The Geography of Abortion Access -
Forty years ago Tuesday, the Supreme Court ushered in legal abortion for American women when it decided in Roe v. Wade. Today, states—particularly in the South and Midwest—are eroding that right by legislating hundreds of provisions intended to impede access with burdensome obstacles. To understand more fully the complex state of access to abortion services in America, The Daily Beast identified and confirmed the location of the country’s remaining 724 clinics and calculated the distance from every part of the country to its closest clinic. (
more)
posted by Artw
on Jan 24, 2013 -
26 comments
Hobby Lobby, a craft store with 525 U.S. locations,
has announced that it will defy a federal mandate to provide health coverage for all employees that includes emergency contraceptive coverage, and will pay a fine of $1.3 million every day.
[more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Dec 28, 2012 -
389 comments
Dahlia Lithwick:
This week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill that would require women to have an ultrasound before they may have an abortion. Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced. Since a proposed amendment to the bill—a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound—failed on 64-34 vote, the law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law. [more inside]
posted by gerryblog
on Feb 16, 2012 -
331 comments
Julius Fromm, a “quintessential ‘entrepreneurial proletariat’”, and a modest man with minimal education, sought a career alternative to making cigarettes and began taking evening classes in rubber chemistry around 1912. Julius Fromm then hit upon the idea of making condoms. The early condoms from the eighteenth century were generally made of animal intestines, and were used primarily by wealthy men – like Giacomo Casanova, who referred to them as “English riding coats” . . .
The Great Rubber Robbery: How Julius Fromm’s Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis.
via 3 quarks daily
posted by Rumple
on Nov 9, 2011 -
2 comments
Folks, the condom broke Friday night and I searched all weekend for someone who could prescribe me EC. It is now Monday and I have to report that I have been unable to find anyone who will write me a fucking prescription for EC. None of the hospitals in the surrounding counties would write it for me. I stopped my search at about 100 miles from my home because my telephone book wouldn't take me out any further than that.
I have been asked about my sexual practices. Whether I'm 'monogamous' or 'in a relationship' if I'm married, if I have kids, how many kids I have, if I was raped or 'traumatized' but there wasn’t' ONE question about my health. Not one. The few places that said that they had a doctor who would occasionally write prescriptions for EC told me that I had to ask for that doctor specifically and then they proceeded to tell me that I would be 'interviewed' to see if I meet that doctors 'criteria' and then they proceeded to ask me all the above questions before telling me that I should 'try anyway' and I 'might be able to talk him into it'.
posted by orthogonality
on Sep 22, 2006 -
190 comments
The rhythm method kills more embryos than condoms. Some proponents of the pro-life movement argue against morning after pills, IUDs, and contraceptive pills on grounds of a concern for causing embryonic death. What has gone unnoticed, however, is that the pro-life line of argumentation can be extended to the rhythm method of contraception as well. Given certain plausible empirical assumptions, the rhythm method may well be responsible for a much higher number of embryonic deaths than some other contraceptive techniques.
posted by caddis
on Jul 18, 2006 -
88 comments
"The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an anti-child mind-set," she told me. "So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome.
We
oppose all forms of contraception." Don't even mention the mind-set behind
a vaccine for HPV.
posted by missbossy
on May 9, 2006 -
1194 comments
What the co-inventor of the Pill didn't know about menstruation can endanger women's health: "The passion and urgency that animated the birth-control debates of the sixties are now a memory. John Rock still matters, though, for the simple reason that in the course of reconciling his church and his work he made an error. It was not a deliberate error. It became manifest only after his death, and through scientific advances he could not have anticipated. But because that mistake shaped the way he thought about the Pill--about what it was, and how it worked, and most of all what it meant--and because John Rock was one of those responsible for the way the Pill came into the world, his error has colored the way people have thought about contraception ever since."
posted by heatherann
on Sep 20, 2005 -
54 comments
When I was Garbage by Allison Crews at age 17, teen mother advocate and activist.
"I had become garbage, worthy only to sit in my isolated desk and cry to myself and throw up in a dirty bathroom stall. I was a pregnant teenage girl.
" Allison died recently aged 22. She was active in
girl-mom.com, an online and in life support and education network for young mothers.
"To radically accept and defend a woman's right to choose, we must acknowledge the multiple ways that women come to make reproductive choices. By marginalizing teenage mothers, even within the feminist community, we are failing to recognize the realities of countless women and their children." There's a
report of her funeral and a
website has been set up to collect memories for Allison's 7 year old son. {Allison's
LJ}
All of this comes via
BitchPhD - her entry is also worth reading.
(previous semi-related MeFi)
posted by peacay
on Jun 21, 2005 -
50 comments
A new Texas bill seeks to give pharmacists the right to object to dispensing emergency contraceptives. The bill was spurred by over a year's worth of debate about
an incident in Denton where a rape victim was denied a morning-after pill by a pharmacist at Eckerd's. Supporters say that pharmacists should be able to opt out of dispensing drugs that are used for abortions, but the opposition points out that the bill's definition of emergency contraceptives can be construed to include all birth control. Should pharmacists be allowed to morally object, or is this an anti-birth-control boondoggle?
posted by rush
on Apr 12, 2005 -
118 comments
Congress plans to reintroduce RU-486 suspension. After
only three deaths in an estimated 360,000 uses, the GOP-led Congress plans to reintroduce a bill to "temporarily suspend" sales of RU-486 so it can be more thoroughly investigated. With a
maternal death rate in the US of 12 per 100,000, RU-486 is about 13-14 times safer than a full term pregancy. Of course, the solution is simple: suspend all pregnancies for a year so we can more fully evaluate their safety.
posted by u.n. owen
on Nov 18, 2004 -
119 comments
Conscience Clauses and Health Care --
"Yes, we need to respect individual freedom of religion. But at what point does it cross the line of not providing essential medical care? At what point is it malpractice?" she asked. "If someone's beliefs interfere with practicing their profession, perhaps they should do something else." The Protection of Conscience Project feels differently:
Protection of Conscience Laws are needed because powerful interests are inclined to force health care workers and others to participate, directly or indirectly, in morally controversial procedures, while
NARAL says: ... Many of these clauses go far beyond respecting individuals' beliefs to the point of harming women by not providing them with full information or access to medical treatment. Medicine, not ideology, should determine medical decisions.
posted by amberglow
on Sep 17, 2004 -
69 comments
34 Million Friends was founded by
Lois Abraham and Jane Roberts to gather private contributions for the
United Nations Population Fund, and had gathered $1,957,613.31 in gifts and pledges as of July 4. For the third year in a row, the Bush administration is
withholding $34 million in aid because of
accusations that UNFPA supports China's policy of coercive abortions, despite
evidence to the contrary. UNFPA estimates the money could have helped prevent as many as 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, and over 77,000 infant deaths.
posted by homunculus
on Jul 18, 2004 -
16 comments
Doctors put spotlight on Plan B pill The American Medical Association voiced its support for over-the-counter sales of morning-after birth control, saying the Food and Drug Administration was wrong to reject such sales and urging doctors to write advance prescriptions.
posted by Postroad
on Jun 17, 2004 -
9 comments
The Pill changes women's taste in men. Women on the pill prefer masculine men for marriage and sensitive guys for flings. Women not on the pill prefer the opposite, according to a recent British study. Researchers don't know why but
"Where a woman chooses her partner while she is on the pill, and then comes off it to have a child, she may find she is married to the wrong man."
posted by stbalbach
on Jan 22, 2003 -
47 comments
An undeclared war on latex is apparently being waged by the Bush administration, which is taking all sorts of steps to avoid condoning their use. This is a patently ridiculous stance to take in the face of a global AIDS epidemic, but this interesting essay also raised my eyebrows:
According to figures in a report on condoms by Population Action International, the average man in Botswana gets less than one condom per year from international donors.
Uhhh...doesn't the idea of condoms as a staple of international relief seem a bit strange? Haven't governments around the world devoted any resources to their own public health? Surely donor-nations can't keep everyon else's penises safely sheathed forever.
posted by subpixel
on Jan 10, 2003 -
12 comments
The male contraceptive pill is 100% effective and will be available in 2005. Will you take it? Will men stop using condoms and STDs increase as a result? Can men be trusted to take it every day?
posted by norm29
on Nov 13, 2002 -
66 comments
Thrown off the scent. A fascinating story about The Pill and its effect on women's mate choice, and the effect of these choices on evolution. T-shirts belonging to unknown men were given to women to smell. All they had to do was say which smelt best. Women on the pill chose exactly the opposite t-shirts to those that didn't - find me free will, personal taste and the nature / culture divide in that if you can... [found via
Plastic - and if you want to talk about
that, then
click here]
posted by barbelith
on Feb 27, 2001 -
27 comments
Birth Control Pills for Men I'm not sure who the target market for this product is, though I'd think that the only women who would trust that a man is truly "on the pill" would be ones who watched him take it every day, so married/cohabitating men only, I suppose. Probably just as well.
posted by Dreama
on Jul 27, 2000 -
10 comments
