Top of the News: Afternoon Edition

It's Veterans Day so I'm reminding myself (and others who need it) that our female vets are in need of gender specific health care upon returning home from combat; Sarah Palin and the Tea Party want less government - unless it has to do with abortion restrictions; a drug manufacturer of breast cancer treatment drugs adds cancer-causing agents to its drugs; and anorexic women face more unplanned pregnancies than do women who don't suffer from the disorder.

Here are some of the afternoon stories related to reproductive justice you may have missed today! Read them, share them, and let us know what you think!

  • It’s Veterans Day today and I thought it appropriate to remind myself and others about what our female Veterans still face, upon returning home from war, when it comes to health care. In May of this year, President Obama signed a bill ensuring that female vets have access to more gender appropriate care. The bill addressed training counselors in sexual trauma for women – since 1 in 5 women return from combat having experiened sexual trauma. As well, the legislation addresses the fact that one-third of female soldiers return from combat with some sort of reproductive health disorder and their health care needs must be met by a Veterans Administration which is still used to caring primarily for men.
  • Republicans are terrified that Sarah Palin will run for President in 2012 – no more Mama Grizzly, pleads Republican Senator of Maine, Susan Collins, according to Washington Post opinion writer, Jonathan Capeheart. 
  • And in more Sarah Palin news, she’s still pushing the “no taxpayer money for abortions” meme (even though, uh, there is no federal funding allowed for abortion care)  and ironically, exploiting Tea Partier fear of big government a la the health care reform bill, to push for more government restrictions on abortion. How does that work?!
  • Lucinda Marshall, writing at The Feminist Peace Network, explains how, according to Breast Cancer Action, Eli Lilly, drug manufacturer of breast-cancer treatment drugs, is adding rGBH (artificial hormones linked to breast cancer) to its cancer treatment medication “completing its cancer profit circle.” 
  • Alex DiBranco at Change.org reports on the heartbreaking case of a 14 year old teen who committed suicide after revealing that she’d been raped by an 18 year old classmate. The girl was interviewed on a local television station, with her identity not sufficiently concealed. She then became a victim again – of harrassment and taunting on twitter, and at school. 
  • Surprising news about women with anorexia and pregnancy, from Slate’s XX today. In a study, just released from the November issue of the journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, anorexic women were much more likely to face unplanned pregnancies and, by association, to get abortions, than women who don’t suffer from the disorder. It breaks two myths at once, notes Double XX: one, that anorexic women don’t get their periods (which isn’t true, note the study’s researchers) and two, that if a women doesn’t get her period, she can’t get pregnant (as long as a woman ovulates, she can get pregnant).
  • Eleven women from an El Paso, TX based non-profit are on the fourth day of their hunger strike in front of The White House. They are there to protest violence and poverty in their border region, as the result of inadequte immigration policies which focus more on border security than anything else. The group works on behalf of the rights of Mexican migrant women workers, among other issues.