The last few weeks have seen Tennessee on several “worst of” lists for women. The popular iVillage ranked us #40 among the “worst states for women” – for our lower rates of college degree completion, lower earnings, low levels of representation of women in state government, poor health, attacks on women’s rights, and other factors.

This week, Forbes named Knoxville, TN (home of Stacey Campfield) #3 in its list of Most Unfair Cities To Be A Working Woman because of disparities in pay between men and women.

And I missed this last month, but the blogger at Lavender and Cheese writes about another embarrassing finding that got basically no media attention here – Black women die more from breast cancer than white women, and that’s more true in Memphis, Tennessee than in any of the nation’s other largest cities. In Memphis, a Black woman is more than twice as likely to die as a white woman.

As that blogger explains:

We know what these numbers mean: black women are not getting the same access to cancer treatment that white women are. This is not a genetics problem; it’s a care problem, it’s an education problem, and it’s a socioeconomic problem.

And it’s exactly this kind of care inequality that the healthcare reform bill is supposed to alleviate.

The fact that this study has gone unreported and apparently unnoticed in Tennessee has to be a result of two things: laziness and cowardice.

I was born and raised in Tennessee. I chose to come back here after college. Like B, there are absolutely things I love about this state, from the big beauty of the landscape to smaller pleasures of local businesses and institutions and people. It’s not all about politics – but our politics are seriously messed up here right now.

We have Democrats in power who can’t bring themselves to denounce a State Rep when he publicly threatened to “stomp” any transgender woman he encounters. We have bills specifically trying to shame and intimidate women getting legal abortions and their providers, transformed into a bill to limit access in another dishonest way.

We have serious economic problems and disparities, a long list of problems that are getting us on other people’s “worst of” lists that we could tackle. Meanwhile, our state legislators are focused on saggy pants, making sure it’s okay for creationism to be discussed seriously in science classes, and pushing the racism and classism of trying to drug test all welfare recipients. And our Governor, Republican Bill Haslam, had the nerve to blame the media for covering this nonsense, instead of doing his job as a leader and taking on the state legislators for introducing and pushing said nonsense.

Welcome to Tennessee. Although we need you here, if you’re a woman, or poor, or not white and straight and cis and Christian, or you have a decent handle on science, you might want to pass on through, unless you have a lot of energy and patience for the fight. At least for now.

Filed under: Access, Rights, & Choice, Cancer, Ethics, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts

First, some recent posts at Our Bodies Our Blog:

Pink Ribbons, Inc. – A Closer Look at Breast Cancer Marketing – I’m really looking forward to seeing this film, especially after all the recent Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy. It’s going to show in several U.S. cities at various events this spring. Pink Ribbons, Inc. people, if you’re reading this, you totally want to hook me up with the showing at the Nashville Film Festival.

Christine also covered Komen and Planned Parenthood and stupid, sexist “barstool sports,” and Judy has something on Planned Parenthood and the Catholic bishops.

Finally, Good Vibrations selected Our Bodies Ourselves as one organization it’s supporting during February and March. If you buy something from their website or in stores, select OBOS during checkout to make a donation that goes entirely to the organization. Go on and buy yourself a Valentine’s present. Or, hey, buy me something, since I don’t otherwise have a tip jar.

Now, onto to other things:

Judy Stone has a great guest post at the Scientific American blogs, Molecules to Medicine: Plan B: The Tradition of Politics at the FDA. Stone ultimately looks at Kathleen Sebelius’s decision to override the FDA’s approval of over-the-counter access to Plan B, but also provides a review of past political decisions and appointees at the FDA, and U.S. government interference in sexual health care and information generally.

Soraya L. Chemaly has something at The Feminist Wire in response to that ridiculous recent piece in the New York Times about girls and “hysteria.”

Flanagan closes with the particularly ironic advice that what girls need is “protection from the most corrosive cultural forces that seek to exploit her when she is least able to resist.”…What girls really need is not to be characterized as inherently mad or inclined to the irrational.

Nick Baumann at Mother Jones writes about The Republican War on Contraception:

…in the past six months, social conservatives have widened their offensive, and their new target is clear: Not satisfied with making it harder to obtain legal abortions, they want to limit access to birth control, too.

I’m pretty sure a lot of women have seen this coming for a while.

I don’t agree with absolutely everything in Nicholas Kristoff’s NY Times piece, “Beyond Pelvic Politics,” but let me just highlight this:

A 2009 study looked at sexually active American women of modest means, ages 18 to 34, whose economic circumstances had deteriorated. Three-quarters said that they could not afford a baby then. Yet 30 percent had put off a gynecological or family-planning visit to save money. More horrifying, of those using the pill, one-quarter said that they economized by not taking it every day.

and this:

If we have to choose between bishops’ sensibilities and women’s health, our national priority must be the female half of our population.

Rachel Maddow has a piece on the birth control nonsense as well.

Nationally, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan has introduced a national forced ultrasound bill, which I think I’ll start calling a “forced vaginal insertion of an object” bill. We should require all members of Congress to participate in a simulation display of a transvaginal ultrasound, although I’d be kind of afraid of their reactions.

A national forced 24-hour waiting period for abortion has also been introduced, this one by South Carolina’s Jeff Duncan.

Neither of these things is based on medical evidence; both are purely for the purpose of making it more difficult for women to obtain safe, legal, timely abortions. Dr. Jen Gunter talks about what happens to women exposed to inexpert abortion attempts when safe and legal isn’t an option.

And in Tennessee, Planned Parenthood has sued the state, which previously awarded the organization grants for STI and HIV prevention, but in December yanked the funding without providing an explanation, or an alternative route for those services. One of the affected Memphis sites was reportedly the only place around to get HIV testing done after daytime work hours. Pressed on the issue, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam refused to provide any real explanation of the decision, saying, “The commissioner felt like there were other people who could provide that service just as well.” There was no explanation about why, if that were the case, those others didn’t get the grant during the competitive process last year, and as far as I know, none of those other “just as well” services have actually been awarded the funding.

Mary at Hoyden About Town has a cool post on soliciting research participants, with a lot of good points on what should be communicated to potential study participants and what researchers owe them for their participation.

And completely unrelated to anything, I cannot stop looking at these underwater dogs.

[note: I modified the title after I realized a possible mis-reading of it]

Filed under: Abortion, Access, Rights, & Choice, Cancer, Contraception, Drugs, Government, HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, News Round-Ups, Sex & Sex Education

Yesterday, Tennessee’s Governor instituted new rules limiting public demonstrations in Legislative Plaza (state public land) to specific hours and requiring daily approval of permits which will cost $65. After stating that the permit process would not be in place until this morning, the government sent police in in the middle of the night to remove Occupy Nashville demonstrators under the guise of a newly implemented curfew. 75 state troopers were sent to arrest 29 protesters. Below is the text of the letter I just sent to the Governor’s office in response:

Governor Haslam,

I am writing to express my concern about the sudden implementation of limited demonstration hours in Legislative Plaza and insistence on permits and curfews in this public space. While many areas do require permits for large events in public spaces, the creation of these rules mid-event suggests a desire to specifically interrupt Occupy Nashville efforts. It is profoundly disturbing to consider whether permits may be required or denied based upon whether the demonstration’s focus finds favor with state government, especially when the focus of dissent is the government itself. The suggestion by Bill Gibbons that others using or traveling through the Plaza outside of curfew hours would get a pass depending on their circumstances further suggests an intention to enforce the new rules inequitably.

I am also disturbed by the contradiction between clear reports that enforcement would not happen until today, and the frankly sneaky manner in which the curfew issue was employed to provide cover for removing people who had a reasonable belief that they would not need to clear out of the public space until today, and to do so when the least possible media would be present.

I’ve already viewed elsewhere the generic response sent to others who have written on this issue, the meat of which is:

“While this administration wholeheartedly supports freedom of speech, assembly and petition, it is our responsibility to keep people safe on state property. Abiding by these hours allows for a safe event, while ensuring the people’s right to peaceably assemble.”

I am certain you don’t mean to imply that it is only possible to keep people safe on state property during the hours of 9am to 4pm, the hours for which permits may ostensibly be approved. If so, I would expect that safety should also be a concern during the additional non-curfew hours,* 4pm to 10pm and 6am to 9am. There is no apparent rationale for the failure to align these hours and allow permits for assembly during the full 6am to 10pm time frame. The most charitable reading of this mismatch is a governmental unwillingness to provide for the proper security during some hours for those in exercise of their Constitutional liberties on public land. A less charitable read of this mismatch would suggest that it is the specific intent of the Governor’s office to limit the exercise of free speech and assembly by forbidding such activities on state land during the hours which most people have off work, thereby reducing the numbers of people who may participate in such activities.

Free speech and assembly are perhaps the most sacred rights of Americans, the tools which provide for all other rights to be acquired and defended. Interfering with these rights in such a manner is unconscionable. I urge you to rescind this misguided action and restore the exercise of constitutional freedoms to Legislative Plaza.

Regards,
Rachel R. Walden
Nashville, TN

*Added: above, where it says, “during the additional non-curfew hours, 4pm to 10pm and 6am to 9am” – I don’t think my wording was clear initially. Those are the hours in which people are allowed to be in the Plaza and not under curfew, but demonstrations are not being allowed.

I’d like to also offer my thanks and kudos to Night Court Magistrate Tom Nelson who refused to sign criminal trespass warrants for the protesters taken into custody.

Here’s what some other folks have had to say. I am particularly enjoying Aunt B’s writings on the subject.

I posted on Friday about Nashville’s Department of Health deciding to accept the funds that would normally go to Planned Parenthood for family planning services, and stating when they did so they were taking the money on the condition that they did not have to serve the same number of people. A commenter here – who appears to be close to the issue – pointed out that the county would probably need more local tax dollars to provide the same amount of service that Planned Parenthood provided with a combination of those federal funds and private donations.

I saw a few news items today that don’t make a coherent whole, but that I felt were related to the issue.

1. State Health Commissioner Susan Cooper reportedly sent a letter to the Metro Public Health Department urging them to take the federal funds that would normally go to Planned Parenthood. According to the Tennessean, her letter urged the department to “‘think creatively and consider working with community partners’ to deliver family planning services.”

Um, there’s already a community organization that is well-equipped with appropriate expertise for delivering family planning services. It’s called Planned Parenthood.

2. I have never really thought of Susan Cooper as a bowing-to-political-pressure, in-line-with-social-conservatives-instead-of-public-health sort of health commissioner. But we have a new Republican governor, and a newly more Republican state legislature. And then I ran across this news piece from January stating that she’s still in the position on an “interim” basis under said new Governor.

So I just assume that “interim” means “as long as the folks in charge are accomplishing political goals.” Which apparently include providing less care to fewer women, at least in the undefined short term.

3. That new Governor, Bill Haslam (R), was summed up just a week or so ago as proclaiming that “‘Unless Tennesseans make an effort to improve personal health, they could see more budget cuts in their children’s education as health-care costs continue to drain the state budget,’ Gov. Bill Haslam said Thursday.”

So, um, your kids might get even worse educations if we don’t all get healthier in Tennessee. But maybe “we” don’t seem to include women who need birth control, cancer screenings, or other family planning and reproductive health services, and especially not those women who struggle to afford such care. Those people can just pay more, somewhere else, as long as it serves the social conservative agenda.

4. I’ll just be over here banging my head against the wall.

Filed under: Access, Rights, & Choice, Government, Women’s Health