The city of Baltimore, together with the Center for Reproductive Rights, is asking that the court dismiss the lawsuit filed by the Archbishop of Baltimore and the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, Inc., claiming that the city ordinance asking crisis pregnancy centers to have truthful signs outside their centers constitutes a denial of their freedom of speech.

From a Center for Reproductive Rights press release:

Today, the City asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the Archbishop’s claims against the ordinance are not supported by the facts or the law.  The ordinance protects women from deceptive advertising and ensures that women seeking birth control or abortion services have prompt access to those services.

“These facilities have a long documented history of misleading and manipulating women seeking abortion or contraceptive services.  It’s about time that they were required to tell women the truth,” said Stephanie Toti, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Anti-choice advocates are upset with the ordinance stating that they must post signs declaring that they are not medical centers, and that they neither dispense nor provide referrals for abortions or birth control services.  According to the Archbishop, the ordinance is a form of religious harassment.

“A defender of the church,” proclaimed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline for an extensive story about the new Archbishop-designate, Jerome Listecki. The subtitle for the article was: “Archbishop designate Listecki vows collaboration, but unafraid of debate.” The subtitle was probably derived from the bishop’s description of how he planned to participate in the political process. He said: “If we don’t challenge one another’s statements, then we’re relinquishing our responsibility to the common good.”

The following month, young Catholics for Choice (yCFC – a Washington D.C. based organization) and Family Planning Health Services (FPHS – an agency with family planning clinics in eight Wisconsin counties) formed a unique sectarian-secular advertising partnership, produced informational ads for broadcast, and then embarked on a two-day Wisconsin “road-trip” to draw media attention to their campaign and to build public (including the Catholic public) awareness and knowledge about emergency contraception.

The purpose of the joint media campaign was two-fold; 1) to inform the public about how Plan B works so they would have it on hand in advance of need and, 2) to inform Catholic women of reproductive age that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops health care directives permit the use of emergency contraception to prevent pregnancies resulting from rape.

In the January 2010 issue of the Journal of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Ron Hamel, Ph.D., makes it very clear that the ethics of access to emergency contraception for Catholics needs to be fully examined and explained. Professor Hamel’s article and the YCFC/FPHS EC campaign are an effort to fulfill that responsibility when there is significant resistance.

The campaign succeeded in getting a response from the Archbishop-designate and thus succeeded in its secondary purpose. The headline on the Christmas Eve edition of the La Crosse Diocesan newspaper is: “Bishop Rejects Young Catholics for Choice Message.” The front page column ran adjacent to the departing bishop’s message. But what he rejected so prominently: “ . . . that Catholics can disregard Church teaching on contraception, abortion, and human sexuality in general and remain Catholics in good standing,” was only weakly connected to the message that yCFC and Family Planning Health Services (FPHS) were promoting.

Bishop Listecki, like most of the Catholic protestors in front of the FPHS clinic, will allow “no room for interpretation,” once the bishop’s authority has been invoked. Many within the church see the bishop’s pattern of authoritarian rebukes, condemnations, and admonitions as futile efforts to suppress dissent and they understand they are not the views of other Catholics or even the other American bishops.  Just as importantly, the denials and condemnations are not solely inflicted on the faithful. The prayer vigil protestors’ and Bishop Listecki’s efforts to eliminate access to emergency contraception, if they succeed, would apply to women regardless of their faith.

Erik Cieslewicz and Brooke Sperry have produced a documentary about the joint campaign that will be released February 17^th, 2010.  The web-posting will occur on the same day that another Lenten prayer vigil outside an FPHS clinic (which does not provide abortion services) begins in central Wisconsin. The video shows the challenge as well as the fun of the effort to educate the public in the face of consistent efforts to suppress and to misinform. Earlier, “40 Days for Life” prayer vigils played a large part in motivating FPHS and yCFC to cooperate in the advertising effort to correct misinformation being spread by their opponents.

Enjoy the video!

Rise in teenage pregnancy rate spurs new debate on arresting it
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.
The pregnancy rate among 15-to-19-year-olds increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 — the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and the nation’s leading reproductive-health think tank.
Teen pregnancy has long been one of the most pressing social issues and has triggered intense political debate over sex education, particularly whether the federal government should fund programs that encourage abstinence until marriage or focus on birth control.
“The decline in teen pregnancy has stopped — and in fact has turned around,” said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group in New York that conducted the analysis. “These data are certainly cause for concern.”
The abortion rate also inched up for the first time in more than a decade — rising 1 percent — intensifying concern across the ideological spectrum.
“One of the nation’s shining success stories of the past two decades is in danger of unraveling,” said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “Clearly, the nation’s collective efforts to convince teens to postpone childbearing must be more creative and more intense, and they must begin today.”
The cause of the increase is the subject of debate. Several experts blamed the increase in teen pregnancies on sex-education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence. Others said the reversal could be due to a variety of factors, including an increase in poverty, an influx of Hispanics and complacency about AIDS, prompting lax use of birth control such as condoms.
“It could be a lot of things coming together,” said Rebecca Maynard, a professor of economics and social policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It could be we just bottomed out, and whenever you are at the bottom, it tends to wiggle around. This may or may not be a sustained rise.”
The report comes as Congress might consider restoring federal funding to sex-education programs that focus on abstinence. The Obama administration eliminated more than $150 million in funds for such groups, but the Senate’s health-care reform legislation would reinstate $50 million.
The new findings immediately set off a debate over funding. Critics argued that the disturbing new data were just the latest in a long series of indications that the focus on abstinence programs was a dismal failure.
“Now we know that after 10 years and over $1.5 billion in abstinence-only funding, the U.S. is lurching backwards on teen sexual health,” said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth, a Washington advocacy group.
Supporters of abstinence programs, however, said the findings provided powerful evidence of the need to continue to encourage delayed sexual activity, not only to avoid pregnancy but also to reduce the risk for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
“Research unmistakably indicates that delaying sexual initiation rates and reducing the total number of lifetime partners is more valuable in protecting the sexual health of young people than simply passing out condoms,” said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, who blamed the increase on several factors.
“Contributors include an over-sexualized culture, lack of involved and positive role models, and the dominant message that teen sex is expected and without consequences,” Huber said. The Obama administration is launching a $110 million pregnancy prevention initiative focused on programs with proven effectiveness but has left open the possibility of funding some innovative approaches that include encouraging abstinence.
The rate at which U.S. teenagers were having sex rose steadily through the 1970s and 1980s, fueling a sharp rise in teen pregnancies and births. That trend reversed around 1991 because of AIDS, changing social mores about sex and other factors, including greater use of contraceptives, which pushed the U.S. teen pregnancy rate to historic lows.
The U.S. rates still remained higher than those in other industrialized countries.
The decline in teen sexual activity had leveled off starting about nine years ago, and the teen birth rate began to increase in 2005. It wasn’t known before if the increase was due to more pregnancies or fewer abortions and miscarriages. For the first time, the new analysis uses those factors in calculating the teen pregnancy rate.
The analysis examined data on teenage sex and births collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics and data on abortions collected by the CDC and Guttmacher — the two best sources of such data.
The abortion rate among teenagers rose 1 percent in 2006 from the previous year — to 19.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age group, the analysis found. Taking that and miscarriages into account, the analysis showed that the pregnancy rate among U.S. women younger than 20 in 2006 was 71.5 per 1,000 women, a 3 percent increase from the rate of 69.5 in 2005. That translated into 743,000 pregnancies among teenagers, or about 7 percent of women in this age group.
“When birth rates go up and down, it could be the result of kids getting fewer abortions,” said John Santelli, a professor of population and family health at Columbia University. “This shows that it’s a true rise in pregnancies.”
The rate increase was highest for blacks. Among blacks, the rate increased from 122.7 per 1,000 in 2005 to 126.3. For Hispanics the rate rose from 124.9 per 1,000 women to 126.6. Among whites, the rate increased from 43.3 per 1,000 women to 44.0.

It appears Baltimore has found a solution to an issue that affects women seeking reproductive care across the United States. A disclaimer law would be a start at reducing the number of women who are unable to get the care they seek at a CPC.  Service agencies should not dupe the people who come to them seeking comprehensive care. This law would address just that issue.

This post first appears on RH Reality Check.   From Jenny Blasdell and John Nugent’s blog.

Imagine a friend of yours, a pregnant woman, walks into an office seeking information about her pregnancy. Only, it’s not a doctor’s office and they’re not going to tell her the truth.  Unfortunately, this happens every day across the United States.

Everyone can agree that women seeking information about pregnancy, birth control, abortion, or sexually transmitted diseases should receive timely and accurate information, not false political propaganda.  But there are facilities out there that spread misinformation about abortion and birth control in an effort to dissuade women from exploring those options.   These are known as limited service pregnancy centers or crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).

In Baltimore and around the country, many facilities have neutral sounding names like “Center for Pregnancy Concerns.”  Sounds like a place you could get information or services for your pregnancy concerns, right?  Wrong.  Volunteers who visited these centers were told falsehoods like abortion increases your risk of breast cancer, that natural family planning is as effective as the pill, and that condoms do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).  CPCs are concerned alright, but not about what’s in the best interest of women’s health.  They’re concerned with preventing women from exploring their full range of options to protect against unplanned pregnancy and STDs.

CPCs do not always disclose information about the limitations of services or their anti-choice agendas in their advertising, particularly their beliefs about birth control.  Low-cost birth control has been proven to be the most effective way to decrease the need for abortion, yet CPCs give false information about the safety and effectiveness of contraceptives.  Moreover, not a single CPC in Baltimore City contacted by NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland Fund volunteers would provide a referral for comprehensive birth control.

That’s why this week Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake introduced the Limited-Service Pregnancy Centers Disclaimer Bill.  Co-sponsored by ten other council members, this bill is a common sense measure that will ensure that women visiting a Baltimore CPC are informed that they will not receive comprehensive birth control or abortion services or referrals.  The measure does not ask CPCs to provide services they find objectionable.  It only asks them to be honest and straightforward with the women, so that they know up front whether the facility will suit their needs.  Having a more complete picture about the services that are and are not offered will also help provide a context for information they do receive.   The goal of this bill is to empower women to make decisions about their care, and decide if a so-called “Center for Pregnancy Concern” is, well, concerned about the same things as they are.

This bill is an exciting step in Maryland.  Although Maryland introduced a statewide bill to regulate CPCs in 2008, the bill, like all pro-choice bills in the last eleven years in our state, did not move forward.  But localities around the country have been enacting laws and policies to strengthen the reproductive rights of women.  For example, Pittsburgh enacted a buffer zone protecting patients entering reproductive health care facilities.  And Madison, Wisconsin created an ordinance requiring pharmacies to let customers know when emergency contraception is not available.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland and Planned Parenthood of Maryland are committed to ensuring that every woman has the best medical care possible – from birth control to prenatal vitamins, from pre-conception care to labor and delivery.  We have no objection to a center that offers women who have decided to carry their pregnancies to term any help they like.  But lines are crossed when a CPC is not up front about their services, or when a center misleads women. 

The Limited Service Pregnancy Centers Disclaimers Bill simply asks that Baltimore CPCs disclose what is true – that they do not provide or refer for comprehensive birth control services or abortion so that women know up front whether the facility suits their needs.   We believe this bill to be a common sense approach to a goal we all share – getting women the care they need. 

From Jenny Blasdell and John Nugent’s blog

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For almost a year now, Pro-Life Wisconsin (PLW) has maintained a protest campaign at our family planning and WIC clinics in Central Wisconsin. PLW activities have included a ‘verbal hijacking’ of our Raising Women’s Voices “Speak Out” on women’s health care so that those who wished to speak on issues unrelated to abortion or contraception were by-and-large unheard in the auditorium. Over the Lenten season, PLW and its local supporters participated in the “40 Days for Life” national campaign — conducting a ‘continuous’ prayer vigil outside our clinic offices.  When asked by local reporters why they were participating in this effort, they said it was to stop abortion.  We do not perform abortions at any of our facilities.  As the 40 Days effort has come to an end, we want to share what we have learned.

The 10 Suggestions:

I.    Publicly express sincere concerns about patient and public safety.
We wrote an editorial which focused on traffic conditions near the clinic and how patients had been affected by the protestors. After the editorial was printed, the protestors stopped harassing patients and obstructing visibility for drivers.
II.    Leave the religious debate to religious organizations.
We spoke with supportive local parishioners of many denominations and asked for their help. The Wisconsin Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice held a news conference that received front page coverage and many church leaders explained that their religious traditions do not oppose family planning or, in many cases, abortion.
III.    Respect the rights as well as the responsibilities of the protesters.
We consistently and publicly expressed our respect for the right to protest, but we also reported any obstruction of clinic entrances or exits (a violation of federal law).
IV.    Maintain Security and Surveillance.
We used digital cameras and recorders to record video covering the entrances and exits at all time.  We also took routine photographs of the protesters. We reported the minor acts of vandalism, entrance and exit obstruction, and harassment to local law enforcement and were able to provide the computerized records as well.

V.    Act don’t React and have a sense of humor.
We hung three large red, white, and blue banners with one word on each one: Condoms Save Lives. When the local newspaper took photos of the protestors, the banners provided a public health message. We also ran general awareness ads on television talking about the services we provide and the value to women’s health. I put up a shadow box with a stone inside, a mallet on the side, and had the glass inscribed “The First Stone – John 8:1-11.” Someone in a hooded sweatshirt stole the mallet, but they left the stone where it was.
VI.    Keep your eyes on the majority.
Quantity matters in the political world, where public policy is decided.  Support for contraception and sex education is growing, even within the parishes recruiting protesters. There is no need to belittle our opposition or demean ourselves.
VII.    Stay focused on facts, evidence, and your mission.
We resisted temptations to be diverted from scientific evidence, provable facts, and the mission of our organization.  Ours is a health services mission of universal access to maternal and child health including reproductive care.  The mission of our opponents is theological and political, so we invited others to speak from those perspectives whenever possible.

VIII.    Follow the law and enforce the law.
One of the opponents complained to city zoning officials that the “Condoms Save Lives” banners intruded over the public right-of-way. We moved them to comply and showed the officials photographs of protestor signs placed in violation of the same ordinance. We asked for equal enforcement.
IX.    Thank contributors and supporters.
You can never express too much appreciation to your supporters, contributors, and your employees.  Use the opportunity to express appreciation and to network.

X.    Let them speak!
The opposition has been unsuccesful persuading even their parishioners(Catholics and Choice) on contraception and sex education. Since their position is fundamentally faith-based and authoritarian, it is unlikely to look rational from other perspectives. At the Women’s Health Speak Out, at our news conferences, in web-postings, in letters-to-the-editor, and even standing in front of our clinics, they communicate quite clearly.  Most people see them as they are and most people disagree with their beliefs and with their tactics.

As Pope Benedict boarded a plane to Yaounde, he said: “”You can’t resolve it (Africa’s HIV/Aids Epidemic) with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Dr. Green’s research and his public presentations, by contrast, state that condoms are seldom used consistently and correctly in general populations and for many reasons, most of which are unknown, condom distribution programs in those areas of Africa have failed to show positive results on a population basis.  He explains that condoms are 80-90% effective at HIV transmission prevention when used consistently and correctly by individuals.

In fact, even in the Washington Post letter that is generating the public attention, Green says: “Don’t misunderstand me; I am not anti-condom. All people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship.”

Although Dr. Green’s research findings overlap with Pope Benedicts moral position that reducing multiple concurrent partners and promotion of fidelity and abstinence have been successful strategies for many people, we cannot ignore the distinction between the proven effectiveness of consistent and correct use of condoms by individuals at risk and our inability to show condom distribution program effectiveness in certain parts of Africa on a population research basis.

Dr. Green supports universal access to condoms and consistent and correct use by individuals at risk of sexually transmitted disease infection.  Pope Benedict XVI does not.

It is pointless to speculate on Dr. Green’s motivations for writing a letter to the Washington Post that minimizes the distinctions between the Vatican’s point-of-view and his own as a Harvard School of Public Health HIV/Aids researcher.  I am no Harvard epidemiologist, but I know that confusion resulting from Dr. Green’s letter will be used to oppose public health policies and programs that Dr. Green supports.  I know that opposition puts the lives and health of millions in Africa and across the world at risk.

 On Friday, April 3, at the conclusion of the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, the international community pledged to ramp up efforts to improve women’s health and reduce poverty in the developing world.  And for the first time in eight years, the United States was front and center in advocating an increased global commitment to reproductive health and rights.

Add this new U.S. stance to the recently resumed American support for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the repeal of the infamous “global gag rule” that barred overseas organizations that so much as provided abortion information from receiving U.S. family planning assistance, and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s unequivocal endorsement of women’s rights as human rights, and it is safe to say: The U.S. is back!

The social and financial return on these investments is great, added Cohen, citing Guttmacher and UNFPA evidence. Meeting targets set in the Cairo Programme for Action and in UN Millennium Development Goals will require strong commitment and increased cooperation. For this to work, the United States must maintain a clear leadership role and European donors cannot back away now just because the United States has returned to the scene.

Vasectonomics

by Christina Page

“Why are we suddenly having an explosion in guys asking for vasectomies?” This is a question Dr. Steven Jones’ staff asks him a lot lately, the Cleveland Urologist told CNN. Dr. Marc Goldstein, a New York-based urologist in practice for over thirty years, told the network, “I have never seen anything like this. When things started to go south in the stock market, then the vasectomy consults went north.” The folks over at vasectomy.com no doubt were pleased for snagging that most awesome domain name. Little did they know a bad economy would provide their payday; the number of appointment requests through their site spiked 30 percent in January.

It’s not just men who are suddenly concerned about their family’s future. Consumers are spending more money on all types of contraceptives, according to the Nielson Company. Indeed, the embrace of family planning appears to be a critical step in financial planning. Nielson said sales of over-the-counter contraceptives jumped a dazzling 10.2 percent in the first two months of the year. The company reports that, while other retail sales slip, condom sales jumped up 5% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6% in January, compared with the same time periods last year. Sales of Essure, a non-invasive, irreversible birth control method for women were up also, 28% over last year’s sales.

Planned Parenthood clinics, the leading provider of contraception in the country, also report increased traffic over the past several months, according to Tait Sye, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “There’s no question we’re seeing increased traffic at most clinics, and many clinics report an increase in new patients as well,” Sye said. A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa told the local TV news the number of women in the state asking for access to birth control is up nearly 40 percent.

So much for contraception being a non-sequitur in discussions about the economy. Just a couple of months ago, Congressional Republicans, fresh from their first meeting with Obama, stood snickering before the press about the inclusion of a family planning provision in the president’s emergency economic plan. What does birth control have to do with the economy? they chided, suggesting Obama might be trying to sneak a liberal social program by them. Minority Leader Representative John Boehner protested, “Regardless of where anyone stands on taxpayer funding for contraceptives and the abortion industry, there is no doubt that this once little-known provision in the congressional Democrats’ spending plan has NOTHING (emphasis his) to do with fixing the economy and creating more American jobs. ” It was lost on the Republicans, many of whom oppose contraception for ‘moral’ reasons, that rational people facing hazardous economic times need to control the number of children they have to support. And, by the way, that kind of responsible behavior is good for the economy which can hardly afford the social programs to support families who can’t make it on their own. (Republicans are supposedly for responsibility except…when they’re not.)

Boehner might want to check in with that Joe the Plumber demographic who, if recent trends are any indicator, not only considers contraception a great form of protection against uncertain times but is opting for the permanent form at that. (And for any Joe without insurance that vasectomy will cost between $500-$1000, probably twice as much as his tax cut. The contraception provision in the stimulus package would have extended coverage for this kind of contraceptive and others to those earning above 200% of the federal poverty level. So Joe, when you lay out that stack of cash don’t forget to thank Boehner who thinks your decision to prevent an unaffordable pregnancy is too silly to cover.)

The Salt Lake Tribune recently interviewed a local couple in their twenties who see pregnancy prevention as key to their family’s survival. They have two kids, 2 years old and 3 months, and were attending a state insurance fair to sign up for health insurance. He works two part-time jobs and she stays at home caring for the kids. Money is a constant worry– he foregoes medications to pay for diapers and the electric bill. She explained that they are being “way more careful” about preventing pregnancy. The couple is hoping to qualify for government insurance in order to get birth control. “I just worry if the economy is going to get worse. I would starve myself before my kids [go hungry]. What if it gets so bad I don’t have food for them?” Cut to eye-rolling Congressional Republicans.

Family planning is nothing less than a foundation on which many Americans build sturdy, responsible lives. Regardless of political affiliation, that’s exactly what many are struggling to do right now. Those who have lost their jobs and health insurance are in great need of family planning. They’re also, alarmingly, the ones with the least access to it. Meanwhile Republicans openly mock attempts to include family planning as a part of the economic recovery, actively work to defund Planned Parenthood, promote policies that encourage health care workers to deny patients access to contraception, and defend programs that withhold basic information about contraception to sexually active teens. (Then they’re baffled to find the number of teen parents spiked during the Bush years.)

Family planning is an American family value and, as national data indicate, something we rely on in our greatest times of need. Attacks on our right to plan our families shred the social safety net. The Republicans are welcome to titter and heckle the next time a proposal to support family planning crosses their desks. Doing so will only reveal how astoundingly out of touch they are from American’s real lives and needs.

Even American Catholics practice a fundamental, and not fundamentalist, right to reproductive self-determination. During the 2008 campaign, most Catholic voters ignored the sacramental threats of shepherds like Reverend Jay Scott Newman, who told his parishioners that their souls were at risk if they voted for pro-choice candidates. (Catholics voted for Obama with a 54 to 45 percent margin.) As Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Patrick Whelan pointed out, voters may have noticed that abortion rates declined more under the Clinton administration’s policies than under Reagan’s or under either of the two Bush’s. Voters may have decided that there are higher priority pro-life issues; such as economic desperation, unending war, and global environmental degradation.
For some, positions on abortion and birth control are simply not susceptible to earthly persuasion. More than forty years ago, when a majority of a Vatican commission on birth control seemed ready to support a reversal of the church’s ban, Father Marcelino Zalba fervently asked the members what would happen “with the millions we have sent to hell” if previous teaching was invalidated. Commission member Patty Crowley responded: “Father Zalba, do you really believe God has carried out all your orders?”
Nancy Belden, a Washington-based public opinion researcher, recently showed that one side of the abortion debate is unlikely to change the hearts and minds of the other. Her polling demonstrated that support or opposition to legal abortion has moved a few polling points one way or the other in the last thirty-five years, but in 2007 56% favored legal access and 40% opposed – a return to 1973. American families have made up their minds and for the most part, they ignore the arguments and the arguers on the other side.

President Obama frequently demonstrates a pragmatic and realistic approach to reproductive health policy: rescinding the theological stem-cell federal funding restrictions; removing the ‘Global Gag Rule’ (Mexico City Policy) that penalized international family planning agencies for supporting reproductive rights, and; rolling back the Bush administration’s ideological 11th hour “conscience protection” regulations. While the President has reached out to listen to fundamentalist members of Congress and to interest groups who disagree, most of the time he has tried to set policy based on practical scientific decision-making instead of partisan crowd noise.
The new Congress and the new Administration must continue on this course of providing leadership on the principle that reproductive health care policy will be based on two foundations of American democracy – reason and science. We must not be distracted from that principle by battles over who holds the high moral ground. Instead, we must keep our attention on developing reproductive health care policy that is down to earth.

Today we had to ask one of the protesters to move his truck out of our parking lot. I understand that it’s inconvenient to have to walk a few blocks, but I’d rather inconvenience him than the parents coming into our WIC clinic who need to negotiate strollers and car carriers. This time of year, you never know when the temperature is going to change and the sidewalks will suddenly turn into skating rinks. I’m very grateful that to date this is the largest inconvenience we’ve encountered. I’m hopeful things will continue to be respectful.