Congress takes close look at abstinence-only

Earlier this month, Congress held the first-ever hearings on the failures of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard from scientists, clinicians, researchers and youth activists.

In his opening statement, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said:

The statistics are shocking. A few weeks ago, the CDC released data showing that one in four teenage girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted infection. 30% of all American girls become pregnant before the age of 20; for African-American and Latina girls, the rate is 50%. And thousands of teenagers and young adults in the United States become infected with HIV each year.

If we're serious about responding to these challenges, we must base our policy on the best available science and evidence, not ideology.

We couldn't agree more.

Attendees reported that the most compelling testimony they heard were the personal stories of two impacted youth, Shelby Knox and Max Siegel. While in high school each student participated in abstinence-only programs and testified to the inaccurate misinformation provided that did not match the reality of their lives.

Max, a young person living with HIV told the committee, “Please end this horrible experiment so we can begin the work of saving young people’s lives.”

Video: Watch video of the hearing

Technorati tags: Congressional hearings on abstinence-only, Abstinence-only-until-marriage, Rep. Henry Waxman, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

More protests at Aurora Health Center

This weekend the anti-choice protesters were at it again - this past Saturday protesters were shuttled over to the lot across from our Aurora Health Center. While anti-choicers billed this as one of their biggest protests, the turnout was much less than expected. Maybe some of these folks have finally come to their senses.

It's a real shame that our patients have to deal with ongoing harassment from anti-choice protesters - while simply trying to access health care. However, we are extremely grateful for our wonderful volunteer greeters. They play a crucial role in helping to make our patients as comfortable as possible while they are getting yelled at and harassed from protesters across the street.

Here's what one of our escorts had to say about Saturday:

This Saturday I answered the call to help out at the Planned Parenthood in Aurora, despite having an already packed schedule. I started my day at 5:00 a.m. to be at the clinic at 7:00 a.m., to help the women and families inside past the protesters waiting across the street.

Vans starting dropping people off in the field [across from the Aurora Health Center], and things started to take motion. Several men wore coats in the same color as our vests, in order to confuse the women and harass them more easily. They began erecting the 6 foot tall graphic signs... the shouters also arrived at the same time, and boy were they out in force!!

They even told a mother with her 4-year-old not go in because we murder children. When not harassing patients they turned to judging the escorts, telling us what God would think of us and how we should feel shame for what we were doing...

You can read more on Mary's blog.

Protesters ended their event with a balloon release - which happens to be horrible for the environment, by the way (check out this website for more info on the environmental harm of mass balloon releases). Each balloon was tagged with the name of an imaginary "child."

Yeah.

Anyway, hopefully the dwindling number of attendees at these massive protests means that the anti-choicers - who are at our health center every day - are getting tired of their ongoing harassment of women seeking health care. I know it’s a stretch, but one can hope.

Technorati tags: Aurora Health Center, Anti-choice protest, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Kansas Supreme Court Considers Fight Over Accesss to Medical Records

Today, the Kansas Supreme Court heard arguments on a grand jury’s request for medical records from the Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita, Kansas.

The move is part of a growing trend by anti-choice activists to gain access to private medical records. In January, a court in Ohio shot down a request for records on all abortions performed on minors by a Planned Parenthood clinic. This was an important decision by the courts to protect patient privacy. However last month the Ohio Supreme Court agreed to reconsider the case. Read more about that case here.

Now the group Kansans for Life is going after abortion provider Dr. George Tiller by using an outdated 1887 law that allows citizens to convene a grand jury if 2% of the population signs a petition. After submitting 7,857 signatures in September, the grand jury issued a subpoena for records of more than 2,000 women who have come to the clinic 22 or more weeks pregnant.

The problem is that even with patients’ names and addresses removed, there is still a real chance that women listed who have received abortions at the clinic could be identified.

It’s easy to imagine how acquaintances or simply strangers with access to Google could put two and two together and figure out who these women are. That’s why the government has comprehensive legislation protecting medical records and why Planned Parenthood works so hard to protect the privacy of our patients.

I think most people would agree that the ability to attain confidential health care is a fundamental right and personal medical records should not be used as a means for advancing a political agenda.

Emily Bazelon at Slate.com has a sharp analysis of the case:

Abortion opponents understand the sensitivity of medical privacy. Which is why they’ve repeatedly tried to subpoena the records of patients who visit abortion providers. In their hands, the power to request documents in the course of a lawsuit or a potential prosecution is a tool: It’s a way of challenging doctors who perform late-term abortions and, perhaps, of scaring patients away from clinics.

At the same time, a Newsweek article published this week by Adam Hamilton illustrates how far these abortion opponents are from the mainstream, even in their own state. Hamilton describes an evangelical megachurch pastor in Kansas who says his job is to “support people no matter what decision they make.” Hamilton describes him as part of a growing trend of moderate evangelicals who reject the radical rhetoric and techniques of groups like Kansans for Life, and instead hope to work together with pro-choice advocates to find common ground.


Technorati tags: Patient Privacy, Medical Records, abortion, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Editorial: Married to HIV

The Los Angeles Times published an excellent editorial last Friday about how the Bush Administration's global HIV/AIDS prevention policy isn't addressing the reality of African women's lives.

For me, this paragraph pretty much sums it up:

Religious groups are fixated on the need to stop HIV transmission through premarital and extramarital sex, but what's killing African women by the millions is unprotected sex with their husbands. Yet the United States spends more on promoting abstinence and fidelity programs ($198 million in fiscal 2007) than on promoting condom use ($147 million in 2007). Roughly 10 million African girls under the age of 18 are married each year, many to older men who seek HIV-free brides. To those wedded to HIV-positive men, marriage often means a death sentence. They have little power to control their husbands' condom use or extramarital behavior; they are more likely than young men to contract HIV; and those who know they're infected and do not want to bear children often have no access to contraception.

Can proponents of this policy really believe that couples will be abstinent within the context of marriage? The editorial also points out that while we've made great strides in stopping the transmission of HIV from an infected mother to her infant, the unintended pregnancy rates among this population are enormous. It'd cost far less to provide African women with contraceptives so they can plan their pregnancies, than it does to provide the medication necessary to halt transmission from mother to child.

Read the whole editorial from the Los Angeles Times.

Technorati tags: Planned Parenthood Action Illinois, Global HIV/AIDS prevention, Bush AIDS Policy, African Women,

Bush's Backwards Budget

The one good thing about President Bush's lastest budget proposal is that it's his last. Earlier this month, the President proposed a budget that would slash Medicaid family planning funding, flat fund Title X (the nation's family planning program) and increase funding for now nearly-infamous abstinence-only programs.

Really, could he have gotten it any more wrong?

The President's budget would cut Medicaid funding for family planning by $3.3 billion over 5 years. That's a devastating cut to the millions of low income women and families that depend on Medicaid support for contraceptives, STD testing and treatment, and preventative reproductive health care.

While Congress was able to push an increase to Title X this last go-round, the program is still vastly under-funded. Flat funding Title X means that our country will continue to fail the seventeen million American women that need publicly-funded family planning services.

At the same time that the President would cut these common sense and proven approaches to health care and preventing unintended pregnancy, he would increase funding for abstinence-only programs. Wouldn't you think that after the 16th Governor rejected funds for abstinence-only programs we could move on already?

The Bush budget goes on to propose other cuts to social programs that could have a dangerous impact on public health. Read more about Bush's backwards budget here.

Technorati tags: Medicaid, Family Planning, Title X, Abstinence-only,Federal Budget, President Bush, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

New Guttmacher study finds lowest abortion rate in 30 years

According to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates in 2005 hit a 30-year low. In Illinois, the abortion rate dropped 19 percent between 2000 and 2005, a larger than average increase. To me this seems like great news: it means that all of the work that Planned Parenthood and other health care providers are doing to prevent unintended pregnancy (and therefore the need for abortion) is working.

Seems like a great reason to invest more in comprehensive sex education and access to affordable birth control, doesn't it?

Yet there are a couple of caveats to this good news. For one, we still have a lot more to do to prevent unintended pregnancies in this country. Half of American women aged 15-44 have experienced an unintended pregnancy.

Secondly, lack of access for women who choose abortion remains a major issue. The Guttmacher Institute points out that the number of abortion providers in the U.S. has been on the decline since 1982. I think we got a pretty good glimpse of the challenges providers face in increasing access when we opened the center in Aurora. Eighty-seven percent of counties in the U.S. have no abortion provider at all, meaning one out of every three women has to travel to another county to obtain an abortion. This coupled with growing legal restrictions can make it very challenging for a woman in some parts of the country who chooses abortion to obtain one.

The Guttmacher study also found that more abortion providers are offering nonsurgical abortions (typically using the drug mifepristone). Medication abortion is playing an important role in stemming of the decline in providers and offers women an additional option early in pregnancy.

Technorati tags: abortion rates, access to abortion, medication abortion, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Arson at New Mexico clinic

Last week a clinic in New Mexico was targetted by arsonists. The fire completely destroyed an exam room and caused smoke damage at the clinic, but thankfully no one was injured. The clinic, called Abortion Acceptance, is run by Dr. Curtis Boyd who has been serving the Albuquerque community for decades.

Witnesses at a nearby hotel saw two hooded figures dump a gas can into the exam room and then light it up on the night of the fire (Thursdy, December 6), but no new leads have surfaced since.

The fire at Dr. Boyd's clinic is a frightening reminder of the threat of violence that abortion providers live under everyday. According to the National Abortion Federation, which has been tracking incidents of violence and disruption for 30 years, there have been seven murders, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 100 butyric acid attacks, 656 anthrax threats, and 175 arsons (including this most recent incident in New Mexico) in that time.

Despite the threat of violence and ongoing harassment, some very brave volunteers put themselves on the front lines by escorting patients at health centers that provide abortions. Check out this story by a Planned Parenthood volunteer in New York to get a first hand perspective on what these volunteers go through. We are extremely grateful for their dedication.

Technorati tags: clinic violence, Dr. Boyd, National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois,

Increase in teen birth rate

I can't help but feel a little depressed about the fact that the teen birth rate for 15 to 19 year-olds has risen for the first time in 14 years. According to a federal study released yesterday, teen births for that age group grew by an average of 3%.

For this rise to happen after 14 years means that we as a society are failing young women in a significant way.

According to Carol Hogue, a professor at Emory University the rise in teen birth rates is the same trend as the rise in certain STDs. Pregnant teens aged 15 to 19 account for 440,000 births. That's a Cleveland-sized city's worth of young women with children that will face significant challenges in their lives.

Less than a third of these young women will complete high school, and up to 80% are likely to end up on welfare. The children of these women are more likely to grow up in poverty, and become teen parents themselves. It's a cycle that none of us want the young women we know to get stuck in.

Not incidentally, our country started pouring money into abstinence-only education in 1996. So these 15 to 19 year olds who are now pregnant teens could have received no information about contraception at all from their schools. We've now spent more than $1 billion dollars on abstinence-only programs that deny teens critical information about contraceptives and STDs. Argh.

Wouldn't it be great if our state joined the growing list of states that are now refusing to accept abstinence-only funding?

Technorati tags: teen pregnancy rates, sex education, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Strengthen global HIV prevention

While the U.S. is a leader in global funding to prevent HIV/AIDS, our funding policies are falling short for women and girls. Much of President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (called PEPFAR) is ideologically driven, depriving women and girls of more effective, evidence-based solutions.

At least a third of funds from PEPFAR must go toward abstinence-until-marriage programs, which have proven to be ineffective in preventing new HIV infections. Critical HIV prevention measures are often separated from other reproductive health services as well. Altogether, these policies fail to address the reality of women's lives. We need HIV prevention programs rooted in effective solutions.

Take Action: Urge Senators Durbin and Obama to lead on this issue!
Read more: Stepping up U.S. global HIV prevention, by Kimberly Whipke 12.01.2007

Technorati tags: PEPFAR, HIV Prevention, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Abortion foes put rights for embryos on the ballot

A story by the Chicago Tribune explores the latest trend in anti-choice activists' attacks on women's rights. Activists in Colorado and Georgia (and potentially Montana, Oregon, Mississippi and Michigan) are working on ballot initiatives that would grant constitutional rights to embryos by defining "personhood" as beginning at the moment of fertilization.

While most voters support a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy, voters in states where this issue appears on the ballot may not realize the full consequences of these initiatives (because they don't actually mention abortion specifically). However, the legal ramifications would be immense. If successful the initiatives would give eggs constitutional protections such as due process and inalienable rights.

Lorie Chaiten at the ACLU is quoted in the article talking about the implications of this initiative on in-vitro fertilization - if a couple doesn't use all of the eggs they've fertilized, is that murder? And the initiatives would have consequences for many birth control methods that may work by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus - would birth control too be outlawed?

Most importantly, what about the inalienable rights of the woman? These ballot initiatives would give an embryo in a woman's body separate rights equal to that of the woman herself. They're also a disingenuous attempt to circumvent the rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. While that's not a laughing matter, we should at least find a little humor where we can. Check out this hilarious cartoon by Mikhaela B. Reid.

View a larger version of the cartoon.

Read the article:"Rights for embryos proposed," by Judith Graham and Judy Peres, Chicago Tribune, 12.03.2007.

Technorati tags: Embryo personhood, Women's rights, Ballot initiatives, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Good news in fight against abstinence-only sex ed

Earlier this month, Illinois Review, a conservative blog announced that funding for Project Reality has been cut from the state budget. This is a great step toward getting young people medically-accurate information about sex and how to protect themselves from STDs and unplanned pregnancy.

Consider this quote from a Project Reality Curriculum:

“While condom usage has increased among teens, the spread of STDs has also increased most among teens.” This comes from A.C. Green’s Game Plan, which is published by Project Reality. It clearly makes it sound like it's all those people who ARE using condoms that are responsible for the rise in STDs. Sound a little backwards to you?

A curriculum review by the Illinois Campaign for Responsible Sex Eduction (of which Planned Parenthood is a part) found that Project Reality's curricula excludes information on sexual anatomy, contraceptive options and information, information on testing and treatment for STDs, sexual orientation, information on sexual harassment, rape, sexual assault and dating violence, and prevention information for students who have already become sexually active. You'll find more from Project Reality on the website.

Can you believe our state was funding this?

In addition, numerous studies (like this one from Mathematica) have come out recently which show that abstinence-only education is not effective. We should give props to the Governor for cutting an ineffective program that was misleading Illinois youth.

Technorati tags: Abstinence-only, Sex Education, Project Reality, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Time for new options in the fight against HIV/AIDS

In the United States and across the globe, women and girls are the fastest-growing population with HIV/AIDS. If we're going to stem the tide of this epidemic, we need to address gender inequality and create a full spectrum of HIV prevention options so women can put the power of prevention in their own hands.

Microbicides have tremendous potential to fill the gap in women and girl's abilities to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS . Microbicides are substances currently in development that could help reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) when applied vaginally or rectally. Though not yet available, researchers are working to create microbicides that would come in a variety of forms including gels, creams, suppositories, lubricants, or a vaginal ring that would slowly release the active ingredient.

What's it going to take to make microbicides a reality? Mostly, more funding. The Microbicides Development Act of 2007 has been introduced to strengthen, streamline, and focus the United States’ commitment to microbicides research and development.

Take Action to support the Microbicides Development Act! In honor of World AIDS Day, coming up this Saturday, please spread the word and encourage your friends to take action.

For more about microbicides and how you can get involved, visit www.aidschicago.org/prevention/microbicides.php.

Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area is a proud member of the Chicago Women and Girls HIV Prevention Coalition.

Technorati tags: Microbicides, HIV/AIDS, World AIDS Day, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Check out this podcast interview with Steve Trombley

Check out Amanda Marcotte's latest podcast on RH Reality Check. Amanda interviews Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area CEO, Steve Trombley about the latest in Aurora.

Amanda and Steve talk about the success of our Aurora center, where we're now seeing far more patients than we expected, as well as the support we've experienced from the community. Aurora residents continue to drop by our center to offer messages of support - one even sent a honey-baked ham to our staff!

Steve and Amanda also discuss the regional importance of the Aurora center as more states pass restrictions on abortion. As the battle over access to abortion continues, women will have to travel farther distances to terminate a pregnancy. This is another reason why our Aurora center is a critical resource for women in Illinois and throughout the region.

Amanda's podcast also takes on Bill O'Reilly, Matthew Dubay and Tyra. Listen to Amanda's podcast here.

Technorati tags: Steve Trombley, Aurora Health Center, abortion access, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Update on birth control pricing

Thanks to people who took action around the country, Congressman Crowley (D-NY) introduced the Prevention through Affordable Access Bill (H.R. 4054), last week with 103 cosponsors! This important bill would fix the problem of skyrocketing birth control prices for college students and low-income women.

Now Senator Obama is circulating a dear colleague letter to prepare for introducing similar legislation in the Senate.

Please urge Senator Durbin to become a cosponsor of this legislation!

As you know from prior posts on this issue, on some college campuses, birth control has gone from $5 or $10 to $40 or $50 dollars because of an inadvertent act of Congress. Some college health centers have stopped providing birth control at all. This pricing affects over 3 million college students and 750,000 low-income women and is having a devastating impact on women and families nationwide.

Fixing this problem doesn't cost Congress or taxpayers a dime, but will allow university health centers and safety net providers to offer affordable birth control to women who need it.

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Dick Durbin, affordable birth control, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois

Pope urges pharmacists not to dispense EC

Taking the Vatican's stance against birth control one step further, last week the Pope urged Catholic pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception (EC) and other "immoral" drugs. Miss Weird Science has an excellent post about the Pope's announcement on her blog.

I'm going to avoid going into a long rant about all of my frustrations with the Pope's stance on this issue, but basically it's another thing to file in the "things that people against abortion do that make abortion MORE likely" folder. I mean, really - if you want to prevent unintended pregnancy (and therefore the likelihood that someone would get an abortion) what better way to do it than make birth control as accessible as possible?

Unfortunately, the Pope's stance also undermines a pharmacist's obligation to respect decisions that are made between a doctor and a patient. I would say that it's a pharmacist's moral duty NOT to force his or her personal morality on someone else, but to respect each patients' moral compass. A pharmacist is hired to be a pharmacist, not a judge.

There’s been considerable opposition to the Pope's statements within some primarily Catholic communities. Soon after the Pope made his announcement, Italian Health Minister, Livia Turco, denounced his call. "I don't think his warning to pharmacists to be conscientious objectors to the morning-after-pill should be taken into consideration," Turco said.

Also, the Chilean Government has warned that it will close pharmacies that refuse to sell emergency contraception. Chilean Health Minister Soledad Barria has said that pharmacies have no excuse for not selling the pill. You can read more about that story at the International Herald Tribune.

Technorati tags: birth control, Pope, Catholicism, emergency contraception, Planned Parenthood Action Illinois,

Where we're heading with this blog...

First of all, we’d like to offer a huge THANK YOU to Veronica for pitching in right when we needed her most. Veronica did a tremendous job of blogging on our fight to open our Aurora health center and beyond. Her honest and insightful commentary will be sorely missed by the rest of our online team. Our only consolation is that she’s agreed to guest blog from time to time, so stay tuned for occasional updates from Veronica. And of course, if you need an immediate Veronica fix you can always hop over to Viva La Feminista.

Now that we can concentrate the brunt of our efforts in Aurora on providing critical reproductive health services to women and families, we’d like to take the opportunity to broaden the focus of this blog to address the larger issues of reproductive rights facing Illinois and the nation.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t still keep you updated on the situation in Aurora. As you know the opposition just doesn’t seem to be able to get over the fact that our health center is up and running. We will definitely continue to post updates specific to the Aurora center.

But (as Veronica has already done a great job of pointing out!) we’re fighting for reproductive rights on a lot of fronts. We saw pro-choice people around the nation come together and say “What happens in Aurora happens to ME.” We also know that what happens in Kansas and Manassas, Virginia and Springfield, IL, and Washington, DC happens to all of us as well.

For that reason we are officially rolling this blog into our Planned Parenthood Action Illinois statewide online advocacy program. While we may change the blog’s color scheme, most other things will stay the same. I hope you’ll stay involved with us through this blog, our email list, and through Myspace and Facebook. And I hope you'll stick with us as we continue to post updates, commentary and action alerts on our fight to protect reproductive rights for women in Aurora, Illinois, and everywhere else.


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