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

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

A few things that have caught my attention over the last couple of weeks:

Over at Nature, which is *supposed* to be a respectable publication, Ed Rybicki wrote some utter unfunny bullshit in Parallel Processing, in which men hunt, women gather, and HA HA, WOMEN are so good at SHOPPING because they can ACCESS A PARALLEL UNIVERSE. Because of how women and men are just so inherently different in a binary, unknowable-to-men way. LOLLERSKATES. Christie Wilcox over at Scientific American’s Science Sushi has the more mature response.

At another Scientific American blog, Kate Clancy talks about menstrual synchrony and why women might not really synchronize their cycles.

Rock Center has a segment on involuntary sterilization in North Carolina that disproportionately targeted women of color.

Health News Reviews takes a look at media coverage of a study on preventive mastectomy.

The draft research review for Closing the Quality Gap Series: Quality Improvement Interventions to Address Health Disparities is online (free) and open to public comment through Dec 15. (via BHIC)

eeshap at the Crunk Feminist Collective writes about diamonds and conflict, and why care in purchasing is not enough – we must make choices that devalue the diamond in society and therefore reduce diamond mining-related incentives to cruelty.

A clear photographic example of the way products for children reinforce gendered steretypes, in the form of magnetic words for boys and girls. Here, boys get the moon, a wizard, and a dragon, while girls get a diamond, perfume, and make-up. Oh, and bunnies.

Lena Chen has a guide to/review of some sex toys. The separate files for this article are totally unwieldy, but there is some good info therein.

I haven’t spent much time on the site yet, but here is the inevitable OccupyHealthcare. One thing they’re talking about is health information and responsibility for health literacy.

Jill Filipovic talks at the Guardian about the long game for personhood amendments.

The FDA revoked its approval of Avastin for metastatic breast cancer treatment.

Kotex has recalled a whole bunch of tampons.

Filed under: Access, Rights, & Choice, Cancer, Drugs, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Sex & Sex Education

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

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 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

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

This week I added one more lecture to the list of lectures I need to write up for posts here; this week it was Kevin Pho, better known as KevinMD. I’ll have more detail and commentary later, but I particularly appreciated his closing remark that patients *are* going online for health information, and physicians can either roll their eyes and resist or get on board – I’ve made the same argument in various posts here.

One more example of the Tennessee state legislature being up to utter hateful bullshit: Legislature moves quickly to nullify council’s newly adopted nondiscrimination ordinance. Nashville passed an ordinance basically meaning that businesses contracting with the metro government have to have nondiscrimination policies in place that include protections against workplace discrimination to sexual orientation and gender identity, which were not included in Nashville’s nondiscrimination policy until just recently. The state legislature is basically trying to override this Nashville rule. The “Christian conservative Family Action Council of Tennessee” put out a video in support of the state law (and against the nondiscrimination policy) – “In the video, a little girl goes into a women’s restroom at a public park followed by a sinister looking man.”

There is so much wrong with this – the overall intent to discriminate, hateful message about gender, gender essentialism, and implied transphobia (whenever you have the “bathroom” gambit). That’s a lot of wrong right there. There’s also the implication that all men are such monsters, if they’re allowed into more of the same spaces with women and children, they will automatically attack them, the framing of “women” as “unsupervised little girls” combined with the “oh!we must protect the ladies!” move, and the restroom in the video being clearly marked “women” – so apparently that didn’t stop the guy in their imaginary scenario. Grrrrrr.

Smithsonian.com explores the question, When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?, and notes changing social signifiers of masculinity and femininity. A good read for anyone who thinks it’s some kind of natural law for all little girls to like pink and all little boys to like blue.

The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals released an update on emergency contraception, with overview information on methods, effectiveness, mechanism of action (i.e., how it works), safety, barriers to use, and other topics.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an action plan to address health disparities. That is good. The plan is almost exclusively focused on racial/ethnic disparities – not gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, age, geography, or other categories linked in the evidence to poorer health outcomes and services. That is bad.

An interesting/useful way to phrase a framing in the abortion debate: “We have many areas in medicine in which patients and their families consider questions about the nature of life, but only with abortion do we legislate waiting periods, morality counseling and insurance bans.”

Microaggressions….I wish this site wasn’t necessary, but I think it is, to provide a window to all of the ways people are harmed because of who they are on a daily basis.

An xkcd installment for data/stats nerds. [discussion at explain xkcd]

Transmeditations talks about the transphobic problems with Maryland’s HB235 nondiscrimination bill.

The FDA announced that they’re trying to make it easier for the general public to keep up with information on recalls and safety alerts for foods, drugs, devices, and animal health and biologic products.

From the CDC, teen pregnancy trends from 1991 to 2009.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women covers a case in which a woman attempted suicide by rat poison; she survived, but her 33-week fetus did not. She is being held in jail without bail on murder charges. NAPW writes, “This prosecution flies in the face of all medical and public health recommendations regarding the most effective ways to address suicide attempts, drug dependency problems, and health problems pregnant women experience.” The woman’s attorney states, “Criminal justice is not the place where you take care of these things.”

Via Nerve, Sex Advice from Girls Women With Underarm Hair.

Random – the lineup for the National Storytelling Festival has been announced.

And from libraryland, Duke has a neat exhibit of anatomy flap books.

And, re: the heat, the A/C at home is not working. It was 91 degrees outside yesterday, and 85 in the house. Booooo!

Filed under: Abortion, Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent Health, Body Image & Eating Disorders, Contraception, Drugs, Government, Mental Health, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy

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

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

The Now@NEJM blog posted a new item in its Clinical Practice series, Streptococcal Pharyngitis. This seemed particularly relevant after a worker fixing a light on Friday – after about 20 minutes in my office – told me all about how his current case of strep throat. The NEJM piece doesn’t seem to address people like me, though – I have a penicillin allergy!

Acquaintance Ilissa has a diary up at Daily Kos on her first morning as an abortion clinic escort. I particularly liked one of the comments: “There is not room in one skin for two people with full rights.”

At the New York Times, Study of Breast Biopsies Finds Surgery Used Too Extensively. This would be the kind of harm people were talking about when they talked about what happens when we do too many mammograms on low-risk women.

Ema at the Well-Timed Period says it clearly with regards to the South Dakota bill that could have made it legal to murder abortion providers, and how any changes they make to the bill now don’t make up for it:

Bottom line: Just because Rep. Phil Jensen and his cohorts were caught in the act of trying to legalize domestic terrorism and, when called on it, made some changes to the bill doesn’t mean they are absolved of responsibility.

Relatedly, over at Our Bodies Our Blog today I have The State-Level War on Choice: Updates from South Dakota. Note: I’m no longer even considering the possibility that Republicans “didn’t mean it that way” when they propose egregious legislation.

Over at The Unnecesarean, emajaybee writes about a 1940s experiment at the larger workplace in which pregnant women were given radioactive iron as part of an experiment. As I mentioned there, I first learned of this a few years ago when helping some students look for materials for a project on these studies. Over the weekend, I went to use the Nashville Banner (local newspaper) archives at the Nashville Public Library and pulled a news item on the experiments, if anyone would like to see it.

In the midst of the House vote to defund Title X (which funds family planning health services, including those non-abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood), I’ve picked up on some comments on Twitter stating that Planned Parenthood is anti-trans. While I support Planned Parenthood’s provision of low cost health services and tireless support of choice, those are serious allegations that deserve attention. I’m in the process of trying to learn more, but haven’t found much online – I’ve run into comments like this one and this one, but would like to find out more about how much this involves individual screw-ups vs. organizational policy, and if PP staff are held accountable by their employers for anti-trans statements and practices. If anyone has insights into how/whether PP folks are trained to provide services to trans women and men, or how PP is failing trans women individually or systemically, I would like to hear about that. There need to be clear consequences for PP staff members who discriminate against *any* women.

That said, I do believe PP provides crucial access to abortion services and other family planning and health services for so many women, and defunding Title X further disadvantages poor women who rely on their services.

Relatedly, in my searching, I found this post: Promoting and Protecting the Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health of Transgender People: What We Can Do, which outlines actions to be taken by the public, donor agencies, and states.

Not really health related, but some bills have been introduced in Tennessee that are similar to the union-busting bills in Wisconsin. The Tennessee Education Association is having a rally in Nashville on March 5th.

Filed under: Access, Rights, & Choice, Government, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Women’s Health

Three things this week that I think are important to focus on for advocates of reproductive rights and justice: HR3, HR358, and proposed cuts to Title X family planning funding and other women’s health services. I wrote about HR3 and HR358 at Our Bodies Our Blog this week. There, I note that I particularly appreciated the succinct explanations provided by Jennifer Steinhauer in the New York Times, excerpted below.

1) On HR3:

One bill, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” would eliminate tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage if their plans offer abortion services, and would forbid women who use a flexible spending plan to use pre-tax dollars for abortions. Those restrictions would go well beyond current law prohibiting the use of federal money for abortion services.

The Hyde Act already forbids taxpayer funding for abortion except for in limited circumstances (often rape or incest; this is the bill that had/has the “forcible” rape language). This law would make that permanent, and would perpetuate the injustices of Hyde, which specifically makes it harder for poor women and women of color to exercise this right.

As so clearly expressed alongside a recent report on the issue:

As long as these unjust provisions remain a part of our laws, the rights of women in this country will continue to be treated according to two different standards whether you can afford to pay for your rights or not. That is not equality.

Hyde currently has to be renewed on a regular basis. HR3 would make these inequalities permanent, in addition to potentially affecting issues such as whether employers who provide abortion coverage through their health insurance plans would be financially penalized through the loss of tax breaks.

Related Posts:
Meet the HR3 Ten – RHRC is calling attention to Democrats who cosponsored HR3
Kudos to Senators Gillibrand, Boxer, Franken, Murray, Lautenberg, Blumenthal speak out against HR3 (silver ribbon blog)
House Committees Press On with “Stupak on Steroids” Attacks on Women’s Health (Blog for Choice)
The “Stupak on Steroids” Agenda: A Multi-Pronged Attack (Blog for Choice)
Hr3/Smith Bill Toolkit for Action (National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health)

2) On HR 358:

Another bill, sponsored by Mr. Pitts, addresses the health care overhaul head-on by prohibiting Americans who receive insurance through state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. The bill is essentially a resurrection of a provision in the House version of the health care law but was not in the Senate version.

The bill would also permit hospitals to refuse abortions to women, even in emergency situations, if such care would offend the conscience of the health care providers.

The thinking about this bill is that it would effectively override EMTALA provisions that require emergency departments to treat patients regardless of ability to pay. Existing rules already protect the right of individual providers to choose not to perform abortions, but EMTALA requires that if the patient can’t be safely stabilized and transferred (in other words, if the patient might die if the procedure is not performed), an emergency department *must* provide that care.

Related Posts:
Waxman and Pallone Ask “Where’s the Constitutional Authority” on H.R. 358? (RHRC)
After ‘forcible rape,’ another abortion restriction (PostPartisan)
Anti-Choice Politicians Propose Eliminating Funding for Birth Control and Cancer Screenings (Blog for Choice)
PRCH Board Chair Submits Testimony on Pitts and Smith Bills (Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, on both bills)

3) A third item of concern is the Continuing Resolution from the House Appropriations Committee for funding throughout the fiscal year which proposes to completely eliminate the funding the President has requested for family planning services. The CR proposes a number of reductions, including the following decreases in women’s and reproductive health:

• WIC -$758M
• Community Health Centers -$1.3B
• Maternal and Child Health Block Grants -$210M
• Family Planning -$327M

That $327 million reduction proposed for family planning is the *entire requested family planning budget* from the President, who requested:

$327,356,000 shall be for the program under title X of the PHS Act to provide for voluntary family planning projects: Provided further, That amounts provided to said projects under such title shall not be expended for abortions, that all pregnancy counseling shall be nondirective…

This move is intended in part to achieve the Republican wet dream of “defunding Planned Parenthood.” So not only are they attempting to block women from accessing necessary and legal abortion procedures through HR 3 and HR 358, they are attempting to block women’s access to the kind of medical care and contraception that would help them prevent pregnancy and achieve healthy pregnancies. Awesome.

Related Posts:
House GOP Declares War on Planned Parenthood (Mother Jones)
GOP Spending Plan: X-ing Out Title X Family Planning Funds (Wall Street Journal blog)
Congress’s Latest Fiscal Strategy: Cutting Programs that Save Money and Protect Women’s Health (National Women’s Law Center)

Filed under: Abortion, Access, Rights, & Choice, Ethics, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, News Round-Ups, Women’s Health

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 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 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.

A few stories that have caught my attention over the last week:

Unlike many people, the larger workplace does not have MLK Day tomorrow as a holiday. I’m going to two lectures at work, though – the first is from Robert L. Satcher, Jr., physician and astronaut, on “Fulfilling the Dream: Minorities in Biosciences.” The second will be Julian Bond, civil rights activist, on “The Road to Freedom: From Alabama to Obama.” The Julian Bond talk is free and open to the public but tickets are required; on Friday the Sarratt box office still had tickets.

The CDC released their first report on health disparities and inequalities. It provides data on a number of issues and disparities, including exposure to air pollution, health insurance coverage, infant deaths, inadequate and unhealthy housing, preterm births, homicide, and many others.

This NPR bit on buildings and building standards in Haiti (as related to earthquakes and their damage) has a striking line in it from a seismologist working in the region: “poverty and corruption kill [because they undercut construction standards, he says. People cheat.]” It’s such a clear example of the truth of that statement, I felt the need to mark it.

Relatedly, MADRE has released a new report on sexual violence in camps in Haiti one year after the country’s devastating earthquake.

The 2011 standards of medical care for diabetes from the American Diabetes Association came out this month in the journal Diabetes Care.

A Canadian publication brought attention to the practice of pelvic exams done on anesthetized women without their knowledge or consent. Here in the U.S., there was some controversy over this practice a few years back, resulting in some institutions changing their practices, but it still happens and I’m mulling over whether it would be possible to get state and/or federal laws passed banning the practice outright.

Report: Drug-Sniffing Dogs Are Wrong More Often Than Right. In short, in Chicago, dogs were way over-alerting their handlers, and at least one expert thinks it might be because of the behavior of those handlers. According to the story:

…officers found drugs or paraphernalia in only 44 percent of cases in which the dogs had alerted them. When the driver was Latino, the dogs were right just just 27 percent of the time.

The obvious concerns here about racial profiling and unjustified searches are discussed in the full article from the Chicago Tribune.

The American College of Nurse-Midwives is holding their annual video contest, and is accepting video submissions supporting midwifery or on becoming a midwife through March 31.

This piece describes some of the barriers to safety and freedom faced by immigrant women who are abused and are in the U.S. without legal documentation.

Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check writes about The Pregnancy Police and Citizens’ Arrests of Pregnant and Nursing Women. In Tennessee, a woman who abused cocaine during her pregnancy, and whose infant was found to have cocaine its system, is being charged with aggravated child abuse.

A trans woman was murdered in Minneapolis. OutFront Minnesota has info on the planned vigil and anti-violence efforts.

Pam at Pam’s House Blend has links to info and commentary on the gruesome story of videos sent to the LAPD which depict men sexually assaulting several disabled women.

Angry Asian Man has a nice round-up of posts by Asian authors with critical responses to the “tiger mother/Chinese mother” thing. Amy Chua herself has claimed that the WSJ misrepresented her work in the controversial parenting article.

Jill at Feministe points to a story of an Idaho pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription written by a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner unless the NP would disclose whether the drug was needed for abortion-related follow-up care.

The sixth annual Blog for Choice day is coming up this Friday, January 21. The theme for this year is: Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Drugs, Ethics, Events & Observances, Global Issues, Midwifery, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy

First things first: the Senate voted on Saturday to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Hurray! The roll call vote for all of the Senators is here, reflecting the 65 votes for repeal and 35 votes against. The votes for repeal came almost exclusively from Democrats, with just eight Republicans voting yes. My own Senators, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, were unsurprisingly among the Republicans who voted against repeal; I’m disappointed in them for voting their party and their prejudice to be on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of human rights and dignity.

The repeal will not become active for at least 60 days; HRC has a Pathway to Final Repeal document [PDF] that explains the necessary next steps, and warns service members about the interim:

The Human Rights Campaign issues this critical warning to service members: Repeal of DADT is not effective immediately and service members are still at risk of being discharged on the basis of their sexual orientation until certification occurs and 60 days have passed.

Also, as @polerin was clearly pointing out yesterday, the repeal of DADT does not protect trans service members, and passage of ENDA is still needed to protect trans workers everywhere. Trans Talk has a copy of a statement on this issue from the Transgender American Veterans Association.

Of course, the Senate also failed to pass the DREAM Act, which would have provided some avenues to education and citizenship for young immigrants brought here as children. I keep reading the “DREAM Act defeated” headlines as “DREAM Act deferred…”

In other news, Kate Harding has a completely amazing post, Some Shit I’m Sick of Hearing Regarding Rape and Assange. You really just need to read it if you have heard the commentary that Wikileaks’ Assange *just* didn’t use a condom, are tired of that commentary, or don’t yet understand what’s so problematic about that line of Assange defense. It’s a crash course in recognizing and combating rape apology.

Relatedly, Sady of Tiger Beatdown has had some internet drama related to Michael Moore’s reaction to the Assange situation and his minimizing comments related to the rape accusations – Sady has been demanding that rape victims’ stories not be thrown under the bus of Wikileaks worship. It involves a Keith Olbermann Twitter flounce. Thanks to Sady for tirelessly afflicting the powerful. Just go catch up over there. Kate Harding has also posted her support in Why I’m On Board With #mooreandme.

I just finished reading “Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity,” a collection of essays on passing, gender, race, and identity. Some of the essays are better than others, but the whole book is worth a read for an interesting meditation on dominant narratives, the ways in which so many individuals don’t perfectly fit our assumptions about who/what people are, and how we create and convey our identities along the way.

I have issues with this story and the reactions it has generated that probably need to be explored in a longer post. I never saw the “Is She A Hero Or A Danger?” language CNN purportedly used to discuss this woman who had a home VBAC after three cesareans (VBA3C); that’s not the headline now, but I think the answer is probably “neither,” and “these are the very cases against which we test our principles about what a woman can and cannot be compelled to do with her body for the sake of another person’s body.”

New sexually transmitted infection treatment guidelines are out from the CDC; they also include screening and prevention recommendations.

Renee at Womanist Musings shares a video about images of women in advertising.

Cara at The Curvature points to a local story I’d missed: Nashville Police Officers Charged With Domestic Violence Get to Keep Their Jobs. Ugh. This reminds me that I need to contact Nashville police to follow up on an incident of police action I witnessed/reported.

In other local news, the story of Coach Howe’s dismissal from Belmont University because of her sexual orientation made the New York Times. For ongoing coverage, the Belmont Vision student newspaper and Pith in the Wind (blog of the local alt-weekly) seem to be doing the best job.

At Feministe, Hospital saves woman’s life; is told by Catholic leadership not to do it again, Oops, I forgot to have babies!, and two posts related to the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers – It’s not just violent clients who abuse sex workers, and Whore Stigma Makes No Sense.

RHRC is also hosting a series to explore and combat violence against sex workers.

Perhaps I’m entirely too skeptical, but I find it hard to buy this official story that the 36 LGBT books damaged with urine in a Harvard library were “accidentally” damaged by a staff member who just *happened* to spill a nearby open bottle of urine on said books. I’m a librarian, and a spilly/messy one at that, but this really strains my credulity.

As always, please check out Our Bodies Our Blog – this week we’ve been talking about genetic testing and privacy, and Avastin.

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Ethics, Events & Observances, Government, Infectious Diseases, Libraryland, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Reviews

Some items that have caught my interest recently – I haven’t done one of these in a long time because of work and life and other ponderings about the best current use of the blog, but here are some news items, issues, and commentary of potential interest to readers, on women’s health, feminism, and miscellaneous topics:

The CDC provides Consider Cholera: Information for U.S. Healthcare Professionals for clinicians who are asked to be on the lookout for U.S. cases, with info on diagnosis, treatment, and reporting.

Aunt B has an excellent commentary in Self-Avowed Feminist, Gail Kerr, Has some Opinions about Emily Evans on the message sent when one female newspaper columnist attempts to trash a female councilperson using language like “shrill” and “class know-it-all.” The setting is Nashville, but the meaning conveyed is likely to be clear to smart women everywhere who are used to this kind of “know your role” gender-oriented criticism.

I haven’t read the study yet myself, but Robin Marty of RHRC points to a recent paper that apparently indicates that ultrasound may not be necessary for some medical abortions.

Midwife Connection (blog of the ACNM) explains some myths and facts about kegels.

For the first time, a woman (deliberately) gave birth inside an MRI machine. The still images look pretty much like I expected they would. Sounds uncomfortable.

FWD/Forward has a call for submissions to a blog carnival on asexuality and the autism spectrum.

FWD/Forward also has a “An open letter to abled people who like to glare at people who use disabled parking spaces.”

Jill at Feministe is talking about reproductive justice and the law, specifically a recent study of reproductive rights courses in American law schools.

From the New York Times, “Push for Stricter Abortion Limits Is Expected in House.”

New STI treatment guidelines from the CDC are coming out soon (Dec 17).

Loretta Ross of SisterSong has a great piece in On The Issues, “Fighting the Black Anti-Abortion Campaign: Trusting Black Women.”

Mother Jones asks whether efforts to prevent federal funding of abortion (already pretty much well taken care of! despite what anti-healthcare, anti-choice propaganda might have you believe!) might also affect private insurance coverage of the procedure.

The CDC released new guidelines on lead exposure during pregnancy; the AAFP sums it up and links to the PDF.

Melissa at Redefine Girly is taking on sexism in Christmas toy ads.

Lesley at Fatshionista writes about fat stereotypes on Glee.

Meanwhile, I really wanted to like Good magazine, but was turned off this week after an OhNoesTehFAT!!! infographic this week that focused on a fat=death! message, which was only one aspect of recent research upon which the piece was based. They didn’t bother to mention increased mortality in the underweight, I’m assuming because that part of the findings doesn’t fit the popular narrative, and isn’t so readily illustrated to fit that narrative. Good chose to illustrate degrees of overweight using plates with increasing amounts of food, as though simple eating too much is the only issue here. Granted, there is probably more concern about overweight than underweight in the U.S., but the presentation just struck me as simplistic and intended more to confirm existing prejudices than to inform.

And, as always, I have more regular posts over at Our Bodies Our Blog; recent topics include “Bridalplasty,” a new report on the Hyde amendment, public comment periods on birth-related things, and reactions to the Princeton abortion conference.

That’s all for now!

Filed under: Abortion, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth, Global Issues, Government, Infectious Diseases, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy

A few things of interest:

Nikki has notes from a recent Twitter chat on health literacy, including a bunch of suggested resources on the topic.

PF Anderson points to a great presentation (embedded there) on using social media for sharing family planning messages. It’s a useful introduction to tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube with examples of how they’re being used by groups like Planned Parenthood.

A nice response to the ridiculous “i like it…” statuses on Facebook that are inexplicably supposed to make people feel like they’re doing something about women’s health: I like it without pinkwashing

Weight loss drug Meridia was taken off the market, “because of clinical trial data indicating an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.” An FDA person said, “Meridia’s continued availability is not justified when you compare the very modest weight loss that people achieve on this drug to their risk of heart attack or stroke.”

RH Reality Check has good posts on lawsuits resulting from misrepresentations in anti-abortion political ads, and an example of how reproductive choice is not always about abortion.

Last week was National Midwifery Week; there are several relevant posts at Midwife Connection. The whole month is National Medical Librarians Month; I’m kind of bummed that there seem to only be websites for librarians (posters and materials to use), rather than a central site/page/anything that promotes the month to *non-librarians.* Maybe I should volunteer for that.

Science & Sensibility has a thing about emergency funds for pregnant women on bedrest who are experiencing financial difficulties because of the bedrest – such as being fired from their much-needed jobs.

Some high school girls decided to organize a campaign in their school for girls to not wear make-up one day each week as an empowerment thing. It’s kind of cool. I’ll be over here waiting to see how many expand that to the rest of the week, whether the girls who were already not wearing make-up every day or otherwise conforming to social standards are being embraced or still shunned, and whether anybody is going to ask why girls are expected to wear make-up at all when their male peers obviously aren’t. *one step at a time*

Something I would not have thought of if it weren’t for seeing this post, and that’s what I love about FWD/Forward – discussion of how the switch from physical buttons to touch screens at cash register card self-swipe machines creates difficulties for blind and low-vision consumers.

Via Siobhan at BHIC, info on a new government helpline for folks affected by the oil spill.

Finally, there have been some great videos posted at http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject, http://www.youtube.com/trevorprojectmedia, and elsewhere to try to combat the bullying and despair lgbt teens experience, particularly in reaction to recent suicides. My favorite thus far is from Sarah Silverman on how kids learn to be so cruel, embedded below. Warning for an f-bomb.

[Relatedly, Renee reminds us that "anti-bullying is not solely the fight of the LGBT community", and Cara talks about anti-trans violence in jail]

Filed under: Abortion, Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent Health, Body Image & Eating Disorders, Boobs, Cancer, Drugs, Events & Observances, Government, Libraryland, Midwifery, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups