I got to thinking about what else the President’s decision portends. The essence of successful politicians like, say, Margaret Hamburg and Kathleen Sebelius, is three-fold. What starts all over every morning is the (political) big leagues ballgame. What starts over every day in these big leagues, just like the baseball ones, is a game that is played only one way: the hardball way.
Today, 14 Senators, 13 Democrats and one independent, wrote HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking her to provide them with the scientific evidence and rationale for her decision to deny access to Plan B to teens over the counter
Whether President Obama was compelled to weave the bubble gum narrative for political gain or because it truly reflects his thinking, the result is the same. Complex sexual health issues get overly simplified, society focuses on stigma more than solution, and young people are left with policy decisions that don't begin to match the weight of their lived experiences nor keep them "safe."
A critique of reproductive politics written in the 1970s about events in the ‘20s and ‘30s is remarkably relevant to today’s leading reproductive controversy: the Obama Administration’s overruling of the FDA decision to allow over-the-counter status of Plan B emergency contraception for young women under the age of seventeen.
Kathleen Sebelius clearly upheld restrictions on emergency contraception as a naked political move, but it wasn't even smart politics. Young women, a big voting bloc for Democrats, are insulted and will likely be demoralized by this decision.
A new project from GLSEN asks young people and adults to pledge to put an end to bullying. Over 96,000 people have taken the pledge, but we have to do so much more.
Kathleen Sebelius caves to anti-choicers on emergency contraception, and the USCCB looks to further restrict women's access to contraception. Jean Baker describes the long and wild career of Margaret Sanger.
In 1989, the historic bifurcation between abortion providers and political activists had finally begun to dissolve, and a powerful new alliance was beginning to form. Providers were now at the forefront of the abortion rights struggle, and patients themselves, in the midst of the most personal and intimate of decisions and life events, were thrust into a vortex of politics and passion. This is one story from that time.
