Adolescents worldwide lack access to the sexuality education and the comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services that play a critical role in their well-being and empowerment. The implementation of the full range of reproductive rights — as fundamental human rights — must be a priority for all countries.
When Virginia legislators first began considering a forced trans-vaginal ultrasound bill, progressives wondered: "What kind of world are we living in, when "informed consent" is tantamount to state-sanctioned rape?" Here's what kind of world: the kind wherein a mandatory ultrasound law scads worse than the proposed Virginia bill has already been in place for five months. In Texas. And right now there may be no feasible legal way to stop it.
After weeks of protest in the state of Virginia and nationally, Governor Bob McDonnell signs a bill forcing women to have and pay out of pocket for an expensive and often medically-unnecessary medical procedure before they can terminate a pregnancy, suggesting it is an effort to "empower women."
In 2012, three years before the 2015 deadline the world set for itself to reduce preventable maternal deaths and new HIV infections, we must act more boldly than we have up until now. The global health community must work to bring family planning and HIV services together – and quickly – to save women’s lives.
Improving access to sexual and reproductive health services is necessary to advance the Millennium Development Goals. At this critical moment, however, funding priorities for family planning are being shifted away from Latin America and the Caribbean, which may undermine the substantial gains that have been made in the region and overlook the tremendous need that still remains.
"Sting" operations carried out by anti-choice groups who want to eliminate women's access to abortion and birth control have become an issue in the United Kingdom where misrepresentation of the issue of sex selection is being used in a new series of attacks on providers.
