Rep. Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (D-MI) plans to stand up for UNFPA, the UN Population Fund, by introducing an amendment during House Appropriations Committee foreign operations mark up May 25.Recognizing that the Administration has stretched the law the past four years to find reason to not release the Congressionally-appropriated funds to UNFPA, Kilpatrick’s office is working around it.Her amendment says if the Administration wants to withhold the funds again, the $34 million in the bill for UNFPA will go specifically to obstetric fistula prevention and treatment.Stay tuned.
A House committee today rejected Bush’s request to cut international family planning programs by $79 million, by restoring $56 million of funding. This is still a cut from current levels of funding, and if this goes unchanged, means that women and men that are currently receiving services to help plan when and how many children to have, among other things, will be left without.
The subcommittee also included $34 million for UNFPA, the UN population fund, to provide reproductive health services. UNFPA programs reach countries the United States does not, so it is one more way for Americans to improve life in many parts of the world.
Americans have made a great difference in the health and well being of women and children around the world with our support of these programs. We can continue to be a leader, or we can let these cuts stand. We’ll have to see if opponents will go after these programs – and will be tracking this issue here. Next step: The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider this bill Thursday, May 25.
Tuesday we reported on the silence from the White House over several questions about the President's views on contraception spanning nearly one year. Highly relevant, because his adminstration has so clearly attempted to thwart their use as a proven means of protection from STDs/HIV and unwanted pregnancy at home and around the world. Today, we join our friends at Birth Control Watch in counting the days of this unanswered question, with this accounting from the conservative publication Human Events:
During Tony Snow's first official press conference, a reporter asked him – out of the blue -- whether President Bush was personally opposed to family planning (Snow was too shocked to answer the question, although the President has just one set of twins). While Hillary and her cohorts might think that Republicans are anti-family planning because there are so many prominent Catholics working in the Bush administration, the truth is that the vast majority of Catholics, even Republican Catholics, don't agree with the Church's teachings on artificial contraception.
We saw the video, Tony did not look shocked, he just didn't have an answer, so why spin it? As for "out of the blue" that is a little hard to explain after 357 days. And one question, exactly which church teachings are people allowed to disagree with? If you could clear that up for the rest of us we could end lots of distracting debates and get back to the real business of finding common sense soultions to real world problems.
Most Americans would agree to help individuals caught up in human trafficking, frequently women or children sold into servitude for sex, housework and other kinds of labor. Your tax dollars are being used to provide basic services for these people who are getting resettled into a new life.Sounds pretty good. After all, these people were basically kidnapped from their homes and put into some kind of indentured work and certainly deserve a helping hand.
Up to $6 million of your tax dollars are going to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide things like health care, rent, clothing, child care, English classes and immigration filing fees.This also sounds pretty good too – the USCCB probably has people’s best interests in mind.The USCCB then re-grants to local organizations to provide these services.
The medical journal The Lancet says FDA Acting-Commissioner Andrew von Eshenbach may not be independent enough to run the FDA. "His failure to issue a decision undermines both his credibility and that of the agency. Von Eschenbach should move quickly to approve Plan B to show he has the independence needed to be an effective leader of the FDA," the editorial said.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and its new ad campaign encouraging women to plan ahead for Plan B and get the medicine before they need it is being called "political" by Wendy Wright of the Concerned Women for America. Former FDA official Dr. Susan Wood explains, "when women need emergency contraception they need it now, not tomorrow, not two days from now." See the new ads at Voice of America.
In advance of the UN General Assembly’s Special Session on HIV/AIDS at the end of May, the New York Timestakes a cut at lessons to be gleaned from Kenya’s apparently successful efforts in curtailing new HIV infections.The editing of the piece is a bit confusing – there are a couple of lines that suggest abstinence-only policies are a big part of Kenya’s suggest, but the bulk of the text reinforces the wisdom of a comprehensive approach.
Rewire is clear in its condemnation of abstinence-only policies. Comprehensive approaches to sex education should include abstinence information; it is the adherence to a strict abstinence-only policy that endangers so many. The New York Times reports that programs in Kenya that stress a comprehensive approach to education that includes a strong abstinence message, but does not forgo the protection of condoms, are important factors in that nation’s reduced HIV infections.Other factors indicated include that AIDS deaths have already significantly reduced the populations of HIV positive people, and that in neighboring Uganda, increased condom use has been important.
A federal judge has permanently enjoined USAID from enforcing its anti-prostitution policy on DKT International. From Phil Harvey, DKT President:
Judge Emmet Sullivan handed down his decision today in the case of DKT International v. USAID. The result is a major victory for DKT, for free speech, and for the integrity and independence of private US organizations.
Ruling that current US law, insofar as it requires "DKT to have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking" is "an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment." Judge Sullivan permanently enjoined USAID from enforcing the prostitution policy against DKT. His findings generally rest on the same legal grounds as the decision by Judge Marrero in the OSI case last week. The US government may not require private organizations to parrot the government's chosen speech as a condition for receiving government funding. Our injunction is permanent, so this part of the case is over. DKT will again seek USAID support for its AIDS-prevention programming in Vietnam and elsewhere.
As the youngest and only girl in my family, I was the epitome of a daddy’s girl.At 3, I loved pretending to be a princess.At 13, however, I would have rather died than share intimate details of my teenage world with either of my parents – and they were totally open.I can only imagine the mortification I would have felt if my father stood up at my Bat Mitzvah pledging to protect me and my precious virginity until the day he passed me off through marriage – not to mention had he asked me to make the same promise in front of all those people. Oy.
But that is exactly what Focus on the Family and other organizations are promoting with Daddy-Daughter Purity Balls, complete with pledges of chastity, promises to guard virginity, and vows to oppose abortion.Even more disturbing about this practice is that rather than opening lines of communication about sex, these symbolic promises are meant to be sufficient.
Today a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee is reviewing an amazing advancement in women’s health – a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.While there was some grumbling from the fringe when Merck first announced this medical advancement, we want to give a tip of the hat to those conservative groups now supporting it.
Dr. Gary Rose of the conservative Medical Institute for Sexual Health said, "We believe this is going to be very important in terms of prevention." Almost unbelievably, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America said, “We welcome the vaccine." And even the Family Research Council is now supporting it.
If you miss the patterns, in science or in politics, you miss the point, and right now there are patterns a plenty in the forces attempting to shape reproductive health. Yesterday’s hearings by Rep. Mark Souder in the deaths of several women, all linked to certain bacteria, and a few as to whether or not the bacteria has to do with variations on the approved protocol of Mifepristone (RU-486), the prescribed abortion medicine, demonstrate an effort to use tragedy for political gain as opposed to advancing medical, scientific or public health understanding and awareness.
