Ok, so I feel like a bad lesbian for missing the season premiere of The L Word last Sunday. I had to find out about the pro-choice theme of the show via Feministing. (The cable gremlins disconnected my neighborhood's premiere cable channels... what's a girl to do?) Anyway, the first episode picked up the storyline of Kit (played by Pam Greer) and her boyfriend Angus deciding what to do about her pregnancy. Unlike other popular TV shows (*cough* Scrubs), The L Word dealt with the topic of abortion in a very nonjudgmental way. But what the buzz really centers around is that Sunday's show highlighted the hypocrisy of crisis pregnancy centers.
Wednesday, January 10, the day I returned to Nicaragua after a one-month hiatus in the States, was a significant day in contemporary Latin American politics. Selected heads of state from the region and around the world had gathered in Managua to celebrate the presidential inauguration of left-wing Sandinista party leader Daniel Ortega, reelected for the first time in 16 years. Ortega's discourse has changed significantly since he was president in the 1980s - on Wednesday, his remarks focused on building strength through unity and reconciliation. He condemned the 16 previous years of conservative leadership that had widened inequalities between the rich and the poor and undermined many of the successes of the Sandinista era. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Bolivian president Evo Morales, George Bush's most outspoken critics in Latin America, also spoke at the inauguration, pledging economic and political solidarity with Nicaragua, and celebrating Ortega's victory as an important step against the marginalization of Latin American countries, and the neglect of their poorest citizens.
Since the Federal Drug Administration approved the HPV vaccine last summer, there have been variedreactions to this important breakthrough. Recently, several states have lined up with legislation to make the vaccine mandatory or to provide it at no cost. In honor of January being National Cervical Health Awareness Month, here's an update on HPV vaccine news around the world.
The 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 22nd, is a cause for celebration for all who care about women's health and especially for those of us in the reproductive rights movement who work to protect and extend this legacy every day. It also provides a valuable opportunity to promote prevention.
Prevention - of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and cervical cancer - is a goal that everyone should be able to support. Not only is prevention good health policy, it also makes good fiscal sense. For example, in California, every dollar spent preventing unintended pregnancy, saves California an additional $5.33 in future medical and social services costs, according to the California Research Bureau.
Unfortunately, there are still many who prefer to use this anniversary to stage an annual conflict here in San Francisco.
In February 2006, the UK government made a historic decision: in response to the erosion of funds available for work on safe abortion worldwide, it announced the creation of the Global Safe Abortion Fund (now known as the Safe Abortion Action Fund). Administered by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Fund offers nongovernmental organizations worldwide up to 2-year, $350 million grants for safe abortion advocacy, service provision, or operations research. Fund administrators have pledged to place a particular emphasis on reaching the most marginalized, vulnerable women in the world, many of them in developing countries.
Thankfully - and signaling progress in the area of sexual and reproductive health - one of the first bills introduced in the Senate on the opening day of the 110th Congress was the Prevention First Act (S. 21). This common-sense, cost-effective, health service approach to simultaneously reduce the incidence of abortion and promote good health was introduced by anti-choice Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
Reid introduced a similar bill in the previous Congress (though it was doomed to go nowhere). We have crossed fingers that the makeup of the new Congress will enable a better outcome this time around.
On its 60th anniversary, UNICEF has launched a report asserting that gender equality is critical to child survival and development. "The State of the World's Children 2007" investigates the status of children all around the world. The report found that by bringing an end to gender discrimination we would create the "double dividend" of benefiting both women and children. "The lives of women are inextricably linked to the well-being of children," said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. "If they are not educated, if they are not healthy, if they are not empowered, the children are the ones who suffer."
"It is our goal that every woman receives the type of empowering health care that feminist health care centers currently provide." It is an admirable aim and the Consortium of Feminist Reproductive Health Centers does seem fueled, through unity, by a renewed sense of purpose to accomplish it. And what is feminist health care? Francine Thompson, Health Services Director at the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City, one of the remaining 15 feminist health centers and a consortium member, puts it, "There are many feminists out there providing health care. There are few organizations that have an organizational commitment to feminism. This is what I think makes the feminist health centers different. ....policies and decisions, whether they are medical, financial, regarding employees/benefits need to be looked at through the ‘feminist lens.'"
But how far must the "feminist lens" bend to refocus on the survival of feminist health centers? Is the foundation on which feminist health centers are built outdated? More urgently, will the remaining 15 feminist health centers in this country be able to weather the challenges set before them before it's too late?
Krista Jacob is the editor of "Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice."
Advocates of a woman's right to choose are losing the battle - in part because those working to protect that right are ignoring a complicated truth: Many people who support legalized abortion do so with differing personal philosophies and varying levels of conviction. Today, young people are better able to grapple with the nuances of emotion and experience about this difficult issue because they've grown up in a post-Roe America.
In her new book "Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice," Krista Jacob has compiled an impressive collection of essays by pro-choice advocates that addresses the spectrum of personal and social influences, ranging from dealing with remorse to the impact that economics, race, and culture have on a woman's right to choose.
Generational attitudes about sexuality and reproductive health are shifting among evangelical youth in one of the most interesting trends to watch in terms of future politics and policy. According to a research study from Baylor University and a recent series of reports by Judy Woodruff on The NewsHour, young adults are trending more faithful and more compassionate in terms of public policy than their parents. Woodruff will host a PBS special about Generation Next this Friday, January 12 at 9:00 p.m. (ET).
