Maternal Health

Missouri Senate passes bill to remove health exception from post-viability abortion law; groups sign onto letter asking for a budget bill without policy riders; women may have to think twice (!) before an abortion in Illinois; a new vaginal progesterone gel can help pregnant women with a shortened cervix.

Four percent of population is LGBT; Ohio student cannot distribute abortion/breast cancer flyers in a classroom; the Candies Foundation defends payment to Bristol Palin; should sexual orientation be included in medical records?

While women have made huge strides in the social, economic, and political spheres, our most fundamental right—the right to control our reproductive health—remains in serious jeopardy all over the world. Thanks to exciting new Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (MPTs), we have the potential to revolutionize a woman’s control over her reproductive life.

Governor Brian Schweitzer vetoed a bill that would have prohibited coverage of abortion in state insurance exchanges; the wife of Kermit Gosnell is released on house arrest; Justice Sotomayor will visit a birthing center/Head Start provider in DC next week; and could HPV contribute to lung cancer?

On Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will vote to eliminate a program based on evidence in favor of one with no evidence of effectiveness. Earmarks are ok, as long as they are ideological.

The architectural design of two newly built public maternity hospitals in Malawi, which has one of the world’s highest rates of women dying in childbirth, seeks to respect the human rights of birthing women and has had a significant impact on Malawi’s maternal health care system.  Ill-designed government-run maternal health centers litter many poor countries and contribute to unacceptably high maternal death rates. There’s a pressing global need to design public maternity units that uphold the dignity of socially disadvantaged women.

The Catholic Church inadvertently pushed women toward sterilization rather than risk committing a continuous offense against the Church.

Georgia will use federal TANF money for domestic violence shelters which could eliminate services for women without children, what do state ant-abortion bills say about women, Arizona enacts more anti-abortion legislation, and Starbucks selling a maternal health benefit CD.