t fully parsed the implications of the proposal yet, but public comment is being accepted through October 19.

CNN has a piece on breast ironing in Cameroon. This is not a custom I know much about, and I’m always hesitant to jump in where I know so little, but I feel comfortable saying that this must be a painful procedure that doesn’t achieve the apparently desired goal of preventing sex ad pregnancy.

The New York Times talks about Title IX, the law requiring that women and girls have equal access to participation in school sports, focusing on a lack of investigation and enforcement when schools are thought to not be following the law.

Washington became the first state to specifically provide for offspring from donated eggs and sperm to access the donors’ medical history and names once the offspring turn 18. This is an issue I’ve written a tiny bit about at Our Bodies Our Blog.

Shockingly, Bill O’Reilly is kind of an uninformed jerk about unintentional pregnancy and birth control. The professional blowhard stated that “Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex and are not going to use birth control anyway.” Right. Half of all pregnancies in this country are unplanned, and it’s obviously just because women are too drunk and high to use contraception. A lot of attention has been paid to this comment, but O’Reilly also stated in the same segment that HHS should pay for “everybody’s birth control, all the women in the world, or here in the United States, or maybe both.” Yeah, we’re going to pay for birth control for *all the women in the world* – even those women in the many countries with lower rates of teen and unplanned pregnancy. Sure, that seems likely and logical and fact-based, doesn’t it? *headdesk* Media Matters has more, including response from the National Women’s Law Center.

C-section rates apparently hit an all-time U.S. high of 34%. I feel like “new high” is the news we get every year now on c-sections.

Al Jazeera English has a short piece on the ethics of clinical pharmaceutical research in India, where research participants may not clinically benefit from drugs being tested and may be vulnerable to exploitation.

Max Barry has a nice piece about gender through the lens of how we gender animals and the gender of Smurfs.

Kari Paul at the Ms. Blog explores the topic of sexual assault on campuses and the lack of arrests or serious addressing of this problem.

Connecticut added gender identity and expression to the state’s anti-discrimination laws. Good job, Connecticut!

Anita Sarkeesian talks about the “mystical pregnancy trope,” especially in sci fi/fantasy, in which women are used for their reproductive capacity and often forcibly impregnated. I hadn’t really noticed it as much as I should, maybe you haven’t either – check out the video (via Sociological Images).

Hey, it’s World Breastfeeding Week.

Honestly, I can watch True Blood as a bit of fluff and as somebody who likes to see on-screen adaptations of books. There are a lot of problems with it. Watching tonight’s episode, I really wondered how many gratuitous rape scenes one show can possibly have, especially after Alan Ball’s comment on the serial rape of Jason that he’s basically getting what he deserved for his sexual history. Feminist Frequency also has some TB commentary and links to more.

Relatedly but not surprisingly, the blogger at The Frisky wrote critically today about how True Blood handles rape, and the very first comment is of the “relax/don’t watch then” variety. Don’t worry your pretty little head! *predictable-but-disappointing-argh*

I’m proud of our Nashville students who came out to protest stupid, offensive, and mean “don’t say gay” legislation in Tennessee.

Apparently one place in Minnesota has similar “don’t say gay” rules in its schools; CNN covered the issue and the National Center for Lesbian Rights has a letter you can sign onto to express your support for students in the affected school district who are trying to change the policy.

The CDC is talking about antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea.

Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail into a Planned Parenthood of North Texas clinic. The clinic provides health care, including birth control and screenings, but doesn’t even provide abortions. Alex Pareene at Salon’s War Room points out that nobody seems to care about this form of domestic terrorism.

Last but not least, everybody wish Hilary luck on her last board exam and subsequent residency application process.

1) It’s the attack kitty edition because, in noting on Facebook that I am away from home, I told the Internet not to get any ideas – the house is guarded by the spouse, attack kitties, and weirdly commandable suits of armor.
2) Yes, I suspect there are some conversations we could have about gender and Warcraft. If you want to talk about that, we can do so in the comments.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Breastfeeding, Contraception, Drugs, Ethics, Events & Observances, Global Issues, Government, Infectious Diseases, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Products, Technology, & Devices

The Institute of Medicine released its recommendations of which women’s health services should join the list of copay-free preventive services under the Affordable Care Act health care reform legislation. Birth control was included, along with services related to STIs, breastfeeding, and domestic violence. Over at OBOS, I have more information and links to some good commentaries and coverage of the news.

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Breastfeeding, Contraception, Government, HIV/AIDS, HPV

The local newspaper is covering genetic tests for breast cancer, privacy, gene tests patents, cost, and the fears some people have about getting tested.

Iris Carmen at Jezebel has a piece, “The Fight For Abortion Access For Military Women,” that is really about barriers in the military that prevent women from reporting sexual assault, the institutional difficulties faced by women servicemembers who become pregnant, and their lack of access to abortion coverage and providers.

Via the CDC’s National Prevention Intervention Network (@cdcnpin)

Follow @CDCNPIN@CDCNPIN
CDC NPIN

#30years ago today, @CDCMMWR reported on 1st cases of what became known as #AIDS. http://ow.ly/59vq3

June 5, 2011 8:31 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

The link in the tweet goes to the actual June 5, 1981 MMWR reporting 5 cases of Pneumocystis Pneumonia in Los Angeles. It’s sort of a punch in the gut to read the opening passage of the editorial note – where the MMWR tries to explain what might be going on – knowing what was coming, what these 5 cases were the canary for. Warning for reference to a “homosexual lifestyle.”

Editorial Note: Pneumocystis pneumonia in the United States is almost exclusively limited to severely immunosuppressed patients. The occurrence of pneumocystosis in these 5 previously healthy individuals without a clinically apparent underlying immunodeficiency is unusual. The fact that these patients were all homosexuals suggests an association between some aspect of a homosexual lifestyle or disease acquired through sexual contact and Pneumocystis pneumonia in this population.

Via a librarian attending the Biomedical Informatics course at Woods Hole (#bmispring2011), I learned about the Office of Research Integrity’s page of summaries of closed research misconduct investigations. The cases seem to consist primarily of researchers making up or faking data or figures.

Thought Catalog (with which I’m unfamiliar) has “Tale of an Abortion,” one woman’s story of her choice to have an abortion.

Some Indiana politicians voted to defund Planned Parenthood, which received federal Medicaid/Title X funding for non-abortion health care, like cancer screenings and contraception. In response, HHS sent the state a letter explaining that they could not “exclude qualified health care providers from providing services that are funded under the program because of a provider’s scope of practice.” In other words, you can’t keep somebody from providing Medicaid-funded care just because they also provide non-Medicaid-funded abortions. Apparently it’s going to court.

The Feminist Majority Foundation reports in their feminist daily news that Yale Faces Possible Fines for Failure to Report Sex Crimes.

People.com associate editor Janet Mock writes for Marie Claire about her life as a transgender woman. She also was interviewed for NPR’s Tell Me More; a couple of the commenters note the inappropriate headline given the piece, which used “transgender” as a noun.

Notes from Libraryland:
The Wall Street Journal has a commentary that shouts “you kids get offa my lawn” at current YA fiction, which is apparently too dystopian, depressing, dark, and dangerous for young folks. There’s been a pretty awesome outpouring in defense of (YA) books on Twitter, using the #yasaves hashtag, with many reporting how alone, uninformed, afraid, sheltered, isolated, etc. they would have been if not for YA fiction, which can particularly be a lifeline for people who find that they are different in some way.

Also? It’s pretty hilarious that alongside an article decrying dystopia, darkness, and destruction in current YA fiction, and looks approvingly at efforts to keep those bad, bad YA books out of the hands of kids, a recommended, apparently-officially-okay title is Fahrenheit 451. Excuse me while I step away for a giggle break.

Here’s a 1971 letter from Isaac Asimov to future patrons of a new library. The Troy, MI library in question is in danger of closing if local folks don’t vote this August to fund it.

Apparently there will soon be swag for the National Library of Medicine’s 175th anniversary. This appeals to a special type of library geek.

Via searching on the #yasaves topic, I found this list of YA book recommendations, and have added several of these to my to-read list. Worth checking out.

The title: It has been 95 degrees here for the last week. I’m still walking 2.5 miles outside every day and have a broken a/c at home. If this is May, I might have to move to Antarctica in August.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent Health, Cancer, Funny, Government, HIV/AIDS, Libraryland, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy

This post is late because I was busy taking the bus to get here.*

I wrote several times in 2008 about the case of Juana Villegas, an immigrant in Nashville who was arrested as the result of a traffic stop and ultimately ended up shackled to a hospital bed during labor, separated from her newborn for two days without seeing him, and denied a breast pump or cream for lactating women. This past week, a federal judge ruled in her favor that the shackling during labor and after delivery violated her civil rights. I have a full post up at Our Bodies Our Blog on this topic.

I also have a full post up at the OBOS blog on the Skin Deep database, which provides info on the safety and ingredients of skin care and cosmetic products.

I spent the last few days at the IHA Health Literacy conference. I intend to post on this separately later, including a list of a lot of good resources I learned about, but Siobhan has a few things up at her place. One thing I need to think about is the level at which this blog is written, and whether it is useful and helpful to make some adjustments so posts are more readable for a wider audience, and whether there would be interest in that.

The National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, which I think I also found out about from Siobhan, has information and guidance for providers, patients, and organizations on a number of topics, including ageism, HIV and aging, housing, legal support, Medicare, homelessness, and more.

Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check (which has a new look) asks, “What does it mean to be pro-choice?“

NPR, on Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation, aired several pieces on the local Magdalene/Thistle Farms, a residential program in Nashville, TN for women who have experienced violence, sex work, and addiction, and a bath and body products enterprise through which the women work and earn money. You can buy from them online at http://store.thistlefarms.org/.

A question at Good: Why isn’t birth control getting better?

Relatedly, I talked briefly with a representative of the California Family Health Council at the health literacy conference, and was told that they are trying to promote some longer term methods of birth control. This is among their other work, which includes the development of patient education materials on contraception, violence, cancer prevention, pregnancy, STIs, and other sexual and reproductive health topics. I always kind of get the willies when people talk about “promoting” long term contraception, because of the problematic history of how it has been used to assert control over the reproduction of women of color and poor women – regardless of what may be good methods, ethics and intent from whoever is talking about it. I’ll have to contact them and find out what the motivation for this is and how they are approaching it, because I didn’t have time to follow up at the event. In the meantime, anybody familiar with this group?

In the comments at Aunt B’s place, the topic of “gender parties” comes up. I have an appeal to saucy bakers to incorporate the message, “Now you know the sex, not the gender” into the design of these ill-conceived “gender party” cakes.

Here in Tennessee, Stacey Campfield has been pushing his “don’t say ‘gay’” bill, which – despite an intro that talks generally about home being the appropriate place for discussions of sexuality – provides specifically that “no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation *other than heterosexuality*” – which is not at all the same as “teachers shouldn’t be discussing sexuality in schools at all.

I picked up a weekly paper in Orange County this week and noticed that Dan Savage mentioned the bill in his 5/4 column, pointing readers to wesaygay.com, a site ostensibly set up by a couple of teenagers opposing the bill and gathering petition signatures in opposition – it’s nice to see students being active in this way.

The bill passed the House committee and is scheduled for a full Senate vote on May 9, although it has been reported that the state Senate will not take it up this year.

The wonderful Rev. Chris Buice of Knoxville argues in a commentary on the bill that prohibiting teachers from discussing homosexuality in school hinders them in acting against bullying and prevents them from having many educational discussions related to current events and legislation.

Apparently this coming week is National Women’s Health Week.

From the FDA:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced a joint effort to remove products from the market that make unproven claims to treat, cure, and prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Among the products targeted in today’s action are Medavir, Herpaflor, Viruxo, C-Cure, and Never An Outbreak.

The Harper Collins controversy has escaped the boundaries of libraryland. tigtog at Hoyden notes it, and Andy’s change.org petition got sent out on a huge scale. Short version of the controversy – Harper Collins wants to make libraries buy new copies of ebooks after they’ve been read 26 times. You know, because libraries are rolling in money and typically discard books after 26 reads. *eyeroll* There’s a ton of writing on this in the library blogosphere, just google it with some combination of Harper Collins, libraries, 26, ebooks.

The Abortioneers are talking about the stigma of multiple abortion, and there is some really good discussion in the comments, including from those gently pushing back against the OP for certain attitudes expressed in the post.

The Utah AIDS Drug Assistance Program is closing to new applicants due to a funding shortfall; supporters of the program are encouraged to contact their state and federal legislators.

This week’s title: I was in a car accident a couple of weeks ago, car three in a five-car wreck. I’m fine, although I was a little rattled and had a seatbelt bruise for about a week. The car, which is older and was in a previous accident, is totaled. The spouse and I are planning to go without a car, at least for the next few months. Tips and strategies for doing so are welcome. Depending on my mood, the situation gets framed as “car free” or “carless.”

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent Health, Birth, Contraception, Drugs, Ethics, Government, HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Libraryland, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Sex & Sex Education, Women’s Health

This post is late because I was busy taking the bus to get here.*

I wrote several times in 2008 about the case of Juana Villegas, an immigrant in Nashville who was arrested as the result of a traffic stop and ultimately ended up shackled to a hospital bed during labor, separated from her newborn for two days without seeing him, and denied a breast pump or cream for lactating women. This past week, a federal judge ruled in her favor that the shackling during labor and after delivery violated her civil rights. I have a full post up at Our Bodies Our Blog on this topic.

I also have a full post up at the OBOS blog on the Skin Deep database, which provides info on the safety and ingredients of skin care and cosmetic products.

I spent the last few days at the IHA Health Literacy conference. I intend to post on this separately later, including a list of a lot of good resources I learned about, but Siobhan has a few things up at her place. One thing I need to think about is the level at which this blog is written, and whether it is useful and helpful to make some adjustments so posts are more readable for a wider audience, and whether there would be interest in that.

The National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, which I think I also found out about from Siobhan, has information and guidance for providers, patients, and organizations on a number of topics, including ageism, HIV and aging, housing, legal support, Medicare, homelessness, and more.

Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check (which has a new look) asks, “What does it mean to be pro-choice?“

NPR, on Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation, aired several pieces on the local Magdalene/Thistle Farms, a residential program in Nashville, TN for women who have experienced violence, sex work, and addiction, and a bath and body products enterprise through which the women work and earn money. You can buy from them online at http://store.thistlefarms.org/.

A question at Good: Why isn’t birth control getting better?

Relatedly, I talked briefly with a representative of the California Family Health Council at the health literacy conference, and was told that they are trying to promote some longer term methods of birth control. This is among their other work, which includes the development of patient education materials on contraception, violence, cancer prevention, pregnancy, STIs, and other sexual and reproductive health topics. I always kind of get the willies when people talk about “promoting” long term contraception, because of the problematic history of how it has been used to assert control over the reproduction of women of color and poor women – regardless of what may be good methods, ethics and intent from whoever is talking about it. I’ll have to contact them and find out what the motivation for this is and how they are approaching it, because I didn’t have time to follow up at the event. In the meantime, anybody familiar with this group?

In the comments at Aunt B’s place, the topic of “gender parties” comes up. I have an appeal to saucy bakers to incorporate the message, “Now you know the sex, not the gender” into the design of these ill-conceived “gender party” cakes.

Here in Tennessee, Stacey Campfield has been pushing his “don’t say ‘gay’” bill, which – despite an intro that talks generally about home being the appropriate place for discussions of sexuality – provides specifically that “no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation *other than heterosexuality*” – which is not at all the same as “teachers shouldn’t be discussing sexuality in schools at all.

I picked up a weekly paper in Orange County this week and noticed that Dan Savage mentioned the bill in his 5/4 column, pointing readers to wesaygay.com, a site ostensibly set up by a couple of teenagers opposing the bill and gathering petition signatures in opposition – it’s nice to see students being active in this way.

The bill passed the House committee and is scheduled for a full Senate vote on May 9, although it has been reported that the state Senate will not take it up this year.

The wonderful Rev. Chris Buice of Knoxville argues in a commentary on the bill that prohibiting teachers from discussing homosexuality in school hinders them in acting against bullying and prevents them from having many educational discussions related to current events and legislation.

Apparently this coming week is National Women’s Health Week.

From the FDA:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced a joint effort to remove products from the market that make unproven claims to treat, cure, and prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Among the products targeted in today’s action are Medavir, Herpaflor, Viruxo, C-Cure, and Never An Outbreak.

The Harper Collins controversy has escaped the boundaries of libraryland. tigtog at Hoyden notes it, and Andy’s change.org petition got sent out on a huge scale. Short version of the controversy – Harper Collins wants to make libraries buy new copies of ebooks after they’ve been read 26 times. You know, because libraries are rolling in money and typically discard books after 26 reads. *eyeroll* There’s a ton of writing on this in the library blogosphere, just google it with some combination of Harper Collins, libraries, 26, ebooks.

The Abortioneers are talking about the stigma of multiple abortion, and there is some really good discussion in the comments, including from those gently pushing back against the OP for certain attitudes expressed in the post.

The Utah AIDS Drug Assistance Program is closing to new applicants due to a funding shortfall; supporters of the program are encouraged to contact their state and federal legislators.

This week’s title: I was in a car accident a couple of weeks ago, car three in a five-car wreck. I’m fine, although I was a little rattled and had a seatbelt bruise for about a week. The car, which is older and was in a previous accident, is totaled. The spouse and I are planning to go without a car, at least for the next few months. Tips and strategies for doing so are welcome. Depending on my mood, the situation gets framed as “car free” or “carless.”

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent Health, Birth, Contraception, Drugs, Ethics, Government, HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Libraryland, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Sex & Sex Education, Women’s Health

On April 18th, a transgender woman, Chrissy Lee Polis, was beaten at a McDonald’s near Baltimore, MD. Trans women experience violence and the threat of violence constantly, but what made this case rise to public notice was that a McDonald’s employee stood by and videotaped the assault, and then posted it to the internet.

The video was not made to document the assault for the victim, it was made for “entertainment” value. People can be heard laughing. Almost nobody actually tries to help the victim. As the Baltimore Sun reports, “Throughout the attack, a man is filming and does not intervene. But when the victim appears to have a seizure, he yells, “She having a seizure, yo. … Police on their way. Y’all better get out of here.” The McDonald’s has fired this video maker.

The video is up at Bilerico, but please be aware that this is a real video of a real assault – it’s cruel, and brutal, and damn hard to watch. And it’s part of a larger experience of violence faced by transgender women, which should give everyone pause.

A couple of items the Baltimore Sun reporter (Jill Rosen) and her editor should/could have done better with:

Actually, the round-up is not a joke – but I have been cracking up at Stephen Colbert’s response (and the resulting tweets) to Republican John Kyl’s way, way off statement on the Senate floor that >90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion (it’s more like 3%), and his spokesperson’s response, when Kyl was called on the error, that it “was not intended to be a factual statement.” [more via Know Your Meme]

At Our Bodies Our Blog, some discussion of “opiate babies” as the new “crack babies,” with all of the problematic media coverage and decentering of women’s stories and experiences that implies.

Also, OBOS is looking for individuals who might want to be on the cover of the 40th anniversary edition of the book, which will use images of real readers/fans rather than generic pseudo-diverse stock imagery (yay!). Get details here.

The National Partnership for Women and Families has discussion of a study on medication abortion and whether ultrasound is needed. I haven’t read the paper it reviews yet, but thought I’d share.

The Maddow blog has some discussion of how efforts to restrict abortion rights really go beyond abortion, including anti-contraception perspectives that seek to limit women’s ability to prevent pregnancy.

Relatedly, social conservatives may be barking up the wrong tree if they think religious folks will support measures to reduce contraceptive/family planning services – per new results out from Guttmacher, which surprised nobody – “Among all women who have had sex, 99% have ever used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning. This figure is virtually the same among Catholic women (98%).” Although, almost 15% of women getting abortions apparently describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians, so possibly the believe vs. do connection is not so strong after all.

A Maine bill that would have interfered with the ability of transgender people to choose the appropriate restroom for themselves and have legal resource if they were prevented from doing so was defeated (that’s a good thing, for safety for and decency to trans people).

Trans Respect vs. Transphobia tallies up an awful number of murders of trans people around the globe.

If I haven’t pointed to it before, Retraction Watch is a pretty cool resource on retractions of papers from medical journals and the ethics (or lack thereof) and bad scientific practices involved.

Kevin MD has a guest post on data overload and genomic medicine.

Honestly, I think the idea of a flash mob at Walgreens is an ineffective and unfortunate action in response to the Fox claim that we don’t need Planned Parenthood because you can get pap smears (and other services) at Walgreens. Nobody at Walgreens made that claim, and you don’t need a flash mob to document that – you need one person getting a statement from one Walgreens official. What a waste of effort.

Via Siobhan at BHIC, the CDC’s new health literacy site.

Random note: the most frequently found posts here have to do with “lost” tampons; as a librarian, I’m absolutely fascinated by all the ways people find to search the web for this topic.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Contraception, Government, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Women’s Health

The New England Journal of Medicine published a freely available Clinical Practice article, “Care of Transsexual Persons.” It covers hormones, surgery, and adolescents. Note that it does use the problematic gender identity “disorder” language as included in the DSM and it also promotes the standard psychological counseling hoops that transgender persons must jump through prior to obtaining treatment – Julia Serano‘s “Whipping Girl” provides a good primer on why those hoops can be problematic. It might be worth checking out what kinds of materials health care providers are seeing regarding these topics, including how they’re problematic.

Relatedly, there’s a possibility that “gender identity disorder” will be renamed “gender incongruence” in the DSM-V.

Laura Chapin at a US News politics blog asks why anti-choice extremism is so commonplace and continuous threats against providers are considered acceptable:

It’s the acceptance of a level of hatred directed at women, especially poor women, seeking reproductive healthcare and abortions. And it’s the acceptance of threats and violence directed at the doctors, staff, and healthcare workers trying to provide it to them.

The Boston Globe has a very brief story illustrating the problem of giving obesity too much focus and attention when diagnosing a patient.

In The Crocodile Tears of Anti-Choice Billboarders, Gaylon Alcarez outlines the failures and disingenuousness of anti-choice billboards targeting Black women. Just read it.

Relatedly, NARAL and SisterSong have partnered to fight such billboards in Texas.

The CDC notes April as STD Awareness Month (can we get that changed to STI?), including some resources for providers and for finding testing.

Studies presented at meetings always have the caveat that they need to be peer-reviewed and have the methods and data published in order for the public to fully review and understand them. However, I wanted to note this recent news item:

New Orleans residents were found to have three times the rate of heart attacks four years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina than before the storm and levee break that flooded the city, according to a study presented at a major heart meeting on Sunday.

I’ll be interested to see the paper when published; the news item focuses on psychiatric illness, stress, and employment, but I wonder how much people with more financial resources leaving the area and access to care generally play a role.

Via TransTalk, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Recommended Actions to Improve the Health and Well-Being of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Communities, which includes a summary of actions taken and recommendations for future actions. What do you think? Will this make a difference? Have they focused the right way?

The Institute of Medicine released a new report, The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding. It’s freely available if you read the PDF online; I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t vouch for how truly inclusive or useful it is.

Note to self: don’t ever move to the Dakotas. Most recently, North Dakota approved abstinence-only sex education.

A worthy rant from tigtog at Hoyden: Don’t mistake expressing contempt for taking offense.

Via Siobhan (who I’ll get to see at a health literacy conference in May – yay!) at BHIC, HHS Launches New Consumer-Focused Immunization Website. The new site is vaccines.gov.

Shameless Self-Promotion: at work, we’re posting staff profiles to our Facebook page leading up to an open house event; here’s mine. I’d appreciate if any personal comments were left here or on my own Facebook page instead of there.

Unrelated to health, except for the insurance aspect: an employer of 500+ people in my hometown is closing. The employees (largely hourly, relatively low wage) of this furniture factory were called together and basically told that – in addition to the upcoming closing – their health insurance was ending effective immediately. If that doesn’t illustrate a major problem with employer-based insurance, I don’t know what does. The county already has an unemployment rate over 10% so I expect those folks will have a hard time finding work; the company had been in town for more than 70 years.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Events & Observances, Heart Health, Infectious Diseases, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Libraryland, News Round-Ups, Sex & Sex Education, Shameless Self-Promotion, Web Resources

Assorted items of interest collected over the last week or so; as usual, the Sunday round-up is more socially than medically oriented, this week with several items on transgender women and related rights, issues, and prejudices as I’ve been trying to read more about these topics.

Scientific American has an excerpt from a new book, Demand Better! Revive Our Broken Health Care System. It’s a pretty clear explanation of how little doctors apply the best, most current evidence to medical treatment, and might be pretty shocking for folks who are not involved in evidence-based medicine issues. For example:

Even though clinical guidelines exist…physicians get it right about 55 percent of the time across all medical conditions. In other words, patients receive recommended care only about 55 percent of the time, on average…. How well physicians did for any particular condition varied substantially, ranging from about 79 percent of recommended care delivered for early-stage cataracts to about 11 percent of recommended care for alcohol dependence. Physicians prescribe the recommended medication about 69 percent of the time, follow appropriate lab-testing recommendations about 62 percent of the time and follow appropriate surgical guidelines 57 percent of the time. Physicians adhere to recommended care guidelines 23 percent of the time for hip fracture, 25 percent of the time for atrial fibrillation, 39 percent for community-acquired pneumonia, 41 percent for urinary-tract infection and 45 percent for diabetes mellitus.

Friends and family members who I encourage to question your physicians, to find out more, to not accept decisions based on simple authority? See above.

Renee at Womanist Musings calls out Bitch magazine for their focus on middle class white women in an article on “mommy bloggers” and their inclusion of women of color only as (literal) footnotes in the piece. She points out that in general women of color are not thought of when people thing of “mommy bloggers” and “mommies,” and that white women who blog on these topics are much more likely to receive recognition, book deals and other rewards – and it’s not because they’re just inherently better writers or more experienced moms.

Apparently some obstetricians in Tennessee are upset about a plan to have the state’s Medicaid program reimburse cesareans at the same rate as vaginal deliveries, in part to influence physicians to do fewer cesareans that are not medically indicated.

One physician interviewed tries to make a claim that physicians have to do more cesareans now because physicians are doing more cesareans…making a distinction between elective procedures and elective procedures done so physicians can avoid risks without working patients into that equation:

“It is very true that the rate of cesarean deliveries is increasing, but it is not increasing just because of convenience. It is increasing because of the repeat cesarean deliveries that occur…Many doctors now don’t want to face the liability of doing a vaginal birth after a cesarean section.”

Some repeat cesareans are obviously going to be medically indicated, but repeat after me: physician’s desire to avoid potential legal liability /= medical indication.

Becoming Johanna — A Trans Youth’s Story (VIDEO) – video focuses on an adolescent transgender Latina kid Johanna whose mother committed her to a mental hospital in order to prevent her from transitioning. A trailer is available; they’re part of a larger project.

Guest Post: Transmisogyny is Misogyny Against All Women at Transarchism. Includes discussion of what a woman’s body “should” have in order to be considered “woman” by other people:

What the hell does a woman’s body possess that makes it a woman’s body? What does it NEED to have to be female. Did you immediately think of breasts, ovaries, vaginas? Gross. Think about that for more than two minutes and you’ll see why it’s gross. Still don’t get it? Well then go down to the nearest breast cancer walk and tell every single woman with a double mastectomy she’s not a woman. When you’re done with that, go down to your local hospital, ask the nurse where the OR is, and wait outside until you can find a woman fresh out of her hysterectomy surgery, and tell her the news. Yeah, that sounds evil, doesn’t it? Well it’s basically what you’re doing when you’re policing trans women’s bodies. You’re telling all women what they have to have on/in their bodies to be a woman. Which, obviously, is totally gross.

Monica at TransGriot notes that while white feminists called out George Lopez for his body size-related remarks on Kirstie Alley, they were silent about transphobic comments directed at woman of color Wendy Williams. You don’t have to be a fan of any of those three to note the difference in handling.

The blogger at Lollygagging and Lassitude reacts to the reaction to the misogynistic, ableist, and ageist nonsense of Scott Adams of Dilbert by talking to feminists about picking targets – “But do not forget there are women who will die for reasons that have nothing to do with Scott Adams’ words” – including trans women. I have noted my dislike of “shouldn’t you be focused on more important things?” arguments in the past, and they are often cited as a derailing tactic when employed by external parties. In this case, though, it’s worth talking amongst ourselves about whether there are systemic privileges that focus what we talk about as feminists – nobody’s saying we shouldn’t talk about Scott Adams, I think the author is saying that we can talk about Scott Adams but we need to also remember not to use all of our fighting energy on people like him.

Audacia Ray explains that “You” probably couldn’t be arrested in New York City under provisions that allow condoms to be counted as evidence of sex work, that “Policies like this one exist solely to uphold the ability of police to harass people of color, poor people, and often trans women who are profiled as being sex workers or nabbed for ‘walking while trans.’”

Queerty has a bit on challenging the New York City requirement that trans men and women have genital surgery in order to change their birth certificate.

TransTalk points to the “Two Spirits” documentary to be aired by Independent Lens (PBS) in June. The website for the film is at http://twospirits.org/.

Rep. Henry Waxman demands answers from Ther-Rx about Makena – There’s a drug meant to help prevent preterm birth that was approved by the FDA as an “orphan drug” at which point the company that got the approval hiked the price from about $10-$20 a dose to $1500/dose. There is also commentary on the March of Dimes’s response, and a call to boycott Makena in favor cheaper compounded preparations.

AARP has a piece on inaccuracies in translated drug labels, citing a study (I haven’t read yet) that “Fifty percent of all prescription labels translated from English to Spanish are wrong or incomplete.”

The FDA may start regulating mobile medical software/apps.

Women’s eNews has a bit on maternal deaths in New York City.

Ron Paul introduced the Sanctity of Life Act for 2011 (HR 1096), which would define human life and personhood “from the moment of conception.” I hardly need to get into the fetus>woman, miscarriage, detectability of non-implanted fertilized eggs, and gross misogyny issues, right?

Some things from libraryland:
We need to work together to save the Statistical Abstract of the United States.

And the Nashville Public Library is compiling a digital history of our May flood.

For emergency responders, WISER has been updated – it’s “a system designed to assist first responders in hazardous material incidents” from the National Library of Medicine.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Drugs, Ethics, Government, Libraryland, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Women’s Health

A few things of interest from the past week:

RHRC has a whole series on obstetric fistula.

March 3 was International Sex Workers Rights Day.

As Naomi shared in the comments of a previous post, Rachel Maddow recently had on two Republican women who are Wyoming state reps and who reject recent state anti-abortion efforts. The two women describe themselves as small government conservatives, and state that they don’t believe government should interfere in such private decisions. The video is here, with a transcript mode option.

Book Nerds! Deeply Problematic has an essay, “Hermione Granger and the Failures of Feminism.” It focuses primarily on how Hermione tries to bust in and forcibly “free” the house elves without actually talking to them about what they want and need. It made me smile.

Via Feministe, a link to this piece: Ask an Abortion Provider. It’s a worth-reading piece that covers the contrary-to-the-popular-narrative “possibility that [abortion] doesn’t have to be the worst thing that ever happened to you,” who gets abortions, abortions obtained by anti-choice women, the way the system fails women who want to control their childbearing or access abortion, and more. I wish they hadn’t used “craziest” in one of the section headers, but that’s a word I still work on myself.

INCITE! has a post on Black Women Re-Defining Agency, Organizing for Reproductive Justice, which talks in part about how black women are demonized and pathologized *both* for choosing abortion and for having children.

Via @metalmujer: “Latino bigot Israel Luna’s hate film premieres in Australia http://hoydenabouttown.com/20110225.9558/open-letter-to-mqff-attendees/.” And at TransGriot, We’re Sick Of ‘You People’ Screwing Us Legislatively, Del Pena-Melnyk.

At the Wall Street Journal, A Push for More Pregnancies to Last 39 Weeks – that’s “at least” 39 weeks, not “exactly” or “only” 39 weeks.

Locally, the Tennessean has also covered the topic of early inductions for non-medical reasons, and writes:

Last year, a pilot program in Davidson County that directed doctors to check a form if they were inducing labor for nonmedical reasons had the effect of discouraging such procedures. Early deliveries dropped by half.

Further detail on the rate change:

A 9.8 percent rate in the first six months of 2010 dropped to 4.8 percent in the second half of the year at the five hospitals — Baptist Hospital, Centennial Medical Center, Summit Medical Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Nashville General Hospital at Meharry.

Hilary of Mom’s Tinfoil Hat has a Prezi up on ACOG and VBAC.

Wow – the round-up is much easier when one has a working “g” key on one’s keyboard.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, News Round-Ups

I just realized last night that I haven’t actually posted anything here since last Sunday’s round-up. In usual blogger style, I’m going to say how busy I’ve been. This week has been pretty packed at work, including work related to another women’s health topic comparative effectiveness review that might get done. I also found out that I get to go to the IHA health literacy conference this year, which I’m really excited about – but that of course took some unexpected time making arrangements and working with colleagues on a poster abstract.

At home, I’m currently reading “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex,” which I’m finding pretty compelling, and which talks about the ways in which dependence on foundation funding stifles organizations (especially social justice orgs) from doing what actually needs doing in their communities and effecting real change. In an odd coincidence, the Friday lecture I attended at work this week was on tips for obtaining foundation grants. Ha.

I also read the last volume of Y The Last Man (although I skipped book 9 because the library can’t seem to find it…it’s been “on search” for two weeks). People, the monkey made me cry. *embarrassing*

The spouse and I also built a computer together this week. For various work and home reasons, it’s running Windows 7 rather than being a hackintosh or something else interesting. It was a fun nerd project though, and a long overdue replacement for the Mac laptop bought ~2002 that is making ominous noises. I’m trying to get by with OpenOffice, installed the protein FoldIt game, and have set up a character in World of Warcraft. Let’s hope that last doesn’t lead to even fewer posts.

Over at Our Bodies Our Blog, I actually have a couple of new posts. One is on some recent attention to the potential (although relatively low) risk of atypical fractures in some long-term users of bisphosphonates (like Boniva and Fosamax), drugs intended to reduce hip fractures in folks with osteoporosis.

The second is on the U.S. Justice Department’s new task force to address violence against American Indian women. While this violence needs attention, I express my skepticism of a police/state/Justice Department solution and include an INCITE! report on police violence against Native women, especially violence against trans women. There are also links to recent news about violence against/disappearance of Native women in Canada. (Note: I checked several sources on the preference for “American Indian” over “Native American,” and AI seemed to win out, but I’m willing to be corrected.)

People are also sharing their OBOS Stories in anticipation of the 40th anniversary edition; please share yours if you have a tale of receiving or reading the book, in any edition.

For those who have inquired, my dad has finished his chemotherapy and has started some different chemo with radiation. They’re in east Tennessee and he missed an appointment last week when Knoxville was experiencing flash floods – I’m glad they were not caught out in it. Radiation is going to suck, but the doctors still seem optimistic about dad’s treatment. Thanks for your thoughts.

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Cancer, Events & Observances

A bit of what I’ve been reading this week, when I haven’t been outside getting a mild sunburn. In February.

Via fellow librarian Bobbie Newman, I learned of this piece, “The Hazards of Leading Culture Change” (click on the download link for the PDF). It’s kind of oriented toward businesses/organizations instead of movements/activism, but there were a few points I thought were relevant:

“When you are up to your backside in alligators,” goes the oft-quoted line, “it is hard to remember you were there to drain the swamp.” Organizations under pressure are fraught with alligators-those seemingly never ceasing crises that keep leaders up at night. But, if all the energy goes into simply fighting alligators, there will always be alligators. Culture change is about focusing on source, not symptom—cause, not contest.

the illusion of advancement is far worse than none at all

Three turtles sat on a log in the edge of the swamp. One decided to jump in. How many are now on the log? Nope, there are still three. Deciding and doing are not the same thing.

Culture change is hard work and requires enormous patience. Many leaders are by nature impatient people who think results can be produced with the snap of a finger and completed by the end of the week. Culture change takes a long time because it is complex and disruptive. Culture change involves unlearning old habits and acquiring new ways of thinking and behaving.

Lunapads has a couple of suggestions For the Bookworm On Her Period.

The New Black Woman asks, Why are white feminists silent on Limbaugh’s attacks on FLOTUS? Apparently Limbaugh criticized what Michelle Obama was eating on a trip (while completely misrepresenting her nutrition message, of course), and basically called her fat, saying she “does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.”

Honestly, I don’t pay any attention to Limbaugh. His comments are clearly problematic because, at the very least, they misrepresent her message (hello, healthy eating does not mean you never ever eat anything unhealthy – it means awareness, better choices most of the time, and balance – not “roots and tree bark” as Limbaugh suggested), they put him in the position of policing what she eats and looks like, and they hold up an unreasonable (and not even real; Limbaugh, meet photoshop) standard and call it “healthy.” They basically say, “if she’s not an object of sexual desire in my estimation, her opinions aren’t valid.” And that, my friends, is utter bullshit.

Renee at Womanist Musings has more on this issue, and writes:

There is nothing about her physical body that needs to change, and the fact that she isn’t willing to starve herself, or engage in harmful eating practices to attain a figure that is unnatural for her, sends a positive message to young girls and more specifically young girls of colour, that they are fine they way they are.

I have to say, too, that I’ve also been troubled by the comments that are basically, “Limbaugh’s fat, so he can’t say anything.” No, if Michelle Obama were saying everybody should try to eat better and she was eating ribs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, Limbaugh could say something. No matter his size, no matter how much we might dislike him. But that is not the case. I don’t think the way to respond to body size policing is with more body size policing. Let me be 100% clear that this is not in any way to defend Limbaugh. I think his comments were crap. But I think that if people are going to respond to his crap comments, the way to do it is to criticize the substance, not to attack another body. It just sounds like some version of “so’s your mom” – and doesn’t get us anywhere.

Also on body image, Marianne at The Rotund has this to say:

“Real women have curves” was a marketing slogan thought up to sell people overpriced, ill-fitting pants. It does NOT promote body positivity – it only perpetuates body policing by turning the tables on people who don’t fit into yet another arbitrary ideal.

The job is to BUST THE FUCKING PARADIGM APART, not shift it a little bit toward the fat side. The job is to remind people, bodies are not public property and your opinion about an individual’s body is only an opinion, not a valid judgment of their worth as a human being. The JOB is to destroy systemic oppression of nonconforming, rebellious bodies no matter what those bodies look like.

Trans woman Tyra Trent was found murdered in Baltimore, reminding us once again of the violence trans women and men are too often subjected to. The Baltimore Sun covered the story, but included several quotes from Trent’s family members calling her “he,” and a cousin used the word “flaunt.” Tyra was also called a “sex worker” in the piece, while the same piece notes she had not been arrested since 2008. Argh. Other coverage, were it exists, is no better.

The Vanderbilt Medical School is hosting its annual LGBT health week this year from March 14-19. Overall it looks more LG than T, although Friday’s “Case Presentations in Adolescent Hormonal Therapy” might be relevant to trans health (no additional description is available at the moment – here’s the site).

I don’t think there’s a chance in hell this Georgia bill will hold up, but here it is. HB 1 would make “prenatal murder” illegal/a felony. It excludes “naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a ‘spontaneous abortion’ and popularly as a ‘miscarriage’ so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event.” Most miscarriages are unexplainable and so it would be impossible to prove that there was absolutely no human involvement in it. There is a lot of scientific debate about what may or may not increase a woman’s risk of miscarriage, so that’s a huge potential can of worms that could criminalize the smallest of everyday choices, not only abortion. Aside from which, there is necessarily human involvement, given that a fetus resides *inside* another human! It also defines a fetus as a person from “the moment of conception” (nevermind that at conception, it’s not a fetus. biology, whatever!). Amie and Jill at RHRC have more.

I haven’t watched them yet so I can’t say anything about them, but Dr. Nicholas Fogelson (Academic ob/gyn) has provided video of a recent talk he did on delayed cord clamping.

Next time I wonder why people call out online feminism for ageism, I’m going to remind myself that somebody who is 32 said she should pull back in order to make sure there was “a place for younger feminists to build their careers and platforms.” Okay, then. Kathy at Her Five Dollar Radio brings this up and asks “what you do “graduate” to when you feel you’ve aged out of the feminist blogosphere?” Over 30 as “old” is a huge problem; so’s the focus on “careers and platforms” instead of social change.

Things to learn more about: “The Native Women’s Association of Canada reports that 582 indigenous women and girls have disappeared or were murdered over the last five years.” For a U.S. update, the Seattle Weekly points to a new federal task force set up to address violence against native women. Here’s the press release from the Justice Department.

The New York Times has an editorial on recent abortion and family planning-focused legislation, The War on Women.

From libraryland, library folks are talking this week about Harper Collins’s completely absurd approach to ebooks.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Body Image & Eating Disorders, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups

A bit of what I’ve been reading this week, when I haven’t been outside getting a mild sunburn. In February.

Via fellow librarian Bobbie Newman, I learned of this piece, “The Hazards of Leading Culture Change” (click on the download link for the PDF). It’s kind of oriented toward businesses/organizations instead of movements/activism, but there were a few points I thought were relevant:

“When you are up to your backside in alligators,” goes the oft-quoted line, “it is hard to remember you were there to drain the swamp.” Organizations under pressure are fraught with alligators-those seemingly never ceasing crises that keep leaders up at night. But, if all the energy goes into simply fighting alligators, there will always be alligators. Culture change is about focusing on source, not symptom—cause, not contest.

the illusion of advancement is far worse than none at all

Three turtles sat on a log in the edge of the swamp. One decided to jump in. How many are now on the log? Nope, there are still three. Deciding and doing are not the same thing.

Culture change is hard work and requires enormous patience. Many leaders are by nature impatient people who think results can be produced with the snap of a finger and completed by the end of the week. Culture change takes a long time because it is complex and disruptive. Culture change involves unlearning old habits and acquiring new ways of thinking and behaving.

Lunapads has a couple of suggestions For the Bookworm On Her Period.

The New Black Woman asks, Why are white feminists silent on Limbaugh’s attacks on FLOTUS? Apparently Limbaugh criticized what Michelle Obama was eating on a trip (while completely misrepresenting her nutrition message, of course), and basically called her fat, saying she “does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.”

Honestly, I don’t pay any attention to Limbaugh. His comments are clearly problematic because, at the very least, they misrepresent her message (hello, healthy eating does not mean you never ever eat anything unhealthy – it means awareness, better choices most of the time, and balance – not “roots and tree bark” as Limbaugh suggested), they put him in the position of policing what she eats and looks like, and they hold up an unreasonable (and not even real; Limbaugh, meet photoshop) standard and call it “healthy.” They basically say, “if she’s not an object of sexual desire in my estimation, her opinions aren’t valid.” And that, my friends, is utter bullshit.

Renee at Womanist Musings has more on this issue, and writes:

There is nothing about her physical body that needs to change, and the fact that she isn’t willing to starve herself, or engage in harmful eating practices to attain a figure that is unnatural for her, sends a positive message to young girls and more specifically young girls of colour, that they are fine they way they are.

I have to say, too, that I’ve also been troubled by the comments that are basically, “Limbaugh’s fat, so he can’t say anything.” No, if Michelle Obama were saying everybody should try to eat better and she was eating ribs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, Limbaugh could say something. No matter his size, no matter how much we might dislike him. But that is not the case. I don’t think the way to respond to body size policing is with more body size policing. Let me be 100% clear that this is not in any way to defend Limbaugh. I think his comments were crap. But I think that if people are going to respond to his crap comments, the way to do it is to criticize the substance, not to attack another body. It just sounds like some version of “so’s your mom” – and doesn’t get us anywhere.

Also on body image, Marianne at The Rotund has this to say:

“Real women have curves” was a marketing slogan thought up to sell people overpriced, ill-fitting pants. It does NOT promote body positivity – it only perpetuates body policing by turning the tables on people who don’t fit into yet another arbitrary ideal.

The job is to BUST THE FUCKING PARADIGM APART, not shift it a little bit toward the fat side. The job is to remind people, bodies are not public property and your opinion about an individual’s body is only an opinion, not a valid judgment of their worth as a human being. The JOB is to destroy systemic oppression of nonconforming, rebellious bodies no matter what those bodies look like.

Trans woman Tyra Trent was found murdered in Baltimore, reminding us once again of the violence trans women and men are too often subjected to. The Baltimore Sun covered the story, but included several quotes from Trent’s family members calling her “he,” and a cousin used the word “flaunt.” Tyra was also called a “sex worker” in the piece, while the same piece notes she had not been arrested since 2008. Argh. Other coverage, were it exists, is no better.

The Vanderbilt Medical School is hosting its annual LGBT health week this year from March 14-19. Overall it looks more LG than T, although Friday’s “Case Presentations in Adolescent Hormonal Therapy” might be relevant to trans health (no additional description is available at the moment – here’s the site).

I don’t think there’s a chance in hell this Georgia bill will hold up, but here it is. HB 1 would make “prenatal murder” illegal/a felony. It excludes “naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a ‘spontaneous abortion’ and popularly as a ‘miscarriage’ so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event.” Most miscarriages are unexplainable and so it would be impossible to prove that there was absolutely no human involvement in it. There is a lot of scientific debate about what may or may not increase a woman’s risk of miscarriage, so that’s a huge potential can of worms that could criminalize the smallest of everyday choices, not only abortion. Aside from which, there is necessarily human involvement, given that a fetus resides *inside* another human! It also defines a fetus as a person from “the moment of conception” (nevermind that at conception, it’s not a fetus. biology, whatever!). Amie and Jill at RHRC have more.

I haven’t watched them yet so I can’t say anything about them, but Dr. Nicholas Fogelson (Academic ob/gyn) has provided video of a recent talk he did on delayed cord clamping.

Next time I wonder why people call out online feminism for ageism, I’m going to remind myself that somebody who is 32 said she should pull back in order to make sure there was “a place for younger feminists to build their careers and platforms.” Okay, then. Kathy at Her Five Dollar Radio brings this up and asks “what you do “graduate” to when you feel you’ve aged out of the feminist blogosphere?” Over 30 as “old” is a huge problem; so’s the focus on “careers and platforms” instead of social change.

Things to learn more about: “The Native Women’s Association of Canada reports that 582 indigenous women and girls have disappeared or were murdered over the last five years.” For a U.S. update, the Seattle Weekly points to a new federal task force set up to address violence against native women. Here’s the press release from the Justice Department.

The New York Times has an editorial on recent abortion and family planning-focused legislation, The War on Women.

From libraryland, library folks are talking this week about Harper Collins’s completely absurd approach to ebooks.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Body Image & Eating Disorders, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups

Via Siobhan, a project intended to train volunteer interpreters to provide services to survivors of torture, trauma, and sexual abuse.

Lyon-Martin Health Services in San Francisco, which serves a lot of people of color, gay and lesbian and transgender people, is raising money to try to stay open.

Vivir Latino is going to be tweeting on Monday from a media breakfast hosted by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Latina Magazine, on issues and inequalities in reproductive health care affecting Latinas.

I’m not terribly familiar with abortion laws in Mexico, but the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health network reports on the case of a woman apparently sentenced to a 23-year jail term for murder/abortion for what she states was a miscarriage.

The Ovarian Cancer National Alliance has news on Medicare coverage of Avastin for ovarian cancer.

Pamela Merritt at RH Reality Check has a great commentary about racist anti-choice billboards.

Also at RHRC, Tiffany Campbell writes about a disturbing bill in South Dakota to require women seeking abortions to first visit a crisis pregnancy center that pretty explicitly promotes an anti-abortion agenda to hear about other options and to ensure the woman is not being coerced (which reputable abortion providers already do). I don’t know what would prevent CPCs from just stalling on that required appointment until a woman was no longer gestationally eligible for abortion. The bill is HB 1217 in South Dakota.

Reuters on the pay gap between male and female doctors, *even though* women *are* choosing high-paying specialties.

Trans Talk has info on an upcoming National Transgender Health Summit.

The FDA approved a drug to prevent preterm births. News here, FDA release here.

The Disability Compendium with 2010 stats has been released, covering employment, poverty, disparities, health care coverage, and other data.

At AlterNet, 11 Women Found Murdered in Albuquerque Desert — Why Was This Not Treated As a National Tragedy?

I’m not going to provide the whole background on the Penny Arcade/Dickwolves controversy. To catch up, the best timeline/resources is at The Pratfall of Penny Arcade – a Timeline. Be warned that the materials will involve discussions of rape and rape culture, the hostility of gamer culture to women and assault survivors, and a near-fatal overdose of “you don’t have a sufficient sense of humor” and “let me explain it to you as though you hadn’t considered this….” It has included some pretty vile comments directed at rape survivors. Melissa at Shakesville depressingly points out why the whole thing was always going to go down the way it did, once it started. Unfortunately, I think there’s a lot of truth to that.

There was also a lot of controversy this week over Bitch magazine’s feminist YA booklist, including criticism of how Bitch responded to calls for books to be removed from the list and how the list was created in the first place. Someone in the comments points out that they could have referred folks to the Amelia Bloomer project list, an annual booklist of feminist works for young readers. The Amelia Bloomer folks have clear criteria you can evaluate, with information on the plot of each recommended title and its recommended age group. Sexual assault/rape is a factor in the discussions on the Bitch post, too; it also includes some interesting discussion of how people should act if they’re going to make booklists and refer to themselves as a “library.”

And so this seems like the natural place to link to this thing B has us mulling over, the conversations on feminist blogs, how often the leaders of those conversations fail, and how we should respond to that on an ongoing basis.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Cancer, Drugs, Global Issues, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, Libraryland, Miscellaneous

At 8:00 pm this Saturday, February 5th, the Student National Medical Association and Vanderbilt School of Medicine V-Day Committee will present a performance of The Vagina Monologues at Sarratt Cinema. A silent auction will be held to benefit the Shade Tree Clinic, a community free clinic run by Vanderbilt medical students.

The production closes out Vanderbilt’s Health Disparities Week 2011. According to the website:

The proceeds from this production of The Vagina Monologues will benefit women of our city, country, and world. We are proud to support future Shade Tree Women’s Health initiatives, the VDAY Campaign, and women in the world suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Events & Observances

Some things that caught my eye this week; for new folks, the Sunday news round-up tends to focus more on social issues than research or resources, including whatever I’ve noted for later reading from my RSS feeds or Twitter.

First, the English-language site for Al Jazeera has the most complete coverage I’ve seen of what’s going on in Egypt for those who need it in the English language.

I’m woefully behind on the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” proposed by House Republicans, so this first chunk is catching up. It seems to me to be completely unnecessary political posturing on the backs of women (and especially rape victims, as we’ll see), given that there are existing restrictions preventing federal funding for abortion. I know it includes an exception for “forcible rape,” which as far as I know is not a real legal term with an actionable definition. Many folks have expressed concerns would seem to exclude women who are date raped, or drugged, or otherwise not sufficiently otherwise physically abused in the course of being raped. Perhaps those women didn’t suffer enough for House Republicans to be considered for access to the means to make their own decisions about their own pregnancies. *headdesk*

It also fails to mention statutory rape, includes incest only if the victim is a minor, and includes only a “danger of death” exemption, not a health exemption.

Some things that caught my eye this week; for new folks, the Sunday news round-up tends to focus more on social issues than research or resources, including whatever I’ve noted for later reading from my RSS feeds or Twitter.

First, the English-language site for Al Jazeera has the most complete coverage I’ve seen of what’s going on in Egypt for those who need it in the English language.

I’m woefully behind on the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” proposed by House Republicans, so this first chunk is catching up. It seems to me to be completely unnecessary political posturing on the backs of women (and especially rape victims, as we’ll see), given that there are existing restrictions preventing federal funding for abortion. I know it includes an exception for “forcible rape,” which as far as I know is not a real legal term with an actionable definition. Many folks have expressed concerns that it would seem to exclude women who are date raped, or drugged, or otherwise not sufficiently physically abused in the course of being raped. Perhaps those women didn’t suffer enough for House Republicans to be considered for access to the means to make their own decisions about their own pregnancies. *headdesk*

It also fails to mention statutory rape, includes incest only if the victim is a minor, and includes only a “danger of death” exemption, not a health exemption.

Some things that caught my eye this week; for new folks, the Sunday news round-up tends to focus more on social issues than research or resources, including whatever I’ve noted for later reading from my RSS feeds or Twitter.

First, the English-language site for Al Jazeera has the most complete coverage I’ve seen of what’s going on in Egypt for those who need it in the English language.

I’m woefully behind on the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” proposed by House Republicans, so this first chunk is catching up. It seems to me to be completely unnecessary political posturing on the backs of women (and especially rape victims, as we’ll see), given that there are existing restrictions preventing federal funding for abortion. I know it includes an exception for “forcible rape,” which as far as I know is not a real legal term with an actionable definition. Many folks have expressed concerns would seem to exclude women who are date raped, or drugged, or otherwise not sufficiently otherwise physically abused in the course of being raped. Perhaps those women didn’t suffer enough for House Republicans to be considered for access to the means to make their own decisions about their own pregnancies. *headdesk*

It also fails to mention statutory rape, includes incest only if the victim is a minor, and includes only a “danger of death” exemption, not a health exemption.