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.
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.
O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.
(O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.)
Robert Burns, Poem “To a Louse” – verse 8
Scottish national poet (1759 – 1796)
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.
Patrick McIlheran, a conservative columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, startled me with a ‘quick hit’ that was printed in the Easter Sunday edition. The columnist trumpets a letter to the Washington Post by Harvard School of Public Health HIV/Aids researcher, Edward Green, where, according to McIlheran, Green said: “The pope is correct.” Katherine Kersten, blogging for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune also is amplifying Green’s assertion that current evidence on condom use in Africa supports the Pope’s position. My thoughts are: “Get ready, there’s a whole lot more where that came from and there will be a lot more for a long time.”
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.
My friend Anne, who is a family planning educator in Oneida County, sent me this article. We at FPHS were already noting a request for long-term, low maintenance methods. This was a post on the Huffington Post on Friday, March 27th, written by Christina Page the author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America.
For the President and Congress to achieve solid reproductive health care policy as a part of health care reform, the Obama administration will need to sideline a few of the professional wrestlers and sports announcers in the abortion rights contest. The ongoing face-off between the “Medical Right” and my pro-choice colleagues over access to contraception, comprehensive sex education, and legal access to abortion provides a dramatized competition that does not reflect the real lives of Americans. In their personal choices, citizens have accepted and embraced the right to informed consent on reproductive health issues. In this case, public policy should reflect private behavior.
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.
It is somewhat surprising the number of families we’ve seen praying outside the clinic. Prior to the campaign, we saw one family on a regular basis, but now there are a few. I’m a little challenged when it comes to the issue of the kids. This summer one of the children was quite adamant about not wanting to be protesting (praying) because it was boring. These kids seem to be praying, but I have to repress the desire to bring them some hot tea and a basketball.
A young mother visiting our Women Infants and Children’s nutrition clinic in Central Wisconsin was frightened by a male picketer as she came into our clinic a few weeks ago. Other women, sometimes our patients, sometimes our employees, have felt threatened by the “40 Days for Life” anti-birth control demonstrators leading a Lenten protest that began yesterday in front of our clinic in Central Wisconsin and in 131 other communities across the nation.
[We recieved this today from The Guttmacher Institute, and wanted to make sure to pass it along.]
Publicly funded family planning programs save the U.S. billions of dollars each year though the prevention of about 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, including nearly 400,000 teenage pregnancies, in the U.S., according to a report released Tuesday by the Guttmacher Institute, the AP/Miami Herald reports. The report estimates that the unintended pregnancies prevented each year would have resulted in 810,000 abortions, 270,000 miscarriages and 860,000 unintended births. The report states that without publicly funded family planning programs, the U.S. abortion rate would be nearly two-thirds higher than the current level and nearly twice as high among low-income women.
