UN

Last month, Haiti's donor conference raised money for a nation that has weathered storms time and time again.  The pledges added to the previously committed $3 billion in international assistance.  While all of this may seem like a large amount of money for a small Caribbean island, little investment in reproductive health has undermined overall goals of poverty alleviation. A new report highlights the gaps in reproductive health in Haiti, where re-occuring crises place women and families at risk.

The fight for better prevention policy for women in U.S. global AIDS programs was lost in the reauthorization process last year.

Video of a testy McCain defending his sex ed ad; Alaskan students band together for better sex ed; Britain's Channel 4 plans sex ed show for teens; Investing in women pays high ROI; Utah GOP calls for abortion ban; Palin's anti-abortion stance inspires donations to Planned Parenthood; and more.

Hillary Clinton says impending HHS rule could give medical practitioners 'a free pass to deny access to contraception'; Over 500,000 women die every year during childbirth; UN says governments must do more for women; Colorado Amendment 48 could be used to outlaw abortion and perhaps contraception.

UNAIDS report indicates slight slowing of global infection rates; 17th annual International AIDS Conference set to begin this Sunday; Sex education and AIDS; Abortion providers becoming extinct in rural American West; Parental notification measure gains support in California.

Live-blogging from the UN meeting on AIDS: HIV stigma fuels the invisibility of many populations afflicted by this disease - when we say we want to reach "all" groups of people, we should mean it.

FDA wants information about fetal affects on drug labels, What are the ethics of sex selection?, UN releases report on HIV/AIDS efforts.

Reproductive health is not a strong enough theme in any of the millenium development goals. And as the MDGs remain a primary international development agenda at least until 2015, that means a continuing compromise for reproductive health in international development.

Illegal abortions are one of the top ten causes of maternal death in Jamaica. Safe, legal abortions are only accessible to those who can afford one. Existing abortion "common law" in Jamaica is ambiguous and differs than legislation on the books. Jamaica is in the midst of a heated abortion debate.

This Memorial Day we remember 25 million souls lost to 25 years of AIDS. Motivated by the death of the love of my early life in 1996 from AIDS, I started thinking about death politically. Carl died just months before medications the developed world takes for granted became available, and months after the US Navy denied him compassionate access to those meds after a five-year study in which he participated. Months meant the difference in him seeing his two sons grow up and our lives continuing together.

In 1997, I began a journey working with Oregon’s Death with Dignity Law, culminating early this year in the US Supreme Court affirming Oregon’s law 6-3: the federal government had no right to interfere in a doctor or pharmacist’s compassionate decision to alleviate suffering at the request of the patient. Strict safeguards make that once controversial law a model of compromise among medical, legal, political, ethics, policy, mental health, faith, hospice, and most importantly, patient and family communities. Compromise works.