Andrea Lynch spent four years in the communications program of the International Women's Health Coalition, where she worked to build global support for sexual and reproductive health and rights through developing resources for activists in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and building awareness of how U.S. policies impact women and youth worldwide. She recently conducted research on interorganizational alliances for a masters degree in Participation, Power, and Social Change, based at the Nicaraguan NGO Puntos de Encuentro in Managua, Nicaragua.
While Sen. John McCain's campaign did not respond to Rewire's questionnaire on his positions on sexual and reproductive health, in mining through his public statements, we discovered the following.
Fight for women's right to life, get accused of trampling women's human rights and coercing them into having abortions they don't actually want. That's what's happening in Nicaragua right now.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign staff answers Rewire's hard-hitting questions on sexuality education, the Hyde amendment, abortion access, and much more.
Sen. Chris Dodd shares his positions on the Freedom of Choice Act, emergency contraception, reproductive health care in military hospitals and more with Rewire.
John Edwards responds to Rewire's questions on reproductive health issues -- sharing his position on parental notification laws, emergency contraception, gay and lesbian adoption, and much more!
While no Republican candidate's campaign responded to Rewire's questionnaire on their positions on sexual and reproductive health, in mining through their public statements, we discovered the following.
Don't know what the presidential candidates think about reproductive health beyond their position on Roe? Rewire developed a questionnaire to help sort out the contenders' positions on sexual and reproductive health -- beyond the sole issue of abortion. The candidates respond -- but most don't.
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign staff responds to Rewire's questions on reproductive health -- sharing his position on the Hyde Amendment, crisis pregnancy centers, the global gag rule, and much, much more!
Rewire sorted through the public statements of Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Mike Gravel, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, and Gov. Bill Richardson in order to find out where they stand on a number of sexual and reproductive rights issues.
Want to spread the reproductive health love this holiday season? We're back with the second installment of Rewire's guide to the books, movies, and organization that make reproductive justice their mission.
This holiday season, why not give the gift of reproductive justice? Browse our selection of reproductive freedom-friendly books and DVDs, or check out our donation guide if you’re in the mood to spread some holiday cheer.
Officials in the government of the PEPFAR poster child, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, are cracking down on Ugandan LGBT activists, while the U.S. government stays quiet.
Having a child as a teenager is undeniably difficult, and providing women with the tools to avoid or delay pregnancy until they feel ready is a worthy policy goal. But when adolescent pregnancy is not prevented, how far are we willing to go to help our young mothers?
In this two-part series, Andrea Lynch looks at the closure of the New York City Department of Education's "P schools" - educational programs for pregnant and parenting students - and the new ways grassroots groups conceive of teen parenting.
Legislation proposed by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) would take concrete steps to prevent child marriage in the countries where girls are most vulnerable by generating political commitment to address child marriage as a human rights abuse.
Last Thursday, the Nicaraguan National Assembly voted 66-3 to recriminalize therapeutic abortion during an overhaul of the Nicaraguan penal code, again choosing unvarnished political opportunism over accepted medical consensus and concern for women's health.
Why is improving maternal health the "most elusive" of the UN Millennium Goals? Perhaps because it requires us to talk about how much societies value women.
Is there room for sexual moralizing in an honest conversation about AIDS? Not if that moralizing causes suffering, stigma, alienation, and excludes people needed to stop the spread of AIDS.
Andrea Lynch recently returned from a year working on reproductive health issues in Nicaragua and has unique perspective on TIME Magazine's extensive look at abortion laws in Latin America.
Sex in the City remains an icon pf pop culture in part because they dealt with the complexity of women's lives and their private decisions without sugar-coating difficult issues.
Failure to Deliver: Violations of Women's Human Rights in Kenyan Health Facilities paints a distressing portrait of Kenyan women's experiences of reproductive health care.
In Chicago, an organization called African American Women Evolving has spent the past decade pursuing a positive, holistic vision for reproductive health and social justice -- by and for Black women.
There's been a whole lot of press over the past few weeks about James D. Holsinger, the Kentucky physician who President Bush nominated in May to serve as the next U.S. Surgeon General.
Mixed news from Portugal: abortion was officially legalized up to 10 weeks without restriction on July 15, but some doctors are refusing to perform the procedures due to a conscience clause.
Andrea Lynch addresses clinic violence and the anti-abortion strategies of misinformation, coercion and intimidation to build a so-called culture of life.
Connecticut Catholic Bishops' claim that they are the real victims of new legislation that stops Connecticut hospitals from denying emergency contraception to women who have been raped.
HIV is not yet widespread in Nicaragua, but with no sexuality education to speak of, a weak health system, and a culture of machismo that leaves women with little control over their sexual and reproductive lives, young people and women face particular HIV risk, and their infection rates are climbing.
Andrea Lynch honors Marta Solay, who shared her compelling story with Colombia's Supreme Court in order to help legalize abortion in cases where a woman's health or life is in danger.
Which is scarier: HIV or unwanted pregnancy? Young people in different countries may fear one more than the other, but it's the refusal to see the connection between the two that is truly terrifying.
Due to the sustained conflict and economic downturn ushered in by the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women are now migrating to Syria in droves, where they're faced with exotic dancing and sex work to support themselves.
Virginity testing is on the rise as an HIV- and unwanted-pregnancy-prevention strategy in South Africa, but it's more about controlling women's sexuality than keeping them safe.
Andrea Lynch shares candid reflections from Evelyn Flores Mayorga from Puntos de Encuentro on the Nicaraguan total abortion ban—how it passed into law and what has happened since then.
Appreciative inquiry is about recognizing the positive, instead of focusing on the negative. So let's take a moment to appreciate all of the folks who continue to place real women's lives, rights, needs and capacities at the center of their work.
The unnatural need not apply: the World Congress of Families comes together to defend the "natural family" from big bad "feminists, socialists, and big business interests"—oh my!
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announced plans to introduce a bill that would strengthen the state's antiquated abortion and contraception laws: The Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act.
The Supreme Court has effectively unfurled the judicial equivalent of a banner reading "Bring it on, Roe haters!" by upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003; we can expect even more state-level restrictions in the months and years to come. Meanwhile, Nicaragua women are suffering from that country's total abortion ban—36 women have died from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes so far in 2007.
Some people think pregnant women who choose abortions must be ignorant, hysterical or under coercion. Thus to prevent abortions they scare, confuse, or shame them—with your tax dollars.
Just when you thought the information surfacing about "Dr." Eric Keroack's professional practice and extracurricular pseudo-medical activities couldn't get any weirder ... it just got weirder. Back in November, Keroack was appointed by Bush to head the Title X Federal Family Planning Program, amidst widespread outrage over the fact that he runs a chain of highly unethical crisis pregnancy centers, believes contraception is demeaning to women, and has used junk science to argue that premarital sex undermines women's biological capacity to fall in love. After just five months on the job, on March 29 Keroack abruptly resigned as Head-Anti-Family-Planning-Zealot in charge of meeting low-income women's family planning needs, amidst investigations into the legitimacy of his professional practice. This week, the Boston Globe took a closer look at the Mass. board of medicine's accusations, and their report indicates a disturbing series of ethical lapses that should come as no surprise to those who have been following the coverage of Keroack to date.
In May 2006, Colombia's Constitutional Court handed down a historic decision, voting 5-3 to decriminalize abortion in cases where a pregnant woman's life or health was in danger, in cases where the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, and in cases of severe fetal malformation. The decision, which came in response to a case brought by Colombian lawyer Monica Roa, was a watershed for Colombia—one of the few countries in the world where abortion had been illegal under any circumstances up until then, despite the fact that between 350,000 and 400,000 Colombian women still sought clandestine abortions every year.
First, it grounded the decision in the norms established by a number of international and regional human rights instruments to which Colombia (among others) is accountable. And second, it placed women's human rights, with a particular emphasis on their sexual and reproductive rights, at the center of its justification for decriminalizing abortion. Which makes it, like, 80 times more progressive than Roe v. Wade, by the way. Women's Link Worldwide, the organization that supported Roa's case, has recently translated the most groundbreaking excerpts of the Court's 600-page decision into English, and posted the document on their website together with an excellent foreword by Rebecca J. Cook, a feminist and human rights scholar at the University of Toronto. Highlights follow.
Safe and legal abortion has been widely available in the United Kingdom since the passage of the 1967 Abortion Act, a piece of legislation that accomplished for British women what Roe v. Wade would accomplish six years later for their sisters in the United States. The 1967 Act made abortion legal through the 24th week of pregnancy, provided that two doctors certified that continuing the pregnancy "would present a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman or her existing children." In cases where a woman's life is threatened by the pregnancy or in cases of fetal malformation, there is no time limit.
Bad news for the 39 percent of female college students currently trying to avoid unwanted pregnancy by taking the pill: thanks to the far-reaching effects of a 2005 bill that took aim at Medicaid from multiple angles, their contraception may soon become unaffordable. According to an AP story published last week, the 2005 bill—which took effect this year—makes it more expensive for drug manufacturers to participate in Medicaid, while simultaneously removing the incentive for them to provide deep discounts to campus health centers for things like contraception. The result? Women at Kansas State University who used to pay $10 a month for pills will now pay $30. At Texas A&M, prices are expected to triple. And at Indiana University, women are now paying $22 a month instead of $10 for the same pills. These are just a few examples. As this latest development proves, the 2005 bill was a slap in the face for millions of sexually active college students currently struggling to work, study, make ends meet, and exercise responsible control over their reproductive lives.
Tuesday, March 20 is the sixth annual Back Up Your Birth ControlDay of Action, and today, a coalition of more than 100 women's health and medical organizations will undertake dozens of educational activities nationwide. Their message is simple: back up your birth control with Emergency Contraception (EC), which can prevent pregnancy if taken up to 72 hours after unprotected intercourse. EC has been available over the counter in the United States since 2006, following a three-year political kerfuffle at the FDA. Women under 18 still need a prescription, which is why many of today's events will focus on increasing adolescent girls' access to information about EC. Here are a few ways to get involved (after the break) ...
Move over Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Karen Hughes: the Society for the Blaming of Terrorist Attacks on Abortions, Feminists, and Gay People has a new member, and his rhetoric leaves yours in the dust. Meet Steven Mosher, president of Population Research Institute (PRI), a "non-profit research and educational organization dedicated to objectively presenting the truth about population-related issues," and the source of countless objective presentations of truth on sexual and reproductive health. Mosher and PRI are perhaps most famous for their misinformation campaign against UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), the world's largest multilateral provider of reproductive health services, resulting in the Bush administration's decision to freeze the traditional $34 million U.S. contribution to UNFPA for five years running. It's nice when Steve &friends get to dictate U.S. policy on reproductive health, isn't it?
Mosher's latest screed—whoops, I meant objective presentation of truth about population-related issues—comes in the form of a PRI Weekly Briefing titled "How Not to Win the War on Terror: Keep Exporting Abortion and Sex Education."
What is happening in our culture when the following two stories break on the same day? First, over at the Washington Post, "Christopher A. Warner says he considers himself something of a maverick, a caring physician willing to challenge medical orthodoxy in order to help women ... he is building a business as the first area physician to perform controversial procedures that use a laser to enhance sexual gratification by repairing tissue damaged by childbirth, to give women a ‘youthful aesthetic look' or to make those who are not appear to be virgins."Meanwhile, over at the San Francisco Chronicle,"A public high school has suspended three students who disobeyed officials by saying the word ‘vagina' during a reading from a well-known feminist play."
Last Thursday, in commemoration of International Women's Day, over two thousand women and men from across Nicaragua gathered to protest the total ban on abortion—including in cases where pregnant women's lives are at risk—that has been in place since late 2006.
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