October 23rd, 2008 • Contributed by Sue Kettner
Today I read an article on RH Reality Check by Patricia Harmon, Nurse-Midwife. While protecting the names of her patients, she told the stories of women with unexpected pregnancies who are facing hard choices. To read the article, go to:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/10/15/unexpected-pregnancies-and-hard-choices
At the time I read the article, there were 7 comments posted. I found the comments especially interesting also.
The comments were from:
Maryisa
Colleen
Michelle
E.S.
Deb
Alexis Zepeda
1 Comment • Posted in: Sex Ed
March 27th, 2008 • Contributed by Sue Kettner
I found this article to be very thought-provoking especially after listening to the recent podcast on HIV. Sue
DAILY WOMEN’S HEALTH POLICY REPORT
OPINION | CDC Study on Rate of Common STIs Among Girls, Young Women ‘Already Old’ to Public Health Workers, Opinion Piece Says
[March 21, 2008]
Recent findings from a CDC study that about 25% of U.S. girls and young women ages 14 to 19 have at least one of four common sexually transmitted infections is “already old” news for public health workers, Robert Fullilove, associate dean at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Adaora Adimora, associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Peter Leone of the North Carolina Division of Public Health write in a Washington Post opinion piece. They add that public health workers “fear this latest study will have its 15 minutes in the spotlight and also fade from view,” just like a similar study released more than 10 years ago by the Institute of Medicine did.
“Despite the huge costs that [STIs] imposed on our health care system, awareness of their importance was all but absent from the public consciousness” when the IOM study was released, the authors write. They add that the “national silence” on STIs might be associated with the country’s “difficulty discussing the roles that race and poverty play in these trends.” The “taboo” of talking about sexual behavior, poverty and race is one “obvious reason” rates of STIs remain high, the authors write, adding, another is “that the incidence of [STIs], particularly HIV, is concentrated in poor, segregated neighborhoods that are characterized by high rates of incarceration.” The “shift” in marriage and courtship patterns that result from men being incarcerated, as well as an increase in the number of “multiple concurrent sexual partnerships,” also are contributing to the problem, according to the authors.
STIs cost the U.S. “tens of billions of dollars” annually, “but with the exception of HIV infection, [STIs] remain the elephant in the room when it comes to the national conversation about health and health care,” the authors write. They add, “We can no longer have effective [STI] prevention campaigns in poor communities of color if they treat one person at a time or ignore social conditions underpinning high rates of HIV and other” STIs. “Simply put, we will never rid the U.S. of HIV and other [STIs] if our only weapon is medical treatment,” the authors write, concluding, “And if we are unable to engage in a national dialogue about the sexual health of our youths and the social dynamics that drive [STIs], this epidemic will go largely ignored, and many more lives will be lost” (Fullilove et al., Washington Post, 3/21).
No Comments • Posted in: STIs
March 19th, 2008 • Contributed by Sue Kettner
[A Note from Podcast Coordinator: Not long ago we posted a podcast regarding the anniversary of Roe V. Wade. Our own Sue Kettner posted a comment that I found to be so insightful I would like it to be a post on its own. So we are elevating it to the front page.]
My thoughts after listening to the interview with American Life League’s Judy Brown and Cathy Thompson from the Religious Coalition For Reproductive Choice: I believe there were some points forgotten or missed and felt compelled to respond with my recollections about abortion.
I was just three months old on the day of the Pearl Harbor Attack…December 7, 1941. I was 4 years old the year the US dropped Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I reference these dates so a reader will know the decade I was born into and some sense of where the US was during that decade.
I first heard the word abortion on a newsreel in the movie theater at about age 5 or 6. Movies were cheap entertainment and my parents took the whole family at least twice a week. We saw reports of the war and shots of Roosevelt and Churchill and later Truman during those news reels. The news reels also reported on organized crime and how various well known organized crime bosses were being charged with providing abortions. Now, what I (at 5 and 6 and 7 years of age) thought was that abortion was a terrible thing that organized crime people were doing to vulnerable women in America. The crime figures were usually charged with providing abortion and tax evasion. As a child, I didn’t understand what tax evasion had to do with it.
After the war ended and there were less newsworthy events linked to organized crime, I didn’t see or hear the word abortion again until I was nearly an adult. In high school, sometimes when a girl got pregnant, her boyfriend wanted her to “get rid of it.” Usually no one knew what that meant or how that was possible so she continued to be pregnant. Many times girls went away. An enlightening book about the era is “The Girls Who Went Away, The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V Wade” by Ann Fessler.
One point not clear in the interviews was when contraception became available. Contraception wasn’t new in the 1960’s.
My mother used a diaphragm and breastfeeding to achieve the birth spacing in our family. My father was familiar with condoms…which he called “safes” – a word used during the war I’ve learned.
Did they have access to birth control? Yes. My father knew the store to go to in our township to purchase “safes” which were behind the counter and not openly discussed. My mother was able to get contraceptive care through her physician, most likely because she was married. The thing that happened in the early 1960s was that birth control pills were developed and sold. They were easy to use and extremely effective. The speakers were right…now the American woman could effectively control her fertility. I took some of those early birth control pills for 5 months in 1962. I took Enovid E and it cost $1.69 in the drug store. After using those birth control pills, I went on to have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. When my family size was complete, I used birth control pills again. Countless women in my generation used birth control pills and most of them worked outside the home eventually.
Another element:
The American woman moved into the workforce outside of her home out of necessity during World War II. She went back to being a woman focused solely on the work of her family after the war. However, women had learned from that war experience that they could do the work in the factory and in the office and they were good at it. They also filled many important roles in the medical community and had done so for decades. Financial necessity and personal interest sent women back into the workforce armed with a tool that would help them postpone pregnancy, achieve birth spacing and limit the size of their families. Fewer children in a family and Mom’s income helped the family maintain their health and raise and care for their children.
I was already working outside the home by the time Roe v Wade happened in 1973. I came to work at a family planning provider in 1975. Some states had abortion available at that time. Sometimes women needed to travel outside of Wisconsin to obtain an abortion. Within a few years, first-trimester abortion became available in Wisconsin. Women from most parts of the state still had to travel to Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay or Appleton. They needed a checkup 3 to 4 weeks after the procedure. By 1978 our family planning agency was providing on-site clinics and women came to the local family planning provider for their checkup rather than going out of town again. The confidentiality provided by the family planning clinic was essential to women and their families.
The statewide family planning providers in Wisconsin have prevented thousands and thousands of abortions by providing accessible, affordable, effective contraceptive methods. Today, those family planning providers have another tool to help prevent the unintended pregnancy. That is Emergency Contraception (EC). If taken as soon as possible after any unprotected sexual contact, EC can prevent pregnancy quite effectively. …Sue Kettner Family Planning Health Services
No Comments • Posted in: Abortion, Roe V. Wade, Action
