In mid-July, world leaders will gather in London to discuss a real and urgent need: increased funding for family planning. The summit documents link the dearth of contraceptives and health services to poverty. This vision is not so much wrong as it is incomplete.
Board members faced with “legal advice” from the AG’s office that is clearly informed more by political objectives than legal principles should decline to follow it and take whatever action is necessary to see that the regulations that they believe are in the best interests of Virginians are published and implemented.
Today I participated in an extraordinary side-event on “Rio+20 and Women’s lives: A Cross-General Dialogue” at the Ford Foundation Pavilion. This event was very intimate, it drew you in, with women’s personal stories for Rio+20 and beyond.
Horrifying reports of a woman forced to have an abortion draw attention yet again to the dangers of China’s one-child policy. All champions of human rights must openly condemn China’s one-child policy and the illegal practices of forced abortion and coerced birth control reported in some localities. The continued oppression of Chinese families through coercive reproductive policies must end.
In this week's sexual health round up: study finds that teens who know of the possible consequences are actually more likely to sext; traces of HIV found in the man who was thought to be cured of the virus by a bone marrow transplant; and a study in mice finds human breast milk may block the transmission of HIV.
From a tragic case in Massachusetts has emerged a rule affirming women’s fundamental personhood: “All births, regardless of venue, carry inherent risks; in the ordinary course, competent women who are pregnant may weigh these risks themselves and make decisions about the course of their own pregnancies and childbirths.”
Last night, the voters of North Dakota decisively defeated a ballot initiative that one news outlet called an "ecclesiastical mugging." By a margin of 64 percent to 36 percent, voters said "no" to an effort to impose religious doctrine on health care, social policy, and law in the state.
I talk to C. Virginia Fields the Chairman of the 30 for 30 Campaign, which has brought together numerous national and local advocacy and service delivery organizations to focus on the unique needs of women who are affected by HIV and AIDS, especially black women and transgender women.
How did one Texas legislator get the state Department of Health Services to enact requirements on abortion care that failed to pass even the Texas legislature? Documents show the answer is simple: he just asked. Yet despite inquiries, the DSHS can not justify many of the requirements and seems not to have thought them through.
