The Washington Post has a don’t miss special report on Teens and Sex comparing attitudes in the U.S. with those of teens abroad, where healthy attitudes mean fewer unintended pregnancies, abortions, and STDs than in the U.S. They will also feature a live online chat Q & Asession with Dr. Robert Wm. Blum from Johns Hopkins Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, or if you can’t be online then, ask a question here now and read the transcript later. The Post doesn’t quite expose the whole story though …
For many in the reproductive health community, evangelical Christians have become synonymous with retroactive policies, scientific ignorance, and in too many cases, bigotry and arrogance that together have made them the bane of protecting sexual and reproductive health and rights.For many in the HIV-positive community, these sentiments have often been felt with as much—if not more—fervor, as evangelicals’ dislike for homosexuality has nearly authorized widespread ignorance about the epidemic, and the epidemic has created a platform for expressing their views.
So when Rick & Kay Warren of Saddleback Church in Orange County start talking about HIV in a new way, all kinds of ears start listening...
A Kansas court has refused to open the court proceedings in which Attorney General Phil Kilne (R) is attempting to access private medical records of patients at two abortion clinics. From the AP:
"The clinics' attorneys said they hadn't contacted any news organizations about the hearing, but Kline's chief deputy, Eric Rucker, acknowledged that someone in Kline's office might have. That statement caught Anderson's notice."
"At all times before this court, the attorney general has maintained that the investigation should be pursued out of the view of the media and with utmost respect for privacy of patients," Anderson wrote. "Thus, the court is perplexed by the apparent invitation to the hearing extended by the attorney general."
Is anyone surprised that it is Kline's office that is leaking to the media since the entire case is based on his lack of respect for personal privacy? Maybe if he loses re-election he can get a job at the NSA.
More than 200,000 women are serving in the US military—protecting our rights and defending freedom—yet they do not have the freedom to privately pay for an abortion at the military medical facilities where they are required to obtain all their health care.A service woman has to get permission from her commanding officer, wait for an available military transport and head home to the land of the free and home of the brave to have access to a safe and legal abortion.
CDC is a medical body dedicated to “protecting the health and safety of all Americans.”It seems like an obvious corollary then that medical science should be the guiding force in all of its work.If this doesn’t happen, CDC would appear to be derelict in its duty to pursue its mission.So CDC has done the right thing in choosing to investigate the events in which politics firmly vetoed the presentation of medical science at a conference on sexually transmitted infections (STIs), preventing a discussion of documentedfailures in the abstinence-only sex education programs promoted by the Bush Administration.
[img_assist|nid=154|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=68|height=100]With the recent banning of abortion in South Dakota and 11 other states following suit, Focus on the Family seems publicly invigorated by the news, “pro-lifers have good reason to be hopeful.” Privately, Daily Kos reports Dobson is whipping the White House to do more. Quoting Dobson, "There's just very, very little to show for what has happened and I think there's going to be some trouble down the road if they don't get on the ball," referring to the paultry successes the far right has won for its loyalty to the Bush White House.
Recent news that the Vatican might slightly relax its opposition to both condom education and provision as a way of preventing the transmission of HIV and AIDS has been greeted with optimism by the media as well as the international HIV and AIDS community. Of course, those of us old enough to remember the Vatican Commission on Birth Control—which was widely expected to change the church’s position on contraception in 1966—know not to get our hopes up. Then, the vast majority of commission members recommended that the Vatican approve of contraception for married couples and said there was no theological obstacle to a change. Four dissenting members went to the pope and cautioned that any change might erode the overall authority of the church and lead people to believe that other things could change. The pope followed the minority view and ruled in favor of authority over the health and needs of Catholic couples.
What is Lester Crawford hiding? The former FDA commish that specialized in delaying and denying OTC access to Emergency Contraception has refused to be deposed in hearings and says he will invoke 5th Amendment privileges in a law suit relating to the delays. On Friday, Newsday reported that White House appointment calendar logs show a meeting between Jay Lefkowitz while in the Domestic Policy office of the White House, and Mark Mclellan at the FDA " re: Plan B submis. " Attorney's are seeking access to more documents in a case that has already clearly established the Bush Administration's politicization of the FDA delays on Plan B.
Researchers from the FDA, CDC and NIAID gathered in a secure auditorium in Atlanta yesterday to further their scientific understanding of the cause of seven deaths among women, some of which have been linked in the media and by abortion opponents to Mifeprex, the prescribed abortion medicine. While the linkage to hot-button issues like abortion has grabbed headlines, the two bacteria (Clostridium sordellii and Clostidium difficle) have caused infections and deaths in at least 11 other women, twice as many as have died of infection after taking the prescribed abortion medicine.
This just in from Marilyn Keefe from NFPRHA who was our Guest Blogger earlier in the week on HIMMAA:
Minutes ago, the Senate voted to kill the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2005 (HIMMA, S. 1955), a bill that threatened to weaken key protections for health consumers by preempting state consumer protections, including those guaranteeing coverage of contraception, cancer screening and treatment, and maternity care. The vote was 55-43, 5 less than the 60 required to invoke cloture (which ends debate and allows a vote on the bill). The vote was largely along party lines, with all Democrats voting "NO" except Ben Nelson from Nebraska and Mary Landrieu from Louisiana. Lincoln Chafee from Rhode Island was the sole Republican voting "NO" on cloture.
