Real Time Blog

Roundup: A Friday Look At The Tea Party

By Robin Marty, RH Reality Check

September 3, 2010 - 10:45am

Labor Day is almost here, which means that the race to election day is here as well. The uber-conservative Tea Party has had a lot of success in getting their anti-government, anti-choice candidates installed as the GOP nominees in races, but how are these extreme candidates doing overall?

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer may have started way before the Tea Party went into full swing, but her overseeing of numerous pieces of anti-choice legislation since she went into office (not to mention the highly controversial immigration law) likely grandmothers her into the movement itself. But it may be a bit harder for her to win re-elections with public appearances like this:

Despite some greatly sexist attacks against his female opponent (like telling people to vote for him because he doesn't wear high heels), Colorado Tea Party candidate Ken Buck made it through the primary and is now focusing his aim on Democratic senator Michael Bennet. But how are the voters going to react to the news that Ken Buck is for eliminating birth control?

Via the Colorado Independent:

Buck spokesman Owen Loftus said that Buck is against any drug that prevents a zygote from attaching to the uterine wall, but he added Buck does not feel that most common forms of contraception would be banned if November’s Personhood Amendment (62) passes.
“Most forms of birth control aren’t included in this, so like the pill, condoms and other types of contraception that are commonly used aren’t included,” Loftus said.

Of course, this assumes that you aren't playing the "but the pill might cause an ABORTION!" game like the anti-choice like to play, as the story points out as well:

Representatives of the Personhood campaign have said that barrier forms of contraception will remain legal if the amendment passes. NO on 62 members do not disagree, but note that many common forms of birth control, including the pill, would likely be outlawed by Amendment 62.

Finally, in Delaware, one Tea Party candidate has taken abstinence to a whole new level, stating that masturbation is bad as well. Via Huffington Post:

The Delaware Republican, who is challenging Rep. Mike Castle in the state's Senate primary and has earned the financial backing of a portion of the Tea Party movement, made an appearance in the MTV series "Sex In The 90s." Entitled "The Safest Sex Of All," the episode was ostensibly geared towards understanding the importance of abstinence. But O'Donnell's guidance went a bit further. Masturbation, she argued, is not a moral substitute for sex. "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can't masturbate without lust."

"The reason that you don't tell [people] that masturbation is the answer to AIDS and all these other problems that come with sex outside of marriage is because again it is not addressing the issue," she extrapolated. "You're just gonna create somebody who is, I was gonna say, toying with his sexuality. Pardon the pun."

Mini Roundup: The right is blaming the Discovery Channel gunman on the left. The left can find ways to link him to the right. Let's all just agree that he was nuts and leave it at that.

September 3

September 2

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Task-Shifting–Or Why Doctors Might Not Always Be Necessary to Save Mothers’ Lives

By Maria M. Pawlowska

September 3, 2010 - 1:00am

The theme of yesterday's live-streamed afternoon session at the Global Maternal Health Conference 2010 was “Strengthening access to maternal health” and I tuned in to listen about the importance of human resources.

The White Ribbon Alliance has been doing an amazing job the past months and spreading the word about the importance of skilled birth attendants and campaigning for funds to train health workers. The presentations in this session further stressed the importance of training staff who are not necessarily obstetricians and gynaecologists, available to help and treat birthing women.

Helen de Pinho from AMDD talked about the changing situation in Africa, where increasing numbers of non-physician clinicians (NPC) are broadening the scope of health services they provide. NPCs already provide emergency obstetric care in 6 countries and this number is bound to increase in the near future. De Pinho stressed task-shifting as the key – it’s been proven that NPCs can provide, regular and emergency obstetric care with equal success to doctors. Importantly, their training is shorter, quicker and cheaper with no loss in the quality of services they provide to their patients.

In keeping with the theme, Jeffrey Smith, Jhpiego regional director in Asia spoke about the advantages of midwifery services and what it takes to educate a midwife in the developing world. He argued that the aim of a midwife’s education should be to produce a “health worker [who] is competent, employed and able to work effectively”. Thus, it’s important to focus midwives’ education on clinical practice and continually assess the learning process. Students must be given the permission to provide care, obviously under supervision at least at first, and not just watch others providing it. In order to really gain the skills they require to effectively treat their patients they must have the hands-on clinical experience. Once their education is done, the key is to make sure the midwife is employed and her skills are properly taken advantage of – therefore she must have access to at least basic drugs and a space where she can safely see her patients. A “clinic” without a roof and no medical supplies just won’t do it! It’s also important to remember that both the midwives themselves, and communities tend to benefit most from medical training if the midwife is allowed to return to practice in her home village/town after graduation.

The role of training health workers is hard to overestimate and it will take time to train the health professionals we are currently lacking. In the mean time it should be remembered that there are other very cheap and highly effective methods of combating maternal mortality in the short run. Ndola Prata, and colleagues, from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health have very recently published an analysis showing that the cheapest and most effective way of preventing maternal deaths is investing in family planning and misoprostol (a drug for stomach ulcers turned haemorrhage prevention and treatment “miracle” pill). Misoprostol has recently been gaining mainstream media attention for how incredibly cheap, safe and effective it is at saving lives.

For more posts about the Global Maternal Health Conference, click here.

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Published under: Real Time Blog | Maternal Health | Global Maternal Health Conference 2010

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Gap in Access to Contraception Increases in Mexico, While Maternal Deaths Remain High

By Jodi Jacobson, Editor-in-Chief, RH Reality Check

September 2, 2010 - 2:13pm

Two new reports released jointly today by the Guttmacher Institute, Investigación en Salud y Demografía (INSAD), and El Colegio de México reveal growing gaps in access to reproductive health care for women, especially among poor women, and those living outside major urban areas.

The first report, Addressing Adolescent Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs in Mexico: Challenges and Opportunities (currently available only in Spanish), reveals that young women living in the less developed, less urbanized and poorer southern states of Mexico show strikingly different marital, sexual, and reproductive patterns than their counterparts in richer, more northern states, and have considerably less access to basic reproductive and sexual health services and information than those who live, for example, in Mexico City.

Researchers in Mexico found that in 2006, 29 percent of women ages 20 to 24 in rural areas married early, before age 18, while only 17 percent of women of the same age range in urban areas married early. Urban women were also less likely to have had their firts birth before age 18 than were rural women, 14 percent to 22 percent, respectively.

While researchers found that contraceptive knowledge among women in Mexico is high—97 percent of 15 to 19 year old women in the national survey knew of at least one contraceptive method in 2006. Contraceptive use has nonetheless declined slightly among married women ages 15 to 24, from 56 percent in 1997 to 53 percent in 2006.

The study also found that the share of married women who have an unmet need for contraception increased from 23 percent to 31 percent. Women with "unmet need" are those who are able to become pregnant but do not wish to have another child or wish to delay their next birth but are not using any contraceptive method. They lack effective access to services or supplies. The study found the situation to be more critical among sexually-active unmarried young women ages 15 to 24: Only 35 percent were using a contraceptive method in 2006.

"While the government has implemented a variety of strategies to improve the sexual and reproductive health of young Mexican women, greater efforts are needed to coordinate these initiatives and address geographic disparities," says Fatima Juárez, a coauthor and senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute.

Juárez and her colleagues argue that the inclusion over the past several years of sex education in the official curricula of primary and secondary schools in Mexico has been a highly significant achievement, but they note that it is essential to train teachers to increase their knowledge of the subject matter and their confidence when teaching about issues related to sexual and reproductive behavior.

The second report, Barriers to Safe Motherhood in Mexico (also currently available only in Spanish) shows that while maternal mortality in Mexico has decreased steadily since the 1950s, the level of maternal deaths remains high. In 2008, there were 57 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in Mexico, a ratio that is five times that found in industrialized countries. Moreover, women in poorer states of the country face even greater risks in pregnancy: The maternal mortality ratio in the least developed region of the country (comprising the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas) is 97.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births—almost double the national average.

Such regional disparities, note the authors of the report, are largely due to the uneven distribution of health care resources and providers, which favors urban areas, such as Mexico City.

The researchers found that hemorrhage and hypertension during pregnancy are the leading causes of maternal mortality, together accounting for slightly more than half of all maternal deaths in Mexico.

Clandestine abortion is the fifth leading cause of maternal death in the country. (See this April article by Marcy Bloom). According to the report, abortion-related mortality is unlikely to decrease until women have greater access to contraceptive services and safe, legal abortion.

While the Mexican government aims to reduce maternal mortality by more than half—to 22 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015—the authors believe this goal will not be achieved unless greater efforts are made to narrow the regional gaps in access to obstetric services and increase access to high-quality emergency services.

The report finds that nongovernmental organizations are playing an important role in efforts to improve maternal health in Mexico. For example, the Committee for the Promotion of Safe Motherhood brings together private organizations and governmental institutions in initiatives to reduce maternal mortality, such as promoting universal access to emergency care and prioritizing service provision in the most deprived regions of the country.

"Coordinated initiatives such as this are the key to improving the maternal health of all Mexican women," says Jose Luis Palma, executive director of INSAD and coauthor of the report.

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Roundup: The Anti-Choice Movement Keeps Getting More Extreme

By Robin Marty, RH Reality Check

September 2, 2010 - 11:05am

Encouraged by far right primary wins and a victory in removing abortion care from federal health care, anti-choice extremists are going even further to show their true colors and true agenda: taking away every woman's choice in all circumstances.

According to American Life League, parental notification laws are not a win for the anti-abortion crowd, because it doesn't do enough to stop abortion, just create a roadblock instead.

There’s always an “if,” but in the case of laws like this one there is more at stake than a simple end-run around mom and dad—which is precisely what a judicial bypass is all about. After all, if a doctor will intend the death of a human being by using instruments to abort him, is it feasible to imagine that this practitioner would have no qualms about lying to a judge regarding the reasons why the teenager should not have to tell her parents she is about to have their grandchild killed? I think it is.

But even if this clause were not in the law, the law would be problematic. Laws like this one send a message that, if grandma and grandpa approve the abortion, then the abortionist can go ahead and kill the baby. In other words, parental notice laws are nothing more than regulatory, band-aid approaches to a serious toxic condition that has poisoned the nation’s psyche over the past 35 years—predisposing most Americans to view abortion as a “personal” decision.

The perspective that puts the focus on the woman, defining the question in terms of a “woman’s right to choose” or “reproductive choice,” avoids discussing who will die during the abortion. Add to that the obvious fact that passing a law to require notice that someone is about to be murdered is the equivalent of sending a “tweet” to alert your friends that, in 24 hours, you plan to kill your boyfriend!

There is absolutely no way around the fact that the “tweeting” female would be arrested at once if her news got the attention it should. Yet, the abortionist planning the execution of the preborn baby will not be given a second thought by law enforcement officials for, as we all know, the law is on his side.

In the case of the teenage expectant mother and her child, there are laws that protect the killing of her preborn baby. With the passage of a regulatory law such as the Alaska parental notice initiative, there are simply other hurdles the abortionist has to overcome. Parental notice will not stop him from killing; it just slows him down.

At least they are being honest and admitting that the laws they fight for: parental consent and notification, ultrasounds, and waiting periods, really have only one goal -- to end all abortion.

In fact, it's pretty easy to see that they'll throw rules out the window if they think they are going to save a 'pre-born,' as news out of New Mexico shows. Via KRQE.com:

A man, his wife and their 16 year old daughter pulled into the clinic for the teen's appointment Saturday.

Protesters claim the girl was interested in hearing about alternatives to abortion.

Bud Shaver with Operation Rescue was there and told News 13 what he saw, “(The girl) took the information that she was offering but the gentlemen lashed out.”

The female protester said the girl's father yelled he didn't believe in god and flipped her off.

The family went inside, but the man came back out.

The protester claims that's when the father told her not to speak to his daughter again or he would quote “Put a bullet in her heart".

“He kind of lifted up his shirt and showed something that was attached to his belt,” Shaver said.

The woman called the cops.

“They had all their guns drawn and they were kind of single file approaching the clinic and they had all of us, out on the street, kind of move behind the wall, they said we were in the kill zone,” Shaver said.

The father told police he was stressed over his daughter’s abortion and got upset when the protesters started yelling his family would burn in hell.

He said he did tell the woman not to talk to his daughter, but he denied making a threat.

Once again, they say they just want the parents to "help make the decision" with their daughter, but once they see a glimmer of possibility that the girl might not have an abortion (even if she likely just grabbed the papers to get away from the protesters and into the clinic) suddenly the girl's opinion matters more than the parents.

But in the end, legal doesn't matter to anti-abortion advocates, as can be discerned from an article from the Eau Claire Journal, advocating that states just ignore Roe V. Wade altogether.

The Governor of a state could do the same thing. He could just start prosecution. The law enforcement officials of his state are under his direction. He needs only to call upon them to begin.

Q. “What can a state governor do to restrict a practice that the Supreme Court has asserted is legal?”
A. “Abortion is murder. No court can legalize murder. He could ignore the Supreme Court and prosecute abortion as murder --which it is. Courts do not make law.” John Lofton, The American View

The Attorney General could also begin prosecution.
“A Constitutionally-minded state’s Attorney General could open-up his copy of the state’s Laws , pull out the statutes still on the books declaring abortion illegal and prosecute, interposing himself between the Federal government and the unborn person he is trying to protect.”
Herb Titus, “Ending ‘Legal’ Abortion.” from ConservativeUSA.com
....
The State Legislature could pass a resolution or bill, like Georgia’s HB1, stating that
1. The State “has the duty to protect all innocent life from the moment of conception until natural death” (Georgia HB1 a),
2. “A fetus is a person for all purposes under the Laws of this state from the moment of conception” (Georgia HB1 a.1.) and
3. “As the United States Constitution confers to no federal branch either the authority over the definition or prosecution of murder, or the power to nullify the Laws of a state that do the same, Roe v. Wade is ‘no law’, is a nullity, and carries no legal effect (HB1 a.24)” in the state.

Mini Roundup: Between the billboards and the nuns, things sure are getting busy in Texas lately.

Sept. 2

Sept. 1

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Teaching Evolution Causes Teen Pregnancy???

By Robin Marty, RH Reality Check

September 1, 2010 - 7:30pm

You know you might be a little bit nuts when even Fox News decides they would rather end an interview than continue talking to you. So learned Colorado Right to Life Spokesperson Bob Enyart on Sunday, when he was cut off once he began a diatribe that blamed teen pregnancy on the teaching of evolution in the classroom.

Via Media Matters, Enyart proclaimed:

"That -- the major reason for that is that our school curriculum today all over the country is officially godless. Kids are told that they're animals, that they've evolved from animals and then we shouldn't be shocked when they behave like animals."

Watch his whole -- very short -- interview below.

This isn't the only time Enyart has made waves. According to Media Matters, one of his many claims to fame is the time he called the murder of Dr. George Tiller an "occupational hazard," back in 2009.

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Published under: Real Time Blog | Sexuality Education | abstinence only education | comprehensive sex education

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California Moms and Children Receive Boost from Legislature

By Amie Newman, Managing Editor

September 1, 2010 - 2:42pm

Governor Schwarzenegger holds the power to improve access to maternity care coverage for all women in his state and ensure equitable coverage for children with pre-existing conditions. Last week, the California Legislature passed two bills which will significantly impact the health and lives of women and children. From Mercurynews.com:

The bills approved Wednesday would phase in coverage before they are replaced by the new federal health care law in 2014.

The first bill, AB1825, would require maternity coverage in basic plans sold on the individual market. The federal government already requires coverage by employers, and state law requires coverage by HMOs, but residents who buy their own insurance currently don't get the same coverage.

The second bill, AB2244, would prohibit insurers from refusing coverage to children simply because they have a pre-existing medical condition.

Maternity care, as defined by the bill, includes "prenatal care, ambulatory care maternity services, involuntary complications of pregnancy, neonatal care, and inpatient hospital maternity care, including labor and delivery and postpartum care."

As the California Progress Report notes, this mandate will go a long way towards not only ensuring equity of coverage options for women on the individual and group markets, but will relieve financial strain on the state's public health programs, and "crucially provides the public health benefit of getting babies the prenatal and early care coverage needed to live healthy and productive lives."

Six years ago, 82 percent of health plans in the individual market, in California, offered maternity coverage. Now? Only nineteen percent of plans offer the coverage.

The second bill not only mimics federal health reform by barring insurance carriers from denying coverage to children based on a pre-existing health condition but also limits the amount insurers can charge to cover those children.

Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed the bill twice already, over the last two years, and seems unlikely to sign this most recent proposal. But, as the Ms. Magazine blog reports,

In an effort to get the governor’s support, “There’s been some discussion about inserting an exclusionary period during which time pregnancy is not covered,” said McGovern [Beth McGovern is the legislative director for the California Commission on the Status of Women]. This is similar to other exclusions for pre-existing conditions and may be offered in the Senate. This isn’t an ideal solution but would offer women some coverage.

It’s up to the small-business-friendly governor. He’s just made a cameo appearance in Sylvester Stallone’s new action film, The Expendables, playing a mercenary named “Trench” who’s hired as part of a hit squad. Before he leaves state government, he should prove he hasn’t been bought and paid for by the health-insurance industry to become one of their hit men, bent on proving that women are expendable. He needs to make women’s health a priority before he returns to Hollywood full time. What’s he got to lose?

Governor Schwarzenegger has until September 30th to either sign or veto the bill.

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Global Progress on Maternal Health: The Numbers and their Implications

By Maternal Health Task Force, Global Maternal Health Conference 2010

September 1, 2010 - 11:30am

The opening plenary, Global progress on maternal health: the numbers and their implications, of the Global Maternal Health Conference 2010 in Delhi focused on global progress on maternal health and explored recent maternal mortality estimates. Speakers discussed the numbers and asked questions not only about what the numbers mean–but also about how the maternal health community can use the numbers.

Over-arching questions from the session were:

Which numbers should we use, those published in the recent Lancet report or those soon to be published by the United Nations (presuming that the numbers will be quite different)?

Will these two sets of numbers prove to be a hurdle in the struggle to bring unity to the maternal health community? If so, how can we reconcile this and avoid a divide in the community?

Will the two sets of numbers push the maternal health community to establish better and more robust methods of measuring maternal mortality and morbidity?

Has the maternal health community collectively neglected the measurement of maternal morbidity–and how can we begin to focus on measuring not only mortality but morbidity as well?

Brief insights from the opening plenary speeches:

Rafael Lozano, Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, succinctly summarized the statistical analysis behind the recent Lancet publication in one slide. (Presentations will soon be available online here: www.maternalhealthtaskforce.org/gmhc2010) He also described many of the lessons learned from the research that led to the Lancet piece–the gaining of ground in the reduction of maternal mortality, an improved picture of what the key drivers of progress really are, the correlation between HIV/AIDS and maternal health outcomes, and the importance of communication with countries and local researchers.

Lale Say, Medical Doctor and Epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, discussed the inter-agency approach of monitoring progress on maternal health–stressing the importance of country level consultations and technical collaboration. While she did not present the latest maternal mortality estimates, she talked in depth about the methodology that the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNFPA, and the World Bank use to estimate global maternal mortality.

Wendy J. Graham, Principal Investigator with Immpact at the University of Aberdeen, urged the maternal health community to understand that failure is not a bad word. She explained that we often emphasize the successes of our efforts so much so that we neglect to learn from our failures. Wendy also reiterated the importance of context when implementing maternal health programs saying, “context, context, context”–and explaining that because an initiative succeeds in one place, there is no guarantee that it will succeed in the next. We must consider the unique context of each setting where we work.

Saroj Pachauri, Regional Director for South and East Asia at the Population Council, asked a number of thought provoking questions throughout her presentation; We count numbers but do numbers count for policy change? Is there a culture of evidence-based programming? How can we address measurement challenges and improve the use of information? Saroj also noted staggering inequities in maternal deaths between and within countries. She explained that the lifetime risk of maternal death in South Asia is 1 in 43 compared to 1 in 30,000 in Sweden–citing this as an example of a failure to bridge the divide between rich and poor.

For more brief insights from our conference presenters, follow the Maternal Health Task Force and EngenderHealth on Twitter: @MHTF and @EngenderHealth. The conference hashtag is #GMHC2010.

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Published under: Real Time Blog | International Organizations | Maternal Health | global health initiative | Global Maternal Health Conference 2010

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Check In, Get Tested, Get A Badge

By Robin Marty, RH Reality Check

September 1, 2010 - 11:20am

I'll admit I have a love/hate relationship with Foursquare. I very seldom make it out of the house, which made my "crunked" badge that much more embarrassing, and when you are the mayor of such hot places as your local library, a CVS pharmacy, and not one but TWO different healthcare centers, you start to feel a little, well, lame.

But Foursquare, the mobile application that allows you to announce your personal location and activities via facebook and twitter, has partnered with MTV to add a new badge that they hope will take any stigma and embarrassment out of having a healthy sex life.

Via Mashable:

“STD testing center” seems like number three on a list of “Embarrassing Places to Check in on Foursquare,” but this September, MTV and the geo-location service are aiming to quash that stigma by offering a badge to all those who get tested as part of MTV’s GYT: Get Yourself Tested campaign.

The GYT campaign marks a milestone for Foursquare, which has never offered a cause-related badge before.

MTV launched GYT in April of 2009 as part of a partnership with Kaiser Family Foundation titled “It’s Your (Sex) Life.” The initiative seeks to help young people become more aware of how common STDs are — according to MTV, one in two people will contract an STD by age 25. For more info on getting tested and staying healthy, you can head on over to MTV’s “It’s Your (Sex) Life” page.

The Foursquare partnership encourages people to follow MTV on Foursquare, check in after getting tested and shout “GYT” to their followers. After doing so, users will earn the GYT badge, and thereby make it known that they’re taking control of their sex lives. Those who score the badge will also be entered to win a trip for two to New York City, as well as backstage passes to MTV’s 10 on Top.

So, will people check in and display their badge proudly? In honor of the new endeavor, I will attempt to get my own when I go to my own clinic to do more prenatal care and testing (prenatal care is taking charge of your sex life too, right?).

And if they won't give me a badge, at least I should maintain my reign as mayor of the place.

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Roundup: Colorado's No on 62 Campaign Kicks Off (And Recycles!)

By Beth Saunders, RH Reality Check

September 1, 2010 - 10:53am

No on 62 held a rally yesterday to kick off their campaign to defeat the Colorado ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person. (Read Robin’s roundup on the campaign from about a month ago.) Luckily, they kept their yard signs from two years ago, when they defeated a near-identical measure. From the DenverChannel.com:

(Fofi) Mendez said her group would spend just over $1 million this fall campaigning against the ballot measure. But that's less than the $1.7 million the same coalition spent in 2008 to defeat the amendment. Even the group's yard signs and stickers have been recycled, just substituting out the new amendment number (62) for the old one. Coalition members seemed confident they'd beat back the amendment again.

Let’s listen in on some of the speakers, shall we?

"Amendment 62 is dangerous," Vicki Cowart of Planned Parenthood told a large crowd gathered on the west steps of the Capitol. "It eliminates a woman's right to make personal, private decisions about her body and her health."

"This deeply personal and painful moral decision is best left to a woman," said Rev. Dawn Riley Duval of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, "And her doctor and God!" she shouted to loud applause.

Lifenews, of all places, points out that the Personhood Colorado gang is missing a few major anti-choice players in the state. Amendment 62

does not enjoy the support of many pro-life groups such as Focus on the Family, Colorado Citizens for Life, or the state's Catholic bishops.

They say the amendment will certainly be overturned by the courts, adding to the pro-abortion list of cases affirming abortion, and that a better way to stop abortions is to change the courts so Roe can be overturned and abortions can be prohibited.

They are also concerned Colorado taxpayers will be stuck footing Planned Parenthood's legal bills after a potential defeat in the courts defending the amendment.

But, of course, the amendment does have its supporters. Among them is Ken Buck, Republican nominee for Senate, who is running against incumbent Michael Bennet. And what does supporting the amendment really mean? The Colorado Independent sets the record straight:

It’s also a fact, pointed out repeatedly by the Colorado Independent, that Buck is not alone among this year’s major GOP candidates in his support for the personhood position. Every politician who supports the amendment, whether or not they dodge or equivocate on these questions, takes the same stance as does Buck. A fertilized egg with full citizen’s rights can’t be killed or experimented on or destroyed through attempts to implant it into someone else’s womb and so on, no matter how the egg came to be fertilized, without drawing the full attention of the law. Under the statutes that personhood would write, any of the above actions that results in a destroyed fertilized egg opens a homicide file for the authorities to pursue.

Mini-roundup: Remember the fight to eliminate abortion coverage from student health care at the University of North Carolina? Representatives from UNC Medical Students for Choice respond in the Daily Tar Heel.

Sep 1

Aug 31

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Roundup: Balancing Budgets on the Backs of Poor Women

By Robin Marty, RH Reality Check

August 31, 2010 - 10:10am

Low-income women are taking the brunt of a poor economy when it comes to their healthcare. With so many states hoping to balance the budget by limiting or eliminating women's reproductive healthcare, it's easy to see that what for now implies "fiscal conservatism" could balloon into a crisis when women without insurance and the babies they are carrying have to face catastrophic costs to cure maladies that could have been avoided if their preventative care hadn't been gutted.

Florida had now begun down the same path, announcing that they will be eliminating care to all adults at three Jacksonville public health clinics - including pregnant women.

Via Jacksonville.com:

Three public health clinics in Jacksonville plan to stop treating adults after today, forcing more than 6,000 patients, including many pregnant women, to seek care elsewhere.

The cuts are aimed at defraying a $2.8 million drop in the Duval County Health Department’s health care services budget this year, said Tim Lawther, the department’s assistant director. He attributed the decrease to a reduction in state spending on health care and the demise of a $1 million grant that sought to expand the county’s primary-care options.

At the West Jacksonville Family Health Center on King Street, adult primary care will no longer be an option as of Wednesday. Women’s health services, which include prenatal care, are being eliminated at the Marietta Health Center on West Beaver Street and the Center for Women and Children on West Sixth Street.

Children’s health services will remain untouched.

Health Department officials say they are working to reassign affected patients to other locations. The department sent letters to every patient who had an appointment at one of the clinics over the past six weeks, notifying them of the change.

But some will almost certainly find themselves turning to charity-care organizations or choosing to go without care because of the inconvenience, officials say.

“The honest reality is that services will be reduced for the uninsured population at the Health Department,” Lawther said.

In California, mamograms and cervical cancer screenings for low income women had been either elminated or reduced in an attempt to save money for the state. However, that may be reversed if the governor signs a new bill passed by the legislature to roll back those cuts.

From KBPS.org:

A bill supporters say is essential to women's health is awaiting a decision by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It would fully restore a program that provides free cancer screenings to low-income women.
The Every Woman Counts Program offers breast and cervical cancer screenings to poor women statewide. More than 6,000 women in San Diego County use the program annually.

Late last year, the governor made some changes to save money. He raised the minimum age for eligibility for mammograms from 40 years old to 50. He also froze enrollment in the program.

The legislature has unanimously approved a bill that would reverse those changes.

Supporters say early detection of cancer is key to surviving the disease. They say screenings of low-income women ultimately save lives, and save the state money.

Luckily, not all states are interested in the pennywise, pound foolish effort of balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. Wisconsin is still going forward with its plan to use medicaid funds to provide birth control, knowing that prevention of unwanted pregnancy now can save the state large amounts of money down the road.

Of course, conservatives, fiscal or otherwise, still refuse to see that correlation, as The UWM Post notes:

With all the criticism that has arisen from conservative groups, this must be the first time any state has tried to receive funding for this cause, right? Wrong. “Twenty-six other states already provide free contraception and other reproductive health services through a Medicaid pilot to lower-earning women who otherwise wouldn’t qualify,” according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Interestingly enough, half of those states are from the Midwest, too: Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri.

Perhaps my understanding and support of this funding is generational, but the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and reproductive issues for low-income individuals just seems logical.

Wisconsin’s federal Medicaid funding reimburses 90 percent of the cost of most family-planning services, so with 53,000 people receiving this aid in the state, Wisconsin spent $18.4 million on the program in 2008, according to WSJ. In comparison, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services estimates that the program prevented 11,064 unplanned pregnancies, which means they saved an estimated $139.1 million in expenses that would have gone to the birth and care of those children. As Jason Helgerson, Wisconsin’s Medicaid Director, told The Wall Street Journal, “Regardless of your political stripes, I don’t think anybody wants [unplanned pregnancies].”

Mini-Roundup: Opponents of reproductive health are wondering why people would google "abortion?" Maybe it's because their definition of the term is somewhat lacking.

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