Reader diary posted by Erica Sackin, Planned Parenthood of New York City
October 19, 2009 - 4:41pm
No matter what the result of health care reform, our lives will be profoundly affected. So how do we make sure our voices are heard, and that things essential to our health aren't left behind? Why through photos, of course.
The America's Healthy Futures Act takes important steps to fix a broken system, but still fails miserably when it comes to making coverage affordable for those who need it most. We've waited long enough. The Senate needs to improve it and move it!
Too attached to Edward Cullen for your feminist sensibilities? Just in time for Thanksgiving, here's an unorthodox guide to kicking the Twilight habit.
The best way to be an ally and a support to anyone often starts with questions like "How can I support you?" or "What do you want and need from me in this?" Then you listen to the answers and respond accordingly.
As Thanksgiving Day quickly approaches, we want to take a moment to reflect on how grateful we are for the people who help make RH Reality Check what it is today.
The Stupak furor has obscured the shocking fertility and family control provisions in current health care legislation. The House bill actually authorizes a plan to monitor the childbearing decisions and family lives of low-income women.
Revisions in Peru's Penal Code may lead to decriminalizing abortion in cases of rape or severe disability of the fetus. But conservative political and religious forces are, predictably, opposing these changes.
Rights advocates can forget that there is an entire world of potential allies out there we may be missing because we are not effectively communicating with them.
Muslim women in India are caught between the strictures of family and personal law and persistent discrimination against them as women from both the Indian government and society writ large.
Opponents and supporters of women's choices in childbearing agreed early on, in theory, to maintain the “status quo” with "abortion neutral" health care legislation. The Senate bill achieves this goal; the House bill does not.
An epidemic of sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. disproportionately affects blacks, youth, gays and the poor. Talking openly about sex is the first step in prevention.
Bethany Cajúne, pregnant and in a substance abuse recovery program, was jailed for 19 days for traffic violations. But officials repeatedly denied her a drug necessary to her recovery, putting her health and the life of her fetus at risk.
No one reading this has forgotten that the House passed a healthcare “reform” bill that includes the Stupak Amendment. Here's a speech Congressman Stupak needs to hear.
In a strange twist, Nevada anti-choice groups, complaining that the wording of a "personhood" amendment to establish civil rights for fertilized eggs is too vague, are on the same side as Planned Parenthood and ACLU.
I'm a transgendered sex worker, and I want to not get killed for who I am or what I do. As our death count rises, I beg that you consider your prejudices around gender, and let us live in peace. I'm literally begging for my life.
In examining rooms, we see women in terrible pain, but their suffering doesn’t count in Stupak/Pitts world. By banishing abortion from the reform bill, the amendment punishes women who need to end unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies.
With the Stupak amendment literally and symbolically stripping women of equal status, the movie "Precious" presents, in grim detail, the way race, class and bias render a woman's body simultaneously invisible and subject to abuse.
The CDC releases its annual "Abortion Surveillance" report on abortion in the United States, for 2006. The report says the surveillance provides critical information needed to evaluate programs aimed at preventing unintended pregnancy.
"Crisis pregnancy" centers in Baltimore must now display signs stating they do not provide abortions or birth-control referrals under a measure approved by the City Council Monday night and thought to be the first of its kind in the nation."
In the Weekly Pulse, Lindsay Beyerstein reports on this week's developments on health care reform, the public option, and new recommendations on mammogram screening for breast cancer detection.