Roundup: More Women Taking Emergency Contraception

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Roundup: More Women Taking Emergency Contraception

Apr 28, 2011, 10:20am

Beth Saunders

More women have taken emergency contraception now that it is available over the counter; White House to hold first-ever transgender issue meeting; and maternal mortality for African-American women in California skyrockets.

Making emergency contraception available without a prescription has more than doubled the number of women who say they’ve taken the medication. In 2002, when the pills were available by prescription only, 4% of women said they’d taken it at some point. Of women surveyed in 2006-2008, 10% said they’d used the pills. Megan L. Kavanaugh of the Guttmacher Institute said, “its use still seems relatively low, given that it’s easy to access. So there’s room for improvement.”
On Friday, the White House Office of Public Engagement will hold the first-ever meeting to focus solely on issues important to transgendered persons. Mara Keisling, of the National Center for Transgender Equality, who will attend the meeting, said, “This is the first president who has allowed trans people –really allowed LGBT people — to bring forward problems and then advocate for them.”
Maternal mortality in California is on the rise. African-American women especially are hard-hit, with mortality rates that are on par with Syria or Kazakhstan. PBS Newshour reports, “The mortality rate for black women was 46 deaths for every 100,000 live births from 2006 to 2008, while the rates for Asian, white and Hispanic women in the same period ranged from 9 to 13 deaths per 100,000 births.”

Roundup: More Women Taking Emergency Contraception

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