Debate Over Abortion Shifts to Rights of Health Care Workers
In Newsweek, Dalia Lithwick links the proposed HHS provider conscience regulations (broader protections for health care providers who oppose abortion) to the South Dakota law that requires doctors to read a medically-inaccurate script to women seeking to terminate a pregnancy (more restrictions for doctors who provide abortion). Lithwick writes, "[O]ur solicitude for the beliefs of medical workers is selective: abortion opponents will soon enjoy broader legal protections than ever. Those willing to provide abortions, on the other hand, will enjoy far fewer." She asks,
What does it tell us about the state of the abortion wars, that battles once waged over the dignity and autonomy of pregnant women have morphed into disputes over the dignity and autonomy of their health-care providers?
Anti-Choice Movement Not to Blame for 2008 Republican Election Losses?
Says conservative commentator Ross Douthat on the New York Times op-ed page: "why should abortion opponents, of all conservative factions, take the blame for the financial meltdown, or the bungled occupation of Iraq, or the handling of Hurricane Katrina?" Douthat claims that the anti-choice movement has already taken the advice it's often given:
Their movement should focus on changing hearts and minds, rather than the law. It should be more consistently pro-life, by helping human beings outside the womb as well as those within it. It should cease trying to roll back the sexual revolution and standing athwart science yelling “stop!” And above all, it should be less absolutist, and more amenable to compromise.
But in Douthat's book, anti-choicers are already comprising:
But pro-lifers have already taken much of it to heart. Compromise, rather than absolutism, has been the watchword of anti-abortion efforts for some time now. Since the early 1990s, advocates have focused on pushing largely modest state-level restrictions, from parental notification laws to waiting periods to bans on what we see as the grisliest forms of abortion.
Obama Has Chance to Reshape Federal Courts
President-Elect Obama has the opportunity to reshape federal district courts, reports Jerry Markon in the Washington Post. Writes Markon,
The new judges might gradually reshape what many see as a conservative drift in the courts under the Bush administration and issue more moderate-to-liberal rulings in the ideologically charged cases that have fueled the struggle for control of the judiciary. Many judges are independent, and party affiliation is not a perfect predictor of their behavior. Still, studies have shown that Democratic and Republican nominees vote differently on such cultural issues as abortion and gay rights, along with civil rights, environmental law and capital punishment.
Obama will likely be able to reduce the percentage of Republican appointees to 42 percent and "boost Democrats from the 36 percent to 58 percent during his first term," says Markon.
New Book Discusses Self-Induced Abortion Methods
At Feministe, a review of a new book by the Sage Femme! Collective, Natural Liberty: Rediscovering Self-Induced Abortion Methods. Reviewer Julie lauds the collective for sharing information about a variety of abortion methods, but strongly cautions against using any of them.
Indian Ashram Rejects Woman Living with HIV
Minati Ray (not her real name) had been homeless and was taken in by an ashram in India; when it turned out she was HIV-positive, the ashram turned her out. Writes The Times of India,
"They started feeling uncomfortable about it but didn't initially turn her out. We stepped in and arranged for her treatment. It was difficult since she had lost her mental balance and refused medicines. But now, they have refused to take her back and there's no other place where we can keep her. It seems she will have to die on the road," said Biswajit Das of the Bengal Network of Positive People (BNPP) an organisation that assists Aids patients.
The Times of India reports that "frantic" housing requests are being made to NGOs and charitable organizations.
Mammograms Less Accessible to American Women
It can take over a year to get a mammogram, reports Abby Christopher on Alternet. "Most radiologists don't choose mammography as a subspecialty for a number of reasons -- the repetitive nature of the job, narrow focus, the stress of missing a diagnosis -- but two are cited most often: money loss and malpractice."
Ab-Only Spending: Just a Drop in the Bucket?
The American Spectator tries to play down abstinence-only spending: "Abstinence education block grants are a microbe on the federal budget juggernaut -- just $50 million per year divided between participating states. School districts must use the funds to teach students that abstinence is the "expected standard for all school age children" and that a "mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity." Memo to the author: abstinence-only programs amount to a misuse of over $1 billion in taxpayer funds. In today's economic climate, it's even more ludicrous to call for continued public funding for a program that's been proven ineffective.
