WHO

The American College of Nurse-Midwives blog, Midwife Connection, poses the question, "Should a pharmacist be able to refuse to fill a prescription?" in response to "pharmacy refusal" policies currently making their way through Washington state courts.

Despite international attention to the issue of maternal mortality worldwide, little progress has been made in reducing maternal deaths. In some countries, such as Zimbabwe, the situation is getting worse rather than better.

Researchers trace origin of HIV virus back more than a century; Federal officials ease ban on HIV positive visitors to the US; Columnist calls out Utah congressmen for playing politics with reproductive rights; Catholic Sister explains why she is voting for Obama; Genital herpes virus infects 28% of women by age 49.

Despite the new wave of "feminist" anti-abortion crusaders like Feminists for Life that spin legal abortion in this country as unsafe or harmful to women, the facts tell a very different story. As Tyler LePard and Katie Porter blogged last month, The British Journal, The Lancet, released a series of articles on sexual and reproductive health, coordinated by the World Health Organization. The study on unsafe abortion in developing nations called it a "silent pandemic" that is an "urgent public health and human rights imperative." Those are some pretty strong words - as well they should be.

Almost 70,000 women die every year (97% of them in developing nations) from unsafe and illegal abortion but millions more suffer complications such as hemorrhaging and infection. Many of those complications result in permanent damage for the women.

When are we, as a global community, going to treat this as a burning human rights issue and not just a political one?