On Friday, the House passed an appropriations bill that once again proved it has become politically acceptable to throw the needs of adolescents under the bus. If passed, the bill will cut $10 million from the budget of CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health while resurrecting abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
The Administration's decision to ignore medical and scientific evidence and deny increased access to Plan-B suggests a failure to understand and acknowledge the effects of this decision on Latinas, women of color, undocumented immigrants and low-income women.
We cannot let the Democrats, let our president, lose sight of what this decades-old debate about access to all forms of reproductive healthcare is really about; that is, for women to have any sort of autonomy and self-determination within our society.
With the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade a little over a month away, and the 2012 election right around the corner, I can’t help but think about the popularly speculated relationship between abortion rights and young people.
The war cry of the GOP (Grand Old Puritans) is that the HPV vaccine is a license for public fornication. This is how they rally their financial base. I get that, but the press doesn’t have to take the bait. It only becomes a story if the press makes it so.
Sex workers deserve the basic respect and protection from violence that each nation owes its citizens. But in many settings, police abuse of sex workers receives scant public attention despite its entrenched global reality.
