Louisiana’s State House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice approved a near-total ban on abortion last Wednesday and the bill, already approved by the Senate, is moving to the House floor for debate. The House Committee approved the ban after attaching an amendment to permit abortion only in order to save the woman’s life […]
In a sometimes contentious hearing, a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Government Reform committee last week heard testimony and debated whether mifepristone (RU 486) should be removed from the market. Democrats who attended the meeting unanimously advocated letting science and not ideology or politics determine the future use of the medical abortion drug […]
Breast cancer recently took the life of Colombian-American singer-songwriter and breast cancer awareness advocate Soraya. Only 37 years of age, her death marked the end of a six-year struggle with the disease, one that also took the life of her mother, grandmother, and maternal aunt. Soraya challenged music industry conventions in her quest to heighten […]
HIV/AIDS activists and advocacy groups held a press conference yesterday to draw attention to the feminization of the global epidemic prior to a review of global AIDS policy by the United Nations at the end of the month. Speakers at Tuesday’s press conference emphasized “the global face of AIDS Ð which is increasingly women and […]
An advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted unanimously last week to recommend that a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) be approved by the FDA. Two strains of HPV cause approximately 90 percent of cervical cancer cases. The panel was voting on the brand-name vaccine Gardasil, produced by Merck and Co. Another […]
The state of California is one step closer to achieving equity in education for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, after a bill introduced to the state legislature by openly gay state Senator Sheila Kuehl was passed by the Senate. Current anti-discrimination laws include protections for students based on race, sex, disability, and religion. […]
The health of children is “inextricably linked” to the health and education of their mothers, according to Save the Children’s recently released annual State of the World’s Mothers report. “In countries where mothers fare well, children fare well; in countries where mothers do poorly, children do poorly.” said Charles McCormack, CEO of Save the Children. […]
An employee of the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City, Iowa was assaulted by a man last week who then attempted to break into the reproductive health clinic. The man, William Dennis Owens-Holst, grabbed the employee by the neck and arm, and threw her against a car before breaking a window and attempting to enter […]
At a recent meeting with newspaper editors, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who has previously been seen as a modernizer, asked that Saudi papers reverse their recent trend of publishing pictures of women. According to Reuters, newspapers have been including photographs of women, though all women shown were wearing headscarves with their faces visible. The […]
A press conference was held on Tuesday to encourage Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to schedule a long-delayed vote on embryonic stem cell research. According to The Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, the press conference was scheduled after poll results were released proving that most Americans support such research. Earlier this month, prominent […]
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline on Tuesday appealed a US District Court decision against requiring health care providers to report on the consensual sexual behavior of minors. Kline had suggested that under state law, anyone under 16 (the age of consent) who sought contraception, STI-testing, or any other form of reproductive health service was a […]
In a victory for the parental rights of gay couples, the Supreme Court allowed a non-biological mother the right to seek custody of a child she raised with a lesbian partner. The Court declined to hear the case, without comment, leaving intact the ruling of the lower court. This decision does not end the custody […]
A recent study of advanced practice clinician (APC) training programs, which train nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse-midwives, found that nearly half of such programs fail to offer training in abortion procedures, options counseling, or post-abortion care. Such haphazard training of reproductive health professionals is believed to contribute to the 87 percent decline in […]
Amidst fears of an increase in sex trafficking surrounding the World Cup, German authorities led a crackdown on illegal prostitution last week. According to the Associated Press (AP), four German states arrested a total of 100 people during raids. The arrests are part of the German police’s response to widespread concerns by women’s rights and […]
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Brett Kavanaugh, moving his nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to the Senate floor, where there is expected to be debate about his qualifications and his role in the Bush Administration. Kavanaugh is best known for his work with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr during the Clinton presidency. […]
Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) have raised concerns that pooled insurance coverage, part of a bill currently before the Senate, would override state insurance requirements, including required contraceptive coverage. The proposed bill (S. 1955) would allow small businesses to pool together across state lines to offer health insurance plans, which would […]
Reversing its complete ban on abortion under any circumstances, Colombia will now grant access to abortion when a pregnancy results from incest or rape or when the woman’s life is endangered. According to the Associated Press (AP), Chile and El Salvador remain the only Latin American countries with a total ban on abortion. After Colombia’s […]
Lawrence Lader, a pioneer in the fight for abortion rights who in 1966 wrote the groundbreaking book on legalizing abortion, died on Sunday at the age of 86 of colon cancer. A co-founder of NARAL Pro-Choice America (at the time called the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) and its founding chair, Lader […]
Billy Payne, new chair of Augusta National Golf Club, has stated that he will uphold the all-male club’s practice of denying membership to women. According to the New York Times , Payne has declared that “we have no specific timetable to address that issue.” He has declined a request to meet with Martha Burk, the […]
Due to Congressional influence, this week’s National Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention Conference will now exclude two of the original panelists, while including two advocates of abstinence-only sex education programs. The conference, sponsored in part by the Centers for Disease Control, included a symposium to examine whether abstinence-only sex education undermined other forms of STD-reduction. Representative […]
