Bad call on Super Bowl anti-abortion ad, CBS

The Focus on the Family ad slated to air on CBS during the Superbowl is a disturbing demonstration of irresponsibility on the part of the network and a reminder of the power of money to advance ideology. The Los Angeles Times does a stellar job of outlining the policy changes and financial circumstances leading to CBS' decision to air the ad, as well as the emotionally manipulative content of the ad, which features Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother. Where is the network's integrity? Focus on the Family claims that they are running the ad because "families need to be inspired." But this supposed inspiration of families will also function as oppression of the millions of women in America who are watching the Super Bowl or whose family members are watching it, being impressed upon to imagine abortions as murdered future Heisman Trophy winners. Such manipulation is condescending and ignorant of the multitude of real-life dilemmas facing women from all walks of life during unplanned pregnancies.

Come on, CBS. You have all the lucrative options in the world for ads to air for that 30 seconds that don't condemn a woman's legal right to an abortion. I know football is traditionally a man's game, but bulldozing a woman's right to choose is not a play you can run or a show you can put on during halftime, no matter how popular a player your quarterback is. Have some guts: DON'T run the Focus on the Family ad next Sunday.

Join NARAL's effort to petition CBS not to run its ad by visiting the national website. Tell them why you think it's unacceptable to run an anti-choice ad during the most-watched TV event of the year, during which the ads are nearly as much of a draw as the featured program itself. Tell CBS to stand up for women, and for you.

Rise in teen pregnancy suggests flaws in sexual education policy

Teen pregnancy is rising in the U.S. after a decade-long decline, according to brand new data published by the Guttmacher Institute. This slow in decline and subsequent change in direction correlates with the adoption of the Title V abstinence-only education law from 1998-2009, which attached federal dollars for education to a strictly defined abstinence-until-marriage sexual education. While the classic statistical imperative charges that we not infer causation from correlation, it is difficult to ignore the implications of a federal law stating that sexual education programs who hope to receive federal funding must be "abstinence-only programs [that] have as their 'exclusive purpose' promoting abstinence outside of marriage" and that such "programs may not in any way advocate contraceptive use or discuss contraceptive methods except to emphasize their failure rates." The government financially rewards states that deny teenagers the tools to protect themselves adequately. This not only serves to validate such states' sex education agendas, but it also makes it extremely difficult for the state to change its policies. While at one time or another 49 out of 50 states accepted funds from Title V, half the states ceased participation. State Health Commissioner Dr. Richard F. Daines is cited on SIECUS stating his reasoning for New York's withdrawal from the program: “The Bush administration’s abstinence-only program is an example of a failed national health care policy directive… [the policy was] …based on ideology rather than on sound scientific-based evidence that must be the cornerstone of good public healthc are policy.”

The findings published by the Guttmacher Institute reveal differences in sex education policy indeed indicating that abstinence-based policies are not as functional as the writers of Title V hoped. The states with the highest teen pregnancy rates overall (New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Mississippi) are in the South and Southwest, and the states with the lowest (New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Minnesota) are in New England and the north Midwest. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), none of the states at the bottom require any sexual education at all. When schools in those states do choose to include education, state policy either follows the guidelines in Title V (only MS, currently) or stresses abstinence as much preferred over other sexual education (TX, AZ). These states also incorporate an opt-out policy, which allows parents to choose to exempt their children from sex education (NM), or an opt-in policy are required to give consent for the child to receive such education - making no sex education the default (NV). Conversely, the states with the lowest rates also have sexual education policies that significantly incorporate safer sex education and require all schools and students to participate.

These data also have startling implications for social justice. It seems like a cruel joke that those states which tend towards abstinence-centric sex education are also some of the poorest states in the nation whose public education systems are most in need of funding. There's nothing like putting strings on federal money to control the activities of poorly-funded education systems. Additionally, in the states with the highest rates, minority teens are taking a particularly hard hit. Those states report statistics (which generally reflect national averages) indicating that African American and Hispanic teenagers have significantly higher rates of teen pregnancy than white teens. In Maine, by contrast, which has one of the most comprehensive state mandated sex education programs in the country, the gap is almost nonexistent. Efforts to promote social and reproductive justice in the sex education and teen pregnancy arena would do well to take a closer look at sexual education as practiced in Maine's public schools. Again, causation cannot follow directly from correlation; but you have to start somewhere.

Reproductive Health Care in Haiti is an Integral Part of the Picture

In the weeks following Haiti’s disastrous earthquake, the concerned global public’s awareness of reproductive health repercussions is critically relevant to the material aid reaching a vulnerable group of survivors on the ground in Port-au-Prince. The monetary and medical relief that is pouring into the country, much of it from United States citizens, has been phenomenal by all accounts. Where infrastructural chaos is not blocking supplies, it is resulting in significant respite to victims in Port-au-Prince. My response is, reasonably, one of awe and renewed faith in human altruism at this widespread generosity from afar.

Given such a moving incidence of compassion, I find it upsetting and inconsistent to come across information sources that seek to deny some of the most vulnerable of survivors in Haiti their most essential medical needs: reproductive health care. Vocal family planning opponents are not new players on the scene, and their detractions are generally too numerous to address individually. However, in this moment of human crisis on a massive scale, their self-righteousness must be exposed as deadly ignorance.

Life-threatening consequences of the 7.0 Mw earthquake come in many forms, including serious bodily injury, rampant infection, and dissolution of access to safe water and food. Of equally lethal threat, but often under the radar, is the health of what the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates as 37,000 pregnant women among the survivors in and around Port-au-Prince. These women face “another kind of emergency, perhaps less visible but equally deadly, … when [they] are forced to give birth in unsanitary conditions and without access to medical care.” The UNFPA estimates that about seven thousand of these women will deliver in the next month and about 15% will require care for life-threatening-pregnancy complications. In these cases, reproductive health care services are not supplemental to relief: they are equivalent to relief.

The threat to these women’s lives and health in Haiti is not confined to complications of childbirth. Just as the vital needs of those who are sick and injured after a disaster increase, so also do the reproductive health care needs of women. The majority of deaths among pregnant women are due to hemorrhage, infection, miscarriage, prolonged/obstructed labor and hypertensive disorders, many of which could be avoided with medical care, according to CARE. The risk of such complications increases at all stages of pregnancy, and the risk of their occurrence skyrockets in the Port-au-Prince disaster zone. Pregnant women, as well as lactating women trying to safely feed their children, are particularly susceptible to illnesses spread as a result of unclean food and water and chaotic infrastructure. Additionally, considering Haiti’s average birth rate of nearly 4 children per woman, the likelihood that pregnant women surviving the quake have other children is exceedingly high. A great many of these women are sole or primary caretakers. Protecting women’s reproductive health not only means providing them with one of their most essential needs, it also means protecting the health and integrity of entire families.

Organizations responding to reproductive needs in Haiti comprise a critical piece of the relief effort there. The UNFPA is sending clean delivery kits, containing “a clean piece of cloth, a sterile knife to cut the cord, a cord clamp, a plastic sheet and so forth so that if they have to deliver where they are,” according to Dr. Jemilah Mahmood, chief of UNFPA's Humanitarian Response Branch, in an interview on United Nations Radio. They will also be distributing dignity kits, which contain sanitary napkins, soap and various other items of personal hygiene. The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is working with its Haitian member organization, PROFAMIL, to provide crucial medical services in the form of temporary clinics, basic first aid, and obstetric and family planning services. Beyond material aid, these services will empower women to be in better control of their own and their families’ health and lives. Such empowerment will be essential to the rebuilding of Port-au-Prince long after the current flood of global resources has slowed to a trickle.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of criticism of reproductive health care relief services is that it undermines the overall global relief effort. While natural catastrophes happen every day worldwide, international outpouring of support is not a daily phenomenon. To discourage the public from supporting material, effective relief is counterproductive and tragically impedes the level of kindness that people are capable of. More practically and immediately speaking, it impedes the help that survivors in Port-au-Prince are able to receive. When donating to Haiti relief efforts, please consider supporting the efforts of UNFPA and IPPF as they perform a vital service for Haitian citizens in need.

I for one like men.

Created by: Jillian

This guy missed the point entirely. I think that men should be given more options to control their reproductive future. Unlike this guy, though, I view the lack of available options to men as a reflection of our society's sexism toward women, not some female conspiracy to overtake men.

Women Have Most to Gain from Health Care Reform! Don't Take Away Our Rights!

The health care reform bill is the most important social policy since Medicare and Medicaid. It will disproportionately help women because women are currently less likely to have health insurance. Women are more likely to work for small firms, in nonunion jobs, and part-time employment, all of which come with weaker or no benefits. Most women depend on their husbands for health insurance: 79% of couples have a single policy, and 75% of these policies are through the husband’s employment. Women face, what’s called in economics, “marital lock”, where they are encouraged to stay married for the simple reason of maintaining their health insurance. Women, who currently obtain their own policies either through work or the individual market, pay much higher premiums than men. Discrimination in insurance by race was outlawed decades ago, but discrimination by gender continues to be commonplace in health insurance.

Both the house and senate health care bills would outlaw discrimination by gender in insurance by regulating the companies. The bills will also have an individual mandate; everyone will be required to have health insurance. This will alter the pool of the individual market to include millions of healthy people, theoretically making the individual market a reasonable place to purchase insurance, even for people with pre-existing conditions. The structure of employer-sponsored health insurance benefits men over women, so, any policies that lead us in the direction of universal health care will disproportionately help women.

However, republicans and blue dog democrats are using health care reform as an opportunity to slash away at reproductive rights. They are taking legislation that is necessary for women’s rights and adding anti-choice measures to it. Unfortunately, Congress voted in favor of both the Stupak amendment (House) and the Nelson amendment (Senate). Right now, members of the party leadership are meeting in conference to decide what will be in the final bill. If they decide keep the anti-abortion measures, it will be a huge loss for women all across the country. Even if we get health care reform, which is a huge social justice and women’s rights issue, we still lose decades of hard won reproductive rights.

There is no other single medical procedure being targeted in health care reform. Abortion is the only one. It is unfair to target a procedure that only affects women. Abortion is legal! Members of Congress need to be reminded of that.

Thank you Senator Dodd.

Pro-Choice Leaders Pay Tribute to Sen. Dodd’s Record
in Support of Women’s Freedom and Privacy

Washington, DC – Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Jillian Gilchrest, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, issued the following statement regarding Sen. Christopher Dodd’s decision to retire.

“On behalf of pro-choice residents of Connecticut and women across the country, we thank Sen. Christopher Dodd for his distinguished record of protecting and defending a woman’s right to choose. He has been a stalwart advocate for the pro-choice values of freedom and privacy. When the debate over health reform started in the Senate last year, Sen. Dodd led a key committee in defeating repeated attempts by anti-choice senators to politicize health-care reform legislation with divisive amendments. As Sen. Dodd completes his final term, we will continue to work with him and his staff on the many critical issues of importance to women’s reproductive health and privacy.”