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).
Gloria Feldt is a leading expert in women's rights, women's health, and politics from where the personal meets the political. She is also a Women's Media Center board member.
Change is in the air this week in Washington, D.C. "This is what happens when they ban smoking in those smoke-filled rooms," observed Congresswoman Rosa De Lauro (D-CT) as she welcomed some 1,000 women to high tea January 3 in honor of the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
The mood in the Mellon Auditorium on Capitol Hill was buoyant among this gathering of partisans and issue advocates. Many, like me, have tasted both victory and defeat time after time in the struggle to advance liberty and justice for women. Now, with Nancy Pelosi leading a newly elected Democratic majority, a question was raised repeatedly in conversations throughout the elegant hall: "Will this time really be different?"
Our very good friend and colleague, Cynthia Dailard, passed away on December 24 after suffering a cardiac arrest. Cynthia, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute and a NFPRHA Board member, was a gifted thinker, writer, and speaker, whose highly regarded work focused on family planning-related issues in the policy and legislative arenas. Her contributions have been essential to advocacy and education efforts both in D.C. and across the country. The entire sexual and reproductive health and rights community mourns her loss less, both for her invaluable professional contributions to the field and for her years of unflagging good will and friendship.
With all the legitimately horrifying human trafficking occurring in the world, you'd think the U.S. State Department office dedicated to the subject would have better things to do than issue directives about politically correct language. Then again, I'm never surprised to hear how federal agencies under the Bush administration choose to interpret their jobs. So I was less than shocked to read that last month, the State Department office for combating human trafficking sent a directive to U.S. agencies and several foreign governments explicitly instructing them avoid using the terms "sex worker" and "child sex worker." What are the State Department's preferred terms? According to John Miller, the office's (now retired) director, "women used in prostitution" and "sexually exploited children" will do just fine, since by Miller's reckoning, those terms are "neither pejorative nor pretend that violence to women and children is ‘work.'"
In an opinion piece published last Sunday, Byron Calame (the New York Times' reader representative) wrote about a key component in a New York Times Magazine article on abortion in El Salvador: "Accuracy and fairness were not pursued with the vigor Times readers have a right to expect." The original article, written by Jack Hitt, had several interviews with women who had abortions in El Salvador - where the medical procedure is illegal and anyone who participates in one can get sentenced with up to 30 years jail time.
The controversy is over one of the women, Carmen Climaco, who is currently serving time in prison; the debate is whether she was punished for ending her pregnancy (as Hitt reported) or for killing her full-term baby after it was born (as court documents suggest). Calame contends that Hitt and his editors did not fact check thoroughly, and then denied their mistake when questioned about Climaco.
