In this corner

Under federal court order the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was to make Plan B™ available over the counter without age or prescription restriction by May 10th. (Plan B™ is a pill taken as soon as possible and up to 120 hours after unprotected sex to prevent a pregnancy.)

The FDA had determined Plan B ™ to be safe over the counter (OTC) for all girls and women at risk of unwanted pregnancy. In what appears to be an attempt to evade the court order, the Whitehouse engineered an FDA compromise requiring women to show identification and proof of age (15) before they can purchase Plan B™.

Judge Edward Korman sharply denied the Department of Justice (DOJ) request for a stay of his order. He said that the DOJ’s arguments on EC contradict the FDA’s own recommendations and he pointed out the administration’s inconsistency in its positions that requirements for photo IDs are unconstitutional barriers to voting rights, but photo IDs are acceptable for women who need to exercise their reproductive rights.

And in this corner

Meanwhile, half the country away in Denver, the DOJ is defending policy that health insurance should include preventive coverage, including hormonal contraceptives and emergency contraception, without copays or deductibles. Consistent with President Obama’s 2009 directive that political officials should not influence scientific findings and conclusions, he commissioned the National Institute of Medicine (IOM) to make recommendations on prevention for women’s health. In stark contrast to the Plan B ™ FDA case, the President implemented the IOM recommendations and is vigorously defending policies to give women access to EC and other contraceptives against secular corporations such as Hobby Lobby which are claiming a religious exemption so they can deny employees reproductive health coverage guaranteed to others.

Points Decision

When the DOJ asserted “public interest” to Judge Korman, he invited them to explain what public interest is served by unplanned pregnancies and abortions. That is the standard by which this dispute should be decided.  No public interest is served by unplanned pregnancies. Which policy best prevents them?

• Unwanted pregnancies – like unplanned and involuntary sex — are more likely to occur to teens, to present higher medical risks, and are more likely to be terminated.
• Judge Korman’s comparison between reproductive rights and voting rights is important because pregnant teens and low-income minorities have the fewest resources to overcome obstacles placed in their way. Those same women and girls also have the greatest difficulty overcoming the health and social consequences of an unplanned pregnancy.
• For almost ten years, FPHS has dispensed 10,000 cycles of EC to our patients — quickly, confidentially, and at low or no cost. We have seen our unplanned pregnancy rate drop. We have identified the greatest obstacles to effective emergency contraceptive use are cost and a lack of accurate knowledge about how it works and when to take it.  OTC status is an inadequate and imperfect solution, but adding unnecessary photo ID requirements only amplifies its imperfections.

The Obama administration’s now repeated politicization of the EC issue, in contrast to the Obama administration’s defense of contraceptive coverage in primary care, adds to the stigma and enables the opponents of contraception in their efforts to misinform.

It is unclear in its fight against itself, what the Whitehouse will win, but in the fight to prevent unplanned pregnancies and abortions, it is too clear what women and girls might lose.

The legal battle surrounding Plan B has gone on for over a decade, and extended through two Presidencies.  Judge Korman’s ruling was issued in response to the Center for Reproductive Rights’ (CRR) renewed lawsuit against the FDA seeking to expand over-the-counter access for all women to all brands of the morning-after pill, including Plan B One-Step and Next Choice.  The CRR again filed suit against the FDA when Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, overruled a 2011 FDA decision to make emergency contraception available over-the-counter to all ages.

Lon Newman, Executive Director of Family Planning Health Services, Inc states, “Young teenagers are most at risk of rape and most likely to engage in unplanned unprotected sex. They are also most likely to be afraid to purchase emergency contraception when they have to show identification and they are least likely to have it.

FPHS will continue our efforts to make EC quickly and confidentially available to teens and adults who want to prevent a pregnancy. We will also continue to support health care policy based on medical science and evidence and not on politics or ideology . . . apparently, in this case, that will be contrary to the White House’s position.

The primary obstacles to emergency contraception are lack of knowledge and cost.  Neither of those obstacles are changed because of over-the-counter status.  However, the Obama administration’s now repeated politicization of this issue for insupportable reasons, only adds to the stigma and misunderstandings surrounding this safe and vital service that safely reduces pregnancies and prevents abortions.”

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it would make the most widely known morning-after pill available without a prescription to girls and women ages 15 and older, and also make the pill available on drugstore shelves, instead of keeping it locked up behind pharmacy counters.

Until this decision the pill, Plan B One-Step, which is used after sexual intercourse to help prevent pregnancy, was available without a prescription only for ages 17 and older.

The decision did not address a federal judge’s ruling in early April that gave the drug agency 30 days to make the pill available for all ages without a prescription. In a scathing opinion handed down three weeks ago, Judge Edward R. Korman in the Eastern District of New York said the Obama administration had put politics before science in restricting access to the drug.

The F.D.A. and the White House said Tuesday that the Department of Justice was still deciding whether to appeal the ruling, something it can do independently of the drug agency’s decision on Tuesday.

That decision, which takes effect immediately, represents a compromise on the politically charged issue of access to emergency contraception, which has pitted conservative and anti-abortion groups against advocates for women’s health and reproductive rights.

The Justice Department is most likely weighing not only the substance of the judge’s ruling, but also the precedent the ruling would set in countermanding an order by a White House cabinet member, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services. In 2011, she decided the pill would be available without prescription only to those 17 and older, despite the F.D.A.’s finding that it was safe and effective and should be available without any age restrictions. She said the pill had not been studied for safety in girls as young as 11. It was the first time the F.D.A. had been publicly overruled by a cabinet secretary.

After her order, the pill’s manufacturer submitted an amended application seeking access for 15-year-olds. On Tuesday, a Health and Human Services Department official said that Ms. Sebelius was comfortable with the F.D.A.’s decision to approve that application.

Besides lowering the age restriction, the new rule addresses concerns of women who were unable to get the pill if their drugstore’s pharmacy counter happened to be closed. Now, Plan B One-Step will be available in drugstore aisles where family planning or women’s health products are displayed.

The packaging will include a product code that, when scanned by a cashier, will indicate that the customer’s proof of age is required. To try to prevent theft, the manufacturer, Teva Pharmaceuticals, has arranged for each box to have a security tag, the drug agency said.

Margaret A. Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, said in a statement that data proved that 15-year-olds “were able to understand how Plan B One-Step works, how to use it properly, and that it does not prevent the transmission of a sexually transmitted disease.”

The agency’s decision applies only to Plan B One-Step, which is a one-pill dose, not to the two-pill generic versions, because there is not enough data to show the two-dose versions can be used responsibly by younger teenagers without the intervention of a health provider, said an F.D.A. spokeswoman, Erica Jefferson.

Marty Berndt, a vice president and general manager for Teva, called the agency’s decision “a significant milestone for women.”

But it did not completely satisfy either side of the emergency contraception debate. Anna Higgins, the director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, accused the administration of trying to “placate both sides,” adding that “allowing this to young teens will be something that we will remain very concerned about.”

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, called the decision “an important step forward” because it “will eliminate some of the biggest barriers and hurdles that women face in getting emergency contraception.”

But Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit that Judge Korman ruled on, said the decision on Tuesday was unsatisfactory.

“We will continue our battle in court to remove these arbitrary restrictions on emergency contraception for all women,” she said.

Today, in a proposal that can best be described as adding insult to injury, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved making emergency contraception (EC) available over-the-counter for teens and women ages 15 and up. This convoluted proposal from the Obama administration comes despite a court order in early April by U.S. District Court Judge Edward R. Korman to make EC available over-the-counter to all ages within 30 days of his decision. It comes from an administration which pledged to make science the cornerstone of public policy and instead has consistently flouted a wealth of accumulated evidence on emergency contraception. It also comes after several studies showing that current policy requiring prescriptions for some groups and not others has confused so many pharmacists that access to EC has been denied to many who were in fact legally eligible to obtain it quickly. In practice, the new policy will almost certainly perpetuate, not resolve, that confusion.

The battle to make EC available over-the-counter has gone on for over a decade and spanned both the Bush and Obama administrations. Judge Korman’s ruling was issued in response to the Center for Reproductive Rights’ (CRR) renewed lawsuit against the FDA seeking to expand over-the-counter access for all women to all brands of the morning-after pill, including Plan B One-Step and Next Choice. The most recent CRR lawsuit was filed after Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services,overruled a 2011 FDA decision to make emergency contraception available over-the-counter to all ages, underscoring that the Obama administration, like its predecessor, has difficulties dealing with the realities of sex and pregnancy prevention.

The administration’s newest plan is to make EC available over-the-counter to individuals ages 15 and up, but still require prescriptions for those under age 15. While pharmacies can stock it in the family planning section of main store shelves, people seeking to buy EC will have to show identification with a birth date to a cashier. The newest plan comes after approval this week by the FDA of an amended application submitted by Teva, the manufacturer of Plan B One-Step, to allow OTC sale to those ages 15 and over, after an earlier request to do so had been denied by FDA in December 2011. The amended application was in any case superceded by the scientific evidence that led the FDA to rule in 2011 on making emergency contraception available OTC to all ages, the decision that was, as noted above, subsequently overturned by Sebelius. So in using the approved Teva application as the reason for this newest decision, the FDA is essentially reversing itself and ignoring the science on which its 2011 decision was based. Confused yet? Me too. It’s a complete circus, and I have no doubt that leadership at the FDA, which tried to make evidence-based policy in 2011, came under pressure from the White House to find the “fix” it announced today.

According to the FDA press release:

The product will now be labeled “not for sale to those under 15 years of age *proof of age required* not for sale where age cannot be verified.” Plan B One-Step will be packaged with a product code prompting a cashier to request and verify the customer’s age. A customer who cannot provide age verification will not be able to purchase the product. In addition, Teva has arranged to have a security tag placed on all product cartons to prevent theft.

In addition, Teva will make the product available in retail outlets with an onsite pharmacy, where it generally, will be available in the family planning or female health aisles. The product will be available for sale during the retailer’s normal operating hours whether the pharmacy is open or not.

NPR reported that “the FDA said … Plan B One-Step will be packaged with a product code that prompts the cashier to verify a customer’s age. Anyone who can’t provide such proof as a driver’s license, birth certificate or passport wouldn’t be allowed to complete the purchase. In most states, driver’s licenses, the most common form of identification, are issued at age 16.”

There are several serious problems with this approach, apart from the fact that it ignores scientific and medical findings that call unequivocally for over-the-counter access for all.

First, the policy is not in compliance with the court ruling and therefore may in fact be thrown out. The Department of Justice will have to bring it before Judge Korman for approval and potentially seek a stay of his ruling altogether, throwing EC once again back to the courts.

Second, it still requires a prescription for a subset of the population potentially in need of EC, and therefore creates a significant barrier, especially for low-income teens under 15 years of age or those without ID who “look” younger and are denied access. Emergency contraception is for emergencies. It prevents unintended pregnancy by preventing ovulation, and is therefore most effective when taken within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse (including in cases when another contraceptive method may have failed). The need to see a physician to obtain a prescription that the public health and medical communities have deemed unnecessary is both time-consuming and expensive, and will entail additional indirect costs in terms of loss of time at school and work, likely on the part of both teens and their parents. This requirement serves the interests of no one except anti-choice opponents of birth control, and those in the Obama administration who still seem unable or unwilling to think beyond their own fears of teens and sex, or to go beyond personalizing policy to accommodate their own paternalistic fears of their daughters as sexual beings.

Third, language, lack of identification, and other potential barriers will remain an obstacle for many communities. Many 15- and 16-year-olds do not have IDs that display birth dates, and those who are well above the age limit but “look younger” to a clerk will be required to produce identification, documentation that many people in this country still do not have readily available or that, in a hurry, some might not remember to bring with them to the store.

Latinas, for example, face many of these barriers to access. In reaction to the decision, Jessica González-Rojas, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, stated:

For too long, this important backup birth control method has been kept out of reach. Immigrant women and aspiring citizens of all ages have been hit particularly hard, since they are less likely to have government-issued identification. Putting emergency contraception on store shelves is a step in the right direction, but this decision still means another unneeded barrier for many Latinas who need contraception. Latinas already face far too many barriers, like poverty, discrimination and language, which prevent Latinas from accessing care.

For Latinas in particular, expanded access to emergency contraception is critical for making the best decisions for our families and ourselves. It’s disappointing that the FDA decided to undermine the recent court victory for immigrant women and young Latinas by introducing more unnecessary obstacles to emergency contraception, which is safe and necessary.

In a press release, Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, also pointed to the barriers to access left unaddressed by the policy:

The FDA is under a federal court order that makes it crystal clear that emergency contraception must be made available over the counter, without restriction to women of all ages by next Monday.

Lowering the age restriction to 15 for over-the-counter access to Plan B One-Step may reduce delays for some young women—but it does nothing to address the significant barriers that far too many women of all ages will still find if they arrive at the drugstore without identification or after the pharmacy gates have been closed for the night or weekend.

These are daunting and sometimes insurmountable hoops women are forced to jump through in time-sensitive circumstances, and we will continue our battle in court to remove these arbitrary restrictions on emergency contraception for all women.

It seems these days that no matter the administration in power, ensuring women have access to basic reproductive health care remains fraught with bias and mismanagement. On one hand, after going to ridiculous lengths to placate the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on something as basic as including coverage for contraception under health insurance, the administration is fighting the USCCB and others in court over a policy to which the litigants are not even subject because these religious groups so hate the idea of women accessing contraception they are willing to empty collection plates to pay for court battles. On the other, advocates are now fighting the same administration in court on access to EC. And meanwhile, many pharmacies and pharmacists refuse to stock or dispense EC, no matter what, claiming personal religious objections.

The only thing that is clear is that the last chapter of this fight has yet to be written. Janet Crepps, a senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told NPR Tuesday night that absent a stay, “we will want to go back to court as quickly as possible and ask the judge to hold them in contempt.”

So teens of any age can now buy prescription-strength drugs such as cough syrup and cold medicine over-the-counter without a prescription, but still cannot buy without hassles and barriers a drug that has been found to be safer than a wide array of other OTC drugs, and which has a small window of usefulness. I guess this administration would rather play Russian Roulette with teen pregnancy than make it easier to prevent.

One of the more popular provisions of the federal health law requires that women be given much freer access to prescription methods of birth control. That includes not only the pill, but implants and IUDs as well.

But what happens if there are not enough doctors to prescribe those contraceptives?

That’s exactly what worries some reproductive health advocates, as efforts are underway to rewrite rules governing the training of the nation’s family doctors.

The proposed new rules, they say, drop existing requirements that family medicine residents be required to undergo training in contraception and counseling women with unintended pregnancies. Several groups are now running letter-writing campaigns to make sure the rules remain.

Revising The Rules

Family physicians are what used to be known as general practitioners, or GPs.

“My youngest patient hasn’t been born yet, and the oldest I take care of is 94,” says Jeff Cain, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a family doctor in Denver.

For the majority of women, particularly outside major cities, it’s family doctors, not obstetrician-gynecologists, who provide for their reproductive health needs.

“The main people who staff community health centers, as well as large swaths of rural America, are family doctors,” says Linda Prine, a family physician from New York.

To become a family doctor, however, medical residents must complete a wide-ranging and rigorous three-year training program approved by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education.

Every seven years, the ACGME guidelines for each specialty are revised; it’s now time for arewrite of the family medicine curriculum.

Prine, who is also the medical director of the Reproductive Health Access Project, helped lead a push the last time around to require all family medicine residents to learn to provide all forms of prescription contraceptives, including placing IUDs and implants, and to counsel patients with unintended pregnancies on their options.

“The language was put in so that we would be assured that family doctors were prepared to provide health care for their patients,” she says.

But now that requirement appears to be going away.

“The feedback we’ve gotten over the years is that a lot of the curricular requirements were too specific,” says Peter Carek, a professor of family medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and chairman of the committee that’s rewriting the requirements for family medicine residents.

“So in general what we’ve tried to do as a committee is to at least in as many areas as we could, pull back some of those specific requirements and give them more general requirements to follow,” he says.

Criticism

Reproductive health advocates say there’s a big problem with leaving contraception training up to each program: Many residency programs these days are run by religious hospitals that don’t believe in contraception.

“The way it works right now, the residency is required to at least send the residents off-site to another place, say, a family planning clinic where they can learn how to provide birth control,” Prine says. “If these regulations change and there’s no wording whatsoever about the need to provide contraception, the residency programs would no longer be obliged to send their residents somewhere where they would get this education.”

If you think that religious-based health care isn’t becoming the norm, think again.

“We took a look recently and found that of the 25 largest health systems in the United States, 13 were religiously sponsored; that includes 11 Catholic systems,” says Lois Uttley, who heads the nonprofit group MergerWatch, which works to protect women’s access to reproductive health care when secular hospitals merge with religious ones. “So that means the likelihood of a patient encountering a Catholic restriction on contraception is pretty high and growing.”

Draft Document

Family medicine officials, however, say they are aware of the concerns from reproductive health advocates.

“The American Academy of Family Physicians and family medicine educators really remain committed to ensuring that women’s health is a core educational part of training family physicians,” says Cain, the AAFP president. “That includes family planning and maternity care.”

Cain says that while the new program standards may not spell out the contraceptive training requirements the way the current ones do, he expects they will be included in a frequently asked questions part of the document that will still carry the same weight.

In any case, he points out, “the truth is this is a draft document right now. We want to make sure the wording in the document reflects the intended outcome.”

Both Cain and Carek say they are taking under serious consideration all the comments they have been hearing about the standards so far.

The last day for the public to comment is Thursday.

A total of $610 million was allocated to family planning and reproductive health services in the 2012 budget according to the Guttmacher Institute:

• § 31.6 million women and couples receive contraceptive services and supplies;
• § 9.4 million unintended pregnancies, including 4.1 million unplanned births, are averted;
• § 4 million induced abortions are averted (3 million of them unsafe);
• § 22,000 maternal deaths are averted;
• § 2.8 million fewer healthy years of life (DALYs) are lost among women; and
• § 96,000 fewer children lose their mothers.

Increasing spending will expand access and services and cuts will lead to declines. It is as simple as that. A mere $10 million in the budget for family planning means

• § 520,000 fewer women and couples would receive contraceptive services and supplies;
• § 150,000 more unintended pregnancies, including 70,000 more unplanned births, would occur;
• § 70,000 more abortions would take place (of which 50,000 would be unsafe);
• § 400 more maternal deaths would occur;
• § 50,000 more DALYs would be lost; and
• § 2,000 more children would lose their mothers.

Every little bit counts!

“We welcome Pope Francis,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, “and look forward to hearing about his priorities in the coming days. We do not expect very many changes, but sincerely hope that the culture will change to better reflect the needs of the church and of Catholics. As Cardinal Bergoglio, he was outspoken against the recent liberalization of Argentinian laws on abortion, stating flatly that ‘abortion is never a solution.’ He also opposes adoption by gay couples. But this is no surprise, as he and his fellow electors were all appointed by his two conservative predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II.

“We recall with fondness Pope John XXIII, who confronted the troubles of his day by convening the Second Vatican Council ‘to open the windows of the church to let in some fresh air.’ Pope Francis needs to go even farther and throw open the Vatican’s doors to shed some light on a bureaucracy that has allowed the management of the Vatican Bank and the sexual abuse crisis to get completely out of hand. Facing this reality, and the other problems within the church, requires leadership, and leadership is something different than simply referring back to the established Vatican playbook. This is where we could use a pastoral pope, one who recognizes that the main role of the hierarchy is not to become enmeshed in politics but to focus on developing relationships within and outside the Catholic community.

“We call on Pope Francis to recognize that he is now the head of a very diverse church, one that includes Catholics who use contraception, who have or provide abortions, who seek fertility treatments, who engage in sexual relationships outside of marriage or with people of the same sex, as well as people who are living with HIV & AIDS. These Catholics are absolute traditionalists in that they live according to their consciences and by virtue of their faith every day. A leader of our church who affirms rather than denies the lived wisdom of the faithful would be well within the Catholic tradition as well.”

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Catholics for Choice shapes and advances sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to women’s well-being and respect and affirm the capacity of women and men to make moral decisions about their lives.

The Native American Community board released THIS report about Plan B Emergency Contraception.

AAUW supporters asked congressional staffers to request that Representative Duffy add his name to a February 11^th letter authored by John Runyon (R-NJ) and co-signed by seventeen Republican House members to Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor urging them to reauthorize VAWA.  The leader of the local delegation, Marian Seagren Hall, said that Representative Duffy should “add his name to the list of courageous and principled House members who signed this letter.”

Barbara Munson, a member of the Oneida Tribe, discussed the objections by House Republicans to prosecution and trial of non-native people accused of sexual assault and domestic violence in tribal courts.  She emphasized that there are not adequate protections for Native American women against violence and assault now, and that is the reason that VAWA should be passed immediately. It was passed by a 78-22 margin in the U.S. Senate. “It is past time to act,” she said. “Congressman Duffy, as a prosecutor and as a representative of Wisconsin’s native people, is able to lead and to help get this done.”

Lon Newman, an AAUW member and president of the Women’s Health Network of Wisconsin, asked Congressman Duffy to support a compromise being proposed by Darrell Issa (R-CA) if the Senate version does not pass. The Issa compromise would permit non-native people charged with sexual assault to have their trials transferred to federal courts if they believe their constitutional rights are in jeopardy in the tribal court system.  “People in the 7^th District are frustrated with Congressional inaction,” Newman said. “It’s time to get this done.” This compromise holds great promise for the resolution of issues that seemed a barrier to passage of VAWA and AAUW members asked Representative Duffy to support the Issa compromise if the Senate version, with Duffy’s help, fails to pass the House.

The delegation and the congressional staffers agreed that all women and men deserve to be protected from violence and assault. The AAUW members emphasized that Representative Duffy understands the needs of the people of the 11 tribes in Wisconsin, understands the difficulties of prosecuting these crimes, and therefore they encourage him to take the lead in showing respect and fairness to everyone in all communities. They asked him to support and pass the Senate version of VAWA promptly.

 
The most heated part of the fight between the Obama administration and religious groups over new rules that require most health plans to cover contraception actually has nothing to do with birth control. It has to do with abortion.

Specifically, do emergency contraceptives interfere with a fertilized egg and cause what some consider to be abortion?

“The Health and Human Services preventive services mandate forces businesses to provide the morning-after and the week-after pills in our health insurance plans,” said David Green, founder and CEO of the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby, one of the firms suing over the requirements. “These abortion-causing drugs go against our faiths.”

The morning-after pill he’s referring to is sold under the brand name Plan B. The week-after pill, which actually only works for five days after unprotected sex, is called ella.

Both are classified by the Food and Drug Administration as contraceptives. Neither is the same as the abortion drug RU486, or Mifeprex. That pill isn’t considered a contraceptive and isn’t covered by the new insurance requirements.

The constant references to Plan B and ella as abortion-causing pills frustrates Susan Wood, a professor of health policy at George Washington University and a former assistant commissioner for women’s health at the FDA.

“It is not only factually incorrect, it is downright misleading. These products are not abortifacients,” she says. “And their only connection to abortion is that they can prevent the need for one.”

That’s not a universal medical opinion, however.

“It would be my preference that none of these products had any potential to cause abortion or post-fertilization effects — that would be my preference — but we don’t know that,” says Gene Rudd, senior vice president of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations and a practicing OB-GYN in Bristol, Tenn.

That’s not really the case anymore.

For years, scientists knew the pills, particularly Plan B, were highly effective in preventing pregnancy after unprotected sex but weren’t exactly sure how they managed that. “It wasn’t really clear whether it worked before ovulation or after ovulation,” says Wood.

Scientists did know the drug worked primarily by preventing ovulation. It stops an egg from being released from a woman’s ovary and thus prevents any chance of fertilization and pregnancy. But they also thought the drug might make it more difficult for a fertilized egg to implant in a woman’s uterus.

Technically, that’s not an abortion, says Wood.

“We know that about half of fertilized eggs never stick around. They just pass out of the woman’s body,” she says. “An abortifacient is something that interrupts an established pregnancy.”

But people like Rudd worry that even if what the drugs do is not technically abortion, it’s still objectionable if it happens after fertilization.

But it turns out, at least when it comes to Plan B, there is now fairly definitive research that shows the only way it works is by preventing ovulation, and therefore, fertilization.

“We’ve learned a lot about how these drugs work,” says Diana Blithe, a biochemist and contraceptive researcher at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “I think it’s time to revise our speculations about how things might work in view of data that show how things do work.”

For example, says Blithe, a study published just last year led the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics to declare that Plan B does not inhibit implantation. And some abortion opponents in the medical community are beginning to accept that conclusion.

“Up until recently I would not prescribe the Plan B product because we didn’t have enough science to say it doesn’t have a post-fertilization effect,” says Rudd. “Now, I’m becoming — sitting on the fence with that.”

Less, however, is known about ella, the other widely available emergency contraceptive. And that’s where the controversy continues to rage.

“It kills embryos. And it kills embryos before they implant, and it kills embryos after they implant,” says Donna Harrison, director of research and public policy for the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Harrison says the biggest problem with ella is that it’s a chemical cousin of the abortion pill RU-486. “So at an equal dose of ella and RU-486, they cause equal actions,” she says.

But NIH’s Blithe, who worked to bring ella to market, says that’s wrong. First of all, she says, a woman would never take ella and RU-486 in similar doses “unless they were trying to harm themselves.”

But more importantly, while the drugs may be related, ella works much differently. “It’s chemically similar [to RU-486], but it was designed to have stronger effects on the ovary and less effect on the endometrium,” she says. RU-486 works in part by changing the lining of the uterus — the endometrium — to make it impossible for an early pregnancy to be sustained.

Blithe says studies have also shown that ella, like Plan B, doesn’t prevent pregnancy if a woman has already ovulated. Women who took the drug after ovulation got pregnant at the same rate as those who took nothing at all. She says that strongly suggests it does not have any effect on blocking implantation.

Ella opponents aren’t convinced. “To be as successful as they say it is, it would have to have post-fertilization effects,” says Rudd.

But opposition seems to be waning in Europe.

Ella is now available in heavily Roman Catholic Italy, for example. And on Thursday,Germany’s conference of bishops said both drugs are acceptable to give to rape victims in Catholic hospitals.

Planned Parenthood’s closure of the Johnson Creek, Shawano, Chippewa Falls, and Beaver Dam clinics means that women in these areas will be without reproductive healthcare in their communities. Women will be forced to drive farther or go without basic care, such as wellness exams and birth control.

“Limiting access to basic preventative care, like birth control, is the natural end result of anti-choice attacks on women’s reproductive rights and health clinics such as Planned Parenthood, such as the elimination of state funding we saw last session, ” said Dye. “This is a huge loss not only for the people in the communities directly affected by clinic closures but for all of Wisconsin. We must work together to ensure that all Wisconsinites have access to basic healthcare.”

The clinic closures come just one week after Governor Walker’s announcement that he is turning down resources to expand Medicaid. “Politicians at the Capitol are playing politics with our health, and their game has very real consequences for Wisconsinites. It is time for our elected officials to put politics aside and ensure that all Wisconsinites have access in their communities to healthcare that they choose,” said Dye.

“For 78 years, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has been providing high quality health care including lifesaving cancer screenings, well-woman exams, birth control, and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections to approximately 80,000 women and families in 27 health centers across Wisconsin,” said Deb Bonilla, Vice President of Patient Services. “Continued patient care is our top priority. Health center staff are working with the affected patients to identify health care alternatives to minimize the impact of these closures.”

Nearly 165,000 Wisconsin women who are in need of publicly supported reproductive & sexual health services go without needed health care. Despite this unmet need, during the last budget cycle Governor Walker ended state funding for 12,000 women who receive health care at Planned Parenthood. This coupled with the Governor’s recent rejection of federal funds and the resulting drastic rollback of BadgerCare coverage will increase the amount of women who do not have access to health care. These politically motivated actions will have a significant impact on women seeking affordable health care.

“Women are going to have to drive even longer distances just to get basic health care like wellness exams, cancer screenings and birth control,” said Deb Bonilla, Vice President of Patient Services. “We are doing all we can to ensure that women get the care they need, but in some instances the resulting barriers to care will make health care access very difficult.”

In all four of these communities, Planned Parenthood is the only reproductive health provider. Uninsured or financially constrained patients seeking health care will need to travel outside of their county and in some instances up to an hour to receive essential health care services. For some women, this added burden could make the difference in whether they access routine cancer screens, STD tests, treatment or birth control.

“Cutting funds and turning away resources tied to the Medicaid program when people are going without essential health care will negatively impact community health and cost taxpayers’ money,” said Nicole Safar, Public Policy Director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. “Barriers to preventative and lifesaving diagnostic health care will most certainly result in an increase of the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions, undetected cancer occurrences and higher STD/HIV rates. This year we will be watching closely to see what impact this budget will have on Wisconsin communities and the women and families that rely on Planned Parenthood.”

At Planned Parenthood, we remain unwavering in our belief that all people deserve access to high quality and affordable health care.  As the state’s largest non-profit reproductive health care provider, we will continue to be there for our patients to provide affordable and quality health care and to advocate on their behalf to keep them safe, healthy and strong – no matter what.

###

Background Information

Governor Scott Walker and the Republican controlled Legislature eliminated funding for patients accessing reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood in the 2011-2013 Biennial State Budget. The services provided by Planned Parenthood include birth control counseling and options, lifesaving cervical and breast cancer screenings, annual exams, STD testing and treatment, Well Women Exams, pregnancy testing, HIV testing, and colposcopies (advanced cervical cancer tests).

Investing in women’s health is a non-partisan issue as it contributes to healthy women, men and families for Wisconsin while saving taxpayers’ money. For every $1 spent on family planning taxpayers save $4 (The Guttmacher Institute).

The elimination of state funding to Planned Parenthood in 2012 resulted in the loss of funding in 9 of Planned Parenthood’s 27 family planning health centers in Kenosha, Winnebago, Eau Claire, Shawano, Wood, Chippewa Falls, Dodge, Fond du lac, and Jefferson Counties. These health centers serve 12,000 women each year and in 8 of the 9 counties Planned Parenthood is the ONLY family planning provider.

According to the latest data, there are 282,000 women in Wisconsin in need of publicly funded reproductive health care services.  Current provider networks and funding sources provide care for only 95,000 patients.  The vast majority of these patients do not have access to affordable health insurance and receive assistance from various public funding sources to access this basic care.

In 2008, the network of family planning providers in Wisconsin averted 24,300 unintended pregnancies, 12,100 abortions and saved  taxpayers $94 million in averted health care costs.

Closure Facts

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is closing 4 health centers in Beaver Dam, Shawano, Johnson Creek and Chippewa Falls. Health center staff at the four affected health centers have been serving the communities for decades: Beaver Dam 1977, Chippewa Falls 1984, Shawano 1979, and Johnson Creek 1999.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin health centers will close on the following dates:  Shawano April 19; Chippewa Falls May 17; Beaver Dam June 14; Johnson Creek July 19.

These four health centers provide birth control counseling and options, lifesaving cervical and breast cancer screenings, annual exams, STD testing and treatment, Well Women Exams, pregnancy testing, HIV testing and referrals to a network of community resources.

In just the last 10 years these four health centers have provided services to 26,951 patients.

PPWI’s Role as the Leading Provider of Women’s and Reproductive Health in Wisconsin

For 78 years, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has been the leading reproductive health care provider in the state.  PPWI provided essential health care services like cervical and breast cancer screenings, wellness exams, STD testing and treatment, and birth control education and services to 80,000 patients in 2012.

For more information find Naral Pro Choice Minnesota…

On Twitter.

On Facebook.

“What is the matter with the bishops? Last week the Obama administration conceded the health and welfare of women to placate the bishops, and yet they’re still railing that they’re somehow offended. The new, expanded designation of employers who can claim a full exemption to contraceptive coverage—that means no ‘accommodation’—will, for example, affect employees (and their dependents) at more than 6,000 Catholic schools. One million employees and their dependents at thousands of Catholic-related institutions will have to hope that the alternative ways to access contraception work as well as those in the administration claim they will. But the bishops got what they wanted: they and their friends don’t have to provide coverage for birth control, religious liberty of their employees be damned.

“The bishops’ hyperbolic reaction to the provision of basic healthcare reveals how far they have strayed from the social justice tradition that most Catholics embrace. Having failed to convince Catholics to avoid using modern methods of family planning, the hierarchy is reduced to demanding that the federal government enforce their prohibition, or at least make contraception more expensive for the bishops’ employees than it is for the rest of the population. This is an unconscionable attack on the healthcare available to employees at Catholic-related institutions who forsake higher salaries and better benefits because of their own commitment to social justice.

“The bottom line, which the bishops don’t want to acknowledge, is that Catholics use contraception at the same rate as do all Americans. Some 98 percent of sexually experienced Catholic women have used a method that the bishops prohibit. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the bishops are still complaining about contraception—but the administration should stop listening. Catholics already have.”

-###-

Catholics for Choice shapes and advances sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to women’s well-being and respect and affirm the capacity of women and men to make moral decisions about their lives.

The machine is located in the school’s health center, which can only be accessed by students and employees, and offers Plan B One-Step for $25. Under federal law, individuals ages 17 and older may purchase EC without a prescription.

The machine has been in place for about three years but it wasn’t widely known until it drew national media attention last year, prompting critics to claim it would encourage students to have sex. In response to the scrutiny, the Student Senate and the University Forum both passed resolutions in support of keeping the machine.

Erica Jefferson, an FDA spokesperson, in a statement said the agency “looked at publicly available information about Shippensburg’s vending program and spoke with university and campus health officials and decided not to take any regulatory actions.”

Peter Gigliotti, executive director for university communications and marketing, in a statement said an additional card reader has been installed on the machine, which students must use before accessing the drugs (Eng, MSN News, 1/29).

(Source)

Jan. 22, 2013, marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

But the conventional wisdom that the court’s 7-2 decision marked the beginning of a contentious battle that still rages today is not the case, according to those on both sides of the dispute.

Michael Taylor, executive director of the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, has been involved in the anti-abortion effort since the late 1960s. He says the present fight dates back to the 1950s, when some groups “began urging the overturn or modification of existing laws” banning abortion.

Linda Greenhouse agrees. “It’s important to understand how we got to where we are, and not to misunderstand the various lessons of Roe,” says Greenhouse, who spent 30 years covering the Supreme Court for the New York Times and now lectures at Yale Law School.

But, not surprisingly, not everyone agrees on what those lessons are.

Abortion foes like Taylor say the court’s Roe decision, by nationalizing the debate, set the nation on its current path toward making the issue a seemingly intractable one.

“I’m not sure if you’d have as much black and white in politics as you do today if the court had not taken this very aggressive position,” he says. “As another scholar said, the court has made legislators and citizens mute on this issue.”

But Greenhouse, along with Yale Law professor Reva Siegel, disagrees. In both a recent book, Before Roe v. Wade, and the Yale Law Journal article “Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions About Backlash,” the authors suggest that factors other than the court decision may have had much more to do with the state of today’s debate.

One important thing most people don’t realize, says Greenhouse, is that the move to relax state abortion laws came not from women’s rights groups but from themedical profession and a prominent apolitical group of judges and lawyers called the American Law Institute.

“These were heavily, heavily male-dominated professional organizations that looked at the regime of criminal abortion laws that were driving women to back alleys and were putting doctors in legal jeopardy if they acted in what they considered to be the best interests of their patients,” Greenhouse says. “And that’s where the impetus really began.”

Even those on the other side of the abortion debate don’t dispute that the debate began well before the Supreme Court entered the fray. David O’Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, notes that the American Law Institute’s model law called for allowing abortions in cases of rape, incest and fetal abnormality, and to preserve the physical health of the pregnant woman.

“And that law was passed in a number of states,” he says. “Between 1967 and 1970, a total of 19 states had legalized abortion for reasons other than to save the life of the mother.”

It’s the next part of Greenhouse’s and Siegel’s argument that’s more controversial. They say one of the things that really politicized the abortion issue was the efforts of those working to re-elect President Richard Nixon in 1972. His aides, including future Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan, wanted to lure Northern Catholic voters, who had traditionally voted Democratic, over to the Republican Party.

Nixon “was strongly advised by his strategists … to make a play for a Northern urban Catholic Democratic vote,” says Greenhouse. “A kind of Northern strategy that mirrored the Southern strategy.”

In fact, up until then, top Republicans tended to be more in favor of abortion rights than Democrats, including, for much of his first term, Nixon himself.

“It’s upside-down,” says Greenhouse. “It’s like going through the looking glass into another world.”

So, taking his aides’ advice, Nixon switched sides on abortion, even reversing an earlier relaxation of an abortion ban in military facilities.

Meanwhile, his staff painted his 1972 Democratic opponent, George McGovern, as a radical, describing him as the candidate of “amnesty, abortion and acid,” with amnesty referring to those who dodged the draft for the Vietnam War.

Although McGovern tried to deny the charges, the campaign worked. Nixon went on to trounce McGovern that November.

But it wasn’t just the doctors and lawyers, or the politicians, who propelled the abortion debate before the Supreme Court got involved. The Catholic Church also played a role.

“During Vatican II, in the mid ’60s, the pope instructed the U.S. bishops to make abortion a priority. And they did,” says Jon O’Brien, president of the abortion-rights group Catholics for Choice.

Keeping abortion illegal, that is. But, O’Brien says, the church didn’t necessarily want to be seen as the leader of that movement, because most of its flock didn’t agree.

“A majority of Catholics, even back in the 1960s, believed that the abortion decision should be between a woman and her doctor,” O’Brien says.

So the church created groups that were not overtly church sponsored.

“And what they wanted to do was give the appearance of having a grass-roots movement, when really this was the Catholic hierarchy at work to make abortion illegal in the United States of America and to keep it so,” he says.

Taylor, of the Committee for a Human Life Amendment, is a living example of that move. As a graduate student then working for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, he was asked by the church to help run the original National Right to Life Committee, which the church had set up.

“I was asked, would I temporarily shepherd this thing until it could get on its feet independently,” Taylor says. “And I did that. I started that in ’69; I went full time in ’70.”

The National Right to Life Committee was spun off into an independent organization in 1973. And both current Executive Director O’Steen — who is not Catholic — and Taylor insist that the anti-abortion movement is both nonsectarian and very grass-roots.

“Nobody runs a grass-roots movement,” Taylor says. “I think the pro-life movement is one of the strongest grass-roots movements in the history of this country.”

But the fact remains that the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is anything but the 40th anniversary of the nation’s abortion debate.

And despite all the years of strife, it seems that not that many minds have been changed.

A poll by the Pew Research Center released last week found that over the past two decades, opinion on whether or not Roe should be overturned has barely changed. In 1992, 60 percent of those asked said the court should not overturn the ruling. Today that’s up to 63 percent.

Perhaps more troubling for those on both sides of the debate, however, is that the older the ruling gets, the less young people appear to know about it. Among those younger than 30, only 44 percent polled knew the case was about abortion; 16 percent thought it had to do with school desegregation.

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]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/roe-v-wade-turns-40-but-abortion-debate-is-even-older/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/no-roe-anniversary-for-low-income-women/ http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/no-roe-anniversary-for-low-income-women/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:13:09 +0000 Below The Waist http://belowthewaist.org/?p=937 [From our friend Carey Pope]

An important fact that is often missing in the debate around abortion is that, for many women, the decision to have an abortion is informed by an already existing family unit. Six out of every ten American women having an abortion already have a child, and more than three out of ten have two or more children. At the same time, more than 40% of American women who have an abortion are living below the federal poverty level ($18,530 for a family of three). For poor women with children, abortion can be a critical financial issue for their families.

Yet, our policies on abortion in the United States don’t reflect this reality. Federal funding—and public funding in general—for abortion is nearly nonexistent. This became headline news again in 2011 when Congress imposed a ban prohibiting the District of Columbia from using its own locally raised revenues to provide abortion services to its residents, thereby obstructing a local government’s autonomy.

The debate around public funding for abortion isn’t a new one. In 1973, before funding for abortion in the U.S. was cut off, the Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act passed, prohibiting the use of U.S. funds for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning, or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions. In 1976, we were given the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the woman.

Millions of women in the United States and around the world benefit from U.S.-funded programs that improve maternal health. Yet the Helms and Hyde Amendments undermine that important work, harming women, particularly low-income women and women of color. The Helms Amendment has effectively been applied as a total ban on speech and services for safe abortion and on any activity that might enable a health worker to know what to do or to have the means to help when a woman has an unwanted pregnancy. In fact, the United States is the largest single donor for family planning—which of course is a way of preventing abortion—and a huge supporter of postabortion care programs designed to treat complications from unsafe abortion.

In our work at Ipas, we see the impact of unsafe abortion—something that is entirely preventable—all the time. Take, for instance, the story of Meena, a 23-year-old woman with two children in Nepal, where abortion is legally permitted. Meena went to a local health clinic in the remote Kailali District with an unwanted pregnancy. Because the facility was U.S.-funded, the nurse there did not help Meena with a safe abortion and instead referred her to a hospital 60 miles away—too far for Meena to travel on foot or ox cart. So Meena tried to self-induce with sticks. She went back to the clinic two weeks later with a severe infection and was given (more traumatic and expensive) emergency treatment, considered postabortion care and thus available in a U.S.-funded program.

The Hyde Amendment functions in the U.S. in much the same way as the Helms Amendment does abroad, restricting access to abortion care for U.S. women. I haven’t read anything quite as compelling as the testimony from Toni Bond Leonard, former president of the board of directors of the National Network of Abortion Funds and former CEO of Black Women for Reproductive Justice, who shared her story at a 2010 Congressional briefing. Toni was pregnant at age 12. Her mother, who was unable to work and relied on welfare, realized that if Toni carried the pregnancy to term, she’d essentially be raising another child, spreading the family resources even thinner. “She wanted better for me,” said Toni. So the light bill and the rent went unpaid and they didn’t have enough food—all so Toni could get an abortion. “Hyde set off a life-changing course of events for me and my family, which could have been prevented with public funding,” Toni said. “Hyde punishes women for being poor.”

The most striking part of Meena and Toni’s stories is that they aren’t unusual. Every day, everywhere, women make these choices for their families—both the ones they have, and the ones they hope to have. But U.S. abortion funding bans don’t reflect the complexity of women’s reproductive lives and the challenges of low-income women with children. After 40 years, isn’t it time that our policies reflect real women and real families?

Carey Pope is the Senior Associate for Advocacy Communications at Ipas, a global organization dedicated to ending preventable deaths and disabilities from unsafe abortion. Follow her and Ipas on Twitter @IpasOrg.

This post is part of Still Wading: Forty years of resistance, resilience and reclamation in communities of color, a blog series by Strong Families commemorating the 40th anniversary of Roe v Wade.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/no-roe-anniversary-for-low-income-women/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/forty-years-after-roe-the-american-people-have-spoken-will-politicians-finally-listen/ http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/forty-years-after-roe-the-american-people-have-spoken-will-politicians-finally-listen/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:37:04 +0000 Below The Waist http://belowthewaist.org/?p=933 [From our friend Jennifer Dalven at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project]

 

Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that recognized that a pregnant woman has a right to make her own decision about whether to have a child or have an abortion. Since then, some politicians have been trying to take that decision out of a woman’s hands. But over the past two years, these efforts have reached record levels. In those two short years, our elected representatives found the time to pass almost 140 provisions designed to interfere with a woman and her family’s private decision about abortion.

If you’ve had the feeling things have been getting worse, you are right.  In fact, more than half of all American women now live in a state where the legislature is hostile to a woman’s access to abortion. (That’s up from less 1/3 just a decade ago).

Now, of course, we don’t all feel the same way about abortion and we don’t have to. But we should be able to agree that this incredibly important and personal decision is better made by a woman, her family, and her doctor than by politicians sitting in the state legislature or on Capitol Hill.

Indeed, the American people have shown they don’t want politicians to interfere in personal, private decision-making. Who can say whether it was the bills that require a woman to have an ultrasound and look at the picture before she has an abortion? Or that all-male panel that testified before Congress about whether a woman’s insurance plan should cover her contraception? Or that telling comment about “legitimate rape?” Or perhaps it was those 140 new restrictions? Regardless of what the tipping point was, one thing is clear: the American people have had enough.

This year, across the country, people came together to speak out against these restrictions and those who pushed them. In states like Virginia, Oklahoma, Michigan,and Idaho, women and men took time out of their busy lives to go to their state capitols and tell their representatives to leave these decisions where they belong: with a woman and her family.

And these folks aren’t just talking, they are voting. Recently, voters in states as diverse as Mississippi (yes, Mississippi!) and Colorado, Florida and North Dakota all rejected ballot measures that would have interfered with a woman’s ability to make her own decisions about pregnancy and abortion. And this year, politicians with extreme views on abortion lost at the polls, even in conservative states. In fact, Americans are so fed up with politicians trying to interfere with a woman’s private health care decision, that a Gallup poll found that 39 percent of women in 12 battleground states said abortion was the most important issue for women in the election.

Incredibly, however, some politicians still haven’t gotten the message. Right after the election, in a lame-duck session in Michigan, with the public locked out of the statehouse, politicians snuck through onerous and unnecessary regulations on women’s health centers. And, over the holidays, the governor of Virginia quietly advanced new restrictions designed to shut down all women’s health centers in the state – you know, the very restrictions that the Health Commissioner resigned over because they were based on politics rather than protecting a woman’s health.

These stealth attacks notwithstanding, two things haven’t changed. First, Americans have had enough of politicians trying to take that decision away from a woman and her family. Second, if we continue to speak out, we can stem this tide. We can stop politicians from interfering in a woman’s private health care decisions. We can get them back to working for American women and their families instead of against them. Forty years after Roe, it’s about time.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/forty-years-after-roe-the-american-people-have-spoken-will-politicians-finally-listen/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/only-miss-abortion-clinic-cant-comply-with-law-read-more-httpwww-sfgate-comnewsarticleonly-miss-abortion-clinic-can-t-comply-with-law-4187469-phpixzz2hy6gmqpe/ http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/only-miss-abortion-clinic-cant-comply-with-law-read-more-httpwww-sfgate-comnewsarticleonly-miss-abortion-clinic-can-t-comply-with-law-4187469-phpixzz2hy6gmqpe/#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:33:57 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=929 By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press

 

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s only abortion clinic missed a Friday deadline to comply with a 2012 state law that requires each of its physicians to get hospital admitting privileges — a law the governor said he signed with the hopes of shutting the clinic down.

The state Health Department won’t immediately close the clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The department will set an inspection later, and if it orders a shutdown, the clinic can appeal.

Clinic administrator Diane Derzis said every Jackson-area hospital where the clinic applied for privileges said no.

“They were clear that they didn’t deal with abortion and they didn’t want the internal or the external pressure of dealing with it,” Derzis told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant has said repeatedly that he wants Mississippi to be abortion-free.

“My goal, of course, is to shut it down,” Bryant said Thursday. “Now, we’ll follow the laws. The bill is in the courts now, related to the physicians and their association with a hospital. But, certainly, if I had the power to do so legally, I’d do so tomorrow.”

The law requires anyone doing abortions in a clinic to be an OB-GYN with privileges to admit patients to a hospital near the facility where the abortions are done. The clinic filed a lawsuit last summer. U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III gave the facility time to try to comply with the law, blocking any criminal or civil penalties while the clinic tried to do so.

Admitting privileges can be difficult to obtain. Some hospitals won’t issue them to out-of-state physicians, while hospitals that are affiliated with religious groups might not want to associate with anyone who does elective abortions.

One of the clinic’s four physicians has admitting privileges, but the clinic said in court papers that he does little work at the clinic and he had the privileges before the new law took effect last July. The other three don’t have privileges.

Even if the clinic’s physicians don’t have admitting privileges, a patient can be transferred from the clinic to a hospital emergency room, if needed. The clinic has said the customary practice is for a hospital to remain in contact with the physician who transferred the patient to the emergency room, regardless of whether that physician has admitting privileges at the hospital.

In November, the clinic asked Jordan to extend its time to comply with the law. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood on Friday filed a 35-page response, saying the law should take full effect because it’s designed to protect patients’ safety.

“Two federal circuit courts have expressly found that ‘admitting privileges at local hospitals and referral arrangements with local expert’ are ‘so obviously beneficial to patients’ undergoing abortions as to easily withstand a facial constitutional challenge alleging them to be undue burdens,” Hood wrote.

No hearing has been set for Jordan to consider the competing requests.

Bryant’s comments about wanting to shut the clinic came in response to reporters’ questions after he spoke to several dozen pastors at a Pro-Life Mississippi luncheon, where people talked about holding church services outside the clinic for 40 days to mark the coming 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.

The clinic is about two miles north of the state Capitol building, in a trendy neighborhood with restaurants, art galleries and clothing stores. It’s a nondescript mauve building separated from a street by an iron fence woven with the type of heavy black vinyl that’s used for easy-clean restaurant tablecloths.

Outside the clinic Friday, small groups of people prayed, sang hymns and tried to talk to women as they entered or left.

“Any county you’re from, there is help available for you folks,” Cal Zastrow of Jackson called out to a woman as she walked to her car to leave.

“I’m not pregnant,” the woman replied tersely.

Zastrow’s 19-year-old daughter, Corrie, said her family has prayed outside abortion clinics since she was a small child. She said they once helped persuade a woman in Michigan not to have an abortion, and the woman later gave birth to twins.

“Holding that little baby was just incredible,” Corrie Zastrow said.

At the Capitol Friday, Democratic Rep. Steve Holland said he was frustrated by conservative lawmakers’ continuing efforts to restrict abortion.

“Until Roe v. Wade is reversed, that subject should never come up in the Legislature again,” he said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Only-Miss-abortion-clinic-can-t-comply-with-law-4187469.php#ixzz2Hy6BsuRJ

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/only-miss-abortion-clinic-cant-comply-with-law-read-more-httpwww-sfgate-comnewsarticleonly-miss-abortion-clinic-can-t-comply-with-law-4187469-phpixzz2hy6gmqpe/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/discuss-family-planning-candidly-with-children/ http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/discuss-family-planning-candidly-with-children/#comments Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:48:01 +0000 Sue Kettner http://belowthewaist.org/?p=935 [From Christopher Taylor, first appearing in the Jacksonville Progress]

Family planning has always been a controversial public health issue for a variety of reasons.

As a father of four, I can honestly admit that well, I didn’t plan very much. Like most East Texas parents, my folks tried their hands at sharing the important information, but what teenager wants to discuss that with their parents over chicken and mashed potatoes?

Looking back now in my thirties, I wish that more had been shared, so I decided that my kids needed to know the issues, the options and ‘no-no’s. The issues and the options were easy, it was the ‘no-no’s that tripped me up. But I knew I had to do it.

My oldest, soon to be a teenager himself, had already experienced all that middle school had to offer, and fortunately, he felt safe enough to come home and talk to me about it. That was when I realized that if I didn’t educate him, someone else was going to. I also realized that to tell him everything was a ‘no-no’ wasn’t going to go very far. Sure, he’s a great kid and I trust that he’ll follow most of my rules, but I also remember that despite my values, beliefs and ethics, things happen that we don’t necessarily plan on.

And that’s also when I realized that educating my kiddo had nothing to do with values, beliefs and ethics. It was my job, my right. And he deserved it too.

So we had the family planning talk. I asked him what kind of family he wanted, how many kids, when he would marry and so on – just to see what was in his head.

Then, we moved on to a more grown up conversation about the birds and the bees as dad used to call it. We talked about pregnancy, abstinence, sexually-transmitted diseases, emotions, feelings and the whole nine yards as they say. I was so relieved once we did.

You see, parental involvement makes all the difference in the world to a kid’s life. I realize now that if I had told my son all the no-no’s and left it there, someone might tell him otherwise, and he might get curious and when he found out that I hadn’t shared all the information with him quite so accurately … he wouldn’t trust me anymore. Now of course, what a child hears needs to be consistent with what he/she is mature enough to understand. But by the young teenage years, they probably ought to hear about abstinence, and the methods of protection that exist if abstinence doesn’t work out. And there are a variety of reasons it doesn’t, not because it isn’t the best preventative method, but because of peer pressure, hormones, people kids have learned to trust other than us, and for terrible reasons like being taken advantage of without your permission.

I resolved that I wanted my child to be prepared, educated and ready to make a good decision. But I also know he’s a brand new teenager, and things happen that don’t make me a bad parent, or him a bad kid.

So from one parent to another, I encourage parents everywhere to have the family planning discussion with their children, and by doing so, we remove the stigma and move forward in the fight to eliminate unnecessary disease, unwanted pregnancy, not to mention, save a whole lot of money that could be spent elsewhere. If you need an icebreaker, try this. It’s a great start and then you can decide what’s appropriate and when. You can also contact your Cherokee County Public Health Depart-ment and we’ll provide a few additional resources.

Good luck.

Christopher Taylor is the executive director of the Cherokee County Public Health Department and the father of four.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2013/01/discuss-family-planning-candidly-with-children/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/justice-wont-delay-insurance-rule/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/justice-wont-delay-insurance-rule/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2012 21:19:52 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=926 From the NY Times

 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court refused to block enforcement next week of a requirement in the health care overhaul that some companies provide insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices. In an order Wednesday, Justice Sotomayor, who hears emergency appeals from the 10th Circuit, said two companies controlled by the Oklahoma City billionaire David Green and his family did not qualify for an injunction while they challenged the rule. The companies, Hobby Lobby Stores, with more than 500 stores, and Mardel, with 35 Christian bookstores, said it violated their religious beliefs to require their health plans to cover contraception. Justice Sotomayor did not rule on the merits of the claims, and said that even without an injunction, the companies could continue their challenge in the lower courts.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/justice-wont-delay-insurance-rule/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/contraception-sexual-health-and-teens/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/contraception-sexual-health-and-teens/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:57:03 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=924 From Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane… ”The American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a recommendation recently to increase teen access to emergency contraception. In a new policy report, the organization advised pediatricians to not only openly discuss contraception with their female patients but to give advanced prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Currently Plan B is only available to adolescents under 17 with a prescription. In recent years, teen pregnancy has been declining but 80 percent of teen pregnancies are unintended, so could this new policy help reduce adolescent pregnancies even more? This hour, we’ll discuss the new recommendations, contraception use among teens and other issues around their sexual health. Our guests are ANNE TEITELMAN, an Associate Professor of Nursing at University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and COURTNEY SCHREIBER, an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.”

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/contraception-sexual-health-and-teens/feed/ 0 0:51:45 From Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane… ”The American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a recommendation recently to increase teen access to emergency contraception. In a new policy report, the organization advised pediatricians to not[...] From Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane… ”The American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a recommendation recently to increase teen access to emergency contraception. In a new policy report, the organization advised pediatricians to not only openly discuss contraception with their female patients but to give advanced prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Currently Plan B is only available to adolescents under 17 with a prescription. In recent years, teen pregnancy has been declining but 80 percent of teen pregnancies are unintended, so could this new policy help reduce adolescent pregnancies even more? This hour, we’ll discuss the new recommendations, contraception use among teens and other issues around their sexual health. Our guests are ANNE TEITELMAN, an Associate Professor of Nursing at University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and COURTNEY SCHREIBER, an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.” Podcast Family Planning Health Services no no http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/kirsten-moore-ceo-of-reproductive-health-technologies-project/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/kirsten-moore-ceo-of-reproductive-health-technologies-project/#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:02:12 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=919

In this podcast I speak to Kirsten Moore of the RHTP. We talked about the RHTP and its push to move Emergency Contraception from behind the counter to over the counter.

For more information you can go here, and here.

We support the signing of this petition.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/kirsten-moore-ceo-of-reproductive-health-technologies-project/feed/ 0 0:19:34 In this podcast I speak to Kirsten Moore of the RHTP. We talked about the RHTP and its push to move Emergency Contraception from behind the counter to over the counter. For more information you can go here, and here. We support the signing of this [...] In this podcast I speak to Kirsten Moore of the RHTP. We talked about the RHTP and its push to move Emergency Contraception from behind the counter to over the counter. For more information you can go here, and here. We support the signing of this petition. Podcast Family Planning Health Services no no http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/the-science-of-plan-b-emergency-contraception/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/the-science-of-plan-b-emergency-contraception/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 21:27:14 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=917

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/12/the-science-of-plan-b-emergency-contraception/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/the-secret-history-of-sex-choice-and-catholics/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/the-secret-history-of-sex-choice-and-catholics/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:14:00 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=913 Our Friends at Catholics for Choice offer this…

The Secret History of Sex, Choice and Catholics from Catholics for Choice on Vimeo.

viagra

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/the-secret-history-of-sex-choice-and-catholics/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/frances-kissling-and-matt-bowman/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/frances-kissling-and-matt-bowman/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:25:24 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=910

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/frances-kissling-and-matt-bowman/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/meghan-smith-and-the-catholic-disconnect/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/meghan-smith-and-the-catholic-disconnect/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:26:53 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=896 Meghan Smith and I talk about the disconnect between the Bishops and the Catholic Faithful in regards to the Affordable Care Act, and Contraception.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/11/meghan-smith-and-the-catholic-disconnect/feed/ 0 0:00:01 Meghan Smith and I talk about the disconnect between the Bishops and the Catholic Faithful in regards to the Affordable Care Act, and Contraception. Meghan Smith and I talk about the disconnect between the Bishops and the Catholic Faithful in regards to the Affordable Care Act, and Contraception. Podcast Family Planning Health Services no no http://belowthewaist.org/2012/10/kelly-cleland-on-emergency-contraception/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/10/kelly-cleland-on-emergency-contraception/#comments Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:03:55 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=900 In this podcast I spoke at length with Kelly Cleland about the state of Emergency Contraception today.  We spoke about Plan B, Ella, IUDs, policy, and many other topics.

Kelly shared with us a discussion about her most recent paper which appeared in Human Repoduction.  A obstetrics journal in the UK.  It was a first metanalysis about IUD’s as EC.  The paper brought in the Chinese data as well.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/10/kelly-cleland-on-emergency-contraception/feed/ 0 0:32:55 In this podcast I spoke at length with Kelly Cleland about the state of Emergency Contraception today.  We spoke about Plan B, Ella, IUDs, policy, and many other topics. Kelly shared with us a discussion about her most recent paper which appeared in[...] In this podcast I spoke at length with Kelly Cleland about the state of Emergency Contraception today.  We spoke about Plan B, Ella, IUDs, policy, and many other topics. Kelly shared with us a discussion about her most recent paper which appeared in Human Repoduction.  A obstetrics journal in the UK.  It was a first metanalysis about IUD’s as EC.  The paper brought in the Chinese data as well. Podcast Family Planning Health Services no no http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/bill-clinton-helps-women-in-developing-countries-get-kinda-shitty-birth-control/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/bill-clinton-helps-women-in-developing-countries-get-kinda-shitty-birth-control/#comments Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:47:39 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=893 From our friends at Jezebel.

Former President Bill Clinton has successfully engineered a partnership that has resulted in cutting the cost of long term birth control for women in developing countries in half, proving that while there may be a term limit on the American presidency, there’s no term limit on kicking ass. (If there was a movie about super hero ex-Presidents, that would totally be the tag line.) Unfortunately, the birth control that will now be available to millions of women is… sort of crappy.

The deal was announced yesterday, according to the AP, and will benefit 27 million women in developing countries. Clinton’s foundation estimates that improved access to Jadelle progesterone implants (which are also known as Norplant) will prevent 30 million unplanned pregnancies and save a quarter of a billion dollars in costs associated with unplanned births. Further, 30,000 maternal deaths and 280,000 child deaths will be prevented by the initiative.

Jadelle is no longer sold in the US (more on that in a bit), but it works similarly to Implanon. A small incision is made on the inside of the upper arm of a woman interested in remaining unpregnant for the foreseeable future and two thin capsules are inserted just below the surface of the skin. Because this birth control method doesn’t contain estrogen, women who might otherwise be disqualified from using hormonal birth control are able to use Jadelle. It’s effective starting 24 hours after insertion and remains effective for up to 5 years. Women who decide they want to have more children can also have the implant removed. Yay, right?

But the drug isn’t all fun and games; the reason Norplant is not available in the United States is that unsatisfied users sued the shit out of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in the 90′s after users of the implants reported horrible side effects — headaches, nausea, depression, and the dreaded Forever Period. The pharma never admitted wrongdoing, but ended up paying more than 30,000 angry, crabby users $1,500 apiece in an out of court settlement. Overall, more than 50,000 women sued Wyeth over the drug.

The Clintonian partnership negotiated with Jadelle’s manufacturer to cut costs in half in exchange for a 6-year purchasing agreement. Let’s hope women in developing countries don’t hate it as much as women in America did. Then again, given the alternative, birth control and a headache is probably better than nothing and a baby.

 

[AP Source]

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/bill-clinton-helps-women-in-developing-countries-get-kinda-shitty-birth-control/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/mitt-romney-on-abortion-throughout-the-years/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/mitt-romney-on-abortion-throughout-the-years/#comments Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:36:06 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=891

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/mitt-romney-on-abortion-throughout-the-years/feed/ 0 http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/rev-harry-knox-in-wiscsonsin/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/rev-harry-knox-in-wiscsonsin/#comments Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:22:46 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=889 I had the chance to speak to Rev Harry Knox, the CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Rev. Knox is in Appleton to speak at a Voter Registration event.

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/rev-harry-knox-in-wiscsonsin/feed/ 0 0:07:29 I had the chance to speak to Rev Harry Knox, the CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Rev. Knox is in Appleton to speak at a Voter Registration event. I had the chance to speak to Rev Harry Knox, the CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Rev. Knox is in Appleton to speak at a Voter Registration event. Podcast Family Planning Health Services no no http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/stephanie-toti-of-the-center-for-reproductive-rights/ http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/stephanie-toti-of-the-center-for-reproductive-rights/#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:27:25 +0000 Dino Corvino http://belowthewaist.org/?p=904 This podcast has me talking to Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, Stephanie Toti.  I wanted to speak to Stephanie after I saw this news release.  The opening says it all,

“The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has granted a new hearing in the case concerning Baltimore’s truth-in-advertising ordinance—the first of its kind in the nation—which requires crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to post signs in their waiting rooms indicating that they do not provide or make referrals for abortion or comprehensive birth control services.”

We talked a lot about the history of the legal action, and what CPCs are doing in Baltimore.

Here are some of the links to the supporting press releases.

 

8/15/2012—Federal appeals court to hold new hearing on Baltimore’s regulation of deceptive crisis pregnancy centers

 

6/27/2012—Ignoring precedent, appeals court blocks truth-in-advertising ordinance for deceptive crisis pregnancy centers in Baltimore

 

3/22/2012—Next stop in the battle to end the bait and switch of crisis pregnancy centers

 

6/8/2010—Center demands truth in advertising from CPCs

]]> http://belowthewaist.org/2012/09/stephanie-toti-of-the-center-for-reproductive-rights/feed/ 0 0:00:01 This podcast has me talking to Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, Stephanie Toti.  I wanted to speak to Stephanie after I saw this news release.  The opening says it all, “The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth[...] This podcast has me talking to Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, Stephanie Toti.  I wanted to speak to Stephanie after I saw this news release.  The opening says it all, “The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has granted a new hearing in the case concerning Baltimore’s truth-in-advertising ordinance—the first of its kind in the nation—which requires crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to post signs in their waiting rooms indicating that they do not provide or make referrals for abortion or comprehensive birth control services.” We talked a lot about the history of the legal action, and what CPCs are doing in Baltimore. Here are some of the links to the supporting press releases.   8/15/2012—Federal appeals court to hold new hearing on Baltimore’s regulation of deceptive crisis pregnancy centers   6/27/2012—Ignoring precedent, appeals court blocks truth-in-advertising ordinance for deceptive crisis pregnancy centers in Baltimore   3/22/2012—Next stop in the battle to end the bait and switch of crisis pregnancy centers   6/8/2010—Center demands truth in advertising from CPCs Podcast Family Planning Health Services no no