Healthcare Prof:
The following summarizes selected women’s well being related blog entries.
~ “Has the Recession Affected Abortion?” Rob Stein, Washington Post‘s “The Checkup”: Stein writes that a new analysis by the Guttmacher Institute has found that the “percentage of females getting abortions who have incomes below the federal poverty line” has increased by almost 60%. According to Stein, “There have been a lot of anecdotal reports about the recession prompting more ladies to get abortions,” as well as a Guttmacher study last year found that the recession was causing females to delay childbearing or limit the number of children they have. However, “it remains unclear” whether the recession is contributing to declines within the abortion rate within the U.S., Stein says. He adds that the new report “for the very first time … collected information about how girls paid for” abortions. The report found that about one-third of ladies obtaining abortions were uninsured, about one-third had Medicaid coverage and about one-third had private insurance. “Nevertheless, 57% of the girls paid for the procedure out-of-pocket,” Stein concludes (Stein, “The Checkup,” Washington Post, 5/5).
~ “No Cause for Complacency on Maternal Wellness,” Elizabeth Maguire, RH Reality Check: Maguire writes that new estimates of maternal mortality published recently in the journal Lancet “suggest encouraging — and long overdue — progress on what for too many years has seemed an intractable problem.” She continues that although the “global wellness community is rightfully celebrating this news,” women’s wellness advocates “also correctly caution against complacency … since deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth are notoriously among the most poorly captured well being data.” According to Maguire, the international community has a “too-common failure to muster political will on behalf of poor ladies,” which is “especially true when it comes to unsafe abortion , a critical contributor to maternal deaths and injuries that authors of the new Lancet article do not even mention.” She notes, “Unsafe abortion is estimated to account for about 13% of global maternal mortality.” Maguire writes that “unsafe abortion is one of [the] easiest causes of maternal mortality and morbidity to address, through improved access to contraception, treatment for abortion complications and safe abortion.” She adds, “As we strive together to understand and digest the implications of these encouraging new maternal mortality estimates, and to identify and replicate successful interventions, let us also have the political courage to commit resources towards the most controversial public health issues” (Maguire, RH Reality Check, 5/4).
~ “The Catholic Contraceptive Pill,” Jon O’Brien, Huffington Post blogs: “It would be a lasting and wholly positive legacy” if Pope Benedict XVI lifted the Catholic church’s ban on contraception to “allow Catholics to plan their families,” O’Brien, president of Catholics for Selection, writes. Although three separate Vatican commissions in the 1960s recommended that the church rescind its ban on contraception, Pope Paul VI in 1965 “decided to ignore the findings of those panels and condemned Catholic girls to a variety of unreliable methods if they were forced to follow the Vatican’s dictates,” O’Brien continues. He writes that is was a “significant shock” to Catholics when Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, “proclaiming the teaching on contraception unchanged and unchangeable.” He writes, “It makes no sense to continue the Vatican’s wrong-headed approach to family planning,” adding that 98% of sexually active Catholic females above the age of 18 have used some form of contraception banned by the Vatican. “Even without the twin scourges of maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS, there are billions of good reasons to allow females to plan their families and to allow them to decide when and whether to have children: namely the 3.five billion females inside the world, of whom about 600 million are Catholic” (O’Brien, Huffington Post blogs, 5/5).
~ “Abortion Rate Rises Among Poor Girls,” Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon‘s “Broadsheet”: A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute found that the 2008 abortion rate among low-income females was more than double that of all ladies, which “should come as no real surprise” due to the fact the “proportion of women living in poverty has increased by 25% since 2000,” Clark-Flory writes. “We already knew that the recession has put many women’s pregnancy plans on hold at the same time that it has made it harder for girls to cover the cost of birth manage,” she continues. “Interestingly enough, the study found that the majority of abortion patients had some form of health insurance, and yet 57% paid for the procedure out of pocket,” including two-thirds of females with private wellness insurance, Clark-Flory says. The study also noted that “many with the poorest women qualify for Medicaid, but federal funds are restricted to paying for abortion services only in case of rape, incest and life endangerment, and only a minority of states [use] their own funds to cover abortions for low-income girls.” In these states, 92% of Medicaid beneficiaries “made use of this payment method,” according to the study. Clark-Flory writes, “It will be interesting to see how the health care bill (PL 111-148), which prohibits the use of federal funds for elective abortions, will impact these figures,” adding, “The most optimistic prediction I can offer is that broader well being care coverage will mean better access to birth control” (Clark-Flory, “Broadsheet,” Salon, 5/5).
~ “Will Ab-Only Retire With Obey?” Wendy Norris, RH Reality Check: Washington, D.C., is “swirling … with speak with the impending retirement” of House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), Norris writes. Obey’s retirement, which he announced Wednesday, “could have major implications for reproductive well being champions,” as he “holds sway over billions of dollars in annual federal well being and human services funding,” she continues. According to Norris, Obey’s “legacy of marshalling support for comprehensive reproductive care, well being research and HIV/AIDS support services has been marred by funding ineffective abstinence-only-until-marriage programs girded by controversial and medically inaccurate religious views.” Reproductive rights advocates “will still have [their] work cut out for them” since some possible replacements — including Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Alan Mollohan (D-West Va.) — are “considered stalwart anti-choice Democrats who caucused with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to derail the wellness insurance reform bill [PL 111-148] over abortion coverage,” Norris writes. She adds, “Curiously absent from the leadership speculation is senior ranking member Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), who scores a 100% voting record by NARAL Pro-Choice America” (Norris, RH Reality Check, 5/5).
~ “Abortion War Heats Up inside the States: Tennessee Becomes Second State To Strip Abortion From Exchanges,” Igor Volsky, Think Progress‘ “Wonk Room”: “[S]tates like Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah have used this political moment” after the approval of the federal health reform law (PL 111-148) “as an opportunity to foist pet restrictions on abortion, even as millions of poor girls are more in need of the procedure than ever just before,” Volsky writes. On Wednesday, Tennessee became the second state “to officially prohibit private insurers from delivering abortion coverage, even if it’s paid for out of private funds,” he says, noting that Americans United for Life released a model bill on the issue after the passage with the federal reform law. The bill excludes exceptions for cases of rape, incest or threat towards the mother’s well being, Volsky says, adding that the legislation “goes much further” than merely ensuring “that taxpayer dollars would not be used for abortion coverage in the state well being insurance exchange.” Volsky also criticizes a “reactionary” new law (HB 2656) in Oklahoma that bars ladies who give birth to infants with disabilities from suing physicians for withholding information about birth defects during the pregnancy. Volsky writes, “The text of the bill is so incredibly broad and poorly worded, it gives doctors the powers to ‘withhold information, mislead or even blatantly lie to a pregnant woman,’ if the doctor believes it would lead her to exercise her legally protected right and undergo an abortion.” He adds that Oklahoma girls essentially “no longer have the right … to know what’s happening to their bodies or their offspring, nor do they deserve to be fully informed of their medical conditions” (Volsky, “Wonk Room,” Think Progress, 5/6).
~ “A Mother’s Day Wish for a Non-Toxic World,” Elizabeth Arndorfer, RH Reality Check: Arndorfer discusses the onset of early puberty in her seven-year-old daughter, noting that of its potential causes — obesity, premature birth and low birthweight, psychosocial stressors and formula feeding — she was most intrigued by the possible role of “exposure to toxic chemicals in our environment and everyday products.” Arndorfer continues, “When I looked into toxic chemical exposure more deeply, I was deeply disturbed … to learn that most of the 80,000 chemicals on the market today haven’t been tested for safety.” She adds, “Of the chemicals that have been studied, numerous have been linked to reproductive wellness problems, including early puberty, and also infertility, cancer and low sperm counts.” She writes that the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 would “reform and update national chemical policy,” including requirements that chemical manufacturers release more wellness information. The legislation is “not perfect, but it’s an important start,” Arndorfer says. She continues, “I am hopeful that it will lead to meaningful reform on toxic chemicals,” adding, “I want my government to keep up on the scientific research and take dangerous chemicals off the market — rather than leaving it up to me to avoid them” (Arndorfer, RH Reality Check, 5/6).
~ “How the Pill Liberated My Mother … and Me,” Delia Lloyd, Politics Daily‘s “Woman Up”: Lloyd recalls learning of her mother’s decision to leave the Catholic Church and begin using the birth control pill within the late 1960s. Lloyd writes that her mother “explained [that] after getting four children in eight years, she didn’t want to go on feeling obliged to have more kids.” According to Lloyd, her mother’s candor was “a testament to just how important the pill — which 50 years ago this month was approved by the FDA — was to her as a symbol of so many different things: liberation from prevailing social norms, liberation from the strictures of her religion, liberation from the sexual politics of her marriage.” She writes, “As with all forms of liberation, I suspect there was some ambivalence as well.” Lloyd continues, “Perhaps that’s why she stored her pills in a nearly abandoned refrigerator in our basement,” potentially as “a way to avoid an ongoing source of tension with my father.” Lloyd says her mother’s “early and vocal embrace of birth control had a lot to do with” the fact that Lloyd is “instinctively pro-choice and pro-contraception,” despite being raised Catholic (Lloyd, “Woman Up,” Politics Daily, 5/6).
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