Repro Health Hub

With spring break just around the corner, we bring you some important safe sex tips from sex education activist Shelby Knox. This piece originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

If only network TV would lead with this news: according to a University of Minnesota study, “hooking up” — casual sex with more than one partner — is NOT in itself damaging to one’s psychological health.

Just like the “free love” generation before us, millennials figured this out long before the men in white coats arrived. For some, hooking up is a way to explore their sexuality without a relationship commitment. For others it’s a form of dating — a good relationship requires a good sexual relationship, so why not cut to the chase?

But — there’s a catch. The study only covers emotional health. It just so happens the hook-up generation is also a primary victim of failed abstinence-only marriage programs and their sexual health knowledge is… terrifying. Another new study, this one by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, found that less than half of young adults use contraception when they have sex. In interviewing 18-29 year olds, they netted what is officially one of the scariest quotes of the year: “it doesn’t matter whether you use birth control or not; when it is your time to get pregnant it will happen.”

Yikes! These are the brainiacs you could be hooking up with over Spring Break?!? With that in mind, it’s time for another round of “Smart Girl Tips” to keep you safe, healthy, and sexy this Spring Break:

• If there’s even the remotest possibility you’ll be having sex on the beach — or anywhere else, for that matter — buy your condoms of choice before you leave and stash a few in your purse, the rest in your carry-on. Condoms are the only way to prevent sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, so use one every single time you have sex. (A condom can also be cut in half to be used as a dental dam for safer oral fun!) If you’re on birth control, make sure to pack enough pills for your trip and remember to take it at the same time you usually do — the beer pong can wait a few minutes, we promise!
• Safe sex is the goal — no one wants to get a diaper bag for graduation! — but it’s not always the reality. If the condom slips off (or never makes it on in the first place), there’s Plan B® One Step, the only one-pill emergency contraception that can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex to prevent unintended pregnancy. If you’re 17 or older, you can get it without a prescription at the pharmacy — pick it up before you leave (Plan B® One-Step is only available in the US) so a slip-up doesn’t ruin your vacation.
• If it’s mom you’d want the hospital to call when you’ve got heat exhaustion, program her numbers into your phone under ICE (”In Case of Emergency”) before you set off. When you’re on the ground, put the hotel’s phone number and address into your contacts and ask the front desk for the digits of a local cab company. If the hotel has a shuttle service, get a paper copy of the schedule and take a picture of it on your phone for later reference.
• Hop from place to place in a pack and designate a ’sober sister’ to make sure no one is slinking out the door with that gelled up, spray-tanned creeper or undressing for an ill-advised turn on the bar. As a rule, no one should leave alone with a new-found “friend” — but if you absolutely must head out for a hook-up, have a friend program your prize’s phone number in her phone and take a picture of you together. Set a time to check-in by text — and make sure to follow through.
• The same ‘drink rules’ you follow at frat parties apply tenfold on Spring Break — never accept a drink from someone you don’t know and don’t leave it unattended while you dance or go to the bathroom. Same goes for those glowing vials of alcohol — take it directly from the server before it gets passed down the line.
• More than 60% of employers take social networking profiles into consideration when making hiring decisions. Don’t let a week of debauchery ruin your job prospects by remembering that everything is a camera, including phones, iPods, and computers. Don’t do anything at a club you’d be mortified to see on CNN tomorrow. Be selective when posting your own pics — booze bottles, red eyes, and lots of skin are probably best kept under the ‘private’ setting for you and your fellow revelers to enjoy.

There has recently been a lot of media attention around a new study comparing different methods of sexuality education. Many people are claiming that this study provides scientific evidence for the efficacy of both abstinence-only and abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. However, such claims are misleading. This study does not challenge the large body of evidence showing that the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs championed by the Bush administration are ineffective.

First, this single study is relatively small, examining 662 African-American students in sixth and seventh grades. An article in the Huffington Post noted that the results were based on the students’ self-reporting, a method that is inherently flawed, as the students could have reported only what they thought the researchers wanted to hear. Not only would the study’s results need to be replicated for any sweeping claims about the value of abstinence-only education to be accurate, but a similar study would need to be carried out among older students and among students in different ethnic groups.

The study’s findings have also been overstated. The researchers did not compare abstinence-only to comprehensive sexuality education programs, but rather compared different kinds of sexuality education programs to a health education program that did not discuss sexuality. The students in the study were randomly assigned to five different groups: abstinence-only, 8-hour comprehensive, 12-hour comprehensive, safer-sex only, and health education, and the health education group served as a control group to which all the other groups were compared. The most frequently quoted result – that significantly fewer of the abstinence-only students started having sex in the 24 months following the sexuality education classes – was based on a comparison between abstinence-only and health education students, not between abstinence-only and any of the other sexuality education students. Less often reported is that students in the comprehensive classes were less likely to report having multiple sexual partners than students in the health education group. The results of the study, therefore, are both more nuanced and less powerful than they have been made out to be.

It is absurd to argue that this study validates the use of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs over the last decade, as the curriculum employed in the study was inherently different than the curricula supported under the Bush administration. According to the Guttmacher Institute’s review of the study, the abstinence-only program used in the study would in no way meet federal criteria for such programs. As a New York Times editorial from February 8th points out, federally funded abstinence-only programs advocate abstinence until marriage, but the students in the study were taught to remain abstinent until they were ready to handle the responsibilities inherent in having sex. Additionally, the program employed in the study - unlike many federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs - avoided taking a moralistic or negative tone towards sex, and explicitly instructed facilitators “not to disparage the efficacy of condoms or allow the view that condoms are ineffective to go uncorrected.”

There is still one question that few articles address: what should be the aim of sexuality education in the first place? As the Huffington Post article points out, “Sex educators will be the first to say that abstinence is a critical and necessary part of comprehensive sex education efforts,” but that exhortations to abstain hardly form a complete education. Similarly, the Guttmacher Institute report argues that preventing younger kids from having sex is important, but that “it is likewise important to prepare students for the time when they do become sexually active.”

The National Institute for Reproductive Health supports comprehensive sexuality education that not only delays the onset of sexual activity for younger kids, but also teaches kids the skills they need for a healthy sexual life.

By Sasha Albert, Sexuality Education Project Intern

Congress recently ended its federal funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, and not a minute too soon. A new report by the Guttmacher Institute demonstrates that after a decade and a half of decline, teen pregnancy, abortion and birth rates in the United States have begun to rise. Between 2005 and 2006, teen pregnancy rates increased by 3% nationwide, and teen abortion rates by 1%. Teen births rose steadily between 2005 and 2006, and again between 2006 and 2007.

The Guttmacher report highlights the link between the recent emphasis on abstinence-only education and the rise in teen pregnancy. According to senior public policy associate Heather Boonstra, the increase in teen pregnancy “coincides with an increase in rigid abstinence-only-until-marriage programs…A strong body of research shows that these programs do not work.” Even when the teen pregnancy rate was at its lowest, in the early 2000s, the United States still had a higher rate of teen pregnancy than other industrialized nations. Continuing to deny teens’ access to comprehensive sexuality education will not prevent a further rise in teen pregnancies. Richard S. Guido, chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’s Committee on Adolescent Health Care, has decried the usefulness of abstinence-only, saying that “the idea that most teens will wait to have sex indefinitely is rigid and impractical.” Meanwhile, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, agrees that it is time for a different approach: “This new study makes it crystal clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work.”

The Guttmacher report demonstrates the need for comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education in all schools in the United States. Congress has recently taken an important first step and established $114 million for a teen pregnancy prevention program that will provide much-needed federal funds to help support comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention programs and sexuality education programs across the country.

The National Institute for Reproductive Health, in partnership with advocates across the nation, is committed to ensuring that young people have access to comprehensive sexuality education programs in their schools and communities.

By Sasha Albert, Sexuality Education Project Intern

New Year’s Eve is the biggest night of the year—including for birth control accidents. In fact, the stats are pretty startling: use of emergency contraception (EC) more than doubles in the first days of the new year.

That’s why the National Institute’s Back Up Your Birth Control campaign has launched a special effort to remind women that, if they do have a birth control mishap on the big night, EC is available over-the-counter at pharmacies, even in a single pill. At DontDropTheBall.org you can even send funny morning-after messages to all your friends to remind them that EC can get them out of a pickle on January 1st.

But first watch the hilarious “OMG, I sent that text to Grandma?!” video that started it all. Because if you can accidentally text your Grandma on New Year’s Eve, what else can go wrong?

Finally, share some of these fun facts about EC with all your friends this New Year’s…

• You can get EC over-the-counter if you’re 17 or older.
• There is now a convenient, one-pill version of EC.
• EC can help prevent pregnancy when taken within 120 hours of unprotected sex but is more effective the sooner you take it.
• EC is 95% effective when taken within 24 hours of unprotected sex.
• EC is kept behind the counter so you will need to ask the pharmacist for it.
• EC is NOT the “abortion pill,” Mifeprex™ or RU-486, and will not terminate an existing pregnancy.
• EC is a higher dosage of the same hormones found in many birth control pills.

By Maya Dusenbery

The first legislation in the nation that requires crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to disclose the limitations of their services is now the law of the land in Baltimore. From our partner and Urban Initiative grantee, NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland:

“We thank Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for championing an issue so important to women’s health. This law will ensure truth in advertising, protecting consumers. Unfortunately, CPCs in Baltimore are not always up front about their services and frequently give women misinformation. For example, centers in Baltimore told women that abortion causes an increased risk of breast cancer and that condoms did not prevent STDs,” stated Blasdell.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland investigated three centers in Baltimore, all of which gave misinformation about abortion or birth control and none of which would provide a referral, even for birth control. “This law will empower women by giving them full information up front about what to expect from a limited service pregnancy center. This provision does not ask a facility to provide any services they find objectionable, but only asks them to tell the truth about the nature of their services. We applaud Mayor Dixon for signing this important bill,” continued Blasdell.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland is now working to get a similar bill passed in Montgomery County, MD.

By Maya Dusenbery

We’ve written before about the legislation making its way through the Baltimore City Council that would require crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to post disclaimers saying they don’t provide birth control or abortion referrals. On Monday, the bill finally passed. Once the mayor signs the measure, it will be the first law of its kind in the U.S.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, which applauded the bill’s passage, helped expose how CPCs mislead and manipulate vulnerable women in their 2008 report, Maryland Crisis Pregnancy Center Investigations: The Truth Revealed. Salon’s Broadsheet reports:

Last year, the NARAL Pro-Choice Fund sent staff members into 11 Maryland centers in particular to pose as potential patients and reported that “every CPC visited provided misleading or, in some cases completely false, information” about abortion and birth control.” For good measure, the clinics also threw in “emotionally manipulative counseling” (for example, one worker told an investigator, “You need to come meet your baby before deciding what to do”). Worse yet, many clinics “purposefully schedule sonogram appointments two-three weeks after the initial appointment to ensure that there will be a heartbeat and that the pregnancy is larger than a grain of rice.”

Similar legislation is now being considered in Montgomery County, Maryland. Let’s hope the rest of the nation takes a hint from Maryland and starts demanding some truth in advertising from CPCs across the country.

By Maya Dusenbery

Across the country over the last week, activists and advocates for reproductive justice have come out against the anti-choice Stupak amendment in the House health care reform bill. The following editorial boards have spoken out as well.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer: EDITORIAL: Bitter Pill to Swallow
• Detroit Free Press: EDITORIAL: Stupak’s Anti-Abortion Amendment Tramples Women and the Law
• Pittsburgh Post Gazette: EDITORIAL: Not-so-choice: The House Health Reform Unduly Restricts Abortion
• Akron Beacon Journal (OH): EDITORIAL: A Step Back
• Palm Beach Post (FL): EDITORIAL: House Health Bill
• The Star-Ledger (NJ): EDITORIAL: The Abortion Roadblock to Health Care Reform
• The Baltimore Sun: EDITORIAL: The Anti-Choice
• Oregon Daily Emerald: EDITORIAL: Defending Reproductive Rights
• The Oregonian: EDITORIAL: An unacceptable cutback in access to abortion
• The Roanoke Times: EDITORIAL: Flawed health reform: A House anti-abortion measure is despicable, but Congress must keep its eye on universal coverage.
• The Star Tribune (MN): EDITORIAL: Measure Meddles in Women’s Care

Late last night the Senate released its health care reform bill. John Nichols, writing for The Nation, has an excellent summary of how the Senate bill is an improvement over the House bill, which included the dangerous and discriminatory Stupak-Pitts amendment. Still, the Senate bill is far from the overhaul of the Hyde Amendment we’d all hoped for in anticipation of health care reform:

In many respects, Reid’s “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is a better bill than the House measure.

And it one respect, it is dramatically better.

The Senate plan does not contain the draconian “Stupak” language, which was written into the House bill with the intent of establishing radical new limits on access to reproductive health services.

As part of negotiations to secure passage of the House healthcare reform bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, agreed to a vote on an amendment by Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, that did not merely forbid a government-run “public option” from covering abortion services. It also barred private insurance plans that might participate in the exchange set up by the new program from doing so.

Republicans in the House aligned with 64 Democrats to attach the radical anti-abortion language to the bill, which was then passed by a narrow 220-215 margin.

Reid rejects the Stupak language.

That does not mean that his measure is a pro-choice bonanza.

It preserves existing limits on public-funding of abortions. But, as part of the exchange set up by the bill, families and individuals who participate in the new program could purchase insurance plans that provide abortion coverage.

“We’re basically going to keep current law, which is what we ought to do,” says Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a pro-choice Democrat who participated in the session where Reid unveiled the Senate

By Tara Sweeney

Great news for comprehensive sex education supporters! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention commissioned a report on comprehensive risk reduction education programs and now recommends them for adolescents 10-19 years old because they were found to reduce engagement in any sexual activity, frequency of sexual activity, number of partners, frequency of unprotected sexual activity and incidence of STIs, while also increasing use of protection against pregnancy and STIs. In addition, the report also analyzed abstinence until marriage education programs and found that there is insufficient evidence to prove those programs are effective because of the little impact it made on the behaviors listed above.

This is a huge and exciting step for a government entity to acknowledge the difference that comprehensive sex education makes! It is particularly important as Congress is on the verge of providing federal funding for comprehensive sex education programs for the first time.

The full report from the Task Force can be found here.

By Ally Fujii

The National Institute for Reproductive Health advocates for women to have access to all reproductive health choices when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. While access to abortion is often the spotlighted issue concerning reproductive justice, there is a whole spectrum of choices to which women must have access. Adoption is one of those choices.

Each year in the US, 1 percent of unplanned pregnancies results in adoption, meaning approximately 13,000 infants are placed for adoption domestically. When international and foster care adoptions are included, the total number of adopted children in the US is about 1.5 million—just over two percent. And 25 percent of the women choosing an adoption are teens.

For these children, birthmothers, and adoptive parents, the issues surrounding adoption are vast. From inequities regarding race and ethnicity, to class and sexual orientation, there is much work to be done to ensure that the system is just and respects the dignity of all parties involved.

Gay and lesbian couples who want to adopt, for example, have been singled out in several states in recent years. Reported The New York Times in July, “Last year, Arkansas passed a ballot initiative prohibiting adoption by unmarried couples, which effectively makes it impossible for gay parents to adopt jointly. Utah and Michigan have similar laws; Mississippi and Florida ban adoption by same-sex couples outright.”

Race is another complicated factor with regard to adoption. Black and white families looking to adopt often face discrimination, the latter in their desire for transracial abortion and the former in screening processes. The New York Times reports that in 2004 “more than 45,000 black children were waiting to be adopted from foster care.” Historically, there has been resistance to transracial adoptions, but with the passage of the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994—which prohibits discrimination in making placements of children to parents based on race, color or national origin of either party for federally financed agencies—more and more transracial adoptions are occurring domestically and abroad.

Cost of adoption is another hurdle that excludes certain people from the adoption process; there still isn’t justice when only middle- and upper-class families can afford to adopt. The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute reports that domestic adoptions from private agencies can cost as much as $30,000. While foster care adoptions are more affordable, efforts must be made to ensure that all potential adoptive parents have equal opportunity and access to the system as a whole.

Some questions we might ask as we look at adoption as a reproductive justice issue include the following: What populations are placing their children and who is adopting? How can we make sure that all women who want to choose adoption have support through this process and aren’t facing coercion or pressure? What steps can be taken to ensure that people from all races and ethnicities are being recruited as adoptive parents, especially given that children placed for adoption are disproportionately children of color?

For the past several months, the National Institute for Reproductive Health and NARAL Pro-Choice New York have hosted the ongoing speaker series “Choices,” which closely examines the full spectrum of reproductive health choices. Emergency contraception, parenting, abortion, and LGBTQ reproductive rights have all been topics of discussion.  In tonight’s installment, “Choices: Adoption,” advocates from pro-choice adoption agency Spence-Chapin will be speaking, along with a birthmother and an expert on transracial adoption. Tonight’s event will address the complex issues surrounding adoption in an attempt to arrive at an understanding of what would constitute justice, equality, and true choice in the adoption process.

Stay tuned for video and a summary of the event in the coming days!

By Anna Bean