Thank you, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, for making a joke of abstinence-only programs. The show returned from its mid-season break on Monday, with two storylines relevant to reproductive health. The first dealt with Matt (Matthew Perry) and Harriet (Sarah Paulson). Her devout Christian character enters a date auction to raise money for teen abstinence programs. She does this to get back in the good graces of a conservative women's organization (that disinvited her to a previous event because she wasn't anti-gay enough), though Harriet admits that she has no problem with premarital sex.
Not since the appointment of Dr. W. David Hager to the FDA's reproductive health drugs advisory committee have Americans been so abuzz about an anti-family planning zealot appointed by the Bush administration to a federal body responsible for providing family planning information and services. Just over two months into his tenure as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services (where he administers $283 million annual budget of federal family planning grants), we are still uncovering evidence of "Doctor" Eric Keroack's staggering lack of credentials. The latest exhibit is "OXYTOCIN: Is thisNANO-PEPTIDE a chemical type of HUMAN ‘SUPER-GLUE'?" (emphasis most definitely NOT mine),the PowerPoint presentation that sealed his infamy in the eyes of self-respecting scientists, physicians, and non-crazy people everywhere.
As new discoveries in HIV prevention are made, including the use of circumcision and microbicides, the U.S. must have maximum flexibility to spend limited resources in the areas of HIV prevention that are most relevant to country demands. Maximum flexibility? You can almost feel the collective shudder on Capitol Hill. Congress cannot afford to let recipients do as they wish with tax payer dollars; can you blame them? But the alternative—dedicated funding for specific activities—can be dangerous, especially when funding is limited and lives literally lie in the balance.
In the pro-choice community, we spend most of our time debating the options women should have when they are thinking about terminating a pregnancy. We rarely spend time, however, discussing what options women should have when giving birth. By the same token, maternal and birthing rights activists often do not address issues surrounding abortion in their own work.
Naina Dhingra is the Director of International Policy at Advocates for Youth and serves on the Developed Country NGO Board Delegation of the Global Fund.
I remember the night of January 28, 2003 well. For days prior, there had been a flurry of emails speculating that President Bush might perhaps mention global AIDS and that he just might announce a major new U.S. government initiative to tackle the pandemic in his State of the Union. At the time, I was a college AIDS activist with the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) at George Washington (GW) University and a member of the International Youth Leadership Council with Advocates for Youth. I lived and breathed the global AIDS movement. SGAC had formed just a few months earlier on the passion and commitments of a small group of students from Harvard, GW, University of Maryland, Yale, and several other universities. We were young, inspired, and believed that we could change the world.
The effects and politics of the population debate have been flaring up around the world as the stakes, like the distribution of global resources, get higher and higher. So, when we get the chance to demystify the political and economic lingo about demographic changes, I say we should jump at it.
The Population and Development Program at Hampshire College has recently published a paper by Anne Hendrixson, as part of their series DifferenTakes, that aims to shed some light on what seems at first glance to be a very complicated argument about demographic changes. The theory recently propounded in the IMF's September 2006 issue of Finance & Development is called the "demographic dividend."
Willful Ignorance is Courtney Martin's insightful analysis of the true consequences of abstinence-only zealotry (because abstinence-only "education", once and for all, is NOT education). Martin's hypothesis states, "If we want to change the toxic sexual culture on our nations' college campuses, we need to start looking at the sex education our high-schoolers receive." And it's got progressive bloggers buzzing. But is Martin's theory enough to explain away some of the more vicious offenses on college grounds?
Thirty-four years ago the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the right to an abortion. While this certainly was a milestone and victory for women in the United States, we also must understand how this decision impacts women from all backgrounds and communities.
The Latina community is incredibly diverse. Many of us are immigrants or our parents were immigrants, while others have been here for generations. We come from many different places: Caribbean Islands, Mexico and more recently from South and Central America. Our cultural diversity, varied immigration status and personal experiences in the United States all contribute to how a Latina will perceive her right to an abortion and her understanding of this right.
At first glance, the state of reproductive rights looks better on the 34th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade than it has in the past few years—last fall voters in South Dakota and California rejected anti-choice initiatives and the makeup of the new Congress is more favorable towards reproductive health. Yet despite these gains, Roe is far from safe and we must not take its protection for granted. From the U.S. Supreme Court to the state capitols, opponents of a woman's right to choose whether and when to have a child are continuing to introduce legislation that restricts that right throughout the country. Here's a roundup of recent abortion legislation news.
In honor of the 34th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade today, NARAL Pro-Choice America is sponsoring Blog for Choice Day. So go ahead and celebrate your personal right to freedom and privacy - and let us know why you are pro-choice. Please post comments below.
