Repro Health Hub

Amie Newman, a Managing Editor at “RH Reality Check” posted today about her experience moderating a session at the recent Netroots Nation Convention called Breaking the Frame: Revitalizing and Redefining Reproductive Rights Media Coverage.

The goal of the session was to “deconstruct[] the extremist, anti-choice messaging and agenda and, with the help of the expert panelists, figure out what our messaging could and should look like when we all work together — professional advocates, bloggers and the mainstream media.”For all of us who didn’t make it down to Austin, Amie was kind enough to share a clip from the session. Check it:

By Tara Sweeney

In many prisons and jails throughout the country pregnant women are routinely shackled during labor and delivery. Surprisingly, California, Illinois, and Vermont are the only states to have passed anti-shackling legislation.

Prison and jail protocols require ankle shackles and, until recently, stomach restraints. Access to Reproductive Health Care in New York State Jails, a New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) report released last March, argues that shackling violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Shackling seems especially ridiculous when we consider that the majority of women are in custody for non-violent crimes.

A few months ago the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) finally decided to prohibit “face-down four-point restraints and restraint belts that directly constrict the area of the pregnancy.” Further amendments to the shackling policy are in the works. Policies in state jails vary extremely. According to the NYCLU report, only three New York jails have written procedures concerning the shackling of pregnant women; of those three, only two forbid it.

The Second Chance Act of 2007 (HR 1593) was recently passed into law and requires the Attorney General to submit a detailed report to Congress on correctional facility policies regarding the restraint of pregnant women. Facilities must also report on “the reasons for the use of the physical restraints, the length of time that the physical restraints were used, and the security concerns that justified the use of the physical restraints.” The bill should become effective by next spring.

In the past thirty years, the number of incarcerated women has increased by 800%–and women of color are the fastest growing prison population in the US. Groups like the Rebecca Project and the Prison Doula Project are fighting to ensure that pregnant women are never shackled and even to provide for a positive labor experience. We need to respond responsibly with additional anti-shackling legislation and appropriate health care for the safety of these women and their newborn babies.

By Samantha Hurley

Today’s a day for thinking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it’s not all fireworks and tri-color bunting. In 1852, Frederick Douglas said of the Fourth of July, “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.” Douglas was thinking about the unfinished business of the promise of America.

For all our progress, 156 years later, freedoms like personal autonomy and equal citizenship are still in doubt. In her dissenting opinion in Gonzalez v. Carhart (2007), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg condemned the Supreme Court’s curtailment of the right to late-term abortion, even if a woman’s life were in danger. Justice Ginsburg wrote that nothing less than a “woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature” were in question.

Not to spoil the picnic, but perhaps a new tradition should be to take a few minutes out of the day and listen to Justice Ginsburg’s dissent, delivered from the bench just 15 months ago. Just click here and fast-forward to about seven and a half minutes into the audio. Hear the caution in Justice Ginsburg’s delivery, the trepidation in her voice, and then reconsider the fragility of the freedoms we’re all celebrating today.

Happy Fourth of July.

By Tara Sweeney

A poll of 1,200 women in March showed that about half of those who back Senator John McCain said they didn’t know enough about where he stands on abortion to determine whether he agrees with their own opinions on choice. That means they might not know that he wants to overturn Roe, that he opposes birth control, or that he has voted against women’s choice 123 out of 128 times in the Senate. If McCain is able to smuggle these anti-choice policies into the White House, consequences for women could include less control over their reproductive health, fewer choices in handling an unintended pregnancy, and even the criminalization of abortion.

A new video released by Brave New Films, in coordination with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, depicts a dystopian vision where clinics deny women the full range of services and even information about unintended pregnancies. In this video, a woman goes into a clinic asking for information about her options in dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, and is handed a blank sheet of paper, since under a McCain presidency, women would have no options. Videos like this may just be satire, good for mocking McCain and his anti-choice policies, but they eerily reflect the actual decisions that he and other pro-life policymakers have made about the fate of reproductive rights in America.

As NIRHealth has been stressing through the How Much Time campaign, one of the scariest possible consequences of electing a anti-choice candidate is that overturning Roe would lead to the criminalization of abortion. That means that women would be forced to choose between seeking an illegal, dangerous abortion and carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. Doctors would have to choose between providing safe, quality abortion care and risking criminal prosecution, or turning women away when they need their doctors most. We know the results of such policies all too well—we’ve been down that road before, and we can’t go back.

And it’s not just John McCain that we have to fear. Many state legislatures are considering—or have already passed—laws that make abortion a crime. In 2007 alone, 14 states considered legislation that would make all abortions illegal, except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s life is at risk. For example, a key committee in the Colorado legislature came within one vote of passing legislation to make all abortions illegal. Three states—Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Dakota—have actually enacted complete bans on abortion that will likely take effect the day Roe is overturned by a conservative Supreme Court.

These nightmare scenarios are enough to urge anyone who cares about the fate of choice in America to do whatever possible to prevent the ascendancy of ill-advised and inhumane crusades against to the right to choose.

By Tara Sweeney

This Saturday, June 7th, marks the 43rd anniversary of the Griswold v. Connecticut decision in the Supreme Court, which established constitutional privacy protection for married couples’ use of contraception in 1965. Unmarried women obtained the right to use birth control a little later in 1972.

Sadly, despite the Supreme Court’s decisions, women across America are still fighting for their right to contraceptive access. From the financial barriers millions of women face in accessing contraception to pharmacists’ refusals to fill birth control prescriptions, women are left to defend their right to contraception. However, those aren’t the only barriers. Many in the anti-choice community are working not only to abolish the legal right to abortion but also to end women’s right to access birth control!

This Saturday, the American Life League is staging “Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills Babies” demonstrations across the country to protest the anniversary and women’s access to contraception. Their accusations about the dangers of the birth control pill are medically inaccurate and show the dangerous extent to which our opponents will go to control women’s bodies and their reproductive health. Show your support for women’s access to birth control by counter-demonstrating this Saturday!

The protest is only the beginning. Even more terrifying is the current campaign by anti-choice and conservative organizations to reinstate the “Domestic Gag Rule.” In May, over eighty conservative organizations, led by the Family Research Council, sent a letter to President Bush asking him to reinstate the “Domestic Gag Rule,” which would effectively strip family planning clinics’ eligibility for Title X funds if they refer patients for abortions or share facilities with abortion providers.

Title X is an essential source of funding for family planning clinics and, in fact, is the only federal program dedicated solely to funding family planning and related reproductive health care services. This restriction could severely harm the health of millions of women across the country and prevent them from obtaining needed contraception! Please take a moment to send an email to Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, showing your support for Title X!

By Myra Batchelder 

Over here at the Repro Health Hub we can’t seem to stress enough how powerful and imperative accurate and accessible information about sex and reproductive health is. So this week, we’d like to shine the spotlight on a fantastic organization that has been committed to that cause for 20 years now, The Reproductive Health Technologies Project!

Just check out their awesome mission statement:  

The mission of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project (RHTP) is to  advance the ability of every woman to achieve full reproductive freedom with  access to the safest, most effective, and preferred methods for controlling her  fertility and protecting her health.

Based out of Washington D.C., the organization started in 1988 as a group dedicated to public education about RU 486, the “abortion pill”. Since then it has grown to also take on policy development and advocacy of preexisting and developing reproductive health technologies. They have also made great contributions in scientific research on reproductive health, from abortion to contraception and STIs, with many of these studies are available online. The Project’s work is extremely valuable, and that’s why they are the Repro Health Hub’s Hero of the Week!

Be sure to visit their website to see if RHTP will be participating in an event near you! 

Who says we can’t cover international issues?

Last week, emergency contraception was approved for over-the-counter status in Canada. Hurray!

In its final ruling, the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) has given Plan B, or Levonorgestrel, full over-the-counter status.This new status will make Canada the fifth country worldwide that allows women to go into any pharmacy and purchase the single dose pill without speaking to a pharmacist first. Plan B is already available without a prescription and a medical consultation in Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and India.

EC was given partial over-the-counter status in Canada in 2005, meaning women had to consult with a pharmacist beforehand. It’s nice to see the EC love being spread beyond the U.S., where EC is over-the-counter, although ID requirements and age-limitations still limit women’s full access.

Check out the Back Up Your Birth Control campaign for more info about and how to get EC.

As many of you may have already seen in the headlines, the “largest scientific database for reproductive health“, POPLINE, messed up- big time.

A couple months ago, the database managed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health had received a complaint from the federal government. Apparently POPLINE, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had been taking some heat because of two abortion advocacy related articles that were found on the site. Solution? Remove the term completely. Administrators decided late February to simply block the word ‘abortion’ from providing any search results. Of course, the change was quickly noticed by users of the site. Medical librarians at the University of California, San Francisco e-mailed administrators about it. Gail Sorrough, UCSF director of medical library services, said, “..the POPLINE administrator replied that, yes, they had decided to turn the term abortion into a ’stop word’” and librarians were told to use other terms in the search field, such as “unwanted pregnancy” or “fertility control, post-conception” instead.

Once news of the ban became known, Johns Hopkins quickly condemned the decision and had the restriction lifted immediately. Dean Michael J. Klag of the school for Public Health has launched an inquiry for the incident and said in a “statement”, “… [I] have directed that the POPLINE administrators restore “abortion” as a search term immediately. I will also launch an inquiry to determine why this change occurred. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction.”

POPLINE’S course of action was indeed a very odd decision and in no way excusable considering that abortion is a very legal medical procedure (did we mention that the project defines itself as ‘the world’s largest database on reproductive health and dedicated to reports on family planning and health issues’?). USAID insists that it had no hand in the decision to change search restrictions- when asked whether USAID requested to remove “abortion” as a search term, the Office of Population and Reproductive Health said, “No”.

It is no secret how the current Bush administration feels about and how quickly they will threaten to cut off funding for progressive projects that stray from their own ideology. It’s also well known how damaging this has become in “developing countries” , killing millions of women a year by limiting their resources. But now the policy has gone beyond just denying women’s health to complete censorship of the issue at home. POPLINE is a US-based organization, and therefore exempt from the Global Gag Rule. Even if USAID did not force POPLINE to ban search results, the project very clearly felt it necessary to protect itself by denying access of scientific and medical information to the issue because of the attention it received. It is not only inexcusable but a chilling reminder of how wide this “ineffective federal policy” reaches, both abroad and within our own country.

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Tomorrow marks the final day of the first annual National Week of Action for Reproductive Justice!

The week-long event was created by the Third Wave Foundation, a “feminist, activist foundation that works nationally to support young women and transgender youth ages 15 to 30.” In collaboration with members of the national coalition supported by the organization, the week was celebrated with various special events (workshops, lectures, trainings, you name it!) hosted by local grassroots organizations around the country. A big thank you to everyone who was involved in making the initiation of this empowering tradition a huge success!

Check out this inspiring video Third Wave produced for the occasion!

We’d like to recognize one of the groups involved in this fabulous week that has been working hard in the name of reproductive justice for over ten years! Sistersong is a collective of grassroots organizations that mobilize, educate, and create change for women of color. Through public policy change, advocacy, and education, Sistersong works to bring progressive change regarding reproductive and sexual health and rights, including ensuring accessible health care, accurate information, and available resources for women in all five of the ethnic populations they represent.

Reproductive Justice is described as the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, environmental and economic well-being of women and girls, girls, based on the full achievement and protection of women’s human rights.

- Sistersong

So if you missed this past week’s events, be sure to check their homepage for many more opportunities to be involved and see what other reproductive justice happenings are going on near you!

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Today is the seventh annual Back Up Your Birth Control Day and we couldn’t be more excited! Around the country students, activists, and organizations are taking action to help raise awareness for Emergency Contraception (also know as Plan B or the Morning After Pill). EC is a crucial part of reproductive rights because it is can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex and unexpected birth control failure, and just like other forms of contraceptives it must be kept accessible to women everywhere.

From the campaign website:

“The 2008 Day of Action is dedicated to making EC available to all women regardless of their income, insurance coverage or immigration status. While we celebrate the FDA decision that made EC available over-the-counter to women 18 and older, we know that the high cost of EC over-the counter, usually between $40-70 in pharmacies nationwide, is a continuing barrier to some women accessing EC.”

There are several ways for you to help us celebrate on this important day and throughout the year.

1) Contact your Senator and ask her/him to support the Prevention First Act, which ensures that victims of sexual assault receive accurate information about and full access to EC.
2) Sign the petition provided by the Feminist Majority to demand affordable birth control at colleges and clinics everywhere.
3) Watch this video from Planned Parenthood.
4) Read about global EC availability from the International Consortium for Emergency Contraception.
5) Write an OpEd to spread the word about how unequal access remains a problem among women.
6) Add your organization to the long list of campaign sponsors!

Check out other ways to take action on the campaign website. Happy Back Up Your Birth Control Day!

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