Gonorrhea becoming drug-resistant
As STD joins list of 'superbugs,' CDC recommends new drug for treating it
Apr 12, 2007 12:24 PM
Associated Press
ATLANTA – U.S. health officials are recommending wider use of a new drug to treat gonorrhea because the sexually transmitted disease is steadily becoming resistant to the longtime standard antibiotic.
Fluoroquinolones, a class of antibiotics that includes Cipro, have been the most common way to treat the bacterial disease since the early 1990s. Since then, gonorrhea has grown increasingly resistant to those drugs.
On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that a different class of antibiotics, cephalosporins, be used instead.
"Gonorrhea has now joined the list of other superbugs for which treatment options have become dangerously few," said Dr. Henry Masur, president of the Infectious Disease Society of America. "To make a bad problem even worse, we're also seeing a decline in the development of new antibiotics to treat these infections.''
The CDC made the new recommendation after discovering that nearly 7 percent of gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men in a survey of 26 U.S. cities last year had drug-resistant strains of the disease. In 2001, only about 0.6 percent of gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men were drug-resistant.
"That leaves us with a single class of highly effective antibiotics," said Dr. John Douglas Jr., director of the CDC's division of STD prevention. Other experts called the situation perilous.
It's the first time cephalosporins have been recommended to treat gonorrhea for the entire U.S. population, although the CDC recommended the antibiotics to treat against drug-resistant gonorrhea in California and Hawaii in 2002. Two years later, the CDC made the same recommendation to treat the bacterial infection among American men who have sex with men.
The newly recommended class of antibiotics includes the generic drug ceftriaxone, also known under the brand name Rocephin, which must be injected and "works very well" although the drug is not commonly stocked in doctor's offices, Douglas said.
In contrast, Cipro and other fluoroquinolones were more commonly available and easy to use because they could be taken orally in a single dose.
Ceftriaxone must be given as a shot and costs about $20, about the same as Cipro, said Ira Katz, pharmacist and owner of Little Five Points Pharmacy in Atlanta.
The CDC estimates that more than 700,000 people in the U.S. acquire gonorrhea each year through sexual contact. It is the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the United States, the infectious disease society says.
The highest rates of infection are among sexually active teens, young adults and African-Americans. Because many people don't have obvious symptoms, they can unknowingly spread it to others.
Though treatable, gonorrhea puts people at greater risk of catching the AIDS virus. In women, gonorrhea can cause pelvic inflammatory disease. In men, it can cause epididymitis, a painful condition of the testicles that can lead to infertility if untreated, the CDC said.
In the survey of 26 cities last year, Philadelphia had the highest percentage of drug-resistant cases with almost 27 percent, followed by areas in California and Hawaii where health officials long have known about gonorrhea drug resistance.
A quarter of gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men in Honolulu, San Diego and Orange County, Calif. were drug-resistant, followed by 22.5 percent of cases in San Francisco and 22 percent in Long Beach, Calif. More than 15 percent of cases in Miami were drug-resistant to the bacteria, the CDC said.
Showing posts with label Lady bits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lady bits. Show all posts
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Monday, September 04, 2006
Cervical cancer vaccine at 12 'would cut deaths'
My boy cousin sent this article to me, either that's the sweetest thing ever, that he listens to me and remembers what things I'm interested in - or - I'm creepy and need to stop ranting about STDs in mixed company. Here's my question about this article though. If you know of an STD floating around, that's small enough to pass through the pores of a condom that could kill your daughter, why would you not want your child to be immunised before her first sexual experience?
· Two drug companies in immunisation race
· Study claims fatalities would drop by 75%
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Monday September 4, 2006
The Guardian
Immunising every 12-year-old girl with a new vaccine would cut the number of deaths from cervical cancer in the UK by more than 75%, the manufacturers claim today.
GlaxoSmithKline, the British company slightly trailing Merck in the race to produce the first cervical cancer vaccine, will produce statistics at a conference in Prague to estimate that 100% vaccine coverage in the UK would cut the death toll from the disease from 1,093 deaths a year to 262. Their figures also suggest the number of women developing cervical cancer at all would be reduced from 2,841 to 682.
The studies into the vaccines show that they are most effective in young girls who are not yet sexually experienced, which is why it is suggested that immunisation should take place at age 12.
GSK admits that there is no likelihood of every 12-year-old being vaccinated. Even if the NHS decided to take up the vaccine and offer it to all schoolgirls, there is likely to be a substantial number of parents who would turn it down.
Cervical cancer is, in effect, a sexually transmitted disease, caused by infection with the human papilloma virus and more likely the more sexual partners a woman has. The vaccine protects against HPV infection. Many parents, particularly in the US where Merck will launch first, are expected to resist any suggestion that their child should be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted infection.
But even with 80% coverage, GSK says its computer modelling shows that deaths from the cancer should drop by 61%.
The company also says that vaccination would reduce the number of abnormal smear tests during cancer screening by 52.4% and it would cut the need for diagnostic colposcopies - a tissue-sampling procedure to establish whether an abnormal smear is really cancer - by 54.8%.
GSK's vaccine offers protection against the two most common strains of the virus implicated in cervical cancer, HPV 16 and 18. However, at the International Papilloma conference in Prague today, Merck will claim that its vaccine may offer protection against even more strains of HPV.
It has already been shown to protect against four strains of HPV - HPV 6, 11, 16 and 18. The latest study suggests, the company says, that it can neutralise HPV 31 and 45 as well. This would mean that it protects against 85% of the strains responsible for cervical cancer.
Both companies are positioning themselves to take advantage of a potentially huge market in the developed world, where cancer is the most feared disease. The greatest need for such a vaccine, however, is in developing countries where there are no screening programmes for cervical cancer and far more women die of the disease.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Woman who gave birth after abortion wins suit
Apr. 4, 2006. 11:50 PM
MONTREAL (CP) — A Montreal hospital has been ordered to pay $45,000 in damages to a woman who gave birth to twins, several weeks after undergoing an abortion.
Saoudat Batoukaeva went to the St-Luc Hospital on March 26, 1999 to have an abortion.
An analysis following the procedure was supposed to find no fetal tissue or placenta. Scientific literature suggests the continuation of a pregnancy is very rare, an expert testified in court.
After the pregnancy was confirmed three weeks later, officials immediately attempted to get the woman to return to the hospital. But she had moved to Toronto.
A nurse called the phone number she left twice, and a letter was sent to her address. But the Russian-born woman, who doesn't speak English or French, never received the letter.
An examination in July revealed she was carrying twins. The 40-year-old woman gave birth two weeks later to the babies, born at 25 weeks gestation.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Caron concluded that doctors followed the rules but should have done more to find the woman.
"It was a very special case which, because of its seriousness, required a special follow-up," he wrote.
Caron added the woman was at fault for not going for a required follow-up appointment.
Consequently, he awarded the woman and her husband half the $90,000 they were seeking.
MONTREAL (CP) — A Montreal hospital has been ordered to pay $45,000 in damages to a woman who gave birth to twins, several weeks after undergoing an abortion.
Saoudat Batoukaeva went to the St-Luc Hospital on March 26, 1999 to have an abortion.
An analysis following the procedure was supposed to find no fetal tissue or placenta. Scientific literature suggests the continuation of a pregnancy is very rare, an expert testified in court.
After the pregnancy was confirmed three weeks later, officials immediately attempted to get the woman to return to the hospital. But she had moved to Toronto.
A nurse called the phone number she left twice, and a letter was sent to her address. But the Russian-born woman, who doesn't speak English or French, never received the letter.
An examination in July revealed she was carrying twins. The 40-year-old woman gave birth two weeks later to the babies, born at 25 weeks gestation.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Caron concluded that doctors followed the rules but should have done more to find the woman.
"It was a very special case which, because of its seriousness, required a special follow-up," he wrote.
Caron added the woman was at fault for not going for a required follow-up appointment.
Consequently, he awarded the woman and her husband half the $90,000 they were seeking.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Dan Savage Says...
U.S. Straight Rights Update: Earlier this month Republicans in South Dakota successfully banned abortion in that state. Last week the GOP-controlled state house of representatives in Missouri voted to ban state-funded family planning clinics from dispensing birth control. 'If you hand out contraception to single women,' one Republican state rep told the Kansas City Star, 'we're saying promiscuity is okay.' On the federal level, Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 per cent effective HPV vaccine -- a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year -- from being made available.
The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're going to have those babies, ladies, and you're going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.
What's it going to take to get a straight-rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas is seeking to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for god's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking Holy War, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!
The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're going to have those babies, ladies, and you're going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.
What's it going to take to get a straight-rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas is seeking to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for god's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking Holy War, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Big surprise! Taking drugs can kill you if you don't follow the directions
These articles slay me. The title suggests that medical abortions will kill you, then you read the article and it says that 7 women have died since 2000, that's a little more than one a year. They don't give an indication in this article of how many doses have been sold of the drug, but I'll wager it was a large amount. I bet more than 7 people have died from taking ibuprofen since 2000. Then the article tells you that of the women who died, some of them they can't prove the death was related to the drug and the rest of them weren't taking the drug the way the manufacturer suggested. Let's call a class action lawyer now, this case is smokin'! What they are really telling you here is that there have been no deaths descisively linked to people who took the drug as instructed by the manufacturer, that's a awesome track record. I know the guy who wrote the article probably didn't get to write the title as well and that the guys at newspapers who write the title are a bunch of totally irresponsible dipshits, but come on! Who planted this article? Sheesh! Didn't they print almost this identical article for the 6th woman who died, and didn't I write almost the same comment on it with almost the same title? Will I do this every time they print this article? Probably. If the newspapers can put up the same article over and over, then so can I.
U.S. health regulators warn of RU-486 perils
ANDREW BRIDGES
Associated Press
Washington — Two more women have died after using the abortion pill RU-486, federal health regulators said Friday in warning doctors to watch for a rare but deadly infection implicated in earlier deaths.
At least seven U.S. women have died after taking the pill, sold since 2000. The Food and Drug Administration cannot prove the drug was to blame in any of the cases.
The FDA has not confirmed the cause of the latest two deaths.
In four of the earlier cases, however, the women died from an infection of the bloodstream. Those women did not follow FDA-approved instructions for the pill-triggered abortion, which requires swallowing three tablets of one drug, followed by two of another two days later.
Most abortion clinics instruct that the second course of pills be inserted in the vagina, as occurred in those four earlier deaths. Studies show that method works, but it is considered a so-called “off-label” use of the pill.
U.S. health regulators warn of RU-486 perils
ANDREW BRIDGES
Associated Press
Washington — Two more women have died after using the abortion pill RU-486, federal health regulators said Friday in warning doctors to watch for a rare but deadly infection implicated in earlier deaths.
At least seven U.S. women have died after taking the pill, sold since 2000. The Food and Drug Administration cannot prove the drug was to blame in any of the cases.
The FDA has not confirmed the cause of the latest two deaths.
In four of the earlier cases, however, the women died from an infection of the bloodstream. Those women did not follow FDA-approved instructions for the pill-triggered abortion, which requires swallowing three tablets of one drug, followed by two of another two days later.
Most abortion clinics instruct that the second course of pills be inserted in the vagina, as occurred in those four earlier deaths. Studies show that method works, but it is considered a so-called “off-label” use of the pill.
Monday, March 20, 2006
I wouldn't have gone there anyway....
Tourism boycott of South Dakota urged
Proposed abortion law sparks furor
State flooded with calls — pro and con
Mar. 20, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHET BROKAW
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PIERRE, S.D.—The superintendent of Mount Rushmore was surprised at first when people from all over the country started calling to express their opinion about South Dakota's ban on nearly all abortions.
Some callers said they were so upset they would never visit Mount Rushmore, South Dakota's No. 1 tourist attraction. Others said they were so thrilled they would make a point of coming to see the chiselled faces of four U.S. presidents in the Black Hills.
Superintendent Gerard Baker decided the messages from far and wide made sense because Mount Rushmore is a symbol of freedom. "That's what we're all about here. That's what America is all about, people expressing their freedom and people expressing their choices and so forth.''
In the uproar, politicians and state agencies have been bombarded with thousands upon thousands of calls, letters and emails — pro and con — from across the country and around the world for two weeks solid.
A few small groups have called for a tourism boycott of South Dakota, urging people to avoid Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, and the Corn Palace arena in Mitchell whose walls are covered with ears of corn.
The furor was prompted by passage of the strictest U.S. abortion law: a ban on all abortions except to save a woman's life, with no exceptions for rape or incest. It takes effect July 1, and is a lower court challenge to the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling (1973) that established the right to an abortion.
Planned Parenthood, which runs South Dakota's only abortion clinic, has said it will decide soon whether to challenge the law in court or to press for a state referendum in November.
"This is one of the most contentious issues in American society, so when a state does something dramatic, ... it will elicit a pretty strong response from the folks who have an interest in the issue," said Don Dahlin, a political science professor at the University of South Dakota,
In a state where many people do not bother to lock their cars or homes, security was tightened at the state Capitol as the legislature debated the abortion measure. State troopers were more visible than usual, plainclothes officers sat in during a committee hearing and some of the bill's main sponsors got protection.
"To the best of my knowledge, we've had no threats," said Republican Governor Mike Rounds, who signed the law March 6.
The governor's office has set up a call centre with five lines just to take abortion law calls. An estimated 10,000 calls, emails and letters arrived in a two-week period. "I don't know of any other single event that has generated more interest than this," said press secretary Mark Johnston.
Tourism is South Dakota's second-largest industry behind agriculture. Visitors to the state spent $809 million (U.S.) in 2005, the tourism department says, and 2.75 million visitors visited Rushmore in 2005.
Those urging a boycott include the Women's Medical Fund, a pro-choice group, based in Madison, Wis. "Our message is that, if they are going to treat women in this inhumane way, they can expect to pay a price," said its director Anne Gaylor.
Dahlin said a tourism boycott would probably be of small effect because the state relies on family tourism, not large-scale convention business, which can be shifted elsewhere all at once.
Proposed abortion law sparks furor
State flooded with calls — pro and con
Mar. 20, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHET BROKAW
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PIERRE, S.D.—The superintendent of Mount Rushmore was surprised at first when people from all over the country started calling to express their opinion about South Dakota's ban on nearly all abortions.
Some callers said they were so upset they would never visit Mount Rushmore, South Dakota's No. 1 tourist attraction. Others said they were so thrilled they would make a point of coming to see the chiselled faces of four U.S. presidents in the Black Hills.
Superintendent Gerard Baker decided the messages from far and wide made sense because Mount Rushmore is a symbol of freedom. "That's what we're all about here. That's what America is all about, people expressing their freedom and people expressing their choices and so forth.''
In the uproar, politicians and state agencies have been bombarded with thousands upon thousands of calls, letters and emails — pro and con — from across the country and around the world for two weeks solid.
A few small groups have called for a tourism boycott of South Dakota, urging people to avoid Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, and the Corn Palace arena in Mitchell whose walls are covered with ears of corn.
The furor was prompted by passage of the strictest U.S. abortion law: a ban on all abortions except to save a woman's life, with no exceptions for rape or incest. It takes effect July 1, and is a lower court challenge to the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling (1973) that established the right to an abortion.
Planned Parenthood, which runs South Dakota's only abortion clinic, has said it will decide soon whether to challenge the law in court or to press for a state referendum in November.
"This is one of the most contentious issues in American society, so when a state does something dramatic, ... it will elicit a pretty strong response from the folks who have an interest in the issue," said Don Dahlin, a political science professor at the University of South Dakota,
In a state where many people do not bother to lock their cars or homes, security was tightened at the state Capitol as the legislature debated the abortion measure. State troopers were more visible than usual, plainclothes officers sat in during a committee hearing and some of the bill's main sponsors got protection.
"To the best of my knowledge, we've had no threats," said Republican Governor Mike Rounds, who signed the law March 6.
The governor's office has set up a call centre with five lines just to take abortion law calls. An estimated 10,000 calls, emails and letters arrived in a two-week period. "I don't know of any other single event that has generated more interest than this," said press secretary Mark Johnston.
Tourism is South Dakota's second-largest industry behind agriculture. Visitors to the state spent $809 million (U.S.) in 2005, the tourism department says, and 2.75 million visitors visited Rushmore in 2005.
Those urging a boycott include the Women's Medical Fund, a pro-choice group, based in Madison, Wis. "Our message is that, if they are going to treat women in this inhumane way, they can expect to pay a price," said its director Anne Gaylor.
Dahlin said a tourism boycott would probably be of small effect because the state relies on family tourism, not large-scale convention business, which can be shifted elsewhere all at once.
Monday, March 13, 2006
The era of choice is on the wane in the evil empire
11 more states are rushing through legislation to ban abortions in all but cases of danger to the woman's life. Not danger to her health, mental health, not in cases of rape or incest. I have always said that this was a distinct possibility, but I have to admit that even I am stunned.
Gather your pennies together ladies, we have to start fundraising for a donation to Planned Parenthood's legal fund. You know that on the other side of this thing are Christian fundamentalists who set aside every cent they aren't spending on their own children to give to right to life groups and their churches. The anti-choice side has unlimited funds.
Gather your pennies together ladies, we have to start fundraising for a donation to Planned Parenthood's legal fund. You know that on the other side of this thing are Christian fundamentalists who set aside every cent they aren't spending on their own children to give to right to life groups and their churches. The anti-choice side has unlimited funds.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
The comment section from a previous post
This is the comment section from the post about South Dakota banning abortion. I wrote a long winded response to Trib that should have been a post in and of itself, but who looks back that far? So I thought I'd copy the whole comment section up here and keep the damned thing going till it's dead.
Jennifer said...
And so it begins...
12:08 PM
yrautca said...
Nobody lives in SD, if thats any consolation.
1:11 PM
yrautca said...
I admit that this scares me, not because I believe whole-heartedly in abortion, but because now 'they' have enough people in place to materially affect other civil liberties as well.
I know you guys have it good in Canada. You guys are lucky. Its a much more enlightened society than US.
1:31 PM
Princess Pessimism said...
this is appauling. You know how I feel about back alley abortions, and coat hanger abortions...even to say those words makes me shudder. Okay...so SD may not have the population that LA has, or NYC has, but they should still have the right to choice.
12:43 AM
Jennifer said...
Well Yrautca, it does seem that we are lucky to have our more enlightened society, but as the wonderful Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once said, sharing the continent with the US is like sleeping in a bed with an elephant. As it is, we've just elected a Conservative (like Repulican) government with a party leader whose stance on abortion is that he'll 'try to keep it off the table' -read 'I'm reasonable, but my party are a bunch of scary Christian right fuckers from Alberta' so, our civil liberties in Canada are on thin ice too, and it's not as thin as the ice the US is on, but you guys are jumping up and down on the ice and sooner or later we're all going down.
The thing about it only being in South Dakota is that there's most definitely going to be a court case that will go all the way to the supreme court and without Sandra Day O'Connor who just retired the pro-choice on the supreme court is one short, she's been replaced by Alito and his vote is still up in the air.
PP, the thing about SD not having too many people is that only folks with money already are the only ones who can make it to the Planned Parenthood office, and now they have even farther to travel and more time to take off work in order to get an abortion. And, it may end up that no one in the US will have access to abortion in three years time when this gets to the supreme court. Should that happen, I wonder what would happen to abortion in Canada, or Canadian-American relations, considering how apoplectic all those right-wingers are over reasonably priced Canadian drugs going over the border. Would you have to get a pregnancy test before you were allowed to leave the US, or would the anti-choicers just trust that most women who need abortions couldn't afford to take the time off work and travel to Canada anyway.
9:46 AM
Princess Pessimism said...
I was thinking of that...having to travel to obtain an abortion....It might not be that bad. Yes, it's true, the added travel expense, and time and inconvenience.
However, if SD notices a decline in their monetary intake at hospitals, maybe they'll rethink it. I dont know much about the abortion rate in comparison to the medical bills in SD, but if one correlates to one another, then maybe they'll smarten up and bring the right to choose closer to home.
12:31 PM
Jennifer said...
The travelling thing is key, from your point of view or mine, it doesn't seem so bad, I could hop in a borrowed car and drive 3 or 5 hours, make up some story about needing the day off for an appointment, but imagine being a single mother with some fastfood type job, maybe two and kids, and no car, how are you possibly going to make that happen, then what if you want to keep it quiet, because obviously people in SD aren't very tolerant of these things.
I read somewhere that the majority of women who died of clothes hanger abortions before it was legalized were visible minorities ie black and hispanic (something like 85 or 90%), because they didn't have the money to travel out of the US to get their abortion.
The economic implications will likely have no effect in SD, the only abortion clinic is Planned Parenthood which has already said they'd sue, no hospitals offer it. Besides, I'm sure that the security costs of bombings and protesters, and the amount you'd have to pay a doctor to risk their lives at the job, has taken any profitability out of providing abortions that there may have been in the first place. I think Planned Parenthood is a non-profit anyway.
12:52 PM
Trib said...
I wouldn't be too concerned about this. Both of the new justices are very against legislating from the bench and are precident oriented. They are very sharp jurists and believe that their job is to interpret the constitution, which it is. Actually, I think the 9th Appelate could learn something from them. The only people who think abortion will be outlawed in this day and age are christian fundamentalists. Now that they're in Alito and Roberts have nothing to fear from those folks.
Also I'd just like to comment that Canadian drugs are cheap because of a free rider phenomenon. If Americans weren't paying so much for the R&D the drugs (especially for rare diseases) wouldn't even be around. That we pay out of the nose for them is a fact that we as a society have deemed acceptable for pharm to keep making drugs at the rate they are.
5:25 PM
yrautca said...
I think if Canada can improve on its economy and become a major world market, people around the world will look up to the Canadian model.
Yes Canada is socially conscious, but does that feed the hungry? I am surprised that they elected a conservative govt.
11:52 PM
Jennifer said...
Actually, social programs do feed the hungry. Also our socialized medicine heals the sick.... need I continue?
As for the Conservative government being elected, I don't know either, if people were voting that way to get back at the Liberals for corruption, sure they punished the Liberals, but they punished themselves and the rest of us too!
12:46 PM
Jennifer said...
Trib, I know you get a lot of propaganda from the drug companies when you are in med school, but most of them spend more on marketing than research and development and of their R&D money they spend more on developing 'lifestyle' drugs than drugs for actual illnesses, the largest growing sector of the pharma business today is pet anti-depressants - puhleeeease!
I know about this, I work for a company that markets on of the major 'lifestyle' drugs.
They haven't come up with a new treatment for malaria in 20 some odd years, because people who suffer from malaria don't have money. In fact one of the big pharmas did develop a new anti-malarial - and when I say they developed it, I mean they were given the patent for it by a university which developed it with public funds - anyway, they have this drug which works and will turn a profit, but they won't release it because they won't turn a big enough profit.
This brings me to another point, gifts of R&D from public institutions to big pharma, your tax dollars pay for the development of these drugs, then they pass them on - for free - to private corporations, then those corporations insist on having a patent so they can charge whatever they like for the new drug for 20 years.
So the companies develop drugs for diseases that only effect rich people like ADD, depression and erectile disfunction with research that was donated by public institutions and spend a fortune to market them, then charge an arm and a leg for them and we are supposed to thank them? Worthwhile drugs market themselves because they fill an niche, because there was a demand for them before they were developed.
So the government of Canada negotiates collectively to bring down the inflated costs of drugs. That's why we pay their salaries, to protect us from big corporations, the government is there to work for the people not to work for the corporations. If the big pharmaceutical corporations all went under, other ones would crop up and be able to use public research just as effectively to produce our drugs as the old fat cats do now. Because after all they aren't charities, they are corporations and the point of corporations is to produce profit for shareholders and not to provide services to the public. Government is the body whose job is it to provide service to the public.
1:08 PM
Jennifer said...
And so it begins...
12:08 PM
yrautca said...
Nobody lives in SD, if thats any consolation.
1:11 PM
yrautca said...
I admit that this scares me, not because I believe whole-heartedly in abortion, but because now 'they' have enough people in place to materially affect other civil liberties as well.
I know you guys have it good in Canada. You guys are lucky. Its a much more enlightened society than US.
1:31 PM
Princess Pessimism said...
this is appauling. You know how I feel about back alley abortions, and coat hanger abortions...even to say those words makes me shudder. Okay...so SD may not have the population that LA has, or NYC has, but they should still have the right to choice.
12:43 AM
Jennifer said...
Well Yrautca, it does seem that we are lucky to have our more enlightened society, but as the wonderful Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once said, sharing the continent with the US is like sleeping in a bed with an elephant. As it is, we've just elected a Conservative (like Repulican) government with a party leader whose stance on abortion is that he'll 'try to keep it off the table' -read 'I'm reasonable, but my party are a bunch of scary Christian right fuckers from Alberta' so, our civil liberties in Canada are on thin ice too, and it's not as thin as the ice the US is on, but you guys are jumping up and down on the ice and sooner or later we're all going down.
The thing about it only being in South Dakota is that there's most definitely going to be a court case that will go all the way to the supreme court and without Sandra Day O'Connor who just retired the pro-choice on the supreme court is one short, she's been replaced by Alito and his vote is still up in the air.
PP, the thing about SD not having too many people is that only folks with money already are the only ones who can make it to the Planned Parenthood office, and now they have even farther to travel and more time to take off work in order to get an abortion. And, it may end up that no one in the US will have access to abortion in three years time when this gets to the supreme court. Should that happen, I wonder what would happen to abortion in Canada, or Canadian-American relations, considering how apoplectic all those right-wingers are over reasonably priced Canadian drugs going over the border. Would you have to get a pregnancy test before you were allowed to leave the US, or would the anti-choicers just trust that most women who need abortions couldn't afford to take the time off work and travel to Canada anyway.
9:46 AM
Princess Pessimism said...
I was thinking of that...having to travel to obtain an abortion....It might not be that bad. Yes, it's true, the added travel expense, and time and inconvenience.
However, if SD notices a decline in their monetary intake at hospitals, maybe they'll rethink it. I dont know much about the abortion rate in comparison to the medical bills in SD, but if one correlates to one another, then maybe they'll smarten up and bring the right to choose closer to home.
12:31 PM
Jennifer said...
The travelling thing is key, from your point of view or mine, it doesn't seem so bad, I could hop in a borrowed car and drive 3 or 5 hours, make up some story about needing the day off for an appointment, but imagine being a single mother with some fastfood type job, maybe two and kids, and no car, how are you possibly going to make that happen, then what if you want to keep it quiet, because obviously people in SD aren't very tolerant of these things.
I read somewhere that the majority of women who died of clothes hanger abortions before it was legalized were visible minorities ie black and hispanic (something like 85 or 90%), because they didn't have the money to travel out of the US to get their abortion.
The economic implications will likely have no effect in SD, the only abortion clinic is Planned Parenthood which has already said they'd sue, no hospitals offer it. Besides, I'm sure that the security costs of bombings and protesters, and the amount you'd have to pay a doctor to risk their lives at the job, has taken any profitability out of providing abortions that there may have been in the first place. I think Planned Parenthood is a non-profit anyway.
12:52 PM
Trib said...
I wouldn't be too concerned about this. Both of the new justices are very against legislating from the bench and are precident oriented. They are very sharp jurists and believe that their job is to interpret the constitution, which it is. Actually, I think the 9th Appelate could learn something from them. The only people who think abortion will be outlawed in this day and age are christian fundamentalists. Now that they're in Alito and Roberts have nothing to fear from those folks.
Also I'd just like to comment that Canadian drugs are cheap because of a free rider phenomenon. If Americans weren't paying so much for the R&D the drugs (especially for rare diseases) wouldn't even be around. That we pay out of the nose for them is a fact that we as a society have deemed acceptable for pharm to keep making drugs at the rate they are.
5:25 PM
yrautca said...
I think if Canada can improve on its economy and become a major world market, people around the world will look up to the Canadian model.
Yes Canada is socially conscious, but does that feed the hungry? I am surprised that they elected a conservative govt.
11:52 PM
Jennifer said...
Actually, social programs do feed the hungry. Also our socialized medicine heals the sick.... need I continue?
As for the Conservative government being elected, I don't know either, if people were voting that way to get back at the Liberals for corruption, sure they punished the Liberals, but they punished themselves and the rest of us too!
12:46 PM
Jennifer said...
Trib, I know you get a lot of propaganda from the drug companies when you are in med school, but most of them spend more on marketing than research and development and of their R&D money they spend more on developing 'lifestyle' drugs than drugs for actual illnesses, the largest growing sector of the pharma business today is pet anti-depressants - puhleeeease!
I know about this, I work for a company that markets on of the major 'lifestyle' drugs.
They haven't come up with a new treatment for malaria in 20 some odd years, because people who suffer from malaria don't have money. In fact one of the big pharmas did develop a new anti-malarial - and when I say they developed it, I mean they were given the patent for it by a university which developed it with public funds - anyway, they have this drug which works and will turn a profit, but they won't release it because they won't turn a big enough profit.
This brings me to another point, gifts of R&D from public institutions to big pharma, your tax dollars pay for the development of these drugs, then they pass them on - for free - to private corporations, then those corporations insist on having a patent so they can charge whatever they like for the new drug for 20 years.
So the companies develop drugs for diseases that only effect rich people like ADD, depression and erectile disfunction with research that was donated by public institutions and spend a fortune to market them, then charge an arm and a leg for them and we are supposed to thank them? Worthwhile drugs market themselves because they fill an niche, because there was a demand for them before they were developed.
So the government of Canada negotiates collectively to bring down the inflated costs of drugs. That's why we pay their salaries, to protect us from big corporations, the government is there to work for the people not to work for the corporations. If the big pharmaceutical corporations all went under, other ones would crop up and be able to use public research just as effectively to produce our drugs as the old fat cats do now. Because after all they aren't charities, they are corporations and the point of corporations is to produce profit for shareholders and not to provide services to the public. Government is the body whose job is it to provide service to the public.
1:08 PM
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Low tech solutions to third world problems
Neoprene suit helps prevent deaths in childbirth, study finds
Last Updated Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:26:39 EST
CBC News
A low-tech suit could potentially help to prevent a major cause of death among women who give birth in developing countries, a new study suggests.
The neoprene suit is designed to restore blood flow to vital organs of women in shock because of bleeding during childbirth.
Hemorrhaging accounts for more than one-third of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year due to childbirth.
During childbirth, blood can pool in the mother's legs and abdomen, reducing blood flow – and vital oxygen – to the brain, heart and lungs.
Researchers tested if the reusable lightweight suit could help prevent such problems in a pilot study of 364 women in Egypt.
The suit – known as the non-pneumatic, anti-shock garment, or NASG – is designed to push blood back up to vital organs to keep a woman alive until she can be treated in hospital. The NASG resembles the bottom half of a wetsuit.
The 206 women who wore the suit during the study lost half as much blood compared with 158 women who received the standard treatment for bleeding.
"The NASG shows promise for management of obstetric haemorrhage, particularly in lower-resource settings," the team concluded.
The suit includes five segments tightened with Velcro to shunt blood to vital organs. It is a variation on a suit used by emergency medical technicians in the U.S. to transport patients with lower-body trauma.
"In our research, women who appeared clinically dead, with no blood pressure and no palpable pulse, were resuscitated and kept alive for up to two days while waiting for blood transfusions," said Suellen Miller, a maternal health expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who conducted the pilot study.
The suit tested in Egypt can be applied by anyone and no medical training is needed, Miller said in a release.
Larger studies on the suit are planned.
Uncontrolled bleeding accounts for about 30 per cent of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths worldwide during childbirth, nearly all in poor countries, according to the researchers.
The study appear in the Feb. 27 online issue of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Last Updated Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:26:39 EST
CBC News
A low-tech suit could potentially help to prevent a major cause of death among women who give birth in developing countries, a new study suggests.
The neoprene suit is designed to restore blood flow to vital organs of women in shock because of bleeding during childbirth.
Hemorrhaging accounts for more than one-third of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year due to childbirth.
During childbirth, blood can pool in the mother's legs and abdomen, reducing blood flow – and vital oxygen – to the brain, heart and lungs.
Researchers tested if the reusable lightweight suit could help prevent such problems in a pilot study of 364 women in Egypt.
The suit – known as the non-pneumatic, anti-shock garment, or NASG – is designed to push blood back up to vital organs to keep a woman alive until she can be treated in hospital. The NASG resembles the bottom half of a wetsuit.
The 206 women who wore the suit during the study lost half as much blood compared with 158 women who received the standard treatment for bleeding.
"The NASG shows promise for management of obstetric haemorrhage, particularly in lower-resource settings," the team concluded.
The suit includes five segments tightened with Velcro to shunt blood to vital organs. It is a variation on a suit used by emergency medical technicians in the U.S. to transport patients with lower-body trauma.
"In our research, women who appeared clinically dead, with no blood pressure and no palpable pulse, were resuscitated and kept alive for up to two days while waiting for blood transfusions," said Suellen Miller, a maternal health expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who conducted the pilot study.
The suit tested in Egypt can be applied by anyone and no medical training is needed, Miller said in a release.
Larger studies on the suit are planned.
Uncontrolled bleeding accounts for about 30 per cent of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths worldwide during childbirth, nearly all in poor countries, according to the researchers.
The study appear in the Feb. 27 online issue of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
South Dakota lawmakers pass anti-abortion law
Last Updated Fri, 24 Feb 2006 18:03:04 EST
CBC News
South Dakota's legislature has passed a ban on nearly all abortions, a move that could challenge a 30-year-old decision by the country's top court to legalize the procedure.
The bill, approved Friday, would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life. There would be no exception in cases of rape or incest.
With the recent appointment of two conservative jurists to the bench, many believe the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision to legalize abortion.
"I think the stars are aligned," House Speaker Matthew Michels, a Republican, told the Associated Press. "Simply put, now is the time."
Planned Parenthood, which operates the only abortion clinic in South Dakota, has said it will sue.
Republican Gov. Mike Rounds said he was inclined to sign the bill. He admitted it could be a drawn out legal battle, adding the high court may not hear the case.
The bill "may satisfy a lot of individuals out there who would like to see if there is one slim chance the court may entertain three years from now a direct assault on Roe vs. Wade," Rounds said.
"I've indicated I'm pro-life and I do believe abortion is wrong and that we should do everything we can to save lives," he added. "If this bill accomplishes that, then I am inclined to sign the bill into law."
About 800 abortions a year are performed in South Dakota.
CBC News
South Dakota's legislature has passed a ban on nearly all abortions, a move that could challenge a 30-year-old decision by the country's top court to legalize the procedure.
The bill, approved Friday, would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life. There would be no exception in cases of rape or incest.
With the recent appointment of two conservative jurists to the bench, many believe the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision to legalize abortion.
"I think the stars are aligned," House Speaker Matthew Michels, a Republican, told the Associated Press. "Simply put, now is the time."
Planned Parenthood, which operates the only abortion clinic in South Dakota, has said it will sue.
Republican Gov. Mike Rounds said he was inclined to sign the bill. He admitted it could be a drawn out legal battle, adding the high court may not hear the case.
The bill "may satisfy a lot of individuals out there who would like to see if there is one slim chance the court may entertain three years from now a direct assault on Roe vs. Wade," Rounds said.
"I've indicated I'm pro-life and I do believe abortion is wrong and that we should do everything we can to save lives," he added. "If this bill accomplishes that, then I am inclined to sign the bill into law."
About 800 abortions a year are performed in South Dakota.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
U.S. reopens abortion debate
PAUL KORING
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Washington — Newly reshaped by two conservative appointees, the U.S. Supreme Court plunged into the politically charged abortion debate yesterday, announcing it would review the controversial issue of so-called partial-birth abortions.
Groups who oppose abortion rights hailed the announcement, hoping it would signal a new era in which President George W. Bush's conservative appointees would tip the top court's balance and reverse the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade abortion-rights case that cleaved the United States in bitter and divisive debate for decades.
Organizations that support abortion rights voiced outrage at this court's decision to examine the constitutionality of an existing ban on so-called partial-birth abortions, in part because the 2003 ban, which has never gone into effect, does not permit an exception to protect the health of a pregnant woman.
“The Supreme Court's decision to hear this case is a dangerous act of hostility aimed squarely at women's health and safety,” said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Despite 33 years of Supreme Court precedent that women's health matters, the court has decided it will once again take up this issue.”
Activists who oppose abortion rights are hoping Mr. Bush's choice of two conservative, white, middle-aged male jurists — John Roberts, the court's new Chief Justice, and Samuel Alito, who replaced the centrist, swing-voter Sandra Day O'Connor — will herald the end to all legal forms of abortion in the United States.
Conservative and especially conservative Christian groups have been waiting for yesterday's momentous decision, even though the case under review doesn't directly address Roe v. Wade.
The announcement was made on Justice Alito's first day on the bench, three weeks after the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination.
“The abortion industry has to be trembling in its boots,” Randall Terry, president of the Society for Truth and Justice, a Christian group that opposes abortion rights, said in a statement.
However, despite their conservative credentials and the fears of pro-choice groups, it remains unclear whether Mr. Bush's two new judicial appointees will be as reliably opposed to abortion rights as many expect them to be.
In at least two lower-court case rulings, Justice Alito upheld the legality of abortion. In his nomination hearing, he repeatedly asserted that he was not bound by any dogma. Both he and Chief Justice Roberts stressed the importance of precedent, although neither have specifically said whether they regarded Roe v. Wade as firmly settled law.
The 2003 ban on so-called partial-birth abortions has been contentious since it was passed. Abortion-rights advocates say it is overly broad and leaves women's health endangered.
Anti-abortion-rights groups say that prohibiting the late-term procedure is a vital first step in banning all terminations.
Although his predecessor, Bill Clinton, had refused to sign a similar bill, Mr. Bush enthusiastically supported the ban. “It will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America,” he said.
At the 2003 signing of what many regard as the most sweeping abortion-related law in decades, Mr. Bush told groups opposed to abortion rights that a victory had been won.
“For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way,” said Mr. Bush.
He added that “the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defence of the innocent child.”
But the ban immediately faced legal challenges and never went into effect. It was ruled unconstitutional in several states, largely on the basis of a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in 2000 asserting that all abortion laws must contain provisions to protect a woman's health.
Former justice O'Connor was the swing vote in that ruling.
As the court prepares to examine the constitutionality of the 2003 ban, at least some of the conservative justices have left no doubt about their position.
“This method of killing a human child — one cannot even accurately say an entirely unborn human child — proscribed by this statute is so horrible that the most clinical description of it evokes a shudder of revulsion,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in an earlier dissent.
At least six federal courts around the United States have ruled that the 2003 ban was unconstitutional, but 15 state governments are backing the Justice Department's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act prohibits one type of abortion, usually carried out in later stages of pregnancy. The surgical procedure involves partly removing the fetus from the womb and then puncturing or crushing the skull.
Some doctors say that because the procedure minimizes the risk of infection and bleeding, it is the safest way to terminate a pregnancy.
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Washington — Newly reshaped by two conservative appointees, the U.S. Supreme Court plunged into the politically charged abortion debate yesterday, announcing it would review the controversial issue of so-called partial-birth abortions.
Groups who oppose abortion rights hailed the announcement, hoping it would signal a new era in which President George W. Bush's conservative appointees would tip the top court's balance and reverse the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade abortion-rights case that cleaved the United States in bitter and divisive debate for decades.
Organizations that support abortion rights voiced outrage at this court's decision to examine the constitutionality of an existing ban on so-called partial-birth abortions, in part because the 2003 ban, which has never gone into effect, does not permit an exception to protect the health of a pregnant woman.
“The Supreme Court's decision to hear this case is a dangerous act of hostility aimed squarely at women's health and safety,” said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Despite 33 years of Supreme Court precedent that women's health matters, the court has decided it will once again take up this issue.”
Activists who oppose abortion rights are hoping Mr. Bush's choice of two conservative, white, middle-aged male jurists — John Roberts, the court's new Chief Justice, and Samuel Alito, who replaced the centrist, swing-voter Sandra Day O'Connor — will herald the end to all legal forms of abortion in the United States.
Conservative and especially conservative Christian groups have been waiting for yesterday's momentous decision, even though the case under review doesn't directly address Roe v. Wade.
The announcement was made on Justice Alito's first day on the bench, three weeks after the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination.
“The abortion industry has to be trembling in its boots,” Randall Terry, president of the Society for Truth and Justice, a Christian group that opposes abortion rights, said in a statement.
However, despite their conservative credentials and the fears of pro-choice groups, it remains unclear whether Mr. Bush's two new judicial appointees will be as reliably opposed to abortion rights as many expect them to be.
In at least two lower-court case rulings, Justice Alito upheld the legality of abortion. In his nomination hearing, he repeatedly asserted that he was not bound by any dogma. Both he and Chief Justice Roberts stressed the importance of precedent, although neither have specifically said whether they regarded Roe v. Wade as firmly settled law.
The 2003 ban on so-called partial-birth abortions has been contentious since it was passed. Abortion-rights advocates say it is overly broad and leaves women's health endangered.
Anti-abortion-rights groups say that prohibiting the late-term procedure is a vital first step in banning all terminations.
Although his predecessor, Bill Clinton, had refused to sign a similar bill, Mr. Bush enthusiastically supported the ban. “It will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America,” he said.
At the 2003 signing of what many regard as the most sweeping abortion-related law in decades, Mr. Bush told groups opposed to abortion rights that a victory had been won.
“For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way,” said Mr. Bush.
He added that “the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defence of the innocent child.”
But the ban immediately faced legal challenges and never went into effect. It was ruled unconstitutional in several states, largely on the basis of a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in 2000 asserting that all abortion laws must contain provisions to protect a woman's health.
Former justice O'Connor was the swing vote in that ruling.
As the court prepares to examine the constitutionality of the 2003 ban, at least some of the conservative justices have left no doubt about their position.
“This method of killing a human child — one cannot even accurately say an entirely unborn human child — proscribed by this statute is so horrible that the most clinical description of it evokes a shudder of revulsion,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in an earlier dissent.
At least six federal courts around the United States have ruled that the 2003 ban was unconstitutional, but 15 state governments are backing the Justice Department's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act prohibits one type of abortion, usually carried out in later stages of pregnancy. The surgical procedure involves partly removing the fetus from the womb and then puncturing or crushing the skull.
Some doctors say that because the procedure minimizes the risk of infection and bleeding, it is the safest way to terminate a pregnancy.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Did the Pro-Choice Movement Save America?
By Rachel Fudge, AlterNet. Posted February 17, 2006.
AlterNet speaks with Cristina Page, the author of a controversial new book about the state of sex, morality and abortion rights in America. Tools
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021606_story
Pro-choice demonstrators wave signs in front of the US Supreme Court, in Washington, DC. (Credit: AFP/File/Karen Bleier)
In her new book, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex (Basic Books), Cristina Page boldly declares that the pro-choice movement is "doing a better job at what the public understands to be the pro-life agenda than the pro-lifers are": that is, not only dramatically reducing the number of abortions in the United States, but also putting forth (and achieving) a truly pro-family, pro-child vision of life in America.
Page, a veteran of the editorial departments of Glamour and Ms. magazines, and the current vice president of the Institute for Reproductive Health Access at NARAL Pro-Choice New York, describes how she had been searching for a pro-life counterpart with whom she could engage in a reasoned, honest search for common ground. She found one: a feminist-identified woman who worked for a Right to Life chapter, and on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in 2003, they published a jointly authored op-ed in the New York Times.
"The Right to Agree" laid out a series of shared goals, including pro-family and pro-child policies like affordable child care and support for single mothers, an end to violence and violent language in the abortion debate, and the adoption of legislation mandating that health insurance cover contraceptives. While pro-choicers responded with mild support, pro-lifers were outraged, particularly at the statement of support for broad access to contraception. It was then that Page realized that the anti-contraception pro-lifers were not, as she'd assumed, on the fringe of the movement but rather the ones who set its agenda.
Referring to the book's relatively slim profile (it weighs in at just 236 pages), Page described it as "in many ways a breezy tour through frightening truths," but How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America is tenaciously researched and extensively documented (40 of those pages are endnotes). Digging deep into the evidence, Page unveils the hidden anti-contraception agenda of the pro-life movement and outlines how how close we are to losing not only the constitutional right to abortion provided by Roe but also our rights to safe, accessible contraception.
AlterNet met up with Page at her San Francisco hotel.
Rachel Fudge: You describe your book as an attempt to seek out common ground between the pro-choice and the pro-life movements. What did you find?
Cristina Page: What I tried to do in this book is to say, Let's put on the table that [abortion] is something we don't want to have happen at the frequency that it is, or even at all. Those are the terms with which we'll discuss this. And when that happens, you begin to realize that [the pro-life side] is not interested in that. The greatest irony is that reducing abortion has become problematic for them, and it's because their aim is not pure.
Their aim is not about reducing abortion -- it includes restricting people's access to contraception, it includes transforming our sex lives, it includes transforming our families. That's the goal, and [restricting abortion] is just one vehicle toward that end.
RF: When you talk about the pro-life movement, you're really talking about the leaders of organizations like the American Life League and National Right to Life, who are going further than what many Americans want to see happen. It seems like there's a disjunction between the leadership of the pro-life organizations and the mass of Americans who are deeply ambivalent about abortion -- the ones who in the polls say they think abortion is wrong, but who also say they don't want to lose Roe.
CP: I tried to make a very clear distinction between pro-life Americans -- the [people] who believe that abortion needs to be prevented and [its rate] reduced -- and pro-life organizations, who have political gains outside of this issue. They're very different, in large part because if pro-life Americans actually knew what their handiwork resulted in, they would not be sending donations to these groups. If they knew that the pro-choice movement was doing a better job at what they understand to be pro-life goals than the pro-life movement is, then they would act accordingly.
Recent statistics say that 66 percent of Americans don't want Roe v. Wade overturned, [yet] only 51 percent consider themselves pro-choice. So what we're seeing is an unreported-upon third of the pro-life movement that wants to keep abortion legal but find ways of preventing the need for it, which I think is so important for us to understand at this point.
One thing that I think makes the pro-choice and the pro-life movements very different is that [pro-choicers] believe in science, and we believe in independent self-direction. Pro-lifers believe in a creator, and that everything is predetermined. Those entry points into this issue very much affect the way in which both sides behave. For example, even though we are the designers and creators of all the grassroots tactics -- the marches, the sit-ins, the letter-writing, the ballots and the petitions -- those tools are used much better now by the Christian right than they are by [the left]. When they get marching orders on a daily basis to call their representative, to tell a company that they're boycotting them, to flood radio stations with phone calls, to thank a senator, to stand outside a building with a sign, they do it.
RF: The PR angle seems so important. You see this all over the left, with feminists, pro-choicers, liberals -- all of these movements that have lost not only the language but the fight for the public-image campaigns. For instance, in Bush's State of the Union Address, when he trumpets the declining numbers of abortions, he's not congratulating NARAL and Planned Parenthood, even though that's who deserves the credit. You don't ever hear that publicly.
CP: I'm glad you mentioned that, because I wrote an op-ed last week about [how Bush is] misleading America -- no one published it, by the way. Those figures Bush was using were from 2002. This man has absolutely no right to take credit for what we know to be the work of the Clinton administration and the pro-choice movement's policies. It was a misleading statement.
The fact is, Clinton wasn't strutting around on the dais like the cock of the roost during his administration about what we know were the actual declining numbers because we didn't know [it] at the time -- and we don't know what's going on now. We won't know until after Bush's administration is over.
But I will say this: While the legacy of Clinton remains -- we have more contraceptives available than ever before in history; more people have health-insurance coverage for their contraceptives; emergency contraceptives are more available than ever before, even though people misunderstand what it is and that keeps them from using it -- in that speech Bush was asking the American public to believe that the diametrically opposite policies had led to these declining numbers.
He was saying, "I have taken a course of action that is leading in the exact opposite direction of what we know are proven ways to [reduce the numbers of abortions and teenage pregnancies], and I expect that the same exact results will come from the exact opposite policies."
RF: Mentioning declining abortion rates and abstinence in the same breath was quite clever.
CP: And no one called him on it. I have not read one person in this country calling him on that fact. Now, if it were the NSA or it were about WMDs Whether or not [women] have access to contraception and safe access to services will impact us immediately, far more than an Al Qaida cell in Afghanistan. I don't mean to minimize those issues, but I don't see the media covering it -- with the exception of a handful [of progressive outlets]. I don't see this debate happening among the people the public needs to hear from.
For example, the Vatican is putting out claims that the condom can cause the spread of AIDS. The Vatican is trying to make these religious arguments by [using] science and misinterpreting and misusing scientists' materials. The only one to cover the story was the BBC. They went back to every single scientist that the Vatican used and said, Let's see what you actually did say, and all of them said resoundingly that they believed that condoms are the only method besides not having sex at all that will protect you against HIV/AIDS. The BBC alone did that -- I never saw anyone follow up on it.
RF: One of the most chilling parts of your book is your chapter on the Bush administration's defunding of UNFPA in 2002, describing how a handful of extremists were able to have a dramatic global effect, and the way that they have safe harbor in the Bush administration.
CP: First of all, it's important to note that UNFPA has nothing to do with abortion. They don't provide abortion services; they simply are the largest contraceptive distributor to developing nations. In fact, their work leads to fewer abortions. Contraception may be a hallmark of how we live [in the United States] and how we base our lives, but in developing nations, this is a life-saving technology. If you don't have good obstetric care, and if you get pregnant too early or too late in life, or too quickly after a previous pregnancy, that's life-endangering. When you see in these countries the maternal death rate because there's no access to contraception compared to countries that have widespread access to contraception, you know: You know that [UNFPA and other agencies are] doing God's work by getting these techniques to the people who need them most.
Six people in Front Royal, Va., in a religious office park campus, have led these slanderous campaigns against, and in many ways terrorized, UNFPA workers. [Representatives of PRI went] into Yugoslavia and claimed that [UNFPA is] involved in ethnic cleansing because they're handing out birth-control pills to people who've been raped as an act of war. It's unbelievable to see this, and to see the full-blown nature of vindictiveness and how sinister their goals are. The pro-life movement in the United States is the international pro-life movement.
That's the truth, and it really is leading to the most paradoxical of outcomes: more abortions. More maternal death, more infant death. Pro-lifers [in the United States] need to understand this.
That's really what I hope to do with this book. It may be loud and bombastic, and titled in a way that maybe some pro-life people find offensive, but this is a common-ground book. It's from somebody who has wanted an honest discussion about this for a long time; I'm forcing that discussion to happen.
RF: What kind of response have you gotten from pro-lifers?
CP: When I have heard from reasoned people who disagree about the morality of abortion, what I've heard is that these are facts that they were not aware of but are of deep concern to them, that they are glad to have a debate in a thoughtful way, and that they appreciate what I'm saying. And then they typically go on to tell me all the ways in which I'm wrong: It was wrong for me to get Roseanne Barr to blurb the book, it was wrong for me to claim that we can't legislate good parenting through parental-consent legislation. So they take me to task, but I think the important part is that the conversation has begun, and at the right volume and in the right setting. I'm very encouraged by the pro-life reaction -- when they have heard and understand it, when they've given themselves the chance to not judge this book by its cover and instead judge it by its content. Hopefully that's just a bellwether of things to come.
RF: What might the bright spots be in all of this?
CP: I would love to find a pro-lifer who is reasoned, solution-oriented, who can engage on this in a forum -- I won't even say a debate because maybe what we'll discover is that we have more in common than we once thought -- in crowds of people, in churches, on college campuses. That's what I'm hoping for.
I do think that we need a kind of talking tour that happens in town-hall-like settings in which people are willing to engage in this in a practical way. It's an emotional debate, and I think a lot of people are afraid to enter into it. They're afraid of the acrimony and anger, and, sadly, the few on the fringe have dictated the climate in which this debate can happen, so we've all been subject to it.
RF: You illustrate this in the beginning of your book, when you talk about the New York Times op-ed piece ("The Right to Agree") that you wrote with a feminist-leaning pro-life leader, who was then ostracized by her community.
CP: I have very great affection for her. I think she was very brave to do what she did. It's someone like her who will understand and see this book for what it is. I think she will agree on many points, and I think she will disagree on many points. But I think what her takeaway will be is that this is an extension of our work [together]. I don't mean to overblow what they did, but the reaction that we got from her side was so revolting; this is my impassioned response to them. It's coming to her defense in many ways. To me, she was the mainstream of her movement and she was intimidated into silence. We need to raise the voice of the reasonable, honest, true pro-lifer in this country and not one that speaks in placards behind which there is no proof that what they do has any positive effect. That has to end. For me, to see that hope dashed when she was put in her place and rebuked so clearly was the final straw.
RF: Some have argued that we need a change in the framing and nomenclature of the movement -- that we shouldn't call them pro-life, because they don't deserve that term. Then there are other people saying we need to get rid of the pro-choice/pro-life distinction because we need a middle way of bringing people together.
CP: I use the term "pro-life," and I was prepared for more resistance on the part of my colleagues to that. But the reason I did that was very calculating: Because I had the opportunity here to show what results from their work, I did not want to rename them; I wanted to affiliate them with the awful outcomes that their work leads to.
You know, Love Canal used to sound like a great place to live until we found out what was beneath the surface. We didn't change it to some other name like Poison Lake; it remained Love Canal. We need to do the same with the pro-life movement: We need to not be afraid to call them by what the American public understands them to be, and then really expose what their work leads to. Then I think it won't sound as quaint and touching as it does now. I think people might begin to question whether it's a title that accompanies their value system.
In every speaking engagement I've done on the book, I'd had people come up to me and say, "I'm pro-life and I'm pro-choice." I think that's where we need to be.
Because pro-choicers rely on science, and so much of our language is born out of fact and evidence, we're hampered in some sense. We can't come up with these inaccurate soundbites that are very seductive, like "partial-birth abortion." Doctors would never come up with that term because it's inaccurate. In some ways we're hampered by the truth. It's kind of like we're the nonfiction version, and they're the fiction version -- we're science, and they're science fiction.
In that way we're not equal opponents. We're playing different games. They have the advantage of using whatever is at their disposal, while we walk the straight and narrow line of what's fact and truth. That's hard in the messaging game. We maintain, and they destroy.
As a mother of a 2-year-old, I can tell you it's much harder to keep the place neat and ordered than it is for him to mess it all up. What takes him five minutes takes me 40 minutes to clean up, and that's the difference. We're trying to maintain and pick up the pieces, and they're coming in wreaking havoc.
Furthermore, Planned Parenthood is one of the largest pro-choice organizations in the country, but they're a health care organization. They're delivering services, They have clients; they care for them. They are not just a political arm like Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family doesn't have any services; they don't offer clients anything; they're not delivering any critical care to people. These are equal organizations in wealth. But we have to draw into question the relative wealth of these organizations. Planned Parenthood's operating budget isn't all being expended in messaging campaigns to people, and so the relative wealth of these two movements is critical, too, in framing these debates. I think the public thinks they're matched enemies, but it's a David-and-Goliath scenario when it comes to financing.
RF: A central argument of your book is that the pro-choice movement has to a great degree created the America we live in today.
CP: I want to stress how young this movement is, how young these laws are. I in many ways physically embody what the pro-choice movement is: Not only because I'm exhausted and feel like I'm always on the brink of needing to stay in bed for the day, but because I'm 35, I'm in an equal marriage, I'm college-educated, I bring home half of the income in my family, my husband is expected to be as nurturing to my child as I am, and we plan our family. A woman like me, a woman like you, has never before existed. A man like my husband -- the men who are involved in their families as colleagues -- has never existed before either.
We're only beginning to take stock of what this means for us as a country and who we are. We look around and see how different our lives are from those who lived in the '50s, and people really need to understand that it is in large part due to family planning. The fact is, we cut poverty in half in just 35-40 years. This is because of these shifting trends in which people have access to education; men [as well as women] have more choice in their jobs now because they're no longer the primary and sole contributor to the family; they can leave a bad job, an abusive environment. They can spend more time with their kids, and they are. All this data shows that children are benefiting wildly from this. Those are investments that we can't truly understand the total of.
We need to make having a family easier for people. There are many women who are having abortions simply because they can't afford to have a child. If that's the case, then there are solutions. Maybe it's making child care more affordable and of better quality. Take the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is cherished by the American people. The American public doesn't understand that 90 percent of the opposition to the FMLA was from pro-lifers. The Children's Defense Fund made a list of the worst legislators for children in this country, the people who are making it harder to have a family and to raise a child by stripping Americans of their health-insurance benefits, their unemployment benefits, basically pulling the rug out from under families. A hundred percent of the people who are listed as the worst are pro-life.
[When I was researching this book,] I was happy to make distinctions and say, Well, we do have evidence that there's a wing of the pro-life movement that supports child care. But [what I found is that] there is no wing. And the opposition that we're facing to these issues is from these pro-life groups. An alarming pattern emerges: Not only do they want to take away legal and safe abortion, they want to stop people from having access to contraception. Coupling with that, they want to strip people of opportunities to put their children -- whether they wanted them or not or can afford them or not -- into child care.
Where does this lead? What is the point of this? How can you be against child care if you're against helping people plan their families? If you don't want to help people have limited numbers of children, why are you stripping them of the very things that make that possible? The only conclusion that this path leads to is one: The modern family is deeply offensive to the Christian right. The family structures in which we are living today, in which both parents are equal and they both bring home a living, they get to choose the number of children they have to what they can support and want -- that is offensive to the pro-life establishment. The whole reason why none of their programs are leading to fewer abortions is because that's simply not the point. The point isn't about abortion, it's about the family. It's about what the family looks like, it's about who's in it, who's leading it, who has the power, and who's the spiritual head.
While it sounds like a cliché, it's the truth, and we can't let the fact that it sounds like a cliché cloud the fact that it's the actual truth of what they're up to. If we ignore it because it seems passé, it will be our reality sooner than we think.
Rachel Fudge is the senior editor of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture and a freelance writer.
AlterNet speaks with Cristina Page, the author of a controversial new book about the state of sex, morality and abortion rights in America. Tools
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Pro-choice demonstrators wave signs in front of the US Supreme Court, in Washington, DC. (Credit: AFP/File/Karen Bleier)
In her new book, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex (Basic Books), Cristina Page boldly declares that the pro-choice movement is "doing a better job at what the public understands to be the pro-life agenda than the pro-lifers are": that is, not only dramatically reducing the number of abortions in the United States, but also putting forth (and achieving) a truly pro-family, pro-child vision of life in America.
Page, a veteran of the editorial departments of Glamour and Ms. magazines, and the current vice president of the Institute for Reproductive Health Access at NARAL Pro-Choice New York, describes how she had been searching for a pro-life counterpart with whom she could engage in a reasoned, honest search for common ground. She found one: a feminist-identified woman who worked for a Right to Life chapter, and on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in 2003, they published a jointly authored op-ed in the New York Times.
"The Right to Agree" laid out a series of shared goals, including pro-family and pro-child policies like affordable child care and support for single mothers, an end to violence and violent language in the abortion debate, and the adoption of legislation mandating that health insurance cover contraceptives. While pro-choicers responded with mild support, pro-lifers were outraged, particularly at the statement of support for broad access to contraception. It was then that Page realized that the anti-contraception pro-lifers were not, as she'd assumed, on the fringe of the movement but rather the ones who set its agenda.
Referring to the book's relatively slim profile (it weighs in at just 236 pages), Page described it as "in many ways a breezy tour through frightening truths," but How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America is tenaciously researched and extensively documented (40 of those pages are endnotes). Digging deep into the evidence, Page unveils the hidden anti-contraception agenda of the pro-life movement and outlines how how close we are to losing not only the constitutional right to abortion provided by Roe but also our rights to safe, accessible contraception.
AlterNet met up with Page at her San Francisco hotel.
Rachel Fudge: You describe your book as an attempt to seek out common ground between the pro-choice and the pro-life movements. What did you find?
Cristina Page: What I tried to do in this book is to say, Let's put on the table that [abortion] is something we don't want to have happen at the frequency that it is, or even at all. Those are the terms with which we'll discuss this. And when that happens, you begin to realize that [the pro-life side] is not interested in that. The greatest irony is that reducing abortion has become problematic for them, and it's because their aim is not pure.
Their aim is not about reducing abortion -- it includes restricting people's access to contraception, it includes transforming our sex lives, it includes transforming our families. That's the goal, and [restricting abortion] is just one vehicle toward that end.
RF: When you talk about the pro-life movement, you're really talking about the leaders of organizations like the American Life League and National Right to Life, who are going further than what many Americans want to see happen. It seems like there's a disjunction between the leadership of the pro-life organizations and the mass of Americans who are deeply ambivalent about abortion -- the ones who in the polls say they think abortion is wrong, but who also say they don't want to lose Roe.
CP: I tried to make a very clear distinction between pro-life Americans -- the [people] who believe that abortion needs to be prevented and [its rate] reduced -- and pro-life organizations, who have political gains outside of this issue. They're very different, in large part because if pro-life Americans actually knew what their handiwork resulted in, they would not be sending donations to these groups. If they knew that the pro-choice movement was doing a better job at what they understand to be pro-life goals than the pro-life movement is, then they would act accordingly.
Recent statistics say that 66 percent of Americans don't want Roe v. Wade overturned, [yet] only 51 percent consider themselves pro-choice. So what we're seeing is an unreported-upon third of the pro-life movement that wants to keep abortion legal but find ways of preventing the need for it, which I think is so important for us to understand at this point.
One thing that I think makes the pro-choice and the pro-life movements very different is that [pro-choicers] believe in science, and we believe in independent self-direction. Pro-lifers believe in a creator, and that everything is predetermined. Those entry points into this issue very much affect the way in which both sides behave. For example, even though we are the designers and creators of all the grassroots tactics -- the marches, the sit-ins, the letter-writing, the ballots and the petitions -- those tools are used much better now by the Christian right than they are by [the left]. When they get marching orders on a daily basis to call their representative, to tell a company that they're boycotting them, to flood radio stations with phone calls, to thank a senator, to stand outside a building with a sign, they do it.
RF: The PR angle seems so important. You see this all over the left, with feminists, pro-choicers, liberals -- all of these movements that have lost not only the language but the fight for the public-image campaigns. For instance, in Bush's State of the Union Address, when he trumpets the declining numbers of abortions, he's not congratulating NARAL and Planned Parenthood, even though that's who deserves the credit. You don't ever hear that publicly.
CP: I'm glad you mentioned that, because I wrote an op-ed last week about [how Bush is] misleading America -- no one published it, by the way. Those figures Bush was using were from 2002. This man has absolutely no right to take credit for what we know to be the work of the Clinton administration and the pro-choice movement's policies. It was a misleading statement.
The fact is, Clinton wasn't strutting around on the dais like the cock of the roost during his administration about what we know were the actual declining numbers because we didn't know [it] at the time -- and we don't know what's going on now. We won't know until after Bush's administration is over.
But I will say this: While the legacy of Clinton remains -- we have more contraceptives available than ever before in history; more people have health-insurance coverage for their contraceptives; emergency contraceptives are more available than ever before, even though people misunderstand what it is and that keeps them from using it -- in that speech Bush was asking the American public to believe that the diametrically opposite policies had led to these declining numbers.
He was saying, "I have taken a course of action that is leading in the exact opposite direction of what we know are proven ways to [reduce the numbers of abortions and teenage pregnancies], and I expect that the same exact results will come from the exact opposite policies."
RF: Mentioning declining abortion rates and abstinence in the same breath was quite clever.
CP: And no one called him on it. I have not read one person in this country calling him on that fact. Now, if it were the NSA or it were about WMDs Whether or not [women] have access to contraception and safe access to services will impact us immediately, far more than an Al Qaida cell in Afghanistan. I don't mean to minimize those issues, but I don't see the media covering it -- with the exception of a handful [of progressive outlets]. I don't see this debate happening among the people the public needs to hear from.
For example, the Vatican is putting out claims that the condom can cause the spread of AIDS. The Vatican is trying to make these religious arguments by [using] science and misinterpreting and misusing scientists' materials. The only one to cover the story was the BBC. They went back to every single scientist that the Vatican used and said, Let's see what you actually did say, and all of them said resoundingly that they believed that condoms are the only method besides not having sex at all that will protect you against HIV/AIDS. The BBC alone did that -- I never saw anyone follow up on it.
RF: One of the most chilling parts of your book is your chapter on the Bush administration's defunding of UNFPA in 2002, describing how a handful of extremists were able to have a dramatic global effect, and the way that they have safe harbor in the Bush administration.
CP: First of all, it's important to note that UNFPA has nothing to do with abortion. They don't provide abortion services; they simply are the largest contraceptive distributor to developing nations. In fact, their work leads to fewer abortions. Contraception may be a hallmark of how we live [in the United States] and how we base our lives, but in developing nations, this is a life-saving technology. If you don't have good obstetric care, and if you get pregnant too early or too late in life, or too quickly after a previous pregnancy, that's life-endangering. When you see in these countries the maternal death rate because there's no access to contraception compared to countries that have widespread access to contraception, you know: You know that [UNFPA and other agencies are] doing God's work by getting these techniques to the people who need them most.
Six people in Front Royal, Va., in a religious office park campus, have led these slanderous campaigns against, and in many ways terrorized, UNFPA workers. [Representatives of PRI went] into Yugoslavia and claimed that [UNFPA is] involved in ethnic cleansing because they're handing out birth-control pills to people who've been raped as an act of war. It's unbelievable to see this, and to see the full-blown nature of vindictiveness and how sinister their goals are. The pro-life movement in the United States is the international pro-life movement.
That's the truth, and it really is leading to the most paradoxical of outcomes: more abortions. More maternal death, more infant death. Pro-lifers [in the United States] need to understand this.
That's really what I hope to do with this book. It may be loud and bombastic, and titled in a way that maybe some pro-life people find offensive, but this is a common-ground book. It's from somebody who has wanted an honest discussion about this for a long time; I'm forcing that discussion to happen.
RF: What kind of response have you gotten from pro-lifers?
CP: When I have heard from reasoned people who disagree about the morality of abortion, what I've heard is that these are facts that they were not aware of but are of deep concern to them, that they are glad to have a debate in a thoughtful way, and that they appreciate what I'm saying. And then they typically go on to tell me all the ways in which I'm wrong: It was wrong for me to get Roseanne Barr to blurb the book, it was wrong for me to claim that we can't legislate good parenting through parental-consent legislation. So they take me to task, but I think the important part is that the conversation has begun, and at the right volume and in the right setting. I'm very encouraged by the pro-life reaction -- when they have heard and understand it, when they've given themselves the chance to not judge this book by its cover and instead judge it by its content. Hopefully that's just a bellwether of things to come.
RF: What might the bright spots be in all of this?
CP: I would love to find a pro-lifer who is reasoned, solution-oriented, who can engage on this in a forum -- I won't even say a debate because maybe what we'll discover is that we have more in common than we once thought -- in crowds of people, in churches, on college campuses. That's what I'm hoping for.
I do think that we need a kind of talking tour that happens in town-hall-like settings in which people are willing to engage in this in a practical way. It's an emotional debate, and I think a lot of people are afraid to enter into it. They're afraid of the acrimony and anger, and, sadly, the few on the fringe have dictated the climate in which this debate can happen, so we've all been subject to it.
RF: You illustrate this in the beginning of your book, when you talk about the New York Times op-ed piece ("The Right to Agree") that you wrote with a feminist-leaning pro-life leader, who was then ostracized by her community.
CP: I have very great affection for her. I think she was very brave to do what she did. It's someone like her who will understand and see this book for what it is. I think she will agree on many points, and I think she will disagree on many points. But I think what her takeaway will be is that this is an extension of our work [together]. I don't mean to overblow what they did, but the reaction that we got from her side was so revolting; this is my impassioned response to them. It's coming to her defense in many ways. To me, she was the mainstream of her movement and she was intimidated into silence. We need to raise the voice of the reasonable, honest, true pro-lifer in this country and not one that speaks in placards behind which there is no proof that what they do has any positive effect. That has to end. For me, to see that hope dashed when she was put in her place and rebuked so clearly was the final straw.
RF: Some have argued that we need a change in the framing and nomenclature of the movement -- that we shouldn't call them pro-life, because they don't deserve that term. Then there are other people saying we need to get rid of the pro-choice/pro-life distinction because we need a middle way of bringing people together.
CP: I use the term "pro-life," and I was prepared for more resistance on the part of my colleagues to that. But the reason I did that was very calculating: Because I had the opportunity here to show what results from their work, I did not want to rename them; I wanted to affiliate them with the awful outcomes that their work leads to.
You know, Love Canal used to sound like a great place to live until we found out what was beneath the surface. We didn't change it to some other name like Poison Lake; it remained Love Canal. We need to do the same with the pro-life movement: We need to not be afraid to call them by what the American public understands them to be, and then really expose what their work leads to. Then I think it won't sound as quaint and touching as it does now. I think people might begin to question whether it's a title that accompanies their value system.
In every speaking engagement I've done on the book, I'd had people come up to me and say, "I'm pro-life and I'm pro-choice." I think that's where we need to be.
Because pro-choicers rely on science, and so much of our language is born out of fact and evidence, we're hampered in some sense. We can't come up with these inaccurate soundbites that are very seductive, like "partial-birth abortion." Doctors would never come up with that term because it's inaccurate. In some ways we're hampered by the truth. It's kind of like we're the nonfiction version, and they're the fiction version -- we're science, and they're science fiction.
In that way we're not equal opponents. We're playing different games. They have the advantage of using whatever is at their disposal, while we walk the straight and narrow line of what's fact and truth. That's hard in the messaging game. We maintain, and they destroy.
As a mother of a 2-year-old, I can tell you it's much harder to keep the place neat and ordered than it is for him to mess it all up. What takes him five minutes takes me 40 minutes to clean up, and that's the difference. We're trying to maintain and pick up the pieces, and they're coming in wreaking havoc.
Furthermore, Planned Parenthood is one of the largest pro-choice organizations in the country, but they're a health care organization. They're delivering services, They have clients; they care for them. They are not just a political arm like Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family doesn't have any services; they don't offer clients anything; they're not delivering any critical care to people. These are equal organizations in wealth. But we have to draw into question the relative wealth of these organizations. Planned Parenthood's operating budget isn't all being expended in messaging campaigns to people, and so the relative wealth of these two movements is critical, too, in framing these debates. I think the public thinks they're matched enemies, but it's a David-and-Goliath scenario when it comes to financing.
RF: A central argument of your book is that the pro-choice movement has to a great degree created the America we live in today.
CP: I want to stress how young this movement is, how young these laws are. I in many ways physically embody what the pro-choice movement is: Not only because I'm exhausted and feel like I'm always on the brink of needing to stay in bed for the day, but because I'm 35, I'm in an equal marriage, I'm college-educated, I bring home half of the income in my family, my husband is expected to be as nurturing to my child as I am, and we plan our family. A woman like me, a woman like you, has never before existed. A man like my husband -- the men who are involved in their families as colleagues -- has never existed before either.
We're only beginning to take stock of what this means for us as a country and who we are. We look around and see how different our lives are from those who lived in the '50s, and people really need to understand that it is in large part due to family planning. The fact is, we cut poverty in half in just 35-40 years. This is because of these shifting trends in which people have access to education; men [as well as women] have more choice in their jobs now because they're no longer the primary and sole contributor to the family; they can leave a bad job, an abusive environment. They can spend more time with their kids, and they are. All this data shows that children are benefiting wildly from this. Those are investments that we can't truly understand the total of.
We need to make having a family easier for people. There are many women who are having abortions simply because they can't afford to have a child. If that's the case, then there are solutions. Maybe it's making child care more affordable and of better quality. Take the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is cherished by the American people. The American public doesn't understand that 90 percent of the opposition to the FMLA was from pro-lifers. The Children's Defense Fund made a list of the worst legislators for children in this country, the people who are making it harder to have a family and to raise a child by stripping Americans of their health-insurance benefits, their unemployment benefits, basically pulling the rug out from under families. A hundred percent of the people who are listed as the worst are pro-life.
[When I was researching this book,] I was happy to make distinctions and say, Well, we do have evidence that there's a wing of the pro-life movement that supports child care. But [what I found is that] there is no wing. And the opposition that we're facing to these issues is from these pro-life groups. An alarming pattern emerges: Not only do they want to take away legal and safe abortion, they want to stop people from having access to contraception. Coupling with that, they want to strip people of opportunities to put their children -- whether they wanted them or not or can afford them or not -- into child care.
Where does this lead? What is the point of this? How can you be against child care if you're against helping people plan their families? If you don't want to help people have limited numbers of children, why are you stripping them of the very things that make that possible? The only conclusion that this path leads to is one: The modern family is deeply offensive to the Christian right. The family structures in which we are living today, in which both parents are equal and they both bring home a living, they get to choose the number of children they have to what they can support and want -- that is offensive to the pro-life establishment. The whole reason why none of their programs are leading to fewer abortions is because that's simply not the point. The point isn't about abortion, it's about the family. It's about what the family looks like, it's about who's in it, who's leading it, who has the power, and who's the spiritual head.
While it sounds like a cliché, it's the truth, and we can't let the fact that it sounds like a cliché cloud the fact that it's the actual truth of what they're up to. If we ignore it because it seems passé, it will be our reality sooner than we think.
Rachel Fudge is the senior editor of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture and a freelance writer.
Abortions at home are safe - pilot study
Polly Curtis, health correspondent
Thursday February 16, 2006
The Guardian
Women who are less than nine weeks pregnant can safely have medical abortions at home, according to the head of a government-backed pilot project.
Abortion services for the 20,000 women who seek a chemically induced abortion every year could be transformed should the Department of Health's official evaluation of the pilot confirm initial findings. But it is also likely to provoke controversy from anti-abortion campaigners who will claim that home abortions would make the procedure easier and therefore lead to more women having terminations.
Shirley Butler, the project manager of one pilot which has tested the abortions with 172 women patients since 2004, told the Guardian: "We haven't had any significant problems apart from one woman who had a slightly heavy bleed. In my opinion medical abortions outside of acute hospitals seem to be safe." She added that women who took part in the trial were positive about it.
Ms Butler stressed that the results were preliminary and were now being officially evaluated. She also asked for her hospital not to be named for fear of reprisal attacks from pro-life campaigners. St Mary's hospital in London confirmed that it is undertaking the second trial.
Chemical abortions are available before the 12th week of pregnancy. Women who request it take one tablet of mifepristone at a hospital then return two days later to take four doses of misoprostol which causes a termination within hours. Usually women remain in hospital after taking the second pills until the abortion is complete. Under the trials they took both sets of pills within local community clinics to test the theory that it is safe to be outside hospital, and therefore at home.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said the scheme, which was revealed yesterday by the journal Nursing Standard, had not yet been evaluated. "No changes to the way abortions are carried out will be approved unless we are content that there is no risk to the women's safety."
Anne Weyman, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, said: "Medical abortion is a highly safe and effective procedure. Completing the second stage at home can provide greater comfort and privacy."
Thursday February 16, 2006
The Guardian
Women who are less than nine weeks pregnant can safely have medical abortions at home, according to the head of a government-backed pilot project.
Abortion services for the 20,000 women who seek a chemically induced abortion every year could be transformed should the Department of Health's official evaluation of the pilot confirm initial findings. But it is also likely to provoke controversy from anti-abortion campaigners who will claim that home abortions would make the procedure easier and therefore lead to more women having terminations.
Shirley Butler, the project manager of one pilot which has tested the abortions with 172 women patients since 2004, told the Guardian: "We haven't had any significant problems apart from one woman who had a slightly heavy bleed. In my opinion medical abortions outside of acute hospitals seem to be safe." She added that women who took part in the trial were positive about it.
Ms Butler stressed that the results were preliminary and were now being officially evaluated. She also asked for her hospital not to be named for fear of reprisal attacks from pro-life campaigners. St Mary's hospital in London confirmed that it is undertaking the second trial.
Chemical abortions are available before the 12th week of pregnancy. Women who request it take one tablet of mifepristone at a hospital then return two days later to take four doses of misoprostol which causes a termination within hours. Usually women remain in hospital after taking the second pills until the abortion is complete. Under the trials they took both sets of pills within local community clinics to test the theory that it is safe to be outside hospital, and therefore at home.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said the scheme, which was revealed yesterday by the journal Nursing Standard, had not yet been evaluated. "No changes to the way abortions are carried out will be approved unless we are content that there is no risk to the women's safety."
Anne Weyman, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, said: "Medical abortion is a highly safe and effective procedure. Completing the second stage at home can provide greater comfort and privacy."
Saturday, December 03, 2005
The Thin End of The Wedge
Alberta has become the first province in Canada to enact legislation allowing children to sue their mother for injuries suffered in the womb. But only for damage suffered in car accidents.
Lisa Rewega was pregnant when she was in a car accident five years ago while on her way to church. "I just felt so great, everything was perfect and I just never made it there. I hit black ice. I was five months pregnant."
Rewega spent eight months in hospital. Her daughter Brooklyn was born severely brain damaged; blind, with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. She needs expensive, round-the-clock care.
In a ruling six years ago the Supreme Court of Canada said an child can't sue it's mother for damages suffered in the womb. But the ruling also left a small and very narrow loophole, saying province's could allow a child to sue its mother, but only in the case of a car accident.
Alberta is now the first province to allow that.
"Had the father been driving, the suit could have been against the father," said Shannon Haggerty of the Alberta Justice Department, "but since the mother was at fault in that case, there was no ability for the child to go after the mother. So this will allow for the mother to also be part of that scope."
So Brooklyn is now suing her mother for damages suffered in the womb. If she wins the Rewega's insurance company will have to pick up the cost of Brooklyn's care.
Jim Rivait, spokesperson for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, says the new law is going to have an impact on insurance premiums right across the country.
"Any time you have an increase in claim costs, it has to flow through to what policy holders pay for auto insurance premiums," said Rivait.
Other are worried the legislation could lead to infringements on women's rights. "For example, suing a woman for causing brain damage in her fetus because she drank or smoked during her pregnancy. And of course the anti-abortion groups could exploit the law as well," said Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coaltion.
Alberta says the law applies only to unborn children injured in car accidents and cannot be expanded.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Roe v. Wade - Roe v. Schmade!
I don't want to hear any pro-life bullshit on my blog, so if you are thinking about posting it, stop yourself. I'm putting this up here to remind my friends who value their control over thier own body that it's being eroded by Ralph !$&%$%! Klein. Really, what these redneck Albertans are saying is that the best solution to this problem if you get pregnant and get in a car accident, is to have an abortion so that the kid can never be born and sue you.
Reasonably, couldn't they say that whatever insurance has to cover the injuries of the mother-to-be should also cover the fetus since at the time it is a part of the mother?
Mothers can be sued for injuring unborn children: Alberta bill
Last Updated Thu, 03 Nov 2005 15:06:27 EST
CBC News
Alberta's justice minister says he will be introducing legislation allowing children injured in car accidents while still in the womb to sue their mothers.
It would mark the first such law in Canada, if passed by the legislature. Justice Minister Ron Stevens says the bill will be up for consideration at the end of November.
The action has sparked concerns by opposition parties and the insurance industry, fearing it might open the floodgates for mothers to be sued for anything they do while they are pregnant.
FROM APRIL 22, 2004: Special legislation for injuries received in womb, MLA
Stevens promises the legislation will be written narrowly to avoid too many cases going to court. Lawsuits will be limited to the amount of the mother's personal liability.
Dave Eggen, a New Democrat member of the legislature, accused the ruling Tories of appealing to the province's social conservatives by eroding the rights of women.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says the province is passing the buck onto the industry, which will have to pay for the care of disabled children.
Jim Rivait, IBC's Alberta vice-president, warns the costs of litigation will be factored into insurance fees.
The legislation stems from a case involving a severely disabled three-year-old girl, Brooklyn Rewega. Her father Doug wants to sue his wife, Brooklyn's mother, in order to get money from the insurance company to cover the care of their daughter. The Rewegas are still married.
Lisa Rewega was pregnant and at the wheel on Dec. 31, 2000, when she lost control of her car and was pitched through the windshield. She gave birth four months later to Brooklyn, who was born blind with brain damage and cerebral palsy. She suffers up to 10 seizures a day.
A Supreme Court decision in 1999 ruled that children can't make claims against their mothers for events that hurt them in the womb. If anyone else but the mother had been driving, a claim could go ahead.
Rosanna Saccomani, the family's lawyer, says the Supreme Court left an opening that would allow a child to sue its mother if she were involved in a car accident.
CBC News
Alberta's justice minister says he will be introducing legislation allowing children injured in car accidents while still in the womb to sue their mothers.
It would mark the first such law in Canada, if passed by the legislature. Justice Minister Ron Stevens says the bill will be up for consideration at the end of November.
The action has sparked concerns by opposition parties and the insurance industry, fearing it might open the floodgates for mothers to be sued for anything they do while they are pregnant.
FROM APRIL 22, 2004: Special legislation for injuries received in womb, MLA
Stevens promises the legislation will be written narrowly to avoid too many cases going to court. Lawsuits will be limited to the amount of the mother's personal liability.
Dave Eggen, a New Democrat member of the legislature, accused the ruling Tories of appealing to the province's social conservatives by eroding the rights of women.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says the province is passing the buck onto the industry, which will have to pay for the care of disabled children.
Jim Rivait, IBC's Alberta vice-president, warns the costs of litigation will be factored into insurance fees.
The legislation stems from a case involving a severely disabled three-year-old girl, Brooklyn Rewega. Her father Doug wants to sue his wife, Brooklyn's mother, in order to get money from the insurance company to cover the care of their daughter. The Rewegas are still married.
Lisa Rewega was pregnant and at the wheel on Dec. 31, 2000, when she lost control of her car and was pitched through the windshield. She gave birth four months later to Brooklyn, who was born blind with brain damage and cerebral palsy. She suffers up to 10 seizures a day.
A Supreme Court decision in 1999 ruled that children can't make claims against their mothers for events that hurt them in the womb. If anyone else but the mother had been driving, a claim could go ahead.
Rosanna Saccomani, the family's lawyer, says the Supreme Court left an opening that would allow a child to sue its mother if she were involved in a car accident.
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