Repro Health Hub

In a recent report, England’s Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV made recommendations for compulsory sex and relationship education nationwide. The goal is to decrease teen pregnancies and the growing rates of STIs among the young population. Right now, half of new STI cases are among 16-24 year olds who only account for 12% of the population. In one school that already teaches Sex and Relationship Education, six and seven year olds are taught about male and female body parts through the use of flash cards. While some think learning about the human body at an earlier age may make adolescents more curious about sex, much of the programming on TV and ads on the streets already display such images. The difference is that with a compulsory plan in place, curiosity is less likely to result in STIs or teen pregnancy since students will be informed about contraception and birth control.

Here in the US, where there is no federal mandate for sex ed. According to the Guttmacher Institute’s State Policies in Brief fact sheet, less than half the states in the union mandate sex education in public schools, while 23 states require abstinence be stressed over contraception if it is taught. Only 14 states and the District of Columbia require contraception be covered and no state requires that contraception be stressed. To change these figures and improve education it would be necessary to move the focus from abstinence-only to comprehensive sex education, which would cover information on contraception, abortion, relationships and sex, STDs, as well as sexual expression.

Even if better programs could be provided, they still would not be compulsory as is the plan for England, leaving the possibility of young adults lacking necessary education. In many cases, comprehensive sex education is still antagonized by parents, as it was in Montgomery County in upstate New York when Planned Parenthood was brought in to provide sex education classes for 7th and 8th graders. Parents of students there began to protest the presence of Planned Parenthood, even though it is through the help of such organizations that the county could help rid itself of the second highest teen birthrate in all of New York State.

The high STI rates in England and the high pregnancy rates in Montgomery County seem to be indicative of failures of the sex education programs in place. Despite this fact, many American parents are unwilling to change these faulty systems, leaving their children ignorant and vulnerable, while England is striving to move forward with sex education reform.

By Kristen Ramos

HHS Sec. Mike Leavitt wrote again yesterday about Bush’s proposed regulations that would classify contraception as abortion. But from reading Leavitt’s post, you wouldn’t know that contraception was the crux of the issue.

Leavitt wrote:

This is not a discussion about the rights of a woman to get an abortion. The courts have long ago identified that right and continue to define its limits. This regulation would not be aimed at changing or redefining any of that. This is about the right of a doctor to not participate if he or she chooses for reasons they consider a matter of conscience. Does the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association believe we can protect by Constitution, statute and practice rights of free speech, race, religion, and abortion—but not conscience?

Is the fear here that so many doctors will refuse that it will somehow make it difficult for a woman to get an abortion? That hasn’t happened, but what if it did? Wouldn’t that be an important and legitimate social statement?

I want to reiterate. If the Department of Health and Human Services issues a regulation on this matter, it will aim at one thing, protecting the right of conscience of those who practice medicine. From what I’ve read the last few days, there’s a serious need for it.

As I wrote the other day, don’t federal laws already protect doctors’ rights to opt out of performing abortions? Where is this “serious need” that Leavitt stresses? This seems more like a ploy to shift the focus from the medical issue of access to contraception to a theoretical, abstract notion of the rights of man and citizen. Leavitt’s hoping to come across more like a modern day Enlightenment philosophe than an anti-choice Bush appointee. It ain’t working.

Leavitt also alludes to a mass movement of doctors refusing to care for women facing unintended pregnancies to make a “social statement.” Should medicine and a federal department charged with providing for the health of the nation be in the business of making social statements?

Scott Swenson on RH Reality Check had an interesting take yesterday, writing that despite all the talk of rights of conscience, the patient’s need should prevail:

The question, Sec. Leavitt, is not about people checking their beliefs at the door. Medical ethics and morality dictate that it is the patient, the person in need of help, sometimes in crisis, whose conscience and beliefs matter in the moment they are seeking health care services. Medical professionals who have a problem dispensing contraception should not choose professions where they will be asked for contraception, or as a commenter on another blog wrote, “if this is about people living their religious convictions, then they should have enough faith not to choose work that conflicts with their convictions.” There is plenty demand for medical professionals in fields in which practitioners will never come in contact with people seeking contraception.

By Tara Sweeney

When I heard that Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt had a blog, I was sure that he’d comment on Bush’s proposed HHS regulations that would blur the lines between contraception and abortion.

Well he finally has. Yesterday Leavitt blogged that the Bush regulations stray from his intention of defining “the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience.” What exactly that means — or how his plan would differ from the right doctors already have to refuse patients certain services — is still up for debate. Leavitt wrote of the proposed regulations:

An early draft of the regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review. It contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true.

The Bush Administration has consistently supported the unborn. However, the issue I asked to be addressed in this regulation is not abortion or contraceptives, but the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience and patients should be able to choose a doctor who has beliefs like his or hers.

The Department is still contemplating if it will issue a regulation or not. If it does, it will be directly focused on the protection of practitioner conscience.

Reuters interprets this post to mean that a “regulation that would define many forms of contraception as abortion will not be proposed in that form, if at all.”

It’s probably wise to not get too optimistic just yet about Leavitt’s intentions. But this is a good step.

By Tara Sweeney

Former Kansas Attorney General and scourge of women everywhere Phil Kline has thankfully lost his bid for District Attorney of Johnson City, Kansas.

Kline long led a personal crusade against Planned Parenthood in Kansas, accusing the provider of performing late-term abortion and filing 107 charges against it as recently as last October.

Thankfully the good people of Johnson County have had enough of Phill Kline.

By Tara Sweeney

Exciting news for breastfeeding moms around the world – August 1-7 is World Breastfeeding Week.

One hundred and twenty countries participate in World Breastfeeding Week each year. In conjunction with the Olympics, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action has coined the slogan “Mother Support: Going for the Gold.” To meet the gold standard the organization suggests mothers “breastfeed exclusively for six months, and provide appropriate complementary foods with continued breastfeeding for up to two years or beyond.”

Here in New York State, Governor David Paterson has issued an official proclamation declaring this week World Breastfeeding Week.

In a release from the New York State Department of Health, Commissioner Richard F. Daines, said, “In proclaiming Breastfeeding Week, we recognize the tremendous health benefits that breastfed infants enjoy and how important it is to increase the number of infants that are breastfed…The evidence is clear that being breastfed is important to the lifelong health of infants, and we want to encourage new mothers to continue to breastfeed after they return to work.”

Although the Nursing Mothers in the Work Place Act was enacted last year to encourage mothers to breastfeed even after returning to work and to ensure that work environments allowed for this, the State Senate failed to pass the Breastfeeding Bill of Rights this year. Perhaps the international focus on breastfeeding will encourage the State Senate to action next session.

By Samantha Hurley

A study released by the CDC over the weekend shows that the number of Americans infected with HIV each year is higher than originally thought. The actual number, 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006, is 40% higher than the annual estimate used for the past 12 years.

In better news, another CDC report shows that from 1991 to 2007, the percentage of U.S. high school students engaging in sexual behaviors that may spread HIV infection fell dramatically.

By Tara Sweeney