Ellen Marshall's blog

A Win for Contraceptives

2007-07-19T22:30:00+00:00

This evening the House passed a bill to fund programs under the Department of Health and Human Services -- including domestic family planning programs -- and one of the last votes brought before the House was to make sure that NO funds go to Planned Parenthood. Ardent anti-contraception activist Rep. Mike Pence, despite his six-plus years in Congress, hasn't taken the time to understand these programs -- and that the domestic family planning program, which functions by funding county health departments, independent clinics and those in the Planned Parenthood federation, provide some of the most basic health services needed by low-income and working-poor individuals.

Having just today come back from seeing some of these funds at work in rural parts of Colorado, it incenses me all the more that Rep. Pence thinks he is providing a "service" to us to try and reduce access to pregnancy tests, testing and prevention for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, contraceptives, testing for cancers and blood pressure and other basic screenings. In many rural communities, Planned Parenthood clinics serve as the key health care provider. Too often, these are the only mechanisms through which people are accessing health services.

But this doesn't matter to Mr. Pence. This system works in parts of our country where it is hard to find a health care provider. People visit their local Planned Parenthood clinic to access some basic health care services -- and help them find a way to access additional health care they might need. Pence (and his supporters) seem to think that in making Planned Parenthood ineligible for these funds, other clinics will just pop up out of the ground to provide these services. Who's he kidding? As if we're having an easy time getting health services to people under the current system?!

He said he didn't want to fund Planned Parenthood because some of those clinics provide abortion services (but not with your tax dollars -- and it's not like Planned Parenthood is the only entity that somehow receives federal dollars and also provides abortion services -- though again, not with your tax dollars).

I would argue that his mission is actually to reduce service providers which in turn will reduce access to contraception overall.

Thankfully, the majority of the House saw through his hyperbole. 231 Members voted against Pence and 189 stood with him. (Far too many in my book.) And a tip of the hat to Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) running in at the last minute to make sure he could vote on the side of the sane.

More good news on this bill is that the House included an increase in funding for the domestic family planning program by $28 million. I just saw with my own eyes how those dollars will be put to good use for real-live people.

On to the Senate...

Prevention Prevails

2007-06-22T13:00:00+00:00

After the longest debate on any issue in the bill funding the State Department and all our foreign assistance programs, prevention prevailed when it came to the debate on contraception.

Well, the debate was mostly on contraception, but opponents of these basic health services stuck to what they think will help them win—inflammatory statements about abortion. Arguments, I might add, that were so unnecessarily inflammatory and absurd that they shouldn't even be repeated here.

But the majority view of the country was represented as the majority view in the Congress on Thursday, with votes that will enable family planning organizations that cannot accept financial support from the United States to at least receive contraceptives to provide to their clients. Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY) drove home the point time and again that this provision is about preventing unintended pregnancies, abortions, and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.

Anti-choice Democrats Representatives James Langevin, Henry Cuellar and an especially animated and dedicated Tim Ryan joined the many voices reinforcing the fact that the more contraceptives that are available to those that want them means fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions. In a letter to their colleagues, Langevin and Cuellar stated,

These contraceptives are badly needed. Since the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy in 2001, U.S. shipments of contraceptives have ceased to 20 developing nations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. As a result, unintended pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted infections are on the rise in many areas. The NGOs most affected by the Mexico City Policy are often the ones with the most extensive distribution networks and the largest outreach to young people and rural areas. They often provide the only family planning program in a region, and they—and the people they serve—have suffered severely from the cutoff of contraceptive shipments.

The opposition responded with more wound-up rhetoric that really missed the whole point of the amendment; that is their strategy—to always muddy the water about contraception with abortion. But given that the National Right to Life Committee is including this vote in its scorecard of key votes, it's not surprising that they would want to make this an abortion debate rather than about what the provision actually does—expand access to contraception.

The truth is, it's a good strategy for the NRLC. ‘Fessing up to the fact that they (and some of their Congressional allies) oppose contraception wouldn't be as popular with the public.

Ah well. Though the debate was muddy at times, the outcome was clear—the majority of the Congress (218-205) understands that expanding access to contraception is a smart prevention strategy.

The Amendment Was the Pitts

2007-06-21T21:07:49+00:00

The circular arguments used to defend why the United States needs to dedicate at least 33 percent for abstinence-until-marriage programs, rather than enabling those who are implementing the programs to determine the best mix of prevention funding needed makes you scrunch up your face and say, "what?"

A provision in the Foreign Operations Bill enables the President the flexibility to determine the most effective mix of HIV prevention programming in any particular country. It allows the President to waive the Congressional requirement (enacted in 2003) to spend at least 33 percent of HIV prevention funds on abstinence-until-marriage programs, so that programs on the ground can be the most responsive to local needs. Promoting abstinence-until-marriage will continue to be part of the prevention efforts, but, if enacted, the Administration will no longer need to segregate abstinence programs from the continuum of prevention efforts to be able to prove to Congress it is spending what is required. More importantly, individuals would have a better chance of getting all the information and services they need.

But Representative Joe Pitts (R-PA) doesn't trust the Administration to make good decisions about prevention strategies. He tried today to remove that flexibility from the bill—and used falsehoods to make his point. But that didn't work.

Pitts' supporters had no response to Representative Donald Payne's comment that there is no empirical evidence indicating that 33 percent of the funding needs to be spent on A (of Abstinence, Be Faithful and if all else fails use a Condom). The only reason for the 33 percent that is given is that A is one third of three letters. Hardly a public health approach.

In supporting Pitts, Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) noted that the head of government's global HIV/AIDS efforts, Ambassador Mark Dybul, has "forgotten more about HIV than this Congress knows." Then what's the problem with giving Ambassador Dybul the flexibility to determine the best mix of prevention opportunities in each of the countries where the United States works?

Representatives Wolf and Pitts kept going back to the argument that any country wanting a waiver from meeting the 33 percent for abstinence-until-marriage programs received it. Well, isn't the fact that country teams are asking for waivers from the requirement evidence in itself that in some places there needs to be a different mix of programming than the required 33 percent on abstinence-until-marriage? They failed to mention that for those countries that get a waiver, the other countries need to "make up" the difference in abstinence-only-until marriage programming so that overall the prevention funding can meet the 33 percent earmark.

While Representative Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) cited statistics about the effectiveness of abstinence efforts in Uganda, he used data from 1991-2000 (before the U.S. PEPFAR program even began). Perhaps he would be interested in knowing that Uganda now reports that HIV is spreading fastest among married couples—which may indicate that more needs to be done in other areas of prevention.

Getting so wound up in their own rhetoric, Representatives Pitts and Wolf went on to misuse and selectively choose elements of a statement on finding common ground on preventing sexual transmission of HIV, published in the Lancet. Pitts cited Bishop Desmond Tutu as a signer, and hand picked portions of the statement to make his case; then boldly (and falsely), Wolf exclaimed, "That's amazing—Bishop Tutu supports the Pitts Amendment."

The majority of Congress didn't fall for the circular and misguided arguments, defeating Pitts by a vote of 200-226—one step in sound public health approaches to preventing HIV. On to the Senate....

Congress Increasing Funding for Ab-Only?

2007-06-06T17:06:29+00:00

Thinking globally doesn't seem to apply locally for the Congress. In the same week, the House Appropriations Committee seems to be of two minds on ensuring that all people have the information and services they need to decide when they do begin to have sexual relations, and when they do, to be able to protect themselves against unintended pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

While yesterday the House Foreign Operations subcommittee approved legislation that enables global HIV prevention programs to determine at the country level the most effective and relevant mix of services needed by individuals there, the word is that the House Labor-Health and Human Services subcommittee is planning on spending $27 million more than last year (a total of $140 million) on abstinence-only programs (specifically for CBAE—Community Based Abstinence Education program—as early as tomorrow). Yes, the same programs that time and again have been proven to have NO impact on changing the sexual behaviors of young people—but can create increased risk because they are refused a breadth of knowledge on the subject.

It is unconscionable for the Democratic leadership to play into the politics of abstinence only programming, rather than paying attention to the public health evidence. Even more disturbing—in a time of limited resources for public health programs—that the United States think about throwing good money after bad by adding funding to these programs. Just take a look at the states—coast to coast and parts in between—that are rejecting this kind of programming. So why spend more money?

Certainly if the Congressional leadership can see the benefit of ensuring flexibility in international programs to enable the best public health outcomes, the same principle should be applied to domestic programs.

Classless

2007-02-14T02:04:34+00:00

Admittedly, I don't think of Concerned Women for America (CWA) as a beacon of graciousness—but its latest move it simply over the top—classless, crude and utterly disrespectful. The sexual and reproductive health community—and more importantly family, friends and loved ones—recently lost a talented, lovely soul in the person of Cynthia Dailard. CWA's response? Attack—even after Cynthia is gone.

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe—for whom Cynthia once worked—has introduced a resolution honoring Cynthia's lifetime as a women's health advocate. Joined by others in the Senate, it is a simple tribute to Cynthia—a tribute to be shared with her family. But CWA sent out an action alert opposing this resolution. I am speechless. To motivate the grassroots in opposition to this tribute is the lowest CWA can go. We all can understand intellectual debates on the issues, but this is simply contemptible.

Bush Whacks Sexual and Reproductive Health Funding

2007-02-06T15:11:55+00:00

Lest there be any confusion, the Bush Administration has little values for and no understanding of the need for sexual and reproductive health services. The only question is whether that's due to a complete lack of understanding of human health needs or because undermining sexual health appeases his far-right political base. Need evidence? Check out Bush's budget request.

In a $2.9 trillion dollar budget, Bush did not request even one extra dollar for the program that provides family planning and reproductive health services in every state of the union. This despite that, taking inflation into account, the $283 million for Title X in constant dollars is 59% lower today than it was in FY 1980—all while the need for these services is growing.

This just can't be good for the people who go to clinics in search of fundamental health services—contraceptives; pelvic exams; pregnancy tests; screening for cervical and breast cancer, high blood pressure, anemia, diabetes, and STDs, including HIV; or basic infertility services. And then, it's just not good for our country to have so many deprived of these services.

Turning an eye to the international, Bush seemed to dig a little deeper—and actually proposed cutting $70 million from family planning and non-HIV reproductive health services. So ditto the concern about the people in search of services found at U.S. clinics—but these folks will be living in the poorest countries in the world. The additional idiocy is that while the Bush Administration proposes increased funding for his global HIV/AIDS programs, they gut efforts that are central to HIV prevention. They sing the praises of "linking" or "wrapping around" reproductive health programs with HIV efforts—but they are making that nearly impossible by cutting RH services.

The $302 million request—if approved—would be the lowest level (in actual dollars) for family planning and reproductive health program since 1990—and it's even worse once you put it into constant dollars.

There's plenty in the budget that will raise Congressional ire—and require fixes...let's hope this is one of them.

Missed Opportunity for C on ABC

2007-01-17T12:55:00+00:00

"Desperate Housewives" is not shy about dealing with sexual relations. And for a second, I thought that they would even take advantage of the opportunity to give condoms the thumbs up when partaking in sexual relations -- especially when the issue comes up with a character who, as the voice over from heaven reminds us, is "two-timing" on his girlfriend.

In the show Julie, the 16ish year old, is talking with her boyfriend Austin about needing the pill because condoms are "only 85% effective". When mother Susan overhears, she tells her daughter several reasons why not to have sex: "sex kills" and you "don't want it to burn every time you pee." After Julie lies to her mother about not having sex, using the my-friend-is-having-sex excuse to explain away why she was talking about condoms, the scene ends with Susan saying that condoms alone don't protect you.

The second time the subject comes up, Julie and Austin are trying to persuade his aunt to help them get the pill so they can be responsible. Again, Julie notes condoms are only 85% effective -- and Aunt Edie responds "Is that true? I can coast all the way to menopause."

I mean dang, what a missed opportunity to pitch using condoms to prevent against the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV! How great it is to have these young people wanting to be extra careful about protecting against pregnancy, and looking for adult help in doing so. But it wouldn't have taken much to make a mini-pitch for trying to prevent the spread of disease as well.

Sexually transmitted diseases and infections know few boundaries and there are about 19 million new cases every year in the United States -- approximately half of which occur in those aged 15-24. And while probably more parents of 15 year olds watch Desperate Housewives than the 15 year olds, it would have been great to plant the seed in these parents heads... perhaps spurring them on to converse with their own kids about these issues.

Now, I don't think we should rely on prime time television to teach the lessons that should be taught at home AND in our schools. But surely the 20 plus million viewers of Housewives could have benefited with a reminder that condoms help prevent the spread of disease. After all, it does run on ABC -- and C is for condoms.

And PS -- Condoms are 98 percent effective in preventing pregnancy when used consistently and correctly. But to give Julie credit because she just started having sex, the first-year effectiveness rate in preventing pregnancy among typical condom users on average is 86 percent, which includes pregnancies resulting from errors in condom use.

Editor's note: Watch the sneak peak below - or check out the full episode, titled "Not While I'm Around," on the ABC website (the relevant clips are at minutes 7 and 11:13).

First Thing...Prevention First

2007-01-10T04:08:31+00:00

Thankfully - and signaling progress in the area of sexual and reproductive health - one of the first bills introduced in the Senate on the opening day of the 110th Congress was the Prevention First Act (S. 21). This common-sense, cost-effective, health service approach to simultaneously reduce the incidence of abortion and promote good health was introduced by anti-choice Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Reid introduced a similar bill in the previous Congress (though it was doomed to go nowhere). We have crossed fingers that the makeup of the new Congress will enable a better outcome this time around.

While the bill might look like a laundry list of programs, it embraces a set of practical solutions - stalled over the past 12 years - to meet some of the most basic health needs that humans have:

Contraception and family planning services through the national Title X program would grow from $283 million for FY 2007 to $699 million so that more services could be provided. While this seems like a huge leap, the new number simply reflects where Title X would be if funding had kept up with inflation since 1980.
Medicaid family planning services would be available to women in an economic category that also makes them eligible for services related to pregnancy and child birth.
Private health insurance plans would have to offer the same level of prescription drug coverage for contraception as they do for other drugs and services.
Sexual assault survivors would receive factually accurate information about emergency contraception (EC) and access to EC in emergency rooms upon request.
More people would learn about EC and its benefits, rather than be kept in the dark that this option is available.
Funds would be available to establish or expand teen pregnancy prevention programs.
And though it still amazes me this kind of legal language is required, the bill would ensure any program using our taxes to discuss contraception must be medically accurate.
New to the Prevention First package is support for comprehensive sexuality education, as offered in the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, which was offered, but languished, last Congress..

Simply put, Prevention First could turn the tide on unacceptably high rates of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Each year, half of all the pregnancies in the United States are unintended, which puts us at the high end of the rates among industrialized nations. Of these, 4 in 10 end in abortion. Lack of knowledge about and ways to prevention against sexually transmitted infections ends up creating about $19 billion in health care costs.

Too often in our rich country, financial barriers keep people from being able to decide if, when and how many children to have - the basics of internationally-recognized reproductive rights. Most women rely on health insurance to cover the cost of family planning; in 2003, 1 in 5 American women of reproductive age did not have health insurance - more than in 2001. Many private health plans still do not cover contraceptive services and supplies. Direct federal support for services has waned - especially as abstinence-only-until-marriage advocates have demanded equal funding for those programs (never mind that health care services actually cost more than telling people not to have sex).

The Prevention First Act is evidence that at a small (but growing?) group of Senators believe that knowledge and information together with services, rather than lack of it - help people to make decisions good for their lives and health.

Breaking the Promise: The Politics of Domestic HIV Prevention

2006-12-01T12:56:00+00:00

Our country's founders left us all many pearls of wisdom and word to live by. Ben Franklin of course was full of them, including "An ounce of prevention is a worth a pound of cure" and "Half the Truth is often a great Lie." These words couldn't be any more relevant than when they were furst uttered in the 18th century - yet policy makers reject this solid advice, particularly when it comes to public health, especially anything that has to do with sexual relations.

A concise and to the point SIECUS report lays out just how the Administration and their partners-in-crime in the Congress have actually prevented good prevention policies - leaving the United States stalled in reducing the number of new HIV infections. "Breaking the Promise: The Politics of Domestic HIV Prevention" describes some of ways opponents of practical, effective and evidence-based prevention measures have hijacked resources, vilified condoms, and redirected attention elsewhere.

In describing the Administration's transformation from risk-reduction interventions to a risk-elimination strategy for HIV prevention and all things sexual, one can't help but wonder what these guys are thinking. To continue to pursue a public health strategy that is based solely on their version of "perfect behavior" of individuals is like basing your retirement on winning the lottery. It's luck - not science, and not sound thinking.

The report includes a series of recommendations that both Congress and state legislatures should take as they begin new legislative sessions. Among them is that the too many million dollars on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs needs to be redirected to real prevention programs. Truthful information needs to be imparted to our citizens so they can make the decisions to best protect themselves from HIV and other diseases. Ben Franklin would agree with that.

But HIV IS a Reproductive Health Issue

2006-11-27T15:43:56+00:00

At a recent briefing by the folks at the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Jimmy Kolker asked about whether any PEPFAR funded programs were going to focus on providing the HPV vaccine to adolescents, given that this would also build capacity for rolling out other vaccines in the future. Kolker's response was a bit of an admonition to remember that this is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (emphasis on AIDS). He said that OGAC is interested in integrating HIV/AIDS services into reproductive health services, but they won't be working to integrate reproductive health services into HIV/AIDS services. Hmmm.

Stronger integration - both ways - of reproductive health and HIV prevention service is a logical step to meet the US government goal of preventing 7 million infections. More problems are being created than solved when funding for reproductive health programs is being reduced even if HIV/AIDS prevention funding is growing. More infections will occur if the health services that people use are not providing them information and services to protect against HIV. As people are thankfully living longer with HIV, they need services to ensure that they are safely sexually active.

HIV is primarily a sexually transmitted disease. And STD prevention is HIV prevention. There is plenty of biological evidence that the presence of other STDs increases the likelihood of both transmitting and acquiring HIV. Even if OGAC doesn't think that PEPFAR money should be spent on sexual and reproductive health services, it would have been constructive to respond to the question that they will continue to look for ways to strengthen and partner with other sources of reproductive health services. But probably the question couldn't be answered in that way because they are not yet programming with these basic linkages in mind.

Breaking News from the GAO: Abstinence-Only Programs Not Reviewed for Scientific Accuracy

2006-11-16T20:48:02+00:00

"Efforts by HHS and states to assess the scientific accuracy of materials used in abstinence-until-marriage education programs have been limited. This is because ACF - which awards grants through two programs that account for the largest portion of federal spending on abstinence-until-marriage education - does not review its grantees' education materials for scientific accuracy and does not require grantees of either program to review their own materials for scientific accuracy."

Government Accountability Office report, "Abstinence Education: Efforts to Assess the Accuracy and Effectiveness of Federally Funded Programs"

Check RHRealityCheck for further analysis from Bill Smith of SIECUS coming soon!

So Much for Governing from the Middle

2006-11-15T22:02:00+00:00

Despite the public outcry last week for our government to work together and make progress, the White House steered clear of governing from the middle and bipartisanship in a new staffing move. Today the White House named Eric Keroack, MD as the new government official overseeing Title X, the program that provides contraceptive and other reproductive health services in every state of the nation to those in need. He'll start work on Monday.

This Keroack has had a career dedicated to abstinence-only programs and is an ardent anti-choice Ob-Gyn. He serves on the Medical Advisory Council for the Abstinence Clearinghouse and is a member of the Federal Expert Panel commissioned to define the guidelines for most governmental funding of abstinence education in our public schools -- programs that have grown over recent years and have yet to be proven effective. He is the Medical Director of A Woman's Concern crisis pregnancy centers, an organization that posts only negative -- and in some cases incorrect -- information about abortion. Now, no Title X funds are used to provide abortion services. But is a man who misleads women in crisis pregnancies the kind of person who should be heading a program that is supposed to help people be informed about how they can decide if and when to have children?

Bottom Line: The Administration has appointed someone who basically works against the mission of a federal program to oversee that very same program. Is this just another ill-conceived decision or pandering to their base in the wake of disastrous elections?

Update: See Planned Parenthood's statement on Dr. Keroack's nomination here.

After the Election: Potential for Progress

2006-11-08T15:12:35+00:00

Even as election results continue to come in from parts of the country, it’s clear that we are poised for some progress on some key sexual and reproductive health issues with the new 110th Congress. In addition, citizens in South Dakota, California and Oregon took policy making into their own hands – rejecting an effort to criminalize abortions and limit access to these services for young women. And Kansas rejected its attorney general Phil Kline, a notorious advocate for ending access to abortion.

The voters have shown they think the country is headed in the wrong direction – and have put new leadership in place. In many ways, this election is a victory for centrists – and the leadership will try to govern from the middle to help give themselves credibility with the public. The center of the Republican party moved a little to the right with the loss of some of its most well-known moderates: Lincoln Chaffee and Nancy Johnson for example. Many of the newly elected Democrats are moderates, growing the middle of the party.

That new leadership is faced with a plethora of issues and problems to address – and will spend its early months focusing on these: cleaning up the corruption in Congress, charting a course for US intervention in Iraq, creating a living wage for US citizens, finding sane solutions to illegal immigration and so on.

The combination of the need to govern from the middle, coupled with the other issues that are likely to have the focus of the Congress means that we are likely to see progress on common-sense approaches to sexual and reproductive health. This Congress should be able to make some headway in key areas:

Ensuring a broader, medically-accurate approach to sexuality education that provides the range of information that young people need to address their own sexuality. The over-emphasis of promoting abstinence as the only way to educate young people about their sexuality is likely to end.
We can expect to see sound approaches to reducing the incidence of abortion. For years the Congress has worked to reduce access to abortion as the method to reduce the incidence of it. Support for contraceptive services – as well as other support services – will be part of the policy mix.
The ever-growing number of women serving in the armed forces may finally have access to abortion services at the places where they are required to obtain their health care.
There will be an opportunity to reframe how we address HIV/AIDS prevention in the United States and in our major global effort as well. The narrow ABC approach does not reflect the reality of the pandemic or what needs to be done to slow the spread of HIV
This Congress will have the opportunity to have the United States join the 140 plus other donors to the United Nations Population Fund, providing sexual and reproductive health services to some of the world’s most underserved individuals.
The new make up of the Senate is likely to force the Administration to present a different kind of judicial nominee than we have seen in the past. With the potential of a new Supreme Court nominee, not to mention a plethora of other nominations the Administration will make to various federal benches, having an more balanced Senate will be an impetus for the President to select more moderate candidates.

The 110th Congress will have the opportunity to move forward on the issues. We can expect to see them framed as common-sense, public health approaches – rather than ideological harangues that have divided politicians and activists in the past.

Character Counts. But What About Young People's Health?

2006-10-20T16:13:06+00:00

The irony of President Bush’s "National Character Counts Week" has not gone unnoticed amidst the flurry of scandal in our nation’s capitol... But another – and more substantive – scandal is that the GAO (Government Accountability Office) found that that the federal health agency under the President’s authority is knowingly trying to skirt the law and is putting the health of American citizens at risk.

The non-partisan GAO found that the Department of Health and Human Services is failing to enforce the law requiring that organizations receiving federal grants to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases to provide medically accurate information about the effectiveness of condoms. Somehow HHS doesn’t think that organizations receiving our tax dollars to provide abstinence-only-until-marriage programs need to provide this medically-accurate information. The GAO disagrees.

Bill Smith of SIECUS hit the nail on the head: "For the better part of twenty-five years, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have been permitted to use tax-payer dollars to lie about the effectiveness of condoms and the current Administration has, time and again, failed to hold these programs accountable for much of anything except cashing their grant checks."

And James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth, said: “Finally, it appears that the government will be forced to give young people all the facts about condoms and not just the negative spin from social conservatives. Hopefully, we will soon move forward with common sense sex education combining information about abstinence with information about condoms and birth control.”

I guess the President is defining character pretty loosely, because for me – I think knowingly misinforming (should we call it lying?) young people about their health is a bad character trait.

Finding Loopholes – and We Knew It Was Coming

2006-10-19T12:55:00+00:00

While debating changes to the laws overseeing bankruptcy filings in March 2005, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered an amendment that would have made it illegal for violent protesters, whether at abortion clinics or any other lawful business or service, from using bankruptcy law to avoid court-ordered financial consequences of their actions. The Senate defeated the amendment by a vote of 53 to 46, allowing anti-abortion protesters to file for bankruptcy instead of paying fines incurred from performing or threatening violent actions against reproductive health clinics, clinic workers, or patients. Opponents argued that it was unnecessary and organizations would not use the system to get out of their obligations.

But low and behold, the "organizations" using this kind of loophole are Roman Catholic Dioceses - filing for bankruptcy to avoid their obligations to individuals who were sexually abused by priests. The Washington Post recently reported that the Catholic Diocese of Davenport, Iowa is the fourth diocese in the nation to misuse bankruptcy laws to financially protect itself in the midst of a sexual abuse case. As if there wasn't enough damage in the first place, let's make sure those responsible continue to be irresponsible.

Now, the Schumer amendment would not have applied to this situation - but he was certainly on track about the lengths some will go to protect themselves after they have violated someone else's reproductive and human rights.