View From Under the Bus

Excellent discussion at Netroots Nation on reproductive justice.

Vatican Official Defends Abortion

Don't look now, but I think hell just froze over -- or there is a crack in the Vatican's armor.

The Vatican's top bioethics official said the two Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim do not merit excommunication, because they acted to save her life.

The statement, by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, appeared as the lead article in last Sunday's issue of the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

"There are others who deserve excommunication and our forgiveness," Fisichella wrote, addressing the unidentified rape victim, "not those who permitted you to live and who will help you to regain hope and faith."

The case drew international attention earlier this month after the local Catholic archbishop excommunicated the doctors who aborted the girl's twin fetuses, as well as the girl's mother.

The child was 15 weeks pregnant, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather. Weighing only 80 pounds, she might have died if forced to carry the pregnancy to term, the doctors said.

What I liked about this report is the acknowledgement that 1) abortion CAN be the best decision for women and girls; and 2) decisions about reproductive health should be left to the woman (or in this case girl) and her physician.

Even when doing the right thing, the Vatican couldn't resist taking a swipe at women having the right to safe and legal abortion.

While reiterating Catholic teaching that abortion is an "intrinsically wicked act," Fisichella suggested that under the circumstances, it might have been the lesser evil.

There are a myriad of reasons why women choose abortion. This report indicates why it's so important that women, in consultation with their physicians, be allowed to make this decision for themselves.

It's surprising to me that the Vatican would allow this pubic discussion.

Vatican officials rarely air their differences in public, let alone on the front page of the pope's newspaper.

According to respected Vatican journalist Sandro Magister, Fisichella's article was probably approved in advance by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as secretary of state is considered the Vatican's No. 2 official, after Pope Benedict XVI.

After nearly two months of international controversy over the pope's decision to readmit a Holocaust-denying bishop to the church in late January, Magister called this case of crossed signals the latest indication of confusion at the highest levels of the Holy See.

"It is yet another sign of the disorder that reigns in the Curia," Magister said, referring to the church's international governing bureaucracy. "It shows that Benedict XVI is paying the price for refusing to reform the Curia."

My good friend Fran at FranIAm is going to have to explain this to me. One good thing that I've learned from my day job is that there are some pretty terrific people of faith out there -- and Fran is definitely one of them.

Pastor Wiley Drake on a Rampage Once Again!

You have just watched Pastor Wiley Drake make a fool of himself in action at the Orange County (CA) Board of Supervisors meeting on March 10. Orange County Supervisors want to pull education money from Planned Parenthood and instead fund an anti-abortion abstinence only group. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me, or to Yvette Cabrera at The Orange County Register.

It was the spring of 1965, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that married women had the right to use contraceptives.

That spring a committee of physicians and community volunteers organized themselves with the hope of opening a family planning clinic. Not only did they achieve their goal on May 29, 1965 when they opened this clinic in the outpatient department of the county's hospital, but they received $30,000 in government funds to support the clinic.

Who exactly approved this funding? The Orange County's board of supervisors, according to historical documents from Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties' archives, which outline how this same committee applied for affiliate status with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America that year as well.

This particular clinic did not provide medical services at the time, but it offered educational services about birth control from 1965 to 1968, according to Stephanie Kight, Planned Parenthood's vice president of community affairs.

"So back in 1965 our county supervisors understood the need for these services because they allowed us to operate our first clinic at the county hospital," says Kight.

Let's flash forward to 2009. Last week, the county board of supervisors unanimously voted to suspend a $300,000 contract with Planned Parenthood – money that pays for five certified health educators who provide comprehensive reproductive education throughout the county. They give live presentations at schools and after-school programs, and they help run toll-free and online hotlines.

None of this funding, which is allocated from tobacco settlement revenue, is used to provide abortion services, a fact well documented in data submitted to the county, according to Planned Parenthood. The nonprofit is part of the Orange County Coalition of Community Clinics, which shares this funding with other member clinics.

Still, abortions was the reason given when county supervisors explained why they cut the funding. They don't believe the county should fund abortions, and they are morally opposed to abortions.

It was a move that shocked, among others, Dr. Thomas C. Bent, medical director and chief operating officer of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, which is also a member of the coalition and receives tobacco settlement funds.

"Focusing their energy on punishing somebody who offers a legal service to women in need, as Planned Parenthood does, is so wrong," says Bent. "The irony is that the money that's going specifically to (Planned Parenthood's) program is educational so that women won't get themselves in a situation where they need an abortion..."

Nut cases like Wiley Drake want to impose their beliefs on everyone -- but Drake seems to forget we have separation of church and state in this country.

As Bent put it, part of his job as a doctor is to avoid making judgments. Instead, he's supposed to make sure his patients understand the full scope of the medical options available to them. He believes the same should apply to politicians.

"There has to be a separation of church and state," says Bent. "I don't proselytize in my exam room. (The board of supervisors) shouldn't proselytize with the power of their office."

Well said, Dr. Bent!

Obama Lifts Global Abortion 'Gag Rule'

How fitting that one day following the annual anti-abortion march in DC, President Obama signs an executive order lifting the 'gag rule' on abortion.

President Barack Obama today signed an executive order lifting a ban on U.S. funding for international family planning groups that perform abortions or provide counseling about the procedure.

The order rescinds the Mexico City Policy, also known as the "gag rule," which President Ronald Reagan originally instituted in 1984 and President Bill Clinton rescinded and President George W. Bush revived in 2001.

The decision had been eagerly expected by family planning groups, women's health advocates and others, who hoped it would restore millions of dollars of funding to programs providing health care, contraceptive services, HIV prevention and other care around the world.

"For eight long years the global gag rule has been used by the Bush administration to play politics with the lives of poor women across the world," said Gill Greer of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in London. "In rescinding this disastrous and unjust policy, President Obama has returned the United States to the international consensus on women's health. [...]

[A]bortion rights advocates hoped the decision would be the first in a series of moves by the new administration to reverse Bush administration policies related to abortion. They are pushing to increase funding for reproductive health programs, cut funding for sex education programs that focus on abstinence, and reverse a recently implemented Health and Human Services regulation that protects health-care workers who object to providing any care they consider objectionable, including abortion.

"We look forward to working with President Obama on common-sense policies such as reversing Bush's midnight HHS rule, funding comprehensive sex education to keep our teens healthy, and increasing access to affordable family planning that help prevent unintended and teen pregnancies and lead to healthy outcomes for women," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

January 20, 2009 truly was the end of an error!

Roe v Wade: Celebrating 36 Years of Justice

On a cold winter day in January 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled that women were fully capable of making decisions regarding abortion for themselves. Kudos go out to Justice Harry Blackmun, who authored this important decision. Looking at today's Court, one has to wonder whether women would get the same outcome.

The decision sparked a firestorm of protest that continues today, and over the years we have seen an erosion of our reproductive rights.

With a new administration and Congress, we now have a chance to fight back! This is not the time to breath a sigh of relief, sit back and relax -- now is the time to push forward. To reclaim rights that have been lost, to secure reproductive justice for all women.

There are a number of advocacy groups working on this issue -- Planned Parenthood, NOW, Feminist Majority, National Abortion Federation, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. And political organizations like EMILY's List.

I urge you to find the one that you like best and JOIN! Get on their action alert list, send those emails and make those calls! Now IS the time for action.

SisterSong: Party Like It's 1863

I'm in Atlanta at the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Rights membership meeting. How exciting it is spending the weekend with 350 wonderful women of color -- the energy here is palpable. The SisterSong Obama Celebration is scheduled for tonight, but it's actually been going on all day!

Loretta Ross, the national director, opened the day with a stirring presentation, followed by an excellent election update from Dazon Diallo Dixon. These are two of my favorite women. It would be hard not to like their energy and their passion for justice. Dazon told the audience that tonight they would "party like it was 1863." (When the Emancipation Proclamation became law.)

The opening plenary focused on healthcare as a human right. Probably the most poignant presentation was delivered by Imani Walker, from The Rebecca Project, who talked about the challenges women who for a myriad of reasons find themselves "self medicating" -- and in her case pregnant. Giving birth in prison is difficult enough, but going through labor and giving birth while in shackles is inhuman. Walker shared her personal story with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and together they are working to change the laws at both a federal and state level.

I know money is tight for a lot of us right now, but if you have a few extra dollars be sure to send them SisterSong's way!

CA and SD Vote on Choice

Blocking Care for Women

By Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic senator from New York, and Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

LAST month, the Bush administration launched the latest salvo in its eight-year campaign to undermine women's rights and women's health by placing ideology ahead of science: a proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would govern family planning. It would require that any health care entity that receives federal financing — whether it's a physician in private practice, a hospital or a state government — certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable.

Laws that have been on the books for some 30 years already allow doctors to refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further, ensuring that all employees and volunteers for health care entities can refuse to aid in providing any treatment they object to, which could include not only abortion and sterilization but also contraception.

Health and Human Services estimates that the rule, which would affect nearly 600,000 hospitals, clinics and other health care providers, would cost $44.5 million a year to administer. Astonishingly, the department does not even address the real cost to patients who might be refused access to these critical services. Women patients, who look to their health care providers as an unbiased source of medical information, might not even know they were being deprived of advice about their options or denied access to care.

The definition of abortion in the proposed rule is left open to interpretation. An earlier draft included a medically inaccurate definition that included commonly prescribed forms of contraception like birth control pills, IUD's and emergency contraception. That language has been removed, but because the current version includes no definition at all, individual health care providers could decide on their own that birth control is the same as abortion.

The rule would also allow providers to refuse to participate in unspecified "other medical procedures" that contradict their religious beliefs or moral convictions. This, too, could be interpreted as a free pass to deny access to contraception.

Many circumstances unrelated to reproductive health could also fall under the umbrella of "other medical procedures." Could physicians object to helping patients whose sexual orientation they find objectionable? Could a receptionist refuse to book an appointment for an H.I.V. test? What about an emergency room doctor who wishes to deny emergency contraception to a rape victim? Or a pharmacist who prefers not to refill a birth control prescription?

The Bush administration argues that the rule is designed to protect a provider's conscience. But where are the protections for patients?

The 30-day comment period on the proposed rule runs until Sept. 25. Everyone who believes that women should have full access to medical care should make their voices heard. Basic, quality care for millions of women is at stake.

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TAKE ACTION

Those who are anti-choice, anti-family planning see the period of transition between administrations as a window of opportunity. In its final months, they're pressing the Bush administration to do one ridiculous thing after another. We need Planned Parenthood to make sure that common sense wins out over ideology. And Planned Parenthood needs your help, right now. Act now, and share this message with others.

Hillary Clinton Stands Up for Reproductive Rights

Sen. Hillary Clinton takes on President Bush's attempt to limit women's access to birth control at a Planned Parenthood press conference.

Read her post at RH Reality Check, which is cross-posted at Huffington Post.

"The Bush administration is up to its old tricks again, quietly putting ideology before science and women's health. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them "abortion." These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it. We can't let them get away with this underhanded move to undermine women's health and that's why I am sounding the alarm."

TAKE ACTION

Tell Bush's HHS Secretary to protect women's health!

Dear Secretary Leavitt,

I am appalled at the proposal now under consideration at HHS which will endanger family planning services and undermine the health of women across the country. I strongly urge you to refute this outrageous policy that threatens to affect Medicaid and Title X programs that are important to millions of families.

I stand with Hillary Clinton and women and men across America in speaking out against this proposal. We've had enough of putting ideology over science and failed policies harming healthy families.

Signed,

In her email message Sen. Clinton says: "We've worked hard to guarantee women have access to a full range of health and family planning services, and we can't let the right wing undermine those efforts. This issue is far too important not to act, so I hope you'll join me today in speaking out to protect women's health." I hope you do, too!

Does abstinence make the heart grow fonder

Contrary to what the Bush administration would have you believe, abstinence-only education doesn't seem to be working. We've heard this before, and now there is yet another study that seems to confirm it.

The birth rate among teenagers 15 to 19 in the United States rose 3 percent in 2006, according to a report issued Wednesday, the first such increase since 1991. The finding surprised scholars and fueled a debate about whether the Bush administration’s abstinence-only sexual education efforts are working.

The federal government spends $176 million annually on such programs. But a landmark study recently failed to demonstrate that they have any effect on delaying sexual activity among teenagers, and some studies suggest that they may actually increase pregnancy rates.

“Spending tens of million of tax dollars each year on programs that hurt our children is bad medicine and bad public policy,” said Dr. David A. Grimes, vice president of Family Health International, a nonprofit reproductive health organization based in North Carolina.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, said that blaming abstinence-only programs was “stupid.” Mr. Rector said that most young women who became pregnant were highly educated about contraceptives but wanted to have babies.

And I'm sure Mr. Rector has spoken with every one of them, which is why he is making this ridiculous statement! He went on to say:

... that teenage and unmarried birth rates were driven by the same factors: young women with little education who are devoted to mothering but see no great need to be married.

Yeah, right Bob ... geezzz.

Congress Screws Poor Women and Students

Is anyone in Washington, DC paying attention?

College women and poor women are now at risk for unplanned pregnancy because of a screw-up in Congress. A new change in federal law means poor women and students are now paying sharply higher prices for prescription contraceptives.

The New York Times reports:

The increases have meant that some students using popular birth control pills and other products are paying three and four times as much as they did several months ago. The higher prices have also affected about 400 community health centers nationwide used by poor women.

The change is due to a provision in a federal law that ended a practice by which drug manufacturers provided prescription contraception to the health centers at deeply discounted rates. The centers then passed along the savings to students and others.

Some Democratic lawmakers in Washington are pressing for new legislation by year’s end that would reverse the provision, which they say was inadvertently included in a law intended to reduce Medicaid abuse. In the meantime, health care and reproductive rights advocates are warning that some young women are no longer receiving the contraception they did in the past.

Some college clinics have reported sudden drops in the numbers of contraceptives sold; students have reported switching to less expensive contraceptives or considering alternatives like the so-called morning-after pill; and some clinics, including one at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., have stopped stocking some prescription contraceptives, saying they are too expensive.

“The potential is that women will stop taking it, and whether or not you can pay for it, that doesn’t mean that you’ll stop having sex,” said Katie Ryan, a senior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, who said that the monthly cost of her Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, a popular birth control pill, recently jumped to nearly $50 from $12.

I just watched SiCKO yesterday, and reading this today is making me SiCKO again!

Abstinence only advocates love the change, but keep in mind this crowd thinks their parents rode to school on dinosaures!

Contact your members of Congress and urge them to fix this. And while you have them on the phone, if it's a Democrat you are speaking with tell them to get a spine!

Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat from New York who introduced a bill on the matter, said the change would require no taxpayers’ money to subsidize contraception. [NOTE: emphasis mine] The drug manufacturers would pay for any discounts, but would not be required to pay larger Medicaid rebates because of those discounts.

“We’re not promoting promiscuity, but we’re also cognizant that people live,” said Mr. Crowley, who is among the lawmakers who say the change that took discounts away from university clinics was inadvertent. “We’re talking about adults, responsible adults who want to do the responsible thing.”

God forbid taxpayers should help students and poor women prevent unplanned, unwanted, pregnancy.

Verizon Censors Abortion Rights Group

Anyone who needs a living example of why net neutrality is important only need look at what happened to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The New York Times reports:

Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program. [...]

Text messaging is a growing political tool in the United States and a dominant one abroad, and such sign-up programs are used by many political candidates and advocacy groups to send updates to supporters.

But legal experts said private companies like Verizon probably have the legal right to decide which messages to carry. The laws that forbid common carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages. [...]

In turning down the program, Verizon, one of the nation’s two largest wireless carriers, told Naral that it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” Naral provided copies of its communications with Verizon to The New York Times.

So what was the "unsavory" message NARAL wanted to send? An appeal to their activists to contact Congress and urge an end to Bush's global gag rule against birth control for the world’s poorest women. Keep in mind the message was going to people who SIGNED UP TO RECEIVE TEXT MESSAGES.

“No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to send to people who have asked us to send it to them,” Ms. Keenan said. “Regardless of people’s political views, Verizon customers should decide what action to take on their phones. Why does Verizon get to make that choice for them?” [...]

Messages urging political action are generally thought to be at the heart of what the First Amendment protects. But the First Amendment limits government power, not that of private companies like Verizon.

Contact Verizon and urge them to stop censoring advocacy messages. Then contact your members of Congress and urge them to support net neutrality!

Set your watch back 50 years

Today's US Supreme Court decision on late term abortion is alarming. By a ruling of 5-4 the Justices have said that it doesn't matter if a woman's life is in jeopardy, it doesn't matter if her doctor says it's in her best interest to have this procedure, she is prohibited from following her doctor's advice regarding this late term abortion procedure.

I have limited time right now, but will be back to talk about this more later today.

Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal issued a statement this morning, saying, "This ruling shows the true colors of the current Bush-stacked majority of the Supreme Court: it does not care about the health, well-being, and safety of American women. This must serve as a wake-up call to women: we are losing our fundamental rights as Bush continues to stack the courts. Elections matter: this is the consequence of a Republican, ideologically driven president and Congress."

Fertility and the Religious Right

"Should teenage girls be taught to recognize the physical signs that indicate when they are most likely to become pregnant?" Seems like a good idea, but this is about sex, teenage girls, and comprehensive sex education -- so of course it's controversial.

Health educator Toni Weschler, who wrote "Taking Charge of Your Fertility", received hundreds of letters from women who read the book and said they wish someone had shared the information with them sooner. Imagine, empowering women and girls about their sexuality -- run for the hills!

Weschler's response was to publish a teens version of her book titled: "Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen's Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body"

"You can't imagine how challenging it was to do in a way that respected the intelligence of teens," Weschler says. "All I can say is, I will never be a politician."

Reaction to the book tends to fall along the expected political lines, and how the person/group views comprehensive sex education vs. the abstinence-only approach.

Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, takes the line that better-informed teenagers make better decisions: "Time and again," she says, "research has shown that giving information to adolescents about reproduction and sexuality will not lead to promiscuity and will only arm teens with information that they need whenever they decide to become sexually active."

But Janice Crouse, senior fellow at Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, disagrees. "I think it is inappropriate. Instead, I think that we need high ideals for our teenagers, to teach them the value of self-control because those are disciplines that you need for your whole life. Providing this type of information says that teenagers are hostages to their hormones."

In what I think is a surprising response, Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women's Forum -- a fake feminist organization -- says:

"Any time you give young people information, there is the potential for them to misapply that knowledge," Lukas says, "but that is not a reason to warn people away from this book."

I'm sure she will take heat for her comment at the next IWF meeting.

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And speaking of controversy, it seems there is more than a little controversy brewing among religious right activists. It seems the big debate is about whether or not to keep the movement's focus on abortion, marriage and sexual chastity -- or scrap that approach as too narrow.

The founders of the religious right, now in the twilight of their leadership, see even the suggestion of expanding the agenda as a dangerous distraction. In public, and sometimes in personal ways, they are trying to beat back the challenge.

Reminds me of the song "What's the matter with kids" from Bye, Bye Birdie. Can't you just see Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson singing it as you read this!

Pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren got a slap on the wrist for inviting Sen. Barack Obama to speak at an AIDS summit at his church. Obama does, after all, support abortion rights.

And Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, and other conservatives, pressured the National Association of Evangelicals to silence its Washington director, the Rev. Rich Cizik. What had he done that needed to be silenced? Cizik tried to convince evangelicals that global warming is real, and something they should be concerned about.

Dobson's tactic not only failed, it seemed to backfire. The NAE not only stood by Cizik, but it endorsed a critique of U.S. policy toward terror detainees called "An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Protecting Human Rights in an Age of Terror."

This is kind of amazing when you consider these are conservative evangelicals speaking out against the policies of a Republican president when the country is at war. No wonder Bush's approval rating is so low.

If religious right evangelicals keep this up presidential hopefuls like McCain, Giuliani, and Romney are going to have to visit every mega-church in the country just to have a chance of winning the nomination.

Don't count Jerry, Pat or James out completely. They still hold sway with politically active evangelicals. And we all know that once the Republicans select their nominee, that person can pretty much count on evangelical support.