Cork Women's Right to Choose Group

Cork Women's Right to Choose is now on Twitter!

2011-10-06T11:47:00.000+01:00

Although we've been quiet here on the blog, Cork Women's Right to Choose is still going strong! We regularly update our Facebook page with news, upcoming events and information for pro-choice activists. We're also now on Twitter so be sure to follow us to get the most up-to-date info about our activities.

Our Letter to the Candidates

2011-02-25T09:42:00.001Z

We sent this to candidates asking for them to pledge their support to women's right to choose. We will be collecting their responses and posting them shortly.

Dear Candidate,

This election is an important moment for candidates to show their commitment to women's health, well-being and human rights.

We call on candidates to pledge to:

Respect women’s right to choose abortion

Fulfil their obligations to protect women’s health and well being

Legislate in line with the December 2010 judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in The ABC cases. (As a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights it is our responsibility to do so.)

Act quickly to ensure that no Irish woman has to go to court again to vindicate her right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.

Prioritise women's interests and resist threats from the well financed and politically connected rump of the anti-choice movement

Recognise that the majority of the Irish people have never voted to exclude abortion.

Recognise that anti-choice groups' claims that past referendums demonstrate the position of the majority of the Irish people are erroneous because:

In 1983, only 53.67 per cent of the electorate went to the polls. 66.9 per cent of these voted for the constitutional prohibition on abortion, but this means that the eighth amendment was put in place by only 35.9 per cent of the electorate.

In 1992, when the three referendums were held on the same day as a general election, the people voted to keep the threat to a woman’s life from suicide as a ground for abortion in Ireland. They also voted to protect women’s right to choose to travel to have an abortion and for access to information on abortion.

In 2002, just over two in five of those eligible to vote went to the polls. The views of the majority of the electorate were not registered.

National and international Courts have recognised the importance of women's right to choose. Now it's your turn.

Sincerely,

Cork Women's Right to Choose Group
Email: cork.womens.right.to.choose@gmail.com

Cork Women's Right to Choose Welcomes European Court Decision on Abortion

2010-12-16T15:21:00.001Z

PRESS RELEASE
16th December 2010

Cork Women's Right to Choose Group Welcomes Momentous European Court of Human Rights Decision on Abortion

Cork Women's Right to Choose Group (CWRCG) pays tribute to the courage of the three women, known only as A, B and C, who brought their cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and welcomes today’s ruling on Ireland’s failure to implement the Constitutional right to abortion in cases where a woman's life is at risk.

The 17-judge Grand Chamber ruled this morning by oral hearing that the human rights of one of the three women who took the case challenging Ireland's restrictive abortion laws had been violated because she had no “effective or accessible procedure” to access a lawful abortion in Ireland. The woman – known as Applicant 'C' – had been in remission from a rare form of cancer, and was potentially at risk of a relapse as a result of the pregnancy. Because the lack of clarity in existing medical guidelines puts doctors at risk of possible prosecution, she was unable to find a doctor willing to tell her whether her life would be at risk if she continued with the pregnancy. According to the Court, Ireland's failure to legislate for the ruling in the 1992 X Case, which provides for the right to abortion in the case of a risk to the life of the mother, constituted a breach of C's right to respect for her private life (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights). As a signatory to the Convention, the Irish Government is obliged to take measures to implement the decisions made by the Court.

CWRCG spokeswoman Dr Sandra McAvoy said, "Pro-choice organizations have been calling for legislation on access to safe and legal abortion in Ireland ever since the ruling in the 1992 X case that abortion was legal in certain circumstances. Today’s ECHR ruling is a step forward in that it should force the government to do something it has resisted for 18 years: introduce legislation and provide guidelines for medical professionals.”

In relation to the other two women involved in the case (A & B), a majority of judges ruled that there had been no human rights violations. Although the Court commented on the lack of sufficient medical guidelines in relation to abortion, noting that the Irish courts were not appropriate fora for deciding whether a woman qualified for an abortion, they made no other recommendations to the Irish government for the implementation of further legislation. The judges determined that it was not the role of the European Court to rule more substantially on the right to abortion in Ireland, despite a consensus existing among the majority of Council of Europe member states allowing broader access to abortion than under Irish law.

Spokeswoman Dr. Sandra McAvoy continued, "We recognise the limitations of the Court, but are disappointed that it has not been able to clarify women’s rights in cases where states make a distinction between threats to life and those to health during pregnancy. We welcome the arguments set out in the dissenting position taken by six of the judges who pointed to the strong consensus among European countries for abortion to be permitted on broader grounds. Some 40 Council of Europe member states permit abortion to protect a woman’s health and well-being, and that failure to take account of this might mark a ‘dangerous new departure in the Court’s case law.’ We hope that, in considering legislation, Irish legislators will not close their eyes and minds to the idea that, in the twenty-first century, Irish women should have the same rights to bodily integrity, to health, and to well-being as their European sisters.”

The three women who took the case against Ireland – all of whom had been forced to go abroad to terminate their pregnancies – lodged their complaint saying that the current law in Ireland jeopardised their health and well-being. Their argument, heard in the Grand Chamber on 9th December 2009, was that Ireland's restrictive ban on abortion breached their human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. The identities of the three women, known as A, B & C, has remained confidential, although the most intimate details of their private lives were discussed publicly during the hearing.

Abortion is illegal in Ireland under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. In addition, a 1983 amendment to the Irish Constitution provides an equal right to life for both the "unborn" and the pregnant woman. As a result of the X Case ruling in 1992, abortion may be performed in Ireland where a continuation of pregnancy poses a '"real and substantial" risk to the life (as distinct from the health) of the pregnant woman, which includes suicide. In reality this has neither been legislated for nor tested. The lack of legal clarity means that doctors often do not perform abortions in Ireland even in order to save a woman's life.

McAvoy notes, "The unfortunate women who are pregnant while severely ill, or as a result of sexual violence, or in cases of lethal fetal abnormalities, are forced to travel abroad if they can afford it and are able. Women who cannot travel for any variety of reasons experience extreme and possibly even life-threatening physical, financial and emotional hardship being forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy."

Since the X Case judgment, the Irish people have consistently shown increased support for access to abortion in Ireland. The most recent Abortion Referendum, which threatened to roll back the X Case judgment, was voted down by the majority of the Irish population in 2002. In 2007, an Irish Times Behaviour and Attitudes Poll found that 54% of women believe the Government should act to permit abortion. Despite this growing support, the Government continues to stall, forcing women to publicly air their private lives in the courts to gain access to services that should be safely and legally available in Ireland.

Dr. McAvoy added, "Cork Women's Right to Choose Group calls on the public and elected representatives to support this landmark ruling. We also call on the Government to swiftly implement the decision, and legislate to provide access to safe and legal abortion in Ireland. This does not mean introducing something on the lines of another 2002 Referendum designed to roll back women's rights, but legislation that protects women's human rights – including those to life and health and well-being. We need to finally make a decision that we will not tolerate the continued violation of women's health and human rights in Ireland."

ENDS.

Medical Independent: IFPA calls for tougher stance on rogue crisis pregnancy agencies

2010-09-30T16:16:00.001+01:00

September 30, 2010
Dawn O'Shea

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) is calling on the Government to introduce statutory regulations for all pregnancy advice services which set out minimum codes of practice and standards.

According to the IFPA’s recently released 2009 Annual Report: “Rogue crisis pregnancy agencies continue to operate unchecked in Ireland, causing considerable distress to women who unwittingly attend their services”.

Last year, 18 women attended the IFPA for counselling after a negative experience at the hands of “rogue agencies” and the Association says it is certain that these figures “represent just the tip of the iceberg”.

Women attending the IFPA described being “harassed, bullied and being given blatantly false information” by these agencies.
The IFPA also voiced its concern surrounding the difficulty experienced by women with travel restrictions in accessing safe and legal abortion services abroad.

Women, such as those seeking asylum or migrant workers, seeking a termination abroad must apply for a visa from the country to which they will be travelling as well as a re-entry visa for Ireland.

According to the IFPA, the process of applying for these travel documents is “complex, expensive and can take several weeks”.
Combined with the financial cost of accessing a termination abroad, such situations may force women to parent against their will or to resort to illegal methods to terminate their pregnancies in Ireland, the Association said.

SOURCE

Inter Press Service: Activists File Writ of Habeas Corpus – for Legal Abortion

2010-09-30T14:08:00.002+01:00

Date: September 28, 2010
Author: Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 28 (IPS) - Heartened by the passage of a same-sex marriage law in Argentina, women's organisations in this South American country stepped up their demands for the legalisation of abortion, on the Day for the Decriminalisation of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Some 1,000 members of the Juana Azurduy Women's Collective, better known as Las Juanas, filed a "collective and preventive" writ of habeas corpus at different courtrooms around the country, demanding that the criminalisation of abortion be declared unconstitutional.

They also asked the courts to press the legislature to bring the law that penalises abortion into line with international norms that recognise a woman's right to make decisions about her body.

"We chose the habeas corpus route because it protects people's freedom, and we are thus asking the courts, in a preventive manner, to protect us if we become pregnant and want to interrupt the pregnancy," Las Juanas activist Gabriela Sosa told IPS.

Sosa, who is head of the organisation in the eastern province of Santa Fe and is one of the women who signed the writ of habeas corpus, said the present political and social climate in the country lends itself to making progress towards a law that would decriminalise abortion.

"Not long ago we could not imagine that Argentina would have a same-sex marriage law, and this year it was achieved because there is social concern and interest in debating these issues, and the politicians are picking up on and reflecting that," she said.

But she admitted that the 2011 elections are an obstacle, because "no candidate is going to want to pick up the hot potato of abortion" in a campaign year.

In Argentina, abortion is a crime punishable by prison, except in cases where the pregnancy is the result of rape, the expectant mother's life is in danger or she is mentally ill or disabled.

But every year some 460,000 to 600,000 women resort to abortion in this country of 40 million people, according to the report "Estimate of the Extent of the Practice of Induced Abortion in Argentina", prepared by experts from the University of Buenos Aires and the Centre for Population Studies.

In Latin America, abortion is only legal in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico City. With the exception of Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua, where abortion is illegal under any circumstances, in the rest of the countries in the region "therapeutic" abortion is legal in certain cases, such as rape, incest, fetal malformation or risk to the mother's life.

Nevertheless, more than four million illegal abortions a year are practiced in the region, according to different sources, and 13 percent of maternal deaths are caused by abortion-related complications.

In Argentina, unsafe abortions are the main cause of maternal mortality, the Juana Azurduy Women's Collective reports.

Against that backdrop, Las Juanas presented their legal action on Tuesday Sept. 28, observed as the Day for the Decriminalisation of Abortion by the women's movement in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1990.

The London-based Amnesty International joined its voice to the campaign. The deputy director of the rights watchdog's Americas Programme, Guadalupe Marengo, called for the repeal of all laws that penalise or provide for the imprisonment of women or girls who undergo an abortion under any circumstances.

Amnesty said the restrictions on safe, legal abortion put the human rights of women in the region in "grave danger."

For years, women's groups in Argentina have been campaigning for the decriminalisation of abortion, but have continually run up against the fierce resistance of the powerful Catholic Church and other conservative sectors of society.

However, this year the situation looks more favourable. Since March, the lower house of Congress has been studying a draft law that would decriminalise abortion, which has the backing of around 50 lawmakers from different parties.

The bill, which may be debated in October, was introduced by Cecilia Merchán, a legislator with the left-wing movement Libres del Sur, and would legalise first-trimester abortion on demand, similar to the law in effect in the Federal District of Mexico City.

None of the nearly 20 earlier bills on abortion introduced in the Argentine legislature over the years progressed. But the current draft law has already made it through several committees and is on its way to a full session debate in the lower house.

Merchán told IPS that the bill she sponsored is in response to the large number of abortions practiced in this country, and especially to the fact that more than 70,000 -- mainly low-income -- women are hospitalised annually for complications from unsafe abortions.

"Last year, 120 of the women admitted to public hospitals with abortion-related complications died: in other words, every other day, a woman dies in Argentina due to this cause," she said.

The lawmaker said "the present climate is favourable" to moving forward on the issue because "society has raised the need for Congress to address a question that has severe consequences for the lives of so many women.

"Just like in the case of the debate on same-sex marriage, society as a whole, even those who are opposed, don't want to keep hiding a reality that involves so many people," she said.

"For us, this is not a new issue, but we see that society's demands are now forcing legislators to discuss it," she added. There have also been declarations on the issue by sectors that in the past have been reluctant to take a public stance, like public universities. The deans of the University of Buenos Aires, for instance, backed the decriminalisation of abortion by 23 votes against one, in August.

In addition, there have been statements in favour by members of the Supreme Court, like magistrate Carmen Argibay, who said this month that the time to debate changes in the country's abortion law "is now."

However, while the legislators are preparing their offensive in the lower house, another bill has been presented in the Senate, which would merely expand the circumstances under which therapeutic abortion is legal.

The idea underlying the initiative by several women senators is that legal abortion would also be made available to women facing risks to their health, a concept that would be broadly defined as physical and mental health.

The women's organisations do not have the support of President Cristina Fernández, who has spoken out against the legalisation of abortion. But Merchán is confident that the president's position will not impose itself in the legislative debate.
(END/2010)

SOURCE

Irish Medical Times: Research needed on illegal abortion in Ireland

2010-09-29T17:35:00.001+01:00

September 29, 2010

Dear Editor,

I’d like to echo Dr Ruairi Hanley’s call for a referendum on the introduction of abortion facilities in Ireland, broadly similar to those in the UK (‘Addressing the great taboo’, IMT, September 10).

This would make a big difference to the rising problem of illegal abortion in Ireland. It would also make a huge difference to Irish obstetricians who have to cope with the extraordinary difficulty of not being able to provide termination on clinical and social grounds here in our own hospitals.

I hope that the medical community will continue to provide a strong voice to advocate for a modernisation of our reproductive laws in Ireland.

I also feel that research into the growing problem of illegal abortion would be a useful tool in assessing this need for legal change from a clinical point of view, because until now illegal abortion in Ireland has not been well documented and it remains a secret and covered-up problem with severe clinical consequences.

The maternity and emergency departments should be encouraged and provided with adequate funding to explore this cause of maternal morbidity and mortality as a matter of urgency.

Dr Juliet Bressan,
Amiens St,
Dublin 1

SOURCE

Huffington Post: New Global Maternal Mortality Data Offers Hope

2010-09-28T16:21:00.001+01:00

Anika Rahman
President, Americans for UNFPA

Posted: September 15, 2010 10:04 AM

Today, along with advocates and women around the world, I feel a moment of triumph at the news that maternal death has declined by one-third globally.

According to a new report, Trends in Maternal Mortality released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank, "the number of women dying due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth has decreased by 34% from an estimated 546,000 in 1990 to 358,000 in 2008."

For the last few years, I've relied on the staggering statistic that every minute a women dies in pregnancy and childbirth to draw attention to the dire struggle endured by women around the globe. The number has always stopped people dead in their tracks. For the first time in a long time, I can look down at my watch when the minute hand turns and think of something other than a woman needlessly losing her life.

While this progress is notable, the reality is that the current annual rate of decline in maternal death is less than half of what is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goal - a gold standard for our collective global development objectives - target of 75% reduction in maternal death by 2015. Still, the new data shows that progress and maternal health is achievable, and it fuels my desire to increase U.S. efforts and involvement to improve maternal health globally.

In Africa and South Asia, complications during pregnancy and childbirth are one of the leading causes of death for women of childbearing age. I wonder how many people are aware of the frequency and pervasiveness of maternal mortality throughout the world.

So many articles come across my desk in a given week, but when I saw an article in the Hindustan Times I was particularly moved by the headline which read, "She gave birth, died. Delhi walked by." This article reveals the tragic story of a woman who gave birth on the side of a busy road in Delhi, India. The unnamed, unaided woman died shortly after giving birth because of lack of medical care. The article narrates how thousands of people on foot, on bicycles and in cars must have passed this woman as she gave birth. Sadly, no one noticed because this is the norm in regions throughout the world where reproductive healthcare is a privilege and not a right. Just four days later the new mother died on the side of the busy road, in the same location where she gave life.

The void that is created when women die during or after childbirth is inescapable. Children are left motherless, husbands are left without their wives, and communities are left without matriarchs. This tragedy is not limited to Delhi, India. There are countless women throughout the world who are left to face the reality of no access to reproductive healthcare.

I am reminded of women like Veronica Komba from Tanzania, whose story was recently featured in UNFPA's Mothers Saved. At the age of 14, Veronica was left homeless, hungry and pregnant. She came very close to death after collapsing in her village from high blood pressure, but her life was spared, primarily because she was able to access transportation to a hospital. A local women's group paid for the vehicle that transported Veronica 60 km to the nearest hospital for the C-Section that saved her life.

Giving birth is especially risky in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where most women deliver without any access to skilled care. It doesn't have to be this way. With greater access to perinatal care, most maternal deaths could be avoided. We can live in a world where no woman dies in childbirth.

By endorsing the Millennium Development Goals ten years ago the U.S., together with 187 other countries worldwide, made a joint promise to women worldwide to reduce maternal mortality and ensure universal access to reproductive healthcare by 2015. On September 20-22, the Millennium Development Goals Summit will be held in New York to examine the progress being made on each of the goals to date. While progress is being made overall, the goal of improving maternal health lags behind others. As we draw nearer to 2015, it is evident that there is still work to be done.

1,000 women are dying every day and 20 times as many become ill or injured because of a lack of access to healthcare during their pregnancies and childbirth. Continuing to shed light on this issue is imperative. We at Americans for UNFPA urge you to join our Call to Action by signing on to our petition requesting that the U.S. honors its commitment to improving maternal health and implementing universal access to reproductive healthcare by 2015. Don't let another woman die giving life.

Join me in calling for the Obama Administration to put women's health and MDG 5 at the heart of U.S. government's global priorities over the next 5 years.

Join Americans for UNFPA for a tweet chat on MDG 5 from 3-4pm EST on Tuesday September 21st, using hash tag #mdg5.

SOURCE

Irish Aid: Report on Ireland's contribution towards achievement of Millennium Development Goals

2010-09-28T16:17:00.002+01:00

Download report, factsheets and other news relating to the UN MDG Summit (September 2010) here.

Irish Times: Increase in single fathers opting for vasectomy

2010-09-28T16:15:00.000+01:00

by EITHNE DONNELLAN
Health Correspondent

Wed, Sep 22, 2010

THE NUMBERS of single men opting for vasectomy has increased over the past decade, according to the latest annual report from the Irish Family Planning Association.

The single men seeking the procedure had all fathered children.

Dr Caitriona Henchion, medical director of the association, said the men, mainly in their 30s and 40s, were supporting children they had had in a relationship, but did not want to take on the financial burden or responsibility of any more “and were even cagey about new relationships” as a result.

The association, along with releasing its annual report for 2009 yesterday, published the findings of a survey of men who opted for vasectomy in the last 20 years.

More than 3,000 vasectomies were carried out by the association over that period. A review of 328 of the cases found the procedure had been most popular among couples in their 30s with two or three children.

“Vasectomy is seen by many men as a way of removing the contraceptive burden from their partner when their family is complete . . . It has become a very acceptable choice thanks to some brave men who broke the taboo and spoke about their own experience of vasectomy, such as the recently deceased broadcaster Gerry Ryan,” Dr Henchion said.

The number of single men opting for vasectomy is still small overall. The association report says that in the 1990/1991 period its clinics had no vasectomy clients who said they were single. By 1998/1999 2 per cent of 180 clients described themselves as single, increasing to 8 per cent of 106 clients in 2007/2008.

Asked about the fact that there were fewer men seeking the procedure at association clinics in 2007/2008 than 10 years earlier, Dr Henchion said she believed this was because the service was now widely available through GPs.

Meanwhile, the association’s report indicates it had to refuse appointments to about 3,000 medical card patients last year due to a cut in funding from the Health Service Executive.

Those who could not be accommodated were referred back to their GP. The association said this was entirely unsatisfactory, given that clients were referred to it by their GP, or sought association services because their GP would not or could not provide a comprehensive family planning service.

Dr Henchion said association clinics had funding only to see a certain number of medical card holders each month.

The annual report reveals 18 women attended association clinics for counselling last year after negative experiences at the hands of rogue agencies claiming to provide crisis pregnancy counselling.

The report said the association was certain the figures represented “the tip of the iceberg”.

The association was urging the bringing forward of statutory regulation for all pregnancy advice services, prescribing codes of practice and standards, the report said.

© 2010 The Irish Times

SOURCE

Irish Medical Times: Abortion should be part of 'best practice' in medicine

2010-09-28T16:13:00.001+01:00

Dear Editor,

It was with surprise that I read Dr Ruairi Hanley’s article ‘Addressing the great taboo’ (IMT September 10, 2010).

He claims that it has taken him six years to summon up the courage to address the subject of abortion; he goes on to describe it as “the most contentious subject in Irish medicine”. He fears “irrationality and base hostility”, claiming they are part and parcel of an engagement with the issue; he even anticipates “hate mail”!

Having ventured into the area, he then criticises the pro-choice movement for allegedly concentrating on rare and emotive abortion cases. On the contrary, surely? As a founder member of Doctors for Choice — an organisation representing Irish doctors who support a woman’s right to choose abortion, seeing it as an integral part of her right to self determine her bodily integrity — we have consistently asserted that the key issue is the approximate 5,000 Irish women who travel each year to access abortion abroad. There is nothing ‘rare’ in these numbers.

It is variously estimated that between one in ten and one in fifteen Irish women of reproductive age have had an abortion. These women are our everyday patients. We are likely to meet them in our consultations at least once a day, yet don’t know who they are. These many thousands of women, as well as being our patients, are also our friends, our sisters and our children. This is the reality of abortion in Ireland.

It needs to be acknowledged that Irish doctors have been complicit in the silence surrounding the subject of abortion in this country. It is indeed time to end that silence. To this end, Doctors for Choice welcomes Dr Hanley’s (somewhat belated!) writing on abortion and his request for a rational discussion by Irish doctors; this debate is indeed urgently needed.

However, we would stress that the debate should remain firmly focused on the many, many thousands of Irish women who have had and continue to have abortions. A focus on patient autonomy, patient safety and equity of access to services must be at the heart of the debate. These values are also at the heart of best practice in medicine; it is time to include abortion as part of that best practice.

Dr Mary Favier,

Doctors for Choice

SOURCE

Guttmacher Institute: New study finds abortion does not cause mental health problems among adolescents

2010-09-28T16:08:00.001+01:00

NEWS RELEASE
125 Maiden Lane, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10038
Ph 212 248 1111 Fax 212 248 1951

Rebecca Wind
mediaworks@guttmacher.org

Friday, September 24, 2010

Teens who have abortions are no more likely to become depressed or have low self-esteem than their peers whose pregnancies do not end in abortion, according to “Do Depression and Low Self-Esteem Follow Abortion Among Adolescents? Evidence from a National Study,” by Jocelyn T. Warren of Oregon State University et al., which is available online and will appear in the December issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. The study found that the factors most closely linked with depression and low self-esteem after abortion are having experienced those problems in the past.

A 2008 study by the American Psychological Association (APA) found no evidence that induced abortion causes mental health problems in adult women, but because of a scarcity of evidence on teens, no conclusions were drawn at that time about the impact on adolescents. The new study is the first to look at depression and low self-esteem as potential outcomes of abortion among a nationally representative group of teens, and the results are consistent with the findings of the earlier APA report—induced abortion does not cause mental health problems in adolescent women.

While 34 states currently require that women receive counseling before an abortion is performed, seven of these states specifically require that women be warned of possible negative psychological consequences resulting from the procedure. “Paradoxically,” the authors of the new study suggest, “laws mandating that women considering abortion be advised of its psychological risks may jeopardize women’s health by adding unnecessary anxiety and undermining women’s right to informed consent.”

The study is based on data from the 289 respondents to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health who reported at least one pregnancy between the survey’s first two waves, 69 of whom reported an induced abortion.

The article is currently available online and will appear in the December 2010 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

SOURCE

Think Pro Choice!

2010-09-28T16:06:00.001+01:00

Calgary Pro-Choice Coalition has produced a fabulous and fun comic to counter an anti-choice misinformation campaign going on in Canada. Download the comic here!

Guttmacher Institute: The impact of medication abortion ten years after FDA approval

2010-09-28T16:02:00.004+01:00

September 27, 2010

On September 28, 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of the abortion drug mifepristone (in combination with a second drug, misoprostol) as an alternative to surgical abortion for terminating early pregnancies. In the decade since, use of early medication abortion has expanded substantially, with growing numbers of providers offering the service, and its approval has given many women a choice between medication or a surgical procedure when seeking an early abortion.

Both the number of medication abortions and the number of providers offering them increased dramatically between 2000 and 2007, even as the total number of abortions performed in the United States declined. In 2007, 158,000 medication abortions were performed using mifepristone, accounting for an estimated 21% of all eligible abortions (those performed prior to nine weeks’ gestation) that year. Preliminary figures suggest use of mifepristone has continued to grow 10–15% annually since 2007.

Although the introduction of mifepristone did not increase the overall incidence of abortion, it does appear to have contributed to a change in the timing of women’s abortions. A larger proportion of abortions take place at earlier gestations than they did before the drug was introduced. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that although the proportion of women obtaining abortions in the first trimester has remained stable, the proportion of abortions obtained at nine weeks’ gestation or earlier has increased, as has the proportion obtained within six weeks’ gestation.

Prior to FDA approval, medication abortion was described as having the potential to change the nature of abortion provision in the United States. Abortion was expected to become more broadly available, particularly in rural areas without a surgical abortion provider. However, Guttmacher research published last year found that while use of mifepristone has become widespread—and has contributed to the shift toward earlier abortions—it has not substantially improved women’s geographic access to abortion services. Most medication abortions are provided at or near facilities that already offered surgical abortions.

Click here for more information:
Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States
The incidence of abortion in the United States
The effect of mifepristone on abortion access

SOURCE

Irish Examiner: Mentally disabled women try to hide pregnancies

2010-09-28T15:56:00.000+01:00

By Juno McEnroe
Saturday, September 25, 2010

WOMEN with intellectual disabilities often experience negative attitudes from those close to them, as well as from service providers, when they become pregnant and may even try to keep their pregnancy secret, according to a report.

The report looked at research on challenges faced by people with intellectual disabilities in relation to crisis pregnancies.

Current Irish legislation criminalises specific sexual acts, including intercourse, among people who are "mentally impaired" unless they are married to each other.

The report calls for better support and education for people with intellectual disabilities and also warns they are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse.

The findings of the Crisis Pregnancy Programme research are expected to help guide changing legislation on mental capacity.

There are some 50,400 people diagnosed with an intellectual disability living in Ireland, 40% of whom are women.

Health professionals met at a Dublin seminar yesterday to discuss the findings, as well as best international practice in assessing people’s capacity to access medical treatment and sexual relationships. According to researchers, paid carers or relatives already make decisions on behalf of women with intellectual disabilities in the area of reproductive health. Many children of those people are also often placed in care.

The Government’s proposed Mental Capacity Bill, originally published in 2008, suggests that there should be a presumption of mental capacity in a person and that they should not be treated as being unable to make a decision unless all practical steps have been exhausted. This also includes when it comes to decisions about medical treatment.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, September 25, 2010

SOURCE

Irish Independent: Cervical cancer jab offer for older girls

2010-09-28T15:54:00.001+01:00

By Eilish O'Regan
Health Correspondent
Tuesday September 28 2010

OLDER schoolgirls who will miss out on the free cervical cancer vaccine being rolled out by the HSE are being offered the jab for €300.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) is currently giving the first phase of the vaccine to schoolgirls in first and second year of secondary school.

However, health insurer Aviva yesterday announced its own catch-up programme in partnership with Point of Care.

It aims to make the vaccine available to 150,000 girls between third and sixth year of secondary schools. It said that 29 schools with more than 11,000 pupils had already expressed an interest.

"A number of schools in Dublin, Cork, Meath and Limerick have already signed up to the programme and vaccinations will begin this month."

The cervical cancer vaccine is offered free of charge by the HSE -- but only to girls in the first two years, and from 2011 will only apply to first years.

This scheme is costing €3m for 30,000 secondary school girls this year -- at a cost of around €100 per child.

In contrast, receiving the vaccine privately through a GP is estimated to cost around €600.

The catch-up scheme offered by Aviva will target older girls who are still teenagers but are too old to qualify for the free vaccine.

Cheaper

Aviva said it was offering the set of three injections at the "lowest price for vaccination in the country" -- it will work out at €300 per student where a group of 25 are involved. It will be cheaper for its own members at €249.

It said a recent survey of parents in second to sixth year of secondary school had shown that 93pc thought it would be a "good thing" for their daughter to receive the vaccine.

Up to 13pc said their daughter had already received it.

However, more than half (51pc) were not willing to pay for the vaccine saying it was too expensive.

Caroline O'Reilly is principal of Eureka Secondary School, Kells, Co Meath, one of the first schools to sign up to the programme. "We were getting lots of requests from concerned parents who had daughters who did not qualify for the Government's programme.

"We are now one of the first schools in Ireland to offer our 400 girls from third to sixth year access to this vaccine through the Aviva Schools Catch Up Programme, which will help protect their future health."

- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent

SOURCE

Irish Examiner: Pharmacists call for 'morning-after pill' to be available over the counter

2010-08-30T18:08:00.000+01:00

Monday, August 30, 2010 - 05:06 PM

Pharmacists are renewing calls for the 'morning-after pill' to be available over the counter.

At present, women who wish to take emergency hormonal contraception require a prescription from a doctor.

The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said its members have the skills to dispense such drugs and provide appropriate advice and counselling to patients.

"It is important that patients get timely access to emergency hormonal contraception and many often find it difficult to get a prescription at the weekend," said spokesperson Kathy Maher, a pharmacist in Co Meath.

"Pharmacists should be able to provide such a service and this could be done with appropriate advice, counselling and within agreed protocols."

Ms Maher emphasised that the morning-after pill "should never be the only form of contraception used" and said pharmacists could also refer patients back to their GP where appropriate.

The IPU represents around 1,800 community pharmacists across the country.

SOURCE

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/pharmacists-call-for-morning-after-pill-to-be-available-over-the-counter-471456.html#ixzz0y6t391vi

NYTimes: F.D.A. Approves 5-Day Emergency Contraception

2010-08-14T13:00:00.001+01:00

August 13, 2010
By GARDINER HARRIS

WASHINGTON — Federal drug regulators on Friday approved a new form of emergency contraceptive pill that prevents pregnancies if taken as many as five days after unprotected intercourse.

The pill, called ella, will be available by prescription only. Developed in government laboratories, it is more effective than Plan B, the morning-after pill now available over the counter to women 17 and older.

That pill gradually loses efficacy and can be taken at most three days after sex. Ella, by contrast, works just as well on the fifth day as the first after sex.

Women who have unprotected intercourse have about 1 chance in 20 of becoming pregnant. Those who take Plan B within three days cut that risk to about 1 in 40, while those who take ella would cut that risk to about 1 in 50, regulators say. Studies show that ella is less effective in obese women.

The decision was greeted with enthusiasm by abortion rights groups and denounced by anti-abortion activists. But in recent years both sides have treated the emergency contraceptive pills as a side issue in the wider debate over abortion.

Studies have found that many women fail to realize they are at risk for an unplanned pregnancy after unprotected sex. So they tend not to use the emergency contraceptives even when they receive them free.

“Emergency contraception has no effect on pregnancy rates or abortion rates,” said Dr. James Trussell, director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton, who has consulted without charge for ella’s maker. “Women just don’t use them enough to make an impact.”

Still, the decision by the Food and Drug Administration to approve ella, less than two months after a federal advisory committee voted unanimously to recommend approval, marks a decided shift for the agency.

Under President George W. Bush, White House political advisers overruled united F.D.A. scientists, delaying the decision to make Plan B available over the counter and barring such distribution to women under 18.

Some advocates said Friday that the agency’s relatively rapid adoption of its scientists’ advice meant that its traditional separation from political considerations had returned.

“It’s really important the F.D.A. made a decision that’s based on the scientific evidence and not on the political controversy,” said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families.

But Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, which opposes abortion, said that political considerations were still at work inside the agency.

“The fact that the F.D.A. waited until late on a Friday night in August to release this when they hoped nobody was paying attention underscores that this is a political decision,” she said.

Ms. Wright warned that men might slip ella to unsuspecting women, and she said testing so far was not adequate to establish whether it was safe.

In studies, the most common side effects associated with ella’s use were mild to moderate headache, nausea, abdominal pain, painful menstrual cramps, fatigue and dizziness.

Ella’s approval may also intensify a long-simmering controversy about whether pharmacists and doctors can refuse to prescribe or fill prescriptions for birth control measures they find personally objectionable.

Much of the debate over the drug springs from an argument over how it works, which despite considerable research remains something of a mystery. It blocks the effects of progesterone, a female hormone that spurs ovulation. It is, however, a chemical relative to RU-486, the abortion pill, and there is some evidence that ella makes the womb less hospitable to a fertilized egg by reducing the lining of the uterus.

To the scientists on the advisory committee, whether the pill works by preventing ovulation or implantation was mostly immaterial to the decision about whether it is safe and effective. But to religious groups, the distinction is crucial, since they consider that preventing implantation of a fertilized egg is akin to abortion.

Animal studies showed that ella had little effect on established pregnancies, suggesting it acts differently from RU-486.

Ella, which was approved in Europe last fall, is manufactured by HRA Pharma, a small French drug maker. In the United States it will be distributed by Watson Pharmaceuticals, a company based in California and New Jersey, which plans to introduce it by the end of the year.

The pill was originally developed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health and now named after Eunice Kennedy Shriver. It decided in 2002 to finance a crucial study to assess the drug’s efficacy as an emergency contraceptive.

Studies have shown that more than one million women who do not want to get pregnant are estimated to have unprotected sex every night in the United States, and that more than 25,000 become pregnant every year after being sexually assaulted. Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended.

SOURCE

Reuters: Economic crisis rekindles Irish debate on abortion

2010-08-11T22:48:00.002+01:00

August 11, 2010
By Marie-Louise Gumuchian

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Minutes after the test revealed she was pregnant, Amy saw only one option -- to leave Ireland and have an abortion in Britain.

Her architect partner had lost his job in Ireland's property crash and she was worried about hers, so the 29 year-old office assistant felt she had no choice.

"We found it hard enough to finance the abortion," said Amy, who declined to give her full name because of the sensitive subject. "So how could we effectively support a child?"

Women's activists say Ireland's deep economic crisis may have driven more women to consider an abortion. But a growing number cannot afford to travel to Britain for the procedure and may be forced into the hands of underground abortionists.

A year later, Amy has not told her parents. Growing up in mainly Roman Catholic Ireland, abortion was taboo and she recalls how women rumored to have had one were shamed.

"Abortion was a no-no then, and still is now," she said.

Terminating a pregnancy has long been a fraught issue in Ireland, where one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe allows it only when the mother's life is in danger.

Women who have an abortion still face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, driving thousands abroad each year, mainly to Britain. Even that is a little more liberal than before a 1992 referendum which gave women the freedom to receive abortion information and travel abroad to terminate pregnancies.

Today, following the former 'Celtic Tiger's' slide from boom to bust, Amy is not alone in seeking that route, although statistical evidence is hard to find.

Last year, 15 percent of the 1,300 women who visited the Dublin Well Women Center cited financial problems as the main reason for seeking information on terminating a pregnancy.

"Financial pressure might have always affected a women's decision around whether she continued with her pregnancy but in the last year there was some sort of shift in the priorities," Alison Begas, chief executive of the center, said.

"She would say she had lost her job, or her salary had been cut or even those for whom the guy has lost his job."

BACKSTREET ABORTIONS
Ireland crawled out of the longest recession of any euro zone country in the first quarter of this year, but sustained economic recovery is some way off.

Ann Rossiter, a London-based Irish author who for years helped Irish women seek terminations in Britain, has warned that the credit crunch could bring a return to illegal abortions.

Abortions in UK clinics start from 350 pounds ($551). There are also travel costs. "I see no reason why we wouldn't have a return to the backstreet or self-induced abortions," she said.

Between 1980 and end-2009, at least 142,060 women traveled for abortion services in England and Wales, according to the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA).

Last year, 4,422 women providing Irish addresses had terminations in England and Wales, British figures show, down 178 on 2008. Numbers have fallen since 2001.

But IFPA says the figures are an underestimate as not everyone wants to provide their address for confidentiality reasons, and women also travel to the Netherlands.

"I think what makes it tougher is the stigma," said Mara Clarke, of the UK-based Abortion Support Network. "(Abortion) is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures."

Women in Catholic Poland also face strict laws. Official statistics show several hundred abortions performed annually but pro-choice campaigners estimate hundreds of thousands are performed underground or abroad, sometimes in poor conditions.

Traditionally Catholic Spain has changed its law making it easier for women to have a termination but some conservative-led regions have refused to allow their hospitals to perform them.

COURT CASE
In decades of debate in Ireland both pro-choice and pro-life campaigners have had their victories.

A March YouGov poll for British sexual health consultants Marie Stopes showed 78 percent of those questioned supported abortion if the pregnancy endangers a woman's health or is the result of sexual abuse, rape or incest.

A month later, a poll for the Pro-Life Campaign showed support for a continued ban, with 70 percent in favor of constitutional protection for the unborn child.

"People in Ireland just don't want abortion to be introduced, and that's very clear from the polls," Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign, said. "It's not really an issue, because people are happy with the status quo."

Ireland is defending its abortion law at the European Court of Human Rights, countering a legal challenge by three women who said it endangered their health and violated their rights. The two Irishwomen and a Lithuanian living in Ireland went to Britain for abortions.

"I think it could be the case that gets the political system really focused on trying to resolve the issue," said Niall Behan, chief executive of IFPA, which supports the women.

While the court is unlikely to rule on the substance of Ireland's abortion law, it could say it is deficient in respecting the right to private life of those concerned, said Adam McAuley, a law lecturer at Dublin City University.

But he sees no immediate change. "The state will probably dilly-dally, I can't see it being quick," he said.

"The reality is (politicians) can just see votes being lost on this rather than being gained."

Rossiter knows it will take more than a court case for change. She has performed a one-woman-show, "Making a Holy Show of Myself, An Abortion Monologue", to select Irish audiences.

"I got weary of the usual format of presenting talks on the abysmal state of Irish women's reproductive rights," she says in a flyer for her show. "But I am not hanging up my spurs to retire to one of God's waiting rooms just yet."

(Additional reporting by Alice Tozer in Madrid and Gabriela Baczynska in Warsaw; editing by Paul Taylor)

SOURCE

NYTimes: Argentina Faulted for Reproductive Policies

2010-08-11T22:32:00.000+01:00

August 10, 2010
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

RIO DE JANEIRO — The government of Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has reversed steps toward protecting women’s health and reproductive rights, and backtracked on its intention to guarantee access to legal abortions, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Tuesday.

Despite what seems to be a liberal social wave sweeping through Argentina — including Congress’s approval last month of a national law authorizing same-sex marriages, the first in Latin America — the Human Rights Watch report offered a scathing assessment of the reproductive rights policies under Mrs. Kirchner, who took over from her husband, Néstor Kirchner, as president in late 2007.

Women continue to struggle to obtain birth control, despite a 2002 law ensuring access to it, and doctors shy away from offering legal abortions in the predominantly Roman Catholic country, the report said. Argentine law strictly limits abortions, with exceptions that include physical or mental risk to the patient and pregnancies resulting from rape.

Researchers found that unsafe abortions continued to be a leading cause of maternal mortalities in Argentina. In 2008, more than 20 percent of deaths recorded as a result of obstetric emergencies were caused by unsafe abortions, according to government figures cited in the report.

The group said an estimated 40 percent of pregnancies in 2005 ended in abortions, most of them illegal and unsafe. “Little has changed for the women and girls who depend on the public health system,” the organization said.

The report’s author, Marianne Mollmann, wrote that anti-abortion voices continued to carry significant political weight, as in many Latin American countries. Last month, the Health Ministry “backtracked on its declared intention to guarantee access to legal abortion” under wilting questioning by the Argentine press, Human Rights Watch said.

A spokesman for Health Minister Juan Luis Manzur declined to comment on the report on Tuesday. Neither the minister nor Mrs. Kirchner addressed the issue publicly.

At an event on July 30, Dr. Manzur declared that the government was “against abortion,” noting that the president felt the same way.

Earlier in July, though, a ministry official said Dr. Manzur had signed a resolution backing a guide to legal abortion services. The guide would allow doctors to carry out abortions for rape victims without securing a police report. But a day later, the minister issued a statement saying he had not signed the resolution, and Argentine news outlets suggested that Mrs. Kirchner had ordered him to halt the effort.

In 2002, Argentina’s Congress dismantled an 11-year ban on the use and sale of contraceptives when it enacted the National Law on Sexual Health and Responsible Procreation. The law focused on providing universal access to contraceptives and information on reproductive health.

But researchers from Human Rights Watch have found that, in practice, women in Argentina have encountered barriers to making independent decisions about reproduction, obstacles that include lack of information, domestic and sexual violence, and economic restraints that the government had not adequately addressed. The group also found that public officials were not being penalized for failing to uphold the laws on the books.

Ginés González García, the health minister under Mr. Kirchner, installed guidelines and clearer laws, including a sex-education law, but the government’s efforts were undermined by “erratic implementation,” Human Rights Watch said.

When Mrs. Kirchner took over in 2007, the stigmatization of abortion increased, the group said. The president’s first health minister, Graciela Ocaña, declared abortion to be a matter of criminal law and repudiated the guide on legal abortion. It finally appeared on the ministry’s Web site in March 2010 after Dr. Manzur replaced Ms. Ocaña.

But in July, after republishing the guide, the ministry seesawed on the issue, eventually removing Web references to the resolution the ministry said a day later had not been signed by the minister.

Charles Newbery contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.

SOURCE

RHReality Check: IUDs: Now for Emergencies?

2010-08-11T10:31:00.001+01:00

By Amie Newman
Created Aug 9 2010 - 1:22pm

According to the results of a study undertaken in China by the National Research Institute for Family Planning, the Copper IUD (sold under the name ParaGard in the United States) can be an excellent emergency contraceptive if inserted within five days of unprotected sex.

Researchers followed 2000 women who came to eighteen different clinics around the country for emergency contraception, within the five day window, and then were implanted with the Copper IUD. Women returned for follow-up visits, according to the study published in BJOG [1](an international journal of obstetrics and gynecology), at 1, 3 and 12 months post-insertion. Prior to or at the first follow-up visit, not one woman (all but 70 women returned) had become pregnant.

Women involved in the study did report some side effects: increased menstrual bleeding and menstrual disturbances (however vague that might be). Twenty-nine women "experienced a difficult IUD insertion process, requiring local anaesthesia or prophylactic antibiotics," notes the study.

It's an interesting find.

The old kid on the block, Plan B, the brand name for the emergency contraceptive (EC) pills sold in the United States, is effective at preventing pregnancy in 1 out of 100 pregnancies. Women have been encouraged to keep them "on hand" or in their medicine cabinet so, if there comes a time when they do need them, they do not need to struggle with finding a pharmacy open and available as soon as possible or finding a pharmacy that won't judge or refuse to sell the pills to you [2]. A recent study concluded that though women who keep EC on hand are not as likely to use the pills as previously thought, it is still an important option for women to have.

But how likely is it that a woman who is in immediate need of emergency contraception would actually choose to undergo insertion of an IUD into her uterus, have access to a health provider in a timely manner or be able to afford the "option," in order to make use of this successful form of emergency contraception?

From a Reuters [3] article on the study:

"...despite the benefits of Copper T, it's not easy to get for many women seeking emergency contraception in the United States. One deterrent is that while women 17 and over can buy Plan B over-the-counter at a pharmacy, Copper T must be inserted by a doctor - an extra step for women who only have a window of time when emergency contraception can work.

"The issue," Godfrey said, "is immediate access. In the U.S. it's easier just to go to a pharmacy."

And while Plan B runs for about $50 off the shelf, Godfrey said that depending on her insurance a woman could pay more than $500 to have Copper T inserted. "Cost could certainly be prohibitive," she said."

There are two different IUDs sold in the United States, currently. The hormonal IUD, sold under the brand name Mirena continually releases hormones into your body for up to five years; and the Copper IUD. Both work to prevent fertilization of an egg or to create an inhospitable environment for a fertilized egg to attach to the uterine wall.

The IUD is a more permanent form of birth control so if you use have one inserted, it's a one-time only occurrence (or at least a one-time every 5-10 years occurrence). While these sorts of studies are important from an efficacy perspective, they don't take into account the reality of women's lives. What are the real benefits of a study such as this one if most women cannot ultimately make use of the results?

Dr. James Trussell, a long-time proponent for emergency contraception, and head of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University was quoted as saying,

"It's too bad it's [Copper IUD] not used more often...If there were many, many more IUD insertions rather than emergency contraception pills (used), it certainly would have an impact on lowering pregnancy rates and abortion."

And while I cannot argue with his logic, it's the realistic implementation in women's lives with which I take issue. It seems to me that if we look at women's lives first and see how we can best address unplanned pregnancy rates given, well, the givens then we can "impact" said rates much more effectively.

I'm sorry if I'm short sighted here but the IUD, while effective at preventing pregnancy, is not the right method of birth control for every woman. Here's a basic run-down, from Planned Parenthood [4], on when you shouldn't use the IUD:

You should not use an IUD if you:

have had a pelvic infection following either childbirth or an abortion in the past three months
have or may have a sexually transmitted infection [5] or other pelvic infection
think you might be pregnant
have cervical cancer that hasn't been treated
have cancer of the uterus
have unexplained bleeding in your vagina
have pelvic tuberculosis [6]
have a uterine perforation during IUD insertion

There's a lot of room between thinking "you may have" an STI and finding out for sure. Would a doctor insert an "emergency" IUD in that case? What about not knowing if you have cervical cancer or not? Would a woman be honest about her symptoms if she were so intent on preventing pregnancy and getting an IUD put in place? This is a long list of "ifs" to me. I'm not discounting the IUD as a form of EC but I'm not sure this study would be enough to persuade me that inserting an IUD so swiftly is a bright idea, unless the woman has already done her research and was planning on having one inserted anyway.

SOURCE

NYTimes: Another Pill That Could Cause a Revolution

2010-08-01T16:44:00.001+01:00

July 31, 2010
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Could the decades-long global impasse over abortion worldwide be overcome — by little white pills costing less than $1 each?

That seems possible, for these pills are beginning to revolutionize abortion around the world, especially in poor countries. One result may be tens of thousands of women’s lives saved each year.

Five-sixths of abortions take place in developing countries, where poor sterilization and training often make the procedure dangerous. Up to 70,000 women die a year from complications of abortions, according to the World Health Organization.

But researchers are finding an alternative that is safe, cheap and very difficult for governments to restrict — misoprostol, a medication originally intended to prevent stomach ulcers.

“I feel like people must have felt when they discovered the nuclear bomb,” says Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president of Gynuity Health Projects, a nonprofit research institution on reproductive health. “This technology is world-shaking.”

This pharmaceutical approach is called “medical abortion.” In the United States and Europe it typically consists of two sets of “M” pills. The first is mifepristone, formerly known as RU-486, and then a day or two later the misoprostol.

Using the drugs in combination produces a miscarriage more than 95 percent of the time in early pregnancy. But mifepristone is difficult to obtain in much of the world, because it is used only to induce abortions. In contrast, misoprostol is very widely available and can’t easily be banned because it is also used for ulcers and can save lives of women with postpartum hemorrhages. Whatever one thinks of misoprostol for abortions, it also is a potential lifesaver for women who hemorrhage after childbirth.

Researchers are finding that if women take misoprostol alone, effectiveness drops to 80 to 85 percent. That may sound low, but it’s typically far better and safer than alternatives that women turn to, Dr. Winikoff noted.

“Medical abortion represents a revolution in women’s reproductive health,” said Dana Hovig, the chief executive of Marie Stopes International, an aid group that provides women’s reproductive health services in 43 countries around the world. “It saves women’s lives and has enormous potential to increase access to safe abortion at minimal cost.”

Medical abortion causes a miscarriage that is indistinguishable from a natural one. That’s important for women in countries where they risk arrest if they seek help in a hospital after a botched abortion. The risks to a woman seem no greater than with a natural miscarriage, and there’s no known harm to a woman who turns out not to have been pregnant after all. One serious downside is that misoprostol is suspected of causing birth defects, perhaps 1 percent of the time, but only if it fails and the pregnancy continues to term.

In the United States, only about one abortion in eight is done with pills. Partly that’s because by law, mifepristone must be taken in a clinic. But worldwide, the number of medical abortions is surging, accounting for nearly 70 percent of all abortions in Scotland, according to Marie Stopes International.

It’s not clear how late in pregnancy medical abortion is feasible. “It sounds like a simple question, but it’s not,” Dr. Winikoff said. In some form and strength, medical abortion seems to work “from Day 1 to the end of pregnancy,” she said — but the effectiveness and safety of later-stage abortions still need to be worked out.

In the United States, the pills can be taken up to nine weeks’ gestation. In Britain, inpatient use of the pills is permitted up to 24 weeks.

What do these pills mean for the political battles over abortion? To firm opponents of abortion, the means of ending a pregnancy doesn’t matter. But my hunch is that, for those in the middle, taking pills at home may seem a more natural process than a surgical abortion, and the result may be a tad more acceptance.

In any case, it would be tough to carry out a ban on medical abortion. Indian companies are producing mifepristone and misoprostol in a big way, and blister packs with the combination of drugs can be purchased for less than $5 — and then shipped anywhere.

In addition, misoprostol on its own can be found all over the world, from Internet sites to over-the-counter pharmacies in Delhi. In India, misoprostol costs just pennies per pill.

Misoprostol is likely to become even more widely available, because last year the World Health Organization expanded its uses as an “essential medicine” to include treatment of miscarriages and incomplete abortions.

Brazil and some other countries have tried to tighten access to misoprostol because of its use for abortion. But curbing access to misoprostol would mean that more women would die of hemorrhages.

As word spreads among women worldwide about what a few pills can do, it’s hard to see how politicians can stop this gynecological revolution.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

SOURCE

Irish Times: Abortion travel numbers to UK fall

2010-07-22T18:23:00.000+01:00

MARIE O'HALLORAN

Thu, Jul 22, 2010

The numbers of women travelling to Britain each year for abortions has decreased from more than 6,500 in 2001 to just under 4,500 last year, according to the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.

However the number of women 35 years and older facing crisis pregnancy has increased in the past 18 months, the agency says.

In its final report the research and funding body said that since it was established in 2001 the number of women going to the UK each year for abortions had dropped from 6,673 in 2001 to 4,422 last year.

The number of births to teenagers has dropped to 2,087 in 2001 from 2,223 last year.

The Crisis Pregnancy Agency was amalgamated in January into the HSE and becomes the Crisis Pregnancy Programme.

Speaking at the publication of the final annual report Minister for Health Mary Harney said she did not anticipate in the foreseeable future another abortion referendum, "whether it was the current Government or any possible alternative government".

She also said the agency should continue to produce an annual report and retain its influence. "I don't want to see any diminution of the responsibility of the agency to reduce the number of crisis pregnancies in Ireland and to assist those experiencing crisis pregnancy."

Chairwoman of the agency Katharine Bulbulia had expressed concern that it "would disappear into the HSE and lose visibility" but she was "really heartened" by the Minister's comments. "She did not want it to lose visibility, she actually instanced how it might retain it by producing its own annual report."

Director the agency Caroline Spillane said its research had shown that 28 per cent of women who have been pregnant have experienced a crisis pregnancy, while 23 per cent of men whose partners have been pregnant have experienced a crisis pregnancy.

The agency's report says that its counselling services have increased and that free support is available at more than 50 centres in the State.

© 2010 irishtimes.com

SOURCE

Huffington Post: The Myth of the Teen Pregnancy Epidemic

2010-07-22T11:35:00.001+01:00

Kierra Johnson
Executive Director, Choice USA
Posted: July 21, 2010 07:58 AM

Driving down many highways in the US, one sees billboards that read, "Virgin: Teach your Kids It's Not a Dirty Word" or "Wait for the Bling." These billboards, funded by conservative organizations, perpetuate a myth that teen sex is a problem, a crisis and even an epidemic.

Conservative organizations are not the only ones that have bought into this mythology. Recently, a staffer from a prominent pro-choice organization was quoted in the New York Times as saying, "While we would all like and hope and prefer that young people abstain from having sex, that is not what many young people, unfortunately, are doing."

Is the fact that teens are having sex really so unfortunate?

People are having sex at every age. Sometimes it is safer. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it is with informed consent. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's healthy. Sometimes it's not.

People are also, therefore, experiencing the outcomes of sex at every age. The outcomes can be both intended and unintended. The outcomes can be both physical and emotional. The outcomes can be positive or less than favorable.

People in every age bracket have sex, get pregnant, have abortions and have children. Sex and the outcomes of sex are not exclusively experienced by teens. Actually, according to the Guttmacher Institute, teens have a lower rate of sexual activity (46 percent) than other age groups, and teens make up the smallest percentage of pregnancies (seven percent, including 18 and 19-year-olds), abortions (six percent) and births (10 percent). The vast majority of pregnancies, abortions and births occur after the teenage years.

So, if people of all ages are having sex and facing the results, why are teen sex and teen pregnancy the problems?

They're not. Teenage pregnancy isn't the epidemic. The lack of information and support for people to make healthy decisions about their lives is the true epidemic. The culture of shame and scapegoating around sex is the real problem. And this epidemic crosses generations, with young people feeling the brunt of it.

Teens need access to the information to make informed decisions regarding sex and the resources and support to handle the outcomes of having sex. They need comprehensive sexuality education, access to affordable maternal and child care and contraceptive services, to name a few. They need nurturing environments where they aren't judged or made to feel shameful about having sex or being young parents. That's all anyone needs, really, regardless of age.

Teens are asking for this access to information and resources. One of Choice USA's youth activists from Texas told us, "The pressure of sex and relationships is an extremely important issue young people have to face. These pressures can result in consequential outcomes, which explains why I think that it is ultimately important for youth to receive a comprehensive education to make them aware of all the possible options and choices they have."

But teens aren't only feeling pressure from their peers. They are feeling pressure from individuals and organizations that perpetuate the myth of the teen pregnancy epidemic, from media that says teen sex is something to be ashamed of, from campaigns that stem from the idea that teen sex and pregnancy must be ended. Added pressure and stigma that exudes from many teen pregnancy campaigns does little to help the perceived problem of teen sex and pregnancy.

The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) has shown that teen pregnancy campaigns that rely on shame and stigma don't work. In a recent white paper, NLIRH suggests that we should support policies that promote access to information and resources but only as "part of a platform to increase women's ability to make informed choices that are relevant to their lives, and not to make choices for them."

When framing teen sex and pregnancy as a problem of epidemic proportions, when telling teens there is one acceptable choice, we undersell young people's ability to make responsible and healthy decisions about their lives. And at the same time, we are ignoring that people need information and resources about sex throughout their entire lives, not just as teenagers. We need to look at those factors that impact people's whole lives -- access to education, health care and employment -- and stop using teen sex and pregnancy as scapegoats for social ills.

Young people know they need more information and support, and they're asking for help in order to make healthy and informed decisions about their lives. This is the opposite of an epidemic, it is mature decision making. We need to praise, not devalue, this good judgment. We need to make these resources available to teens and people of all ages, but with no strings and no stigma attached.

Follow Kierra Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChoiceUSA

SOURCE

RTÉ News: More older women seek crisis pregnancy help

2010-07-22T11:29:00.001+01:00

Thursday, 22 July 2010 08:05

There has been an increase in women over 35 seeking help during a crisis pregnancy, according to a report from the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.

The agency, which was merged into the Health Service Executive this year, is to publish its final report today.

Ahead of the publication this afternoon the former chairperson of the agency has said the HSE must support its strategic focus.
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Often a planned pregnancy can become a crisis one, due to relationship break-ups, unemployment or financial difficulties.

The increase in women over 35 seeking help has been a trend for some years, according to the agency.

Concerns over the merging of the agency with the HSE emerge in the final annual report from the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.

It now operates as the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme.

Former Chairperson of the agency Katharine Bulbulia has warned that society should not be complacent about dealing with such a prevalent issue.

In the report she says it is vital the HSE supports the strategic focus of the Agency she once chaired, pointing out its crucial that happens so that those facing an unplanned pregnancy receive the support and care they need.

SOURCE

Irish Independent: Uptake of 80pc for teen girls' cancer jab

2010-07-22T11:10:00.000+01:00

By Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent
Wednesday July 21 2010

EIGHT in 10 of the teenage girls offered the cervical cancer vaccine in schools last term availed of the jab, new figures revealed yesterday.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) confirmed that 1,300 first-year girls received the first dose of the vaccine in May, as part of the limited rollout before it is extended in the autumn.

It protects against the types of HPV infection that cause seven out of 10 of all cervical cancers, and was offered to first-year girls in 21 secondary schools last term.

Parents were sent out information packs and consent forms in advance of the vaccination beginning.

Some parents have expressed reservations about vaccinating their daughters against a sexually transmitted disease at such a young age.

The rest of 30,000 first years, who will be going into second year this September, will be offered the vaccine next term as part of a catch-up programme.

Girls who enter secondary school in September will also be vaccinated.

The girls who received the vaccine last term will have to go to a health clinic this month for the second of three doses, which are part of the vaccination programme. A spokesman for the HSE said appointments had been given for the second dose and the vaccinations would take place in clinics before the end of this month.

A spokesman for the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) said it had received 11 reports of suspected adverse reactions associated with cervical cancer vaccines. One of these was linked to Cervarix, and 10 with Gardasil.

The majority of those reports received to date relate to expected adverse reactions for the product, and include cases of hypersensitivity, enlargement of the lymph nodes, fainting and an allergy-related skin rash.

The studies so far show that protection lasts for at least five years after a full course.

There are 250 new cases of cervical cancer diagnosed every year, and 80 die of the disease.

The full impact of the vaccine will take many years to be seen.

The rollout of the vaccine was controversially delayed due to funding problems, but a deal was reached with drug companies earlier this year, which saw the cost cut from €16m to €3m.

Study

Meanwhile, a new study published in the 'British Medical Journal' today shows the vaccine is helpful in preventing warts and low-grade lesions related to HPV.

The vaccine for some types of HPV has the potential to prevent about 70pc of cervical cancers and 90pc of genital warts, but what contribution the vaccines make to low-grade growths was still uncertain. So an international group of investigators set out to find how useful the vaccines were in preventing low-grade disease.

They studied results from 17,622 women aged 16 to 26 enrolled into two studies between December 2001 and May 2003.

Results showed that amongst previously unexposed women who had received the vaccine, it was highly effective for preventing low-grade lesions attributable to those types of HPV for up to four years.

- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent

SOURCE

Newsweek: Should the birth control pill be sold without a prescription?

2010-07-13T12:28:00.003+01:00

An over-the-counter version has long been called for, but it could soon be available if a group of practitioners and advocates have their way.

by Meredith Melnick

July 07, 2010

When Kelly Blanchard advocated to make oral contraceptives over the counter in a New York Times op-ed two weeks ago, she represented a decades-long movement among clinicians, researchers, and women’s-health advocates to remove prescriptions as a barrier to pill access. As early as 1993, Charlotte Ellertson—founder of Ibis Reproductive Health, of which Blanchard is now president—made a similar argument against the prescription status of oral contraceptives in the American Journal of Public Health.

Now a group of health workers and advocates are taking advantage of a mounting body of research that shows the pill could be safe for nonprescription use. They hope to have a proposal before the FDA within the year and an over-the-counter pill available in five years. And though their work focuses on female reproductive care, it offers a glimpse into what the future of American health care and medication could be.

Members of the Oral Contraceptive Over-the-Counter Working Group, a women’s-health clinical and research institution funded by the Hewlitt Foundation and administered by Ibis Reproductive Health, believe that prescription-only access to birth control is patronizing to women, limits contraceptive freedom, and is ineffective against intractably high teen-pregnancy rates. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to access problems because it is harder for them to get to a doctor without a parent’s help. Almost 20 percent of sexually active teens who do not want to become pregnant are not using contraceptives, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And teenage girls who do not use contraception during their first sexual experience are twice as likely to become teen mothers as their counterparts who use protection.

“I think we see a range of problems with access today; clearly there are economic barriers to access,” says Amy Allina, program and policy director of the National Women’s Health Network and a member of the working group. “But there are also barriers that have more to do with the logistics of insurance, or the policy at the doctor’s office.”

To date, the FDA has never approved an over-the-counter drug that is a “chronic use” medication—a drug taken daily for an unlimited amount of time. Though people use over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin on a daily basis, they are not technically approved for such use.

The majority of the market in oral contraceptives is in “combined” pills, containing both synthetic estrogen and synthetic progesterone. The estrogen elevates the risk of stroke, heart attack, and blood clots, but it is also responsible for clearing up acne, mitigating cramps, and lessening flow. Because of these secondary benefits, combined pills are more marketable to the general public and favored by many women.

The working group is hoping to bring a progestin-only pill or “mini-pill” to the over-the-counter market. It helps that this synthetic hormone already has an over-the-counter application: emergency contraception. Plan B and Next Choice (FDA-approved since 2006), as well as the recently committee-approved Ella, all consist of progestin, a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone.

The mini-pill is typically used by women who are lactating or who have a higher risk of stroke or heart attack, such as smokers and women over 35. Because it has a lower risk of negative side effects, it might be safer to use without a doctor’s input. “The FDA would consider applications to switch oral contraceptives from prescription to nonprescription marketing status,” says Shelly Burgess, an FDA representative. “Companies interested in marketing an oral contraceptive as a nonprescription product would need to provide data to demonstrate that the proposed oral contraceptive can be used appropriately and safely by consumers without the input of a health-care provider.”

That last bit usually means a potentially expensive and time-consuming doctor’s visit as well as an invasive pelvic exam. The questions are: Is the pill safe to use without a doctor’s examination? And will women still get cancer screening if they don’t have to go to their gynecologist for a pill pack?

And should that matter? “Holding birth control hostage until women have had a pelvic exam is a paternalistic attitude to women’s health,” says Dr. Daniel Grossman, a senior researcher at Ibis and an active member of the group. “The Pap smear is for cancer screening, not contraception, and we shouldn’t spread misinformation by linking the two.”

Until recently, family-planning centers that received federal funds followed the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines to perform a pelvic exam and Pap test as part of each appointment to address family planning. New guidelines suggest that women with two consecutive normal Pap smears need examinations only every two to three years, but many clinics continue to follow the outdated norm.

“At the moment, gynecologists are gatekeepers, insisting on regular vaginal exams that are really unnecessary,” agrees a senior researcher at a university medical school who did not want to be named for fear of upsetting colleagues in the obstetrics and gynecology department. “If the control is transferred to the women themselves, that would amount to a loss of revenue [for gynecologists], and they’re going to fight it.”

A 2006 study in the journal Contraception found that 68 percent of women surveyed wanted an over-the-counter option, with interest highest for women who were uninsured. But women on federal programs like Medicaid could run into problems. “When any medication is offered over the counter, it becomes unaffordable for women whose insurance will not pay for an over-the-counter medication,” says Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

When Plan B transitioned from a prescription to an over-the-counter drug, its cost skyrocketed. Advocates of the pill’s shift to over the counter are currently looking into ways to keep costs low. One strategy is pairing up with an off-brand production plant. “We could make safe, effective birth-control pills for pennies,” says Dr. Susan Harlap of the NYU School of Medicine, who is not affiliated with the working group. “Their low cost in many developing countries shows that pills are outrageously expensive here, and they needn’t be.”

But the actual cost of the pill isn’t the only consideration for low-income communities. Women who are more likely to have complications from it also tend to be from lower-income communities: poor women have chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and obesity in higher numbers, and are also more likely to smoke. Furthermore, a 2008 study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology of potential contraceptive users revealed that more highly educated women tended to be better at self-screening. “We tend to prioritize the needs of the group that is more marginalized, that has bigger barriers to health care in general,” says Amy Allina about her organization’s consideration of over-the-counter pills. “It pushed us toward the side of saying we don’t really think this is going to be an advance for the women we are most concerned about.”

Evidence from countries where birth control is available without a prescription goes against these arguments: they do not have higher instances of at-risk women taking pills. Further, researchers in Mexico found that women who buy pills directly from pharmacies often have greater understanding of the contraindications than women who visit clinics.

And evidence suggests that there is no harm done to cancer screening either: a two-year pilot program of pharmacy access to hormonal birth control in Washington state revealed that 98.6 percent of the women who were getting their pills over the counter had had a pelvic examination within the previous 24 months.

“Now, with health-care reform, that balance has shifted,” says Allina. “We see that [low-income] women are going to be able to get access to health services in other ways. It makes us less concerned about some of the unintended consequences to vulnerable populations.”

Meredith Melnick is a freelance journalist in New York City.

SOURCE

Feminist News: Louisiana Abortion Bills Become Law

2010-07-13T12:19:00.001+01:00

July 7, 2010

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed three bills on Tuesday instituting new restrictions on abortion rights in the state. The first law requires women seeking abortions in Louisiana to undergo an ultrasound prior to the procedure. There will be no exceptions for victims of rape or incest Opponents remain concerned that the ultrasound requirement, an expensive procedure that may not be available at free clinics, will increase costs and make obtaining abortion services more difficult for women.

The second new law excludes providers from medical malpractice coverage for elective abortion procedures, reports the Associated Press. The third anti-choice bill signed by Governor Jindal yesterday prevents insurance providers in the new federal health insurance exchange from covering abortions.

Last month Governor Jindal signed House Bill 1370, a law that gives Louisiana's health secretary greater power to revoke abortion clinic licenses when there are health or safety concerns. According to Associated Press the law allows the health secretary to immediately suspend a clinic's license in the case of urgent health or safety risks. The health secretary is also granted broader discretion to refuse the renewal of existing licenses, as well as to deny new licenses to abortion clinics.

Media Resources: Associated Press 7/6/10; Feminist Daily Newswire 6/17/10; Louisiana State Government

SOURCE

Irish Times: 2006 Act which makes underage sex a crime is constitutional, court finds

2010-07-13T12:13:00.000+01:00

by CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor

Mon, Jul 12, 2010

THE 2006 Act which criminalises underage sex is constitutional despite the fact that it discriminates between boys and girls in relation to prosecution for acts of sexual intercourse, the High Court has found.

The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006 was introduced in the wake of the Supreme Court striking a section of the 1935 Act criminalising sex with an underage girl on the grounds that it did not allow for a defence of honest mistake as to the girl’s age.

The 2006 Act does permit such a defence and also redefined the crime of underage sex to include boys and homosexual sex within its remit. Heavier penalties were provided for in cases involving sex with children under 15, and where the perpetrator was in a position of trust or authority.

However, the Act discriminates between boys and girls in that boys can be prosecuted for sexual intercourse with girls under the age of 17, even if the sex is consensual, while girls cannot be prosecuted for sexual intercourse with underage boys, though they could be for other sexual acts.

In September 2007, a 15-year-old boy was charged with having sex with, and buggery of, a female person under the age of 17.

He took judicial review proceedings seeking declarations that sections 3 and 5 of the 2006 Act, under which he was charged, were contrary to the Constitution on the basis that they discriminated against him on the grounds of gender. One section provided for the offence, the other for the prosecution of boys only. The case was heard by Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne in the High Court and judgment was delivered in March, but has only recently been placed on the Courts Service website.

In it, she found that the Act was constitutional on the basis that, while it was discriminatory, such discrimination was justifiable because the consequences of sexual intercourse (early pregnancy) bore particularly heavily on girls. The case is being appealed to the Supreme Court.

© 2010 The Irish Times

SOURCE

Irish Times: Church's stance on sexuality no longer helpful

2010-07-13T12:10:00.001+01:00

by GARRET FITZGERALD

Sat, Jul 10, 2010

EVEN IN the mid-1960s, 1,700 babies were born to females under 20, and over 300 of these young mothers were under 18. However, because of social pressures then, four-fifths of these under-20 females had married by the time their babies were born.

Perhaps because most of the births were thus within marriage, there does not seem to have been much concern about the fact that so many young females were becoming pregnant.

Over 30 years later the total number of pregnancies involving those under 21 had almost doubled, increasing the under-20 birth rate by half when demographic changes are allowed for. However, by the 1990s pressures on pregnant young women to marry before the birth of their baby had largely disappeared, and this had the effect of increasing over seven-fold the number of non-marital births to females in that age bracket.

That change in behaviour seems finally to have alerted society to the undesirability of so many births involving young women, and in 2001 the Crisis Pregnancy Agency was established to address this issue.

The work of this agency has had very positive results. Since 1999 the pregnancy rate for females under 20 has been reduced by over one-sixth and the reduction in births to those under 18 has been almost 30 per cent. Moreover, the abortion rate for those under 20 has fallen by 40 per cent.

It is also interesting that the earlier continuous rapid increase from 3 per cent to 33 per cent in the proportion of non-marital births between the mid-1960s and 1999 came to a halt after the latter year, and this non-marital birth rate has remained around that 33 per cent figure.

One cannot help wondering why none of this good news seems to emerge in our media, with the result that there is little public recognition of the progress made in this social area.

I have great admiration for the work of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency whose young staff relate well to teenagers, and whose research has yielded evidence-based data that has been shown to carry conviction with young people. In particular, teenagers, extremely subject to peer pressures, tend to be credulous about the extent of sexual experimentation within their own age group – many of them believing the myth that 70-80 per cent of under 17s engage in sexual activity. Persuading that age group that serious research shows this to be false, and that only 20 per cent of girls and 30 per cent of boys are sexually active before the age of 17, has been an important part of the agency’s work.

Other factors that have been found to discourage early sexual activity are factual information on the scale of sexually transmitted infections and the research which has shown that both men and women who have had their first experience of sexual activity at an early age are more likely to regret that timing than others who have waited until later.

The success of the agency’s work has been due to the fact that it is careful to avoid a normative approach: its staff do not attempt to tell young people how they ought to behave for they know that if they try to go beyond their brief in this way they could quickly lose their effectiveness.

Yet young people need to be helped to understand that their long-term happiness is likely to derive from establishing a successful intimate relationship with a partner – a relationship in which sex will play a major role.

Traditionally the role of providing this kind of guidance was left to the churches. And up to the 1960s, church teaching about avoiding sexual involvement before marriage carried widespread acceptance.

As recently as 1981 well over half of all women were married by age 24. Today, with earlier puberty; with education to a much later age; with four-fifths of women aged 25-34 engaged in paid work (as against one-quarter 30 years earlier); and with women reluctant to have children before their late 20s or early 30s; that traditional situation has been transformed. Today the proportion married by 24 has been reduced to just 8 per cent.

Today’s long gap between puberty and child-bearing in a stable relationship, together with the ready availability of contraception, has for most young people made unrealistic the traditional concept of abstention from sexual activity for a period that can now be as long as 15 or 20 years.

Church teaching has not adjusted to this new situation yet for very many children at school religious instruction is the only guidance they receive on this crucial issue. The problem is that our past excessive dependence on the churches has left a most unfortunate gulf in this key area just when within second-level education there is a clear need to supplement discouragement of early sexual activity with more positive guidance about the role of sex in establishing stable relationships.

Unhappily, church teaching on sexual matters has ceased to be helpful. Indeed, this traditional teaching has now become something of an obstacle to providing young people with realistic guidance that will help them to understand the crucial role of sex in establishing a stable long-term relationship.

In the absence of such relevant and credible guidance there is clearly a danger that many young people may succumb to the attraction of sexual activity for its own sake. That may make it more difficult for them to establish a stable long-term relationship.

Relationships and sexuality education within the framework of Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) offers the key to this problem, but despite much progress by the Department of Education the continued absence of a senior-cycle curriculum for SPHE and resistance to sex education in some schools continue to delay progress.

© 2010 The Irish Times

SOURCE

President of American Psychiatric Assocation refutes existence of 'abortion trauma syndrome'

2010-07-09T21:13:00.001+01:00

IPPF: Huge success for Gardasil [HPV Vaccine]

2010-07-07T15:33:00.001+01:00

Rates of new genital wart infection in Australia have plummeted, research shows, in an early positive sign of the success of mass Gardasil vaccinations.

A study taking in patient data from sexual health clinics across the country has shown up to a 60 per cent drop off in new genital wart cases since 2007, when the anti-cancer vaccine was rolled out.

Gardasil works by preventing the transmission of four strains of the Human papillomavirus (HPV), two of which cause cervical cancer and two which cause genital warts.

Experts say while its effect on cervical cancer rates would take longer to materialise, the vaccine's ability to prevent a less serious though embarrassing problem was now clear.

"Genital warts are distressing to the patient, as well as being difficult and expensive to treat," said Professor Basil Donovan, head of the Sexual Health Program at the University of NSW's National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research.

"While we knew from clinical trials that the vaccine was highly effective, Australia is the first country in the world to document a major benefit for the population as a whole."

Free Gardasil vaccinations were offered to Australian girls and young women, aged 12 to 26 years, and about 80 per cent of those eligible are thought to have taken up the offer.

Researchers pooled data from eight sexual health clinics Australia-wide, covering 110,000 new patients and the period from 2004 to 2009.

About 6000 new cases of genital warts were detected and analysis revealed a 60 per cent drop-off among women aged under 27, while there was no change among older women or gay men.

Heterosexual men recorded a smaller decline in new genital wart cases of just over 30 per cent, the result of increased immunity among their younger female partners.

"The high coverage by the vaccination program has had a large, population-level impact on the incidence of genital warts in young Australian women," the research concluded.

"A more moderate impact for heterosexual men has presumably resulted from herd immunity."

Herd immunity theory proposes that, in diseases passed from person to person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune.

The research will be presented this week at an international HPV conference in Montreal.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 2010

LINK

Irish Independent: Anxiety over HIV has faded, but the danger has not

2010-07-06T11:11:00.000+01:00

By Eilish O'Regan
Monday July 05 2010

In the 1980s it was the known as the "plague" and those infected with the HIV virus faced isolation, stigma and agonising death.

By 2010, HIV has joined that list of illnesses which barely command a few paragraphs in newspapers as the latest statistics on the number of people infected are reported.

We have gone from one extreme to another, but has a dangerous complacency set in? Those on the frontline treating HIV are very concerned.

The most recent report, for 2009, showed a continued rise in the number of gay and bisexual men testing positive for HIV, with the highest ever level of new cases.

The number of new diagnoses among gay men rose from 97 cases in 2008 to 138 in 2009, a 42.3pc increase. Young men under 30 accounted for 35pc of all cases.

Lest people think it is a gay disease, the portion of heterosexual people who were diagnosed with HIV made up 47pc last year -- compared to 46pc in 2007. They accounted for 156 new cases of the disease last year -- 96 female and 60 male.

Significantly, injecting drug users, who used to be high on the list, dropped to 30 of the new cases as the message about not sharing needles got through.

The figures should set off alarm bells but somehow the worrying trends have failed to wake up health authorities or the public.

When the statistics are broken down further the age group of people involved is striking. More than a quarter were 15-29 years of age. Yes, 15-year-olds are testing HIV positive. And 31pc of all age groups are female.

We don't hear much about HIV prevention messages these days and this inevitably puts people off their guard. This is coupled with the belief that HIV is now a treatable disease with drugs available to slow its progression.

Someone in their early 20s diagnosed early with HIV can avail of treatments and look forward to a relatively normal life.

But those with delayed diagnosis and treatment increase the rate of illness and premature death. They are also more likely to pass on the disease.

There are plenty of clinics now available to people to test for HIV, not just those in risk groups.

Doctors too need to be more courageous in suggesting the test for patients who present with symptoms which might indicate possible HIV. Many medics here say they are still seeing too many people diagnosed too late.

If infection is missed at an early stage there may be no symptoms for 10 years, until the patient falls seriously ill with a potentially fatal Aids-related condition.

Last year, two people died here of AIDs and 1,039 cases have been diagnosed since counting began in the late 1980s.

Ireland is not unique in these HIV trends. In 2008 an estimated 33.4m people were living globally with the virus, and in Europe the rate of infection is on the rise also.

The dilemma for authorities is whether to bring back the hard-hitting campaigns or go for a more moderate safe-sex message.

The problem is many countries are doing very little to raise awareness and are diverting resources elsewhere. The swine flu campaign is a good example of where resources were consumed at the expense of others.

Whatever public warning and awareness plan is implemented it needs to be more broad based than previously, not just spotlighting gay men.

The overall cost would be considerably less than treating this expensive infection.

- Eilish O'Regan

SOURCE

New York Times: Spain - Looser restrictions on abortion take effect

2010-07-06T11:04:00.003+01:00

July 5, 2010
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A new law allowing abortion without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy went into effect on Monday, but the Constitutional Court could intervene to suspend or change it. The law, approved by Parliament in February, allows abortions without parental permission for 16- and 17-year-olds, although the parents must be informed. It also declares a woman’s right to abortion and eliminates the threat of imprisonment. The conservative Popular Party is challenging the 14-week clause as unconstitutional, and the Constitutional Court must decide whether to suspend the law while it studies the appeal.

SOURCE

IPPF: Pope gives top job to abortion hardliner

2010-07-05T13:27:00.001+01:00

Cardinal Marc Ouellet has said terminations are wrong even in rape cases.

The pope handed one of the most powerful jobs in the Vatican to a cardinal who said recently that abortion was wrong, even in cases of rape.

The reshuffle also saw a senior prelate moved from the institution that helps frame the Catholic church's "pro-life" doctrines after he appeared to question the announcement by another archbishop that the mother of a child rape victim had removed herself from the church by arranging for her daughter to terminate her pregnancy.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella was transferred to head a new department charged with stemming the advance of secularisation, particularly in Europe.

It is the appointment of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, however, that is likely to arouse most controversy. As prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Ouellet, until now the archbishop of Quebec and primate of Canada, will be responsible for drawing up shortlists from which the pope decides who is to get a bishop's mitre.

The prefecture is often regarded as the third most important job in the Vatican administration since its incumbent can prevent even the most gifted priest from rising to a position of leadership in the church. Ouellet has in the past been touted as a successor to Benedict.

This year, Ouellet provoked what the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation termed a "firestorm of criticism" when he told an anti-abortion conference in Quebec City that terminating a pregnancy was a "moral crime" even in rape cases. He said he understood that a sexually assaulted woman should be helped and her attacker held accountable. "But there is already a victim," he said. "Must there be another one?"

Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois, said she was outraged by Ouellet's views and accused him of trying to get abortion recriminalised – a claim a spokesperson for the archdiocese denied.

Four days after he made his remarks, the Quebec national assembly passed a unanimous resolution affirming women's right to free and accessible abortion.

Last year, there was worldwide controversy when Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife in Brazil said the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather had excommunicated herself from the Catholic church.

In response, in an article published on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, Fisichella wrote: "Before giving thought to excommunication, it was necessary and urgent to safeguard the innocent life of this girl."

He was replaced as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life by a Spanish prelate close to the conservative Opus Dei. Fisichella's appointment to head the nascent Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation is not a demotion, but it marked the second time in a week that the pope sent a clear signal that he would not tolerate public dissent.

On Monday, the Vatican announced that the archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, had come to Rome to explain himself to the pontiff after apparently questioning priestly celibacy and accusing a fellow cardinal of mishandling a prominent sex abuse scandal.

Source: The Guardian, 30 June 2010
Author: John Hooper

SOURCE

Irish Times: More find it harder to afford abortion services

2010-06-29T15:59:00.000+01:00

by EITHNE DONNELLAN
Health Correspondent

Tue, Jun 29, 2010

MORE WOMEN are reporting difficulties in coming up with the money necessary to access abortion services, according to the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA).

The association’s chief executive, Niall Behan, said yesterday that the association counsellors were seeing more women reporting this difficulty in the current economic climate.

The association offers counselling at centres in Cork, Dublin, Dundalk, Galway, Gorey, Letterkenny, Limerick, Monaghan, Sligo and Waterford.

Mr Behan said, however, that “finances are only one of a range of factors women take into account in their decision-making process”.

His comments came a day after Dublin’s Well Woman Centre said increasing numbers of women attending its three pregnancy counselling services in the capital were considering terminating pregnancies as a consequence of the recession.

Chief executive Alison Begas said up to one in five of the 2,000 or so women who presented to Well Woman for pregnancy counselling last year cited financial concerns as the main reason why they were seeking information on having a termination.

However not all crisis pregnancy counselling services are seeing the same trend. Deirdre Seery, director of the Sexual Health Centre in Cork, said the numbers it was seeing who were considering terminations for financial reasons hadn’t increased.

“In fact what we’ve heard anecdotally through the various strands of our work is women are saying they may as well be pregnant because they are not working, that it’s a good time to get pregnant,” she said.

Meanwhile Dublin Well Woman’s annual report, published yesterday, said the recession is also affecting the numbers of people presenting for full screening for sexually transmitted infections (STI). It said the numbers attending for such testing had fallen by about a third.

“Sadly we don’t think that’s due to massive behavioural change . . . we think its probably due to financial constraints,” Ms Begas said.

A full screening which involves blood and swab tests to check for infections such as chlamydia, gonorrhoea, HIV and syphilis costs €145 at Well Woman. While screening is free at some public hospitals, clients may have to wait for the service, Well Woman said.

It said reduced testing meant a lower detection and treatment rate of STIs which ultimately exposes more sexually active people to risk.

Separately, Well Woman reported a significant increase in the numbers of women presenting for cervical smear tests last year after the death from cervical cancer of UK celebrity Jade Goody.

© 2010 The Irish Times

SOURCE

Irish Times: Alarm over pregnancy advice by 'rogue' agencies

2010-06-29T12:55:00.000+01:00

Tue, Jun 29, 2010

Women report feeling traumatised after anti-abortion groups use misleading advertising to convince them to use their services, writes CAROL RYAN

THE HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme is advising women to avoid “unreliable” counselling services, after it received 67 complaints over a nine-month period about certain agencies which tried to influence women’s decisions about their pregnancies.

Several women who approached these agencies for advice on their options reported feeling distressed by the counselling techniques used. State-funded pregnancy counselling services are concerned about the issue, and have called on the Government to step in and regulate their activities.

Pregnancy counselling services in Ireland generally state their ethos to help women select an appropriate service. One of the criticisms levelled against unreliable agencies by the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) among others, is that their advertising is misleading, implying that they will provide information about abortion services abroad when this is not the case.

An IFPA report claims that so-called “rogue” agencies use pro-choice language and advertise in a manner designed to attract women who may be considering abortion, when in reality they have an anti-abortion ethos.

The report describes how the services, listed under “family planning” in the Golden Pages , offer to discuss “all options” and refer to UK cities in their advertisements. The IFPA claims the ads are misleading, “inducing in the reader the false expectation that they will provide information on abortion services”.

The counselling methods used by these agencies have also come in for strong criticism. The Well Woman Clinic regularly encounters women who have visited them and found the experience upsetting.

“From what we hear, women are subjected to the most extraordinary tactics,” says Alison Begas, chief executive of the Well Woman Centre.

“We have heard stories of counselling sessions lasting three to four hours, the use of lurid US-produced videos and disturbing images.

“None of these tactics has any place in responsible pregnancy counselling. The problem is that most women don’t know where to go for advice until they actually need it.”

She adds that silence surrounding the issue of abortion leaves women vulnerable to “spurious” medical information, and women who have a bad experience with a rogue agency are less likely to seek the good quality service they need to make an informed decision.

Sarah (not her real name) became pregnant at 19 and made an appointment with a pregnancy counselling agency in Dublin with a view to discussing a termination.

“Our contraception failed. Myself and my boyfriend were both in college and it was fairly obvious to us that we didn’t want a child. We went to the Golden Pages , looked at family planning. We made a phone call to this place saying we wanted to talk about having an abortion, going to England.

“I think the ad made some reference to English clinics, it definitely gave the impression they gave out abortion information . . . I don’t think I would have had the guts to say it if the ad wasn’t like that.

“They said, ‘Yes, come in, that is what we do and we will give you all the information you need’. There was no hint of religion or anything. We went in together with our minds made up, and the place was horrible, really grotty.

“They separated us pretty much immediately after the test. What I remember is coming out after two or three hours in there and us both looking at each other and saying, ‘Okay, we can’t do that now, it’s not an option anymore’.

“They talked about how an abortion would ruin our relationship, that we would break up, and that really got to us.

“They said I would not be able to have children again; my family would think I was awful; that I’d never want to have sex again; they actually managed to change our mind about this huge thing.

“They said my risk of breast cancer would go up two or three times, and called several times afterwards to ask what decision I made. I think they cause a lot of confusion and pain in the long run. They have to be closed down. I mean, it is such a huge thing to have to go through.”

The medical information given to women about the side effects and potential complications of abortion is controversial.

Sinéad Ahern, spokeswoman for Choice Ireland, posed as a pregnant client to find out what kind of information these agencies were giving.

She was told that if she had an abortion she would “most certainly need a hysterectomy, cervical cancer, most women end up with infections and infertility. . . that I’d become promiscuous, or frigid”.

Women have been told that abortion can lead to depression, drug addiction, alcoholism and an increased risk of abusing any future children they might have. The agencies also claim that abortion doubles the risk of developing breast cancer.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the World Health Organisation have both stated that abortion is not associated with any increased risk of breast cancer.

The Abbey Women’s Centre, a pregnancy counselling service advertised in the Golden Pages, has been named by Choice Ireland as a suspected rogue agency.

Patrick Jameson, spokesman for the service, objects to criticisms of its counselling techniques and the “rogue” label.

He says the service is important, adding: “We are here to protect women from abortion profiteering.”

When asked about the use of abortion imagery and videos during counselling sessions, he said they are used “to show women the truth about abortion, women should not be denied the truth about what happens. It is natural that they find it upsetting.”

He said that many State-funded services are in fact “rogue” as they “deny women the truth, the real medical information about abortion and not offering women realistic help to have the baby”.

The Department of Health currently has no plans to consider a regulatory licensing system for this area but says the approach adopted by the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme “is, among other things, to further raise the public profile of State-funded crisis pregnancy services”.

The HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme advises women to visit the Positive Options website (positive options.ie) for a list of free, State-funded crisis pregnancy services available countrywide. It recommends that women visit a non-directive crisis pregnancy service, and to find out as much as possible about the service before making an appointment.

The Abortion Information Act 1995 establishes a right to information about abortion services abroad, but details must be given in the context of a face-to-face counselling session, and only in conjunction with comprehensive information about both parenting and adoption options.

© 2010 The Irish Times

SOURCE

Irish Times: Increasing numbers consider abortion 'because of recession'

2010-06-28T15:07:00.001+01:00

by EITHNE DONNELLAN
Health Correspondent

Mon, Jun 28, 2010

WOMEN IN increasing numbers are considering terminating pregnancies as a consequence of the recession, according to Dublin’s Well Woman Centre.

Chief executive Alison Begas said yesterday that up to one in five of the 2,000 of so women who presented to Well Woman for pregnancy counselling last year cited financial concerns as the main reason why they were seeking information on having a termination.

Some of the women were married and already had children, some were professionals who had had their salaries or hours cut, and some came to discuss their options accompanied by their partners who had recently lost their jobs, she said.

She said figures collated by Well Woman’s three centres in Dublin – Ballsbridge, Coolock and Liffey Street in the city centre – which offer non-directive counselling, showed increased numbers of women with financial concerns attending for pregnancy counselling services in 2009.

While in previous years women cited financial concerns as reasons for considering a termination, those financial concerns had more to do with lifestyle factors such as wanting to spend their money travelling the world, she said.

Ms Begas said the trend was disturbing. “It’s only one other aspect of how the recession is impacting on women’s health . . . it’s insidious the way it hits people,” she said.

Ms Begas, who was speaking in advance of the publication today of Well Woman’s annual report, said women coming to the counselling service were of all ages – from students up to women in their 40s. They included “barristers, managing directors, housewives and students”.

“We would see probably a couple of thousand women a year of all ages. What we have found in the last year in about 15 to 20 per cent of the pregnancy counselling services is that the woman was specifically citing income worries and issues around financial security as reasons for attending.

“When counsellors delved deeper into that, it was either she might have lost her job recently or had her hours or salary reduced or there was a fear that was on the horizon. Or similarly that may have happened to her husband or partner.

“Sometimes these were married couples with one or two children and everything was very, very tight [financially] and considering continuing with the pregnancy was something they felt unable to do,” she said. “What we have also heard from younger women, maybe in university facing a crisis pregnancy, is they were not confident they would immediately get a job on graduation or secure a job with an income that would allow them cover creche fees.”

Well Woman’s pregnancy counselling service is funded by the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme (formerly the Crisis Pregnancy Agency) and is free for all women.

“We will discuss with a woman her three options including abortion, adoption and parenting. We cannot and do not offer any advice. We do not try to persuade her,” she said.

As a result Ms Begas said she did not know how many of the women with financial worries actually went on to have an abortion or, if following counselling, they reconsidered. “We never know what decision she makes when she leaves the room.”

© 2010 The Irish Times

SOURCE

Cork Women's Right to Choose Film Night

2010-06-09T15:49:00.002+01:00

Cork Women's Right To Choose Group are showing two 30 minute documentaries
this coming Thursday, June 10th at 8 PM at Solidarity Books:

Abortion Diaries

Like a Ship in the Night

There will also be time for discussion of the films and the issues
raised.

8pm, Thursday June 10th
Solidarity Books
43 Douglas Street
Cork

Human Rights Watch: Global: Maternal and Reproductive Health Care Failings

2010-05-28T16:07:00.002+01:00

Governments Should Improve Response to Grievances, Monitor Progress

May 27, 2010

(New York, May 27, 2010) - Maternal and reproductive health care across the world is often sub-standard and inaccessible, yet many governments are not doing enough to address grievances and track problems, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch issued a roundup of its reporting on reproductive health issues in advance of the International Day of Action for Women's Health, on May 28, 2010.

The 10-page roundup, "Unaccountable: Addressing Reproductive Health Care Gaps," illustrates health system accountability failures in Asia, Latin America, Africa, the United States, and Europe. Accountability is a major theme for global efforts to improve maternal health, including those connected to the United Nations-backed Millennium Development Goals and the 2010 G-8 summit meeting.

"Governments have long pledged to reduce maternal deaths and improve reproductive health care," said Janet Walsh, deputy women's rights director at Human Rights Watch. "Yet many aren't taking even basic steps, like enabling patients to lodge grievances, addressing complaints, establishing health standards, and tracking births and deaths."

In interviews around the world, hundreds of women and girls have described the pursuit of reproductive health care as an obstacle course. Logistical, cultural, and financial barriers to services and information, discrimination, and abusive health providers block the way.

Many governments have done far too little to establish functioning grievance mechanisms, Human Rights Watch said. They have neglected to inform patients of their rights and what to do when they are violated. Many women fear retaliation if they complain:

* Women in India told Human Rights Watch that they had never heard of a way to make complaints about maternal health care problems. A few said they had submitted complaints, but were pressured by health professionals to withdraw them.

* In US immigration detention facilities, many women said they were never informed that they could submit grievances about health care problems, and some feared retaliation if they complained.

Many governments lack sufficient standards and guidelines for reproductive health services. In Mexico, for example, most of the federal states have no administrative guidelines on access to legal abortions after rape. As a result, many officials are afraid to facilitate access and deny that they have any mandate to do so.

"Missing or unclear standards hamper efforts to monitor quality of care, and to ensure that health care is available to all who need it," Walsh said. "Accountability is impossible without clear standards."

Tracking health budgets, ensuring independent oversight, and releasing information on health spending to the public are also important elements of accountability, Human Rights Watch said. In many countries, budget allocations for reproductive health are unclear, making it more likely that funds will be misused. Often, the public has little ability to find out where their country's resources are going. In some cases, this lack of openness feeds corruption.

For example, in several Nigerian states Human Rights Watch documented instances in which health funds were squandered or outright stolen. One local government official allocated money to a "fish pond" with neither water nor fish and a "football academy" that he never built, while health clinics crumbled.

Collecting and analyzing data, including registering births and deaths, is another essential element of accountable health systems, Human Rights Watch said, but many governments are neglecting data collection.

For example, the Irish government does not collect data on the number of legal abortions carried out within Ireland, nor does it estimate the numbers of illegal abortions. In India, even though birth and death registration are mandatory, many births and deaths are not recorded. An estimated 26 million births and 9 million deaths occur in India every year, but only 53 percent of births and 48 percent of deaths are registered. Estimates of maternal deaths each year in India range from 60,000 to nearly 120,000, but without better birth and death registration and improved data collection systems, the actual numbers are impossible to know.

"Ignoring grievances and failing to set standards or monitor progress undermines governments' lofty goals for saving lives and promoting reproductive health," Walsh said. "Governments, with support from international donors and agencies, need to do far more to achieve health system accountability."

Human Rights Watch called on governments to:

* Establish accessible grievance mechanisms to facilitate inquiries into maternal deaths and other health system complaints.

* Monitor the provision of reproductive and maternal health care, improve data collection and civil registration systems, and release health data to the public.

* Develop guidelines on reproductive health services and ensure that they are understood and implemented by healthcare providers.

* Ensure that health budgets are sufficiently detailed to allow tracking of reproductive health spending, and make budget information available to the public.

SOURCE

© Copyright 2010, Human Rights Watch

IPPF: Abortion safety key to maternal health: scientists

2010-05-28T16:01:00.001+01:00

May 28 2010

The top scientific groups from the G8 countries say funding for maternal and child health, including initiatives aimed at unsafe abortions, must increase.

The Royal Society of Canada and its counterparts in the other G8 countries note that the risk of a woman dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth is one in seven in the poorest parts of the world and is more than 80 per cent preventable.

A statement from the groups says up to 40 per cent of maternal and infant deaths could be averted with improved access to contraception and measures to reduce unsafe abortion.

The statement says abortions performed by unskilled providers or under unhygienic conditions because of local laws banning abortions account for 13 per cent of maternal deaths.

The Conservative government has excluded abortion funding in its G8 maternal- and child-health initiative.

The scientific groups say governments and inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations must deal openly with unsafe abortions, and ensure appropriate and accessible treatment of women who develop complications.

"Provision of effective contraception for approximately 200 million women who have none would prevent 23 million unplanned births, 22 million induced abortions and 14,000 pregnancy-related maternal deaths each year," the statement, released late Tuesday, reads.

Mortality reduction targets set

The scientific groups also say practices such as female genital mutilation should be eradicated and the misuse of technology of prenatal sex determination for aborting female fetuses should be condemned.

The Royal Society of Canada is the country's senior national body of distinguished scholars, artists and scientists. Its objective is to promote learning and research in the arts and sciences.

The statement says the community shaping global political priorities for the health of women and children has been fragmented.

"G8 governments should work with international agencies to facilitate regional co-ordination mechanisms for women and children's health," it says.

The goal should be reducing child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015.

Documents obtained recently by The Canadian Press through access-to-information show the government ignored the advice of its own civil servants in taking its decision to exclude abortion funding.

Briefing notes prepared in January by the Canadian International Development Agency for International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda suggest access to safe abortion services could save many lives in developing countries.

But appearing before a parliamentary committee Wednesday, two Tory cabinet ministers and CIDA's president offered little insight as to why the government excluded the abortion funding.

CIDA's Margaret Biggs testified that her agency simply provides information, while the government makes the decisions.

Oda supported Biggs's response Wednesday, but refused to say who made the final decision when she was grilled on the issue after leaving the meeting.

Opposition MPs present at the parliamentary committee were not satisfied with Oda's answers.

Leaders of the world's G8 and G20 nations gather next month in Ontario.

Source: www.cbc.ca, 27 May 2010

SOURCE

BBC: SPUC launches legal challenge to abortion guidelines

2010-05-27T19:48:00.002+01:00

27 May 2010

Pro-life campaigners have launched a new High Court challenge over controversial government guidelines on abortion in Northern Ireland.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) won permission on Thursday to seek a judicial review.

SPUC claims the Department of Health breached an order for complete withdrawal of its guidance.

Abortion is illegal in NI, except where the mother's life or mental wellbeing are considered at risk.

The High Court ruled last year that the advice on terminating pregnancies must be completely withdrawn because it was misleading.

A judge then rejected an attempt by the department to have just two sections on counselling and conscientious objection reconsidered rather than the full guidance.

'No proper consultation'

SPUC have returned to court claiming Lord Justice Girvan's direction has been breached by publishing guidelines with these parts omitted.

The group also alleges there has been no proper consultation with it and other relevant parties.

SPUC originally wanted a declaration that what has been produced did not properly set out the law.

It claimed the guidance also failed to deal with the rights of the unborn child and provided inadequate advice for conscientious objectors within the medical profession.

The Department of Health's legal representatives rejected allegations it had failed to make clear that abortion was illegal in Northern Ireland apart from in the most exceptional circumstances.

They also said the document was for health workers rather than the general public.

Although the High Court stopped short of quashing the guidelines, it ruled last November that the counselling and conscientious objection sections were unclear.

A date for the full hearing of the new challenge has yet to be set.

SOURCE

BBC: Survey suggests easing of Northern Ireland abortion laws

2010-05-27T16:23:00.001+01:00

May 26 2010

Abortion laws should be liberalised, more than half of NI's practising gynaecologists have suggested.

An academic survey claims that the majority of gynaecologists in Northern Ireland "do not support the current abortion law as it stands".

Many also said they would carry out abortions under certain conditions.
Sexual health charity FPA said this "rubbished" claims by anti-choice groups and politicians that "there is no place for abortion in NI".

Of 42 gynaecologists working in Northern Ireland, 37 took part in the survey giving a response rate of 88%.

Legal
Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they would support liberalising the current abortion law with more than two thirds agreeing that abortion should be legal on grounds of fetal abnormality.

Asked what conditions under which they would personally carry out abortions, 70% said they would be prepared to on grounds of fetal abnormality and 49% said they would where the woman has been raped.

The survey, 'Attitudes and practice of gynaecologists towards abortion in Northern Ireland' (2009), was conducted by Colin Francome, Emeritus Professor in the Sociology of Health, at Middlesex University, England.

It suggested that: 68% of NI gynaecologists agreed that abortion should be legal when the woman had been raped; 73% wanted free abortions for Northern Ireland women forced to travel overseas for the procedure; and 51% supported major abortion charities being licensed to carry out abortions in Northern Ireland.

Only 32% said the abortion law should stay as it is.

SOURCE

Irish Times: Numbers travelling for abortion drop

2010-05-25T19:36:00.000+01:00

ELAINE EDWARDS

Tue, May 25, 2010

The number of women who gave Irish addresses at British abortion clinics decreased for the eighth year in a row last year, new figures show.

Statistics published by the UK Department of Health said some 4,422 women gave Irish addresses at clinics in 2009, down from 6,673 in 2001.

The HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme said the abortion rate of women giving Irish addresses at clinics has dropped from 7.5 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 (in the UK only) in 2001, to 4.5 per 1,000 women last year (in the UK and Netherlands).

The highest number of those who travelled to the UK for abortions last year were in the 20-29 age group (2,398 women). A total of 38 girls under the age of 16 and 155 girls aged 16 and 17 who had abortions last year gave Irish addresses.

A total of 258 women aged 40 and over also travelled to England and Wales for abortions.

Of those women giving Irish addresses, some 68 per cent terminated their pregnancy at between three and nine weeks gestation.

A total of 18 per cent terminated at between 10 and 12 weeks, 12 per cent had abortions at between 13 and 19 weeks, and 2 per cent terminated at 20 weeks or over.

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) welcomed what it said was the “small reduction” in the number of women travelling for abortions.

IFPA chief executive Niall Behan said: “While this trend is a step in the right direction the harsh reality behind these statistics is that every day 12 women must make the journey to Britain to access safe and legal abortion services.

“These figures are compelling evidence of the need for domestic-based abortion services in Ireland.”

Mr Behan said the Government’s “failure to face reality means that women's and girls' rights are being denied on a daily basis”.

“The criminalisation of abortion has little impact on abortion rates; it merely adds to the burden and stress suffered by women experiencing crisis pregnancies.”

He said that since 1980, at least 142,060 women travelled to Britain for abortion services.

“This figure highlights the hypocrisy of Ireland's laws on abortion, which are among the most restrictive in the world.”

Dr Ruth Cullen of the Pro-Life Campaign said: “Groups advocating abortion in Ireland claim that we need to introduce abortion here to ‘confront the reality of crisis pregnancy’.

“This attitude completely ignores the humanity of the unborn child and the latest peer reviewed research showing the negative consequences of abortion for women,” she said.

“Rather than seek to have abortion introduced in Ireland, we should see the latest reduction in the abortion rate as very encouraging and work together to ensure this downward trend continues.”

Director of the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme, Caroline Spillane, noted the “sustained decline” in the number of women giving Irish addresses at abortion clinics in the UK.

“The Crisis Pregnancy Programme along with many other organisations working in the area of sexual health have given strategic focus to initiatives aimed at preventing crisis pregnancy and also to improving the supports which are in place for those who do experience a crisis pregnancy,” she said.

“We hope that these statistics are an indication that this work is having a real impact in reducing the instance of crisis pregnancy in Ireland.”

Last December, the European Court of Human Rights heard a challenge to Ireland’s abortion laws from three women living here.

In the case – known as A, B and C versus Ireland – the women are challenging the State’s abortion laws on the basis that they were forced to travel abroad to terminate a pregnancy which threatened their health or wellbeing. A judgment is expected later in the year.

© 2010 irishtimes.com

SOURCE

RH Reality Check: Nun Excommunicated for Approving Lifesaving Abortion

2010-05-20T20:19:00.002+01:00

By Lindsay E. Beyerstein
Created May 19 2010 - 1:30pm

This article was originally published by The Media Consortium [1], of which RH Reality Check is a member.

A nun in Phoenix, Arizona was excommunicated for approving a lifesaving abortion. Sister Margaret McBride [2]'s career in the Catholic church came to an abrupt end after she approved an therapeutic abortion at St. Joseph's Hospital Medical Center, Robin Marty of RH Reality Check reports.

The woman was 11 weeks' pregnant when she developed a life threatening case of pulmonary hypertension [3] according to Ms. Magazine. Sr. McBride approved the procedure after consulting with the patient, her family, and the hospital's ethics committee, but the local bishop excommunicated her anyway.

Sr. McBride's excommunication is the latest salvo in a national battle over access to reproductive health care in Catholic hospitals. Between a fifth and a third of all hospital beds in the United States are administered by the Catholic Church. Catholic hospitals provide health care services to the community at large and often receive public funding—but they are not required to offer treatments that conflict with their religious teachings.

Excommuniqué

Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted [4], Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix wrote in a statement, ""If a Catholic formally cooperates in the procurement of an abortion, they are automatically excommunicated by that action." Note that the Catholic Church doesn't automatically excommunicate priests who sexually abuse children.

"We always must remember that when a difficult medical situation involves a pregnant woman, there are two patients in need of treatment and care; not merely one. The unborn child's life is just as sacred as the mother's life, and neither life can be preferred over the other," the bishop wrote.

This wasn't even a choice between the life of the mother and the life of the fetus. An 11-week-old fetus is not viable. If the mother dies, the fetus dies with her. Evidently Bishop Olmestead would rather have seen the woman and the fetus die instead of saving the woman. How pro life.

Radical, even by Catholic standards

Amelia Thomson DeVeaux notes at Care2 that the bishop's position is radical [5] even by Catholic standards:

[N]ow, a dangerous precendent seems to have been established by Olmsted's actions. Olmsted himself is extremely conservative, even by Vatican standards, and has been a strong critic of Obama. But [bioethicist Jacob Appel [6]] claims that this is not really about Olmsted - instead, the decision is reflective of a general trend in Catholic heathcare. Competent adult women, Appel suggests, are no longer allowed to make their own decisions in Catholic hospitals, which comprise approximately 1/3 of medical services in the country.

Liliana Loofbourow passionately rebukes the bishop [7] on the Ms. Magazine blog, "Catholics like Sister Margaret McBride are a ray of hope in the darkness. However, she is not a Catholic anymore. And as of this writing, neither am I."

During the health care reform debate, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops flexed its political muscle to ensure maximally restrictive rules on abortion coverage for everyone. Reproductive rights groups fear that access to basic reproductive health care, and even lifesaving medical treatment in Catholic hospitals will be an ongoing point of contention.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members [8] of The Media Consortium [9]. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse [10] for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter [11]. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit [12], The Mulch [13], and The Diaspora [14]. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

SOURCE

Links:
[1] http://www.themediaconsortium.org/2010/05/12/weekly-pulse-scotus-nominee-kagan-a-cipher-on-choice/
[2] http://bit.ly/c9rWIq
[3] http://bit.ly/cTUs94
[4] http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/05/14/20100514stjoseph0515bishop.html#ixzz0oIhkdScL
[5] http://bit.ly/bjk0Q5
[6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/after-st-josephs-are-wome_b_578086.html
[7] http://bit.ly/aJuqRm
[8] http://www.themediaconsortium.org/our-members
[9] http://www.themediaconsortium.org
[10] http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/healthcare
[11] http://www.twitter.com/pulsetmc
[12] http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/economy/
[13] http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/sustain
[14] http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/immigration

New York Times: Poverty and the Pill

2010-05-20T19:46:00.001+01:00

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
May 19, 2010

KINSHASA, Congo

Earthquakes are more dramatic. Tsunamis make better television. AIDS is more visceral.

But here’s a far more widespread challenge, one that’s also more fixable: the unavailability of birth control in many poor countries. I’m on my annual win-a-trip journey across a chunk of Central Africa with a 19-year-old university student, Mitch Smith. He won the right to bounce over impossible roads in the region where it’s easy to see firsthand how breakneck population growth is linked to poverty, instability and conflict.

In almost every village we stop in, we chat with families whose huts overflow with small children — whom the parents can’t always afford to educate, feed or protect from disease.

Here in Kinshasa, we met Emilie Lunda, 25, who had nearly died during childbirth a few days earlier. Doctors saved her life, but her baby died. And she is still recuperating in a hospital and doesn’t know how she will pay the bill.

“I didn’t want to get pregnant,” Emilie told us here in the Congolese capital. “I was afraid of getting pregnant.” But she had never heard of birth control.

In rural parts of Congo Republic, the other Congo to the north, we found that even when people had heard of contraception, they often regarded it as unaffordable.

Most appalling, all the clinics and hospitals we visited in Congo Republic said that they would sell contraceptives only to women who brought their husbands in with them to prove that the husband accepted birth control.

Condoms are somewhat easier to obtain, but many men resist them. More broadly, many men seem to feel that more children are a proud sign of more virility.

So the pill, 50 years old this month in the United States, has yet to reach parts of Africa. And condoms and other forms of birth control and AIDS prevention are still far too difficult to obtain in some areas.

America’s widely respected Guttmacher Institute, which conducts research on reproductive health, says that 215 million women around the world are sexually active and don’t want to become pregnant — but are not using modern forms of contraception.

Making contraception available to all these women worldwide would cost less than $4 billion, Guttmacher said in an important study published last year. That’s about what the United States is spending every two weeks on our military force in Afghanistan.

What’s more, each dollar spent on contraception would actually reduce total medical spending by $1.40 by reducing sums spent on unplanned births and abortions, the study said.

If contraception were broadly available in poor countries, the report said, more than 50 million unwanted pregnancies could be averted annually. One result would be 25 million fewer abortions per year. Another would be saving the lives of as many as 150,000 women who now die annually in childbirth.

Family planning has stalled since the 1980s. Republican administrations cut off all American financing for the United Nations Population Fund, the main international agency supporting family-planning programs. Paradoxically, conservative hostility to some family-planning programs almost certainly resulted in more abortions.

The Obama administration has restored that financing, and it should make a priority of broader access to contraception (and to girls’ education, which may be the most effective contraceptive of all).

In fairness, family planning is harder than it looks. Many impoverished men and women, especially those without education, want babies more than contraceptives. As Mitch and I drove through villages, we asked many women how many babies they would ideally have. Most said five or six, and a few said 10.

Parents want many children partly because they expect some to die. So mosquito nets, vaccinations and other steps to reduce child mortality also help to create an environment where family planning is more readily accepted.

In short, what’s needed is a comprehensive approach to assisting men and women alike with family planning — not just a contraceptive dispensary.

Romerchinelle Mietala, a 17-year-old girl in Mindouli, Congo Republic, has one baby and told us that she doesn’t really want another child for now. But she had never heard of contraceptives and, when we explained, was ambivalent. She worried about her status in the village if she didn’t get pregnant again reasonably soon.

“If a woman doesn’t have a baby every two or three years, people will say she’s sterile,” she said.

Another woman in Mindouli, Christine Kanda, said that she is ready to stop now after eight children — two of which have died. But she doesn’t know if her husband will accompany her to the clinic to sign off, and she doesn’t know how she would pay the $1 a month that the hospital charges.

So she may just keep on producing babies.

LINK

Irish Times: Cervical vaccination programme begins

2010-05-20T16:55:00.000+01:00

by EITHNE DONNELLAN

Wed, May 19, 2010

A 13-YEAR-OLD student who wrote to Minister for Health Mary Harney last year to complain about the lack of a national cervical vaccination programme has become one of the first to be vaccinated now that the national programme has finally commenced.

Sadbh Scully from Dundrum, Dublin, was among 40 students to receive the HPV vaccine at Jesus and Mary College, Our Lady’s Grove, Goatstown, yesterday.

First-year students at it and 20 other schools are being offered the vaccine before the summer break in the first phase of the national cervical cancer vaccination programme.

Sadbh said she felt very privileged to be among the first to get the vaccine under the national programme.

She wrote to Ms Harney after the death of Jade Goody from cervical cancer saying it was unfair that the vaccine was not being offered to Irish girls. She argued that the vaccination programme could be provided for less than the amount spent on the new Samuel Beckett bridge in the city.

The HSE said the first vaccinations went well, with most students opting to avail of the vaccine, other than those who will be on holiday in July when they will require a second dose.

The vaccine, which protects against 70 per cent of cervical cancer strains, must be given in three doses. The second dose has to be given two months after the first dose and the third six months after the first dose.

Dr Maureen O’Leary, senior medical officer with the HSE, who led the immunisation team at the Goatstown school, said she was happy with the uptake and the response from girls and parents.

First-year students not vaccinated before the summer holidays will be vaccinated when schools return in September. And sixth-class students going into second-level schools in September will also be offered the vaccination at that stage.

About 250 women get cervical cancer each year, and 80 women die from it. The HPV vaccination programme, in conjunction with smear testing, is expected to reduce that death toll in coming years.

© 2010 The Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0519/1224270654681.html

The Guardian: Abortion Ad Blocked in Northern Ireland

2010-05-20T16:36:00.002+01:00

by Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
Thursday 20 May 2010 10.24 BST

Channel 4 has banned Marie Stopes advert from being broadcast in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal

Channel 4 has banned an advertisement for abortion services from being broadcast in Northern Ireland.

Millions of viewers in England, Scotland and Wales will be able to watch the TV ad for Marie Stopes International (MSI) on Channel 4 at 10.10pm tonight.

But the UK's fourth channel has been prevented from screening the commercial for MSI in Northern Ireland because abortion is still illegal in the province. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where the 1967 Abortion Act does not apply. All of the political parties in the Stormont assembly, except the Progressive Unionists, are opposed to the extension of the act to Northern Ireland.

Anti-abortion groups in Northern Ireland said they welcomed legislation blocking the ad from being broadcast, but they were angry that it would be screened elsewhere in the UK.

A leading sexual health charity based in Belfast said it was another example of how women in the province were treated differently to the rest of the UK.

The Family Planning Association said it highlighted the need to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland.

The ad, which is part of the 'Are you late?' campaign by MSI, will air on Channel 4 until the end of June.

Dana Hovig, MSI's chief executive, said: "It's a shame that we are not allowed to screen the commercial in Northern Ireland – abortion continues to be severely restricted there and women in Northern Ireland are forced to travel to England for abortion services.

"Therefore the advertising of abortion facilities, their contact numbers or addresses is against the law in Northern Ireland."

Dr Audrey Simpson, director of Northern Ireland for the Family Planning Association, said: "I think a lot of people would say it is inappropriate to use this ad on television because it would encourage women to have abortions.

"They use the argument that if you give people information it encourages them to go and do something. But women already have access to that information."

LINK

Marie Stopes International: First ever TV commercial for Abortion Services to air in Britain

2010-05-20T16:32:00.002+01:00

May 20 2010

Marie Stopes International launches national campaign to raise awareness of sexual health and confront the taboo of abortion

For the first time ever, a commercial for unplanned pregnancy and abortion advisory services will be aired on British television. The commercial, to be screened first on Channel 4 at 10.10pm on 24th May 2010, is part of a new campaign by Marie Stopes International, the UK’s leading provider of sexual health services outside of the NHS.

The ground breaking commercial was created by Marie Stopes International after independent research showed that only 42%1 of UK adults stated that they would know where to go for specialist advice (other than going to their GP) if they or their partner were faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The survey also showed that over three quarters of UK adults (76%)2 agree that commercials about unplanned pregnancy advice services should be allowed on TV within appropriate broadcasting times.

Despite the fact that one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime3, the subject is still not always openly, or honestly, discussed. While there is a lot of information about abortion available unfortunately not all of it is accurate or impartial. Marie Stopes International works to improve public understanding of unplanned pregnancy and abortion, and to help women make confident, informed sexual health choices.

The campaign asks 'Are you late?' - a question familiar to any woman who has missed her period, and directs women facing unplanned pregnancy to Marie Stopes International’s 24hr helpline, where they can receive non-judgemental support, advice and services. The commercial will air on Channel 4 from May 24th and throughout June.

In 2008, 215,975 abortions were performed in the UK – of which 195,2964 were for women resident in England and Wales. In this same period, 1,173 women were forced to travel at their own expense to England from Northern Ireland, where abortion remains largely unavailable. In 2009, Marie Stopes International performed about one in three of all abortions carried out in England and Wales.

Dana Hovig, Marie Stopes International's CEO said:

"Last year alone we received 350,000 calls to our 24 hour helpline. Clearly there are hundreds of thousands of women who want and need sexual health information and advice, and access to services. Marie Stopes International provides such support in a safe, non-judgemental environment. We hope the new ‘Are you late?’ campaign will encourage people to talk about abortion more openly and honestly, and empower women to make confident, informed choices about their sexual health."

For help and advice, call 0845 300 3737 (24 hours) or visit www.mariestopes.org.uk

For further information, interviews or stills from the commercial, please contact: mariestopes@hillandknowlton.com or call 020 7413 3769/ 3490/ 3764

1 YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2096 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 9th - 11th February 2010. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all UK adults (aged 18+).

2 YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2096 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 9th - 11th February 2010. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all UK adults (aged 18+).

3 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, The Care of Women Requesting Induced Abortion, Evidence-based Clinical Guideline Number 7, September 2004, available at: http://www.rcog.org.uk/files/rcog-corp/uploaded-files/NEBInducedAbortionfull.pdf

4 The Department of Health, Statistical Bulletin, Abortion Statistics England and Wales: 2008, released 21st May 2009, available at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_099714.pdf

Marie Stopes International (MSI) is a specialist not-for-profit organisation providing expert and confidential care and support to men and women of all ages in relation to their sexual and health.

It has nine centres across the country delivering services in contraception, abortion, female sterilisation, vasectomy and health screening. It works in partnership with the NHS, supporting over 70 Primary Care Trusts to provide sexual health services.

For further information visit www.mariestopes.org.uk

LINK

Irish Times: Dearth of secondary school sex education highlighted

2010-05-15T03:43:00.000+01:00

by ÉANNA Ó CAOLLAÍ

Sat, May 15, 2010

SOME 74 per cent of Irish secondary school pupils received no sex education classes last year, according to a survey published yesterday.

The survey, which found poor implementation of the Department of Education’s sex education programme at senior cycle, “will not make for pleasant reading for policymakers”, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Barry Andrews said .

The Life Skills Matter – Not Just Points survey, carried out by national youth parliament Dáil na nÓg, measured the implementation of the department’s Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) programme and the related Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme in schools around the country.

The survey found that implementation of “sex education” declines dramatically as the child goes through post-primary school.

Students in first, second and third years are entitled to SPHE, of which RSE is a key component, but there is no dedicated SPHE programme for the senior cycle.

While schools are obliged to continue teaching sex education in senior cycle and all schools should have an RSE policy, the study found that 74 per cent of senior cycle students had no sex education classes in 2009. This compared with 88 per cent of junior-cycle students who had SPHE classes in the same year.

RSE was not timetabled as a class in 85 per cent of respondents’ schools.

Speaking at the publication of the survey in the Department of Health, Mr Andrews said the “core finding” was that inadequate timetabling meant “there simply wasn’t a delivery” of sex education at the senior cycle. He said the report could inform whole school evaluations by the Department of Education.

Alluding to one comment contained in the report where a respondent was critical of the involvement of religious groups in sex education and the claim that “they ridiculed homosexuality”, Mr Andrews said this was “not tolerable in any school, no matter what the religious ethos”.

However, he insisted that a school was entitled to have a religious ethos and if a parent chose to send their child to a school with such an ethos then that had to be respected.

“The balance is a very difficult one to achieve,” he added.

The report found that in 32 per cent of the schools surveyed, sex education was being taught as part of religion class. One-fifth of guest speakers who addressed schools on RSE came from religious groups, according to the survey.

It also found that the most emphasised theme in the sex education syllabus was “healthy relationships”, while the least emphasised theme was “understanding sexual orientation”. It is up to each school’s board of management to decide on teaching priorities in accordance with departmental policy and its own ethos.

The main recommendations include a call to make RSE classes mandatory at senior cycle and for the curriculum to cover a greater range of topics about relationships and sexuality.

SEX AND THE STUDENT: THE REALITY IN CLASSROOMS

“We had a very good system up until the Junior Cert, especially because we had teachers who took it seriously. And then the fact that it’s completely gone in fifth and sixth year is a big hit.”

– Andrew McGahon, 5th year student, Co Louth

“The focus of the education system in Ireland is on the points system. Without points and the Leaving Cert you go nowhere, and I think it’s important to be less focused on that in the future.

“In terms of RSE and SPHE being so important, it includes things that no other subject can teach you on certain life issues. The report states how much young people want to be taught subjects like this. Seventy-six per cent say that they want to be taught RSE or SPHE in schools.

“The only downside of it in our school is that it was taught through religion. Religion is about your spirituality and your moral decisions. I just don’t see how the relevant factual information of RSE can be taught through religion when it has absolutely no relevance and can only but be biased.”

– Ciara Ahern, 6th year student, Tipperary

“What we want is for the parents of tomorrow to be educated so they can help their kids with life skills.”

– Shane Doocey, 5th year student, Cork

“The atmosphere of the class completely changes. It’s more relaxed. The children are more open to discussing personal issues with me. From a pastoral point of view you get to recognise if they are having difficulties in their lives.

“I think it’s very important that they have certain teachers that theyre able to go up to and talk to and be open with.”

– SPHE teacher Carina McEvoy, Clonkeen College, Blackrock

© 2010 The Irish Times

LINK

New York Times: What Every Girl Should Know

2010-05-09T01:58:00.000+01:00

By GAIL COLLINS
May 8th 2010

A thousand years ago, popular birth control methods in the Western world included spitting into the mouth of a frog, eating bees and wearing the testicles of a weasel. In Córdoba, Spain, which was supposed to be on the scientific cutting edge, women were told to leap up and down vigorously after sex, and then jump backward nine times.

This is by way of saying that on Sunday we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. We live in troubled times. But let’s give thanks that we avoided the era of the weasel testicles.

Like a great many of our anniversaries, this one is a movable feast. The Food and Drug Administration actually gave G.D. Searle the go-ahead to market the first oral contraceptive (not counting bees) on June 23, 1960. But the F.D.A. announced its intention to approve the pill on May 9, which also happens to be Mother’s Day this year and, therefore, too good to resist.

This is a story about science, and obviously sex. But it’s also a saga about getting information.

American women had been limiting the size of their families long before the pill came along. In the 19th century, the fertility rate was plummeting, and ads for everything from condoms to douching syringes helped keep urban newspapers solvent. My favorite factoid from this period is that a company called National Syringe offered a model with changeable nozzles so it could be used for both birth control and watering plants.

What women did not have was the ability to figure out what actually worked. The powers-that-be believed that the only appropriate form of birth control was celibacy. “Can they not use self control?” demanded Anthony Comstock, the powerful crusader for the Sexual Purity campaign. “Or must they sink to the level of the beasts?”

Comstock managed to get New York authorities to grant him the powers to both arrest and censor, and he bragged that he sent 4,000 people to jail for helping women understand, and use, birth control. He seemed to take particular pleasure in the fact that 15 of them had committed suicide.

One of his targets was Margaret Sanger, a nurse who wrote a sex education column, “What Every Girl Should Know,” for a left-wing New York newspaper, The Call. When Comstock banned her column on venereal disease, the paper ran an empty space with the title: “What Every Girl Should Know: Nothing, by Order of the U.S. Post Office.”

Sanger was the first person to publish an evaluation of all the available forms of birth control. As a reward, she got a criminal obscenity charge. She fled to Europe to avoid going to jail, and her husband was imprisoned for passing out one of her pamphlets. In the end, he got 30 days, and Anthony Comstock got a chill during the trial that led to a fatal case of pneumonia.

It was the courts that eventually gave women the right to not only have access to birth control, but also information that told them what was available and how to use it. (The first big victory had the memorable name of U.S. v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries.) Sanger, meanwhile, helped bring together the wealthy donors and brilliant researchers who would bring forth the first effective oral contraception.

“There’s gonna be some changes made right here on Nursery Hill,” sang Loretta Lynn. “You’ve set this chicken your last time ’cause now I’ve got the pill.”

And we lived happily ever after. Except that over the last 20 years, protests from the social right have made politicians frightened of mentioning birth control and school boards frightened of including it in the curriculum.

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, remembers getting a pretty thorough grounding in sex and the ways to prevent pregnancy when she was in school — back in the days when the raciest thing you saw on television was Rob and Laura Petrie waking up in twin beds on the opposite side of the room. “Kids growing up today watch ‘Gossip Girl’ and all these shows where every teenager is having sex every day — and now we don’t teach sex education in school,” she noted.

Even though 100 million women take the pill every day, to the great relief of 100 million or so of their partners, the terror of mentioning birth control is so great that the humongous new health care reform act has managed to avoid bringing it up at all. Advocates are hoping that when the regulations are finally written, they will require health insurance to cover birth control pills like any other drug. But nobody is sure.

“If the administration would announce tomorrow that all birth control would be free for every woman in America, I think the health care plan would gain 30 points in popularity overnight,” said Richards.

LINK

New York Times: It Started More Than One Revolution

2010-05-04T10:25:00.000+01:00

By GARDINER HARRIS
May 3, 2010

The birth control pill has been called the most important scientific advance of the 20th century, and no wonder. Fifty years after its approval by the Food and Drug Administration, it is still one of the leading methods of contraception, in the United States and around the world.

Much has been written about how it revolutionized sexual and social relationships, allowing women to defer pregnancy, enter the work force and make life choices their mothers could not — or, if you prefer, spawning promiscuity and undermining the foundations of marriage.

But the pill also led to profound changes in the F.D.A. itself — a revolution in what Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the current food and drug commissioner, calls regulatory science. Many of the steps that underlie modern drug approvals — extensive clinical trials, routine referrals to panels of outside experts, continuing assessments of a medicine’s safety, and direct communications between the F.D.A. and patients — were pioneered to deal with evolving concerns about the pill’s safety.

In regulatory terms, the pill brought about a kind of reformation: just as Martin Luther insisted that individual Christians could communicate directly with God without the mediation of priests, the pill eventually led the F.D.A. to communicate directly with patients without going through doctors.

That change, fiercely resisted by some physician groups, is now firmly entrenched; the F.D.A. now routinely requires that many medicines carry significant and sometimes complex warnings that patients are expected to read and understand.

But the pill was the first.

“The F.D.A. had been battling with the American Medical Association for years about who would talk to patients,” said Daniel P. Carpenter, a professor of government at Harvard. “And with the pill, the F.D.A. clearly established the upper hand.”

The pill’s role in the maturing of the F.D.A. has often been overlooked because shortly after the agency’s approval of the contraceptive, news of the horrific effects of thalidomide swept the world. That drug had been introduced in Europe as a sedative but was withdrawn in 1961 after it was linked with profound birth defects.

Although thalidomide was never approved in the United States, the horror surrounding its effects led Congress to toughen the drug approval process by requiring manufacturers to prove their medicines were both safe and effective.

It was a standard the F.D.A. had already been putting into effect, quietly if fitfully, in part because of the growing view that the safety of a medicine was inextricably linked with its efficacy.

Enovid, a pill combining the hormones estrogen and progestin, was already being prescribed for menstrual problems. But in approving it as a contraceptive, the agency’s reviewers required Searle to prove that it was effective in preventing pregnancy. (If it worked, the pill would spare women the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, which dwarfed any known risks from the drug.)

So the company undertook one of the most extensive clinical trial programs to date, said Suzanne Junod, an F.D.A. historian. The pill was formally tested in 897 women, mostly in Puerto Rico and Haiti.

The trials were relatively brief and did not answer fundamental questions about risks of cancer, heart disease and other chronic diseases. Uncertain about the long-term effects of hormonal contraceptives, the F.D.A. mandated that doctors limit prescriptions to two years.

The pill’s overwhelming popularity, however, soon rendered this limitation unenforceable. New versions were introduced, so women could simply switch brands — or find another doctor to prescribe the old one. And many doctors ignored the limit anyway.

Then in November 1961, a British physician reported in The Lancet that a young woman had developed a blood clot and died while taking the pill. Within months, two similar fatalities were reported in the United States, and by August 1962, the F.D.A. had received 26 reports of users’ suffering blood clots.

By the end of 1964, more than four million women had used Searle’s pill, and a blizzard of competitors had begun to blanket the market. With something so popular, the agency had no way of knowing if the problems experienced by users were related to the pill or would have happened anyway — the kind of mystery that has plagued drug regulators ever since.

So agency officials did two things for the first time that would eventually become routine. They asked a panel of outside experts to review the evidence on a continuing basis, and they and British regulators pressed for a large epidemiological investigation that would become a model for the future.

Even before the pill, the federal government had a long history of using advisory committees to assess specific subjects and issue reports. But in 1965, the F.D.A. established its first permanent advisory panel, the Obstetrics and Gynecology Advisory Committee, largely to track the safety of the pill. The agency now has 32 permanent advisory committees, one of them with 18 different panels. These committees provide crucial advice not only about whether to approve certain medicines and devices but also how to address safety concerns that arise after approval.

“What the pill does,” said Dr. Carpenter, of Harvard, “is show the F.D.A. that postmarketing surveillance is a tough problem.”

The challenge of communicating these risks to patients while still supporting the product’s continued use bedeviled top agency officials. Protests by women’s groups and hearings on Capitol Hill made clear that despite the agency’s attempts, many women said they took the pill without being fully informed of its risks.

Frustrated that some doctors were not communicating adequately with their patients, the F.D.A. created a handout in 1975 that doctors could use in counseling patients. Many doctors, incensed at what they saw as the agency’s intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship, either ignored the material or refused to give it out.

In 1978, faced with mounting complaints that women did not have the information they needed, the F.D.A. mandated that patients be given the handouts when they picked up their prescriptions at the drugstore.

“It was the first time that the agency had provided information directly to patients at the point of sale instead of relying on physicians,” said Dr. Junod, the historian.

More recently, the Ortho Evra birth control patch has become a telling example of the continuing challenges that the F.D.A. faces in regulating a global, multibillion-dollar industry on which the agency depends for crucial information about drug safety.

Johnson & Johnson developed the patch in hopes of exposing women to even lower doses of estrogen than they got with the pill. But the company’s own studies showed that the patch actually delivered far higher doses.

The finding was buried in a mathematical formula in a 435-page report filed with the F.D.A. The company said it acted responsibly, but after four years, the F.D.A. issued a warning about high estrogen doses, and sales plunged.

One last bit of lore about the pill: no one is even sure when to celebrate its birthday. Ten years ago, the agency honored the occasion on June 23, the date that the F.D.A. gave formal approval for Searle to market the product. This year, the agency is celebrating on May 9, which coincides with the period 50 years ago when it announced its intention to approve the pill when a few technical details were ironed out. That this happens to be Mother’s Day this year may have played a role in the decision.

But whatever the date, it represents the F.D.A.’s first steps into adulthood.

“The pill was a landmark in the field of drug regulation,” said Peter Barton Hutt, a former top agency lawyer. “This is the drug that started it all.”

LINK

RH Reality Check: Emergency Contraception: Dispelling Media Myths and Misperceptions

2010-04-26T10:32:00.002+01:00

By Elizabeth Westley and Anna Glasier
Created Apr 19 2010 - 3:11pm

This article is a collaboration between the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the International Consortium for Emergency Contraception and is republished with permisson from the WHO. [1] Please scroll down for a fact sheet on EC's safety at the bottom of the post.

Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) are now available in many countries, but have failed to have the desired impact on unwanted pregnancy rates. Why is this? Earlier barriers to access are becoming less and less prevalent. A market for ECPs has been demonstrated and numerous manufacturers and distributors are keen to supply products; in many countries they are starting to be mainstreamed into norms, pre-service training, and services.

Yet knowledge continues to be an important barrier in much of the world. This post-coital contraceptive method is still relatively unknown in many countries, according to DHS data and other country level surveys. A 2007 survey of adolescents in New York City schools revealed that fewer than half of these young people had heard about ECPs, despite extensive public outreach and media publicity surrounding their over-the-counter status in the US.

Even when knowledge of this type of contraceptive is higher, use often remains fairly low, as in the UK, where 91 percent of women had heard of “the morning after pill” but only seven percent had used it in the past year. One reason for low correct use of ECPs is the very poor basic understanding of fertility, contraception, and pregnancy risk that seems widespread in both developed and developing countries. In France, a survey of women seeking abortion indicated that more than half were unaware of their pregnancy risk at the time that they became pregnant or could not identify specific act that led to the pregnancy; only a minority of women used ECPs. In the UK, a study of abortion and pre-natal care clients showed that ECPs were used by only one in ten women who definitely did not wish to become pregnant, and even fewer used the method every time they were at risk of pregnancy.

Unfortunately, the already substantial misinformation that women have about pregnancy risk and ECPs (along with other contraceptive methods) is being compounded by recent media coverage of ECPs. “Besides side effects, like nausea, heavy bleeding, and cramps, regular use of the emergency contraception may cause infertility and in some instances increase the risk of cancer” declared one BBC story on emergency contraceptive pills in Kenya. “EC [emergency contraception] comes with an increased risk for things like blood clots and hormone-related cancers, like many traditional forms of birth control,” stated a mainstream newspaper in the United States. These statements are factually incorrect, but unfortunately are widespread. Such negative and sometimes inflammatory media coverage only alarms women and may keep some from using the method when they most need it.

Indeed, media and public health can be a volatile mix. The potential association between childhood vaccination and autism proposed in one article in the Lancet in 1998 (and officially retracted in 2010) was picked up by media around the world, and led to resistance to vaccination, millions spent on studies and many years of research to refute the claim. The effects have persisted: a 2009 survey found that fully one quarter of American parents agreed that “some vaccines cause autism in healthy children” and more than one in ten had refused a vaccine for their child.

Today, the echo chamber that is the internet can quickly spread and amplify media stories, particularly if they are sensational. An email circulating for several years describes a “true story” of a woman who died of a stroke while on hormonal birth control; recently, this story morphed and now states “the cause of death–continuously taking the morning after pill.” The fear-mongering media coverage around ECPs is likely driven by concerns about “irresponsible” sexuality hiding behind false “scientific” justification for such concerns.

Public health and medical professionals cannot afford to ignore the role of today’s media. Accurate media coverage has played an important role in spreading the news about health risks, healthy behaviors, and new products; sensationalist and frightening coverage can have the opposite effect. In the case of levonorgestrel-alone ECPs, safety has been clearly demonstrated through countless studies and many decades of use: no new research needs to be conducted. The urgent question is how we can explain and disseminate the science in simple terms.

While countering every health-related rumor on the internet and inaccurate story in local newspapers and magazines is surely a fool’s errand, it is increasingly important to be ready with the facts when reporters, community members, and patients voice concerns. A team of experts from around the world has produced a short, simple statement on the safety of levonorgestrel-alone emergency contraceptive pills, responding directly to articles that appeared in mainstream media in 2009 and written for non-scientists.

Fact Sheet on levonorgestrel-alone emergency contraception pills

Published on RHRealityCheck.org

IPPF News: Catholic journal says Plan B does not cause abortions

2010-04-22T16:54:00.002+01:00

April 12 2010

If it holds, a finding in a Catholic health journal could be the key to ending a major dilemma for Catholic health facilities across the nation and around the world.

Plan B, the nation’s most widely used emergency contraceptive, works only as a contraceptive and does not cause abortions, according to an article in the January-February issue of Health Progress, the official journal of the Catholic Health Association.

Theologian Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College said if Plan B never causes abortions, then Catholic hospitals should have no moral problem providing it as an emergency contraceptive to a rape victim.

Under the U.S. bishops’ “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” Catholic facilities may administer emergency contraception to a rape victim, but only to prevent ovulation or fertilization. Ethical and Religious Directive 36 says if the procedure causes an already fertilized egg to be destroyed or prevents its implantation in the womb, in Catholic teaching that is no longer contraception but abortion.

The difference between the Catholic definition of abortion (any destruction of a fertilized human egg) and the American Medical Association’s definition (any destruction of an embryo following its implantation -- typically about seven days after fertilization) is a major subtext in the debate over whether Plan B is only contraceptive or also possibly abortifacient in some cases.

Barr Pharmaceuticals, manufacturer of Plan B, follows the medical association’s definition in describing the drug as strictly contraceptive and suggests that one effect could be to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, a conclusion challenged by several scientific studies.

Dr Sandra E. Reznik, who teaches reproductive endocrinology and reproductive pharmacology at St. John’s University in New York, wrote in Health Progress that Plan B is widely regarded in the scientific community as “the most effective emergency contraceptive agent available.”

Commenting on the thesis of the article, Capuchin Franciscan Fr. Thomas Weinandy, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices, said, “If it can be proved, that would make a difference” as to how Catholic hospitals, doctors and pharmacists treat Plan B.

The distinction between preventing fertilization and preventing implantation is a crucial moral point in Catholic teaching on the difference between contraception and abortion, but in the American Medical Association’s definition of contraception, both are treated equally.

In a phone interview, Cahill said Reznik’s conclusions matched those she has seen in other literature on the topic, including an article in the Oct. 11, 2006, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, which she had just recently read in preparing to teach a bioethics course.

She said she knew of at least two states -- Massachusetts since 2005 and Connecticut since 2007 -- that have laws requiring hospitals to provide Plan B emergency contraception to rape victims. A number of other states -- California, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Washington among them -- require hospitals to offer rape victims emergency contraception or at least inform them where to obtain it.

The question of whether Plan B can also prevent implantation of a fertilized egg as well as prevent ovulation and inhibit sperm from reaching the egg led the Catholic bishops and four Catholic hospitals of Connecticut to oppose that state’s 2007 legislation on emergency contraception unless it allowed hospitals to test for pregnancy and ovulation before administering the drug. In its final form, the law permitted hospitals to do a pregnancy test before administering Plan B, but not an ovulation test.

The question of what tests could be performed before emergency contraceptive treatment is important because of the time-sensitive nature of Plan B. As Reznik put it, “The effectiveness of Plan B decreases with every passing hour, because the chance of missing [the pill’s prevention of] ovulation increases as time passes -- and science has demonstrated Plan B doesn’t work after ovulation occurs.”

In a carefully worded statement Sept. 27, 2007, shortly after the Connecticut law was enacted, the state’s bishops and Catholic hospital leaders said they “believe that this law is seriously flawed, but not sufficiently to bar compliance with it at the present time.”

They said they would continue to work to change the law, but they had come to a judgment that “to administer Plan B pills in Catholic hospitals to victims of rape, a pregnancy test to determine that the woman has not conceived is sufficient. An ovulation test will not be required. The administration of Plan B pills in this instance cannot be judged to be the commission of an abortion because of such doubt about how Plan B pills and similar drugs work and because of the current impossibility of knowing from the ovulation test whether a new life is present. To administer the Plan B pills without an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act.”

“The teaching authority of the church has not definitively resolved this matter,” they added, and “if it becomes clear that Plan B pills would lead to an early chemical abortion in some instances, this matter would have to be reopened.”

The statement illustrates the delicacy and fine moral distinctions involved in trying to determine what Plan B actually does and the moral evaluations that would follow from a Catholic perspective.

Reznik wrote that since it takes about a week from an egg’s fertilization to its implantation, the scientific evidence that Plan B treatment is completely ineffective after five days is overwhelming: It works only by preventing fertilization, not by preventing implantation.

Otherwise, she said, the drug would also be found effective from five to 12 days after coitus, because that is the time frame between the last chance for a sperm to fertilize an egg and the time a fertilized egg would implant. The declining effectiveness of Plan B between 48 and 120 hours after coitus adds to the argument that preventing a fertilized egg from being implanted is not one of its effects, she said.

Cahill told NCR that if scientific data show conclusively that Plan B is only contraceptive, any pregnancy or ovulation test before its use as an emergency contraceptive after rape “seems to me an unjustified delay that increases the possibility that the raped woman will become pregnant.”

“From the evidence that you were just telling me [from the Health Progress article] and that I read in The Journal of the American Medical Association, it has a limited effectiveness -- you have to use it right away,” she said.

Plan B apparently “does not affect pregnancies that are already established, so what’s really the point in doing a pregnancy test?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem to have a scientific validity to it in the way that Plan B, by all accounts, operates.”

“If the Catholic church wants to put its abortion teaching, its pro-life teaching, in the best light possible, it really has to be accompanied by equally dedicated and aggressive attempts to help women,” she said. “Taking measures to prevent medically appropriate and legally mandated assistance to basics in the name of protecting the unborn -- in ways that are indicated scientifically not protecting the unborn anyway -- that just seems to undermine the pro-life stance of the Catholic church.

Source: National Catholic Reporter, 31 March 2010

LINK

New York Times: Good News from the Childbirth Front

2010-04-21T13:25:00.001+01:00

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
April 16 2010

One of the great tragedies of the developing world is the number of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth. But what is that number? Several studies had put it at somewhat more than 500,000 a year, while a new and apparently more rigorous study suggests that it has dropped to less than 350,000 a year.

This is an issue that I’ve written about a great deal over the years, and so I was delighted by the good news — and also delighted that the Times treated it as a major story. Indeed, the article about this breakthrough was the lead news story (the article on the top right of the front page is the lead article, because it’s thought that that is where people start reading). I should quickly add that I have nothing to do with such news decisions. We in the opinion world of the Times are completely removed from news decisions. But one of the reasons maternal mortality has never gotten much traction or donor interest is that it has never been treated as very newsworthy. In recent years, there has been a bit of change in that, and my hope is that we in the news business will treat maternal health — and global health issues generally — as important news because of the numbers involved. That will make a real difference in getting these problems addressed.

One caveat is that none of the numbers are reliable. When women die in childbirth in poor countries, nobody keeps track, and so all these figures are very rough estimates. A few years ago, Honduras was considered an example of a country that had managed to cut its maternal mortality rate through hard work, and I and others cited it as a model. Then a new World Health Organization study came out in 2007 and suggested that maternal mortality had actually risen in Honduras over the previous decade. I got on the phone and called around, trying to make sense of this — and what I learned was that no one really has any idea how many women die in childbirth in Honduras. And the same is even more true of Nigeria.

Still the new figures of just under 350,000 deaths per year are based on more data and are probably as good as any. Some activists were alarmed, fearing that if the report was publicized that would discourage donors and make people think that they didn’t need to worry about maternal health. I think that view is mistaken. Indeed, I think this report is good news for those who want to cut maternal deaths — and here’s why.

One of the mistakes humanitarians sometimes make, I believe, is to emphasize all the things that go wrong. The result is that people are sometimes turned off, and that problems seem intractable. If maternal mortality has remained constant for a quarter-century (as we thought), then who wants to take up the cause? My sense is that people want to be part of something hopeful, something that manifestly can be changed and made better. And that’s what the new study confirms: there is hope in reducing deaths in childbirth, and more resources can make the toll drop even more. We know what to do, we just need to do it better.

The basic reason so many women die in childbirth is simply that they don’t matter in their societies. They are the most voiceless, most marginalized people in their societies, and so resources aren’t expended keeping them alive. There’s a strong correlation between societies where women are repressed and those with very high maternal mortality rates (indeed, in Afghanistan some years ago I came across the highest lifetime maternal mortality risk ever — 50 percent, meaning a woman in one particular region had a 50-50 chance of dying in childbirth at some point in her life). Today in Niger, a woman has a 1-in-7 chance of dying in childbirth at some point in her life, partly because if her husband is off working hundreds of miles away, it’s often considered inappropriate to take her to a hospital if she’s in obstructed labor. She’s not supposed to leave the house without her husband’s permission — and so she dies.

It was always clear that we could do better on maternal mortality, and thank God that is now finally happening.

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Salon.com: Where did all the angry young women go?

2010-04-21T13:23:00.001+01:00

Despite what an older generation of reproductive rights activists says, younger feminists have been here all along

By Rebecca Traister
Tuesday, Apr 20, 2010 04:01 EDT

I was struck hard by a story in the latest issue of Newsweek about the purported apathy of young women toward their reproductive rights. The piece, by Sarah Kliff, included an interview with NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, who called herself part of a "postmenopausal militia" and wrung her hands at the lack of young people who show up to support abortion rights. Telling Kliff about the experience of walking smack into a rally of anti-choice activists, Keenan said, "I just thought, my gosh, they are so young ... there are so many of them, and they are so young." Keenan sees no equivalent youthful surge within her own movement.

But she doesn't seem to be looking very hard. As Newsweek reported, Gallup polling shows that basic support for legal abortion has remained between 75 and 85 percent for the past 35 years, and that "even among young people ... 61 percent were 'pro-choice,' supporting legal abortion in 'all cases' or 'most cases.'" Yet, based on an "intensity gap" in feelings about abortion rights, Keenan and her peers worry that young people don't consider reproductive freedom central to their politics; the Newsweek piece cited one unnamed young woman who didn't worry that her rights were imperiled because the parking lot at her local clinic was always full.

If Kliff had spoken to young women about their interest in abortion politics for her story about youthful interest in abortion politics, she might have heard more about the perspectives of a generation that grew up in a world in which abortion was legal. Yes, it's true. The fact that young women have been raised without knowledge or experience of back-alley abortion does alter the dynamics of their approach. It makes the issue less personal, less urgent, less terrifying. That is part of the victory of Roe v. Wade. Frankly, that support for legal abortion has remained so high for so long is a testament to the enduring commitment of younger women -- who never experienced the atrocities of illegal abortion or lived without the power to control their own bodies -- to the issues of women's health and freedom.

To not acknowledge the changed landscape of feminism's inheritors is a failure on the part of the old, not on the part of the young. If senior activists could get past their own experiences of illegality and 1970's-style activism long enough to effectively communicate with -- to perhaps listen to -- junior activists describe the world as they live in it, perhaps they wouldn't have such a dismal take on the future. But again and again, I have seen smart, admirable, brave older women who cannot seem to see the young faces right in front of them.

Last year, I attended a NARAL luncheon at which an older actress and activist attempted to translate the foreign and exotic universe of youth to the crowd: "They're like Roe v. What?" this speaker said of young women. "They don't know who Kennedy is!" Sitting beside me was a 22-year-old full-time feminist activist who had been checking people into the event that day, who spends her life talking to college women who care very much about abortion, about women's health and women's rights, who know perfectly well what Roe v. Wade is, and probably know who John Kennedy was despite the fact that they actually don't need to know who he was because he is not their president; Barack Obama is. This young woman looked like she wanted to bang her head against the table, not with the embarrassment she was apparently supposed to feel on behalf of her own wifty generation, but with fury at how invisible she and her peers were to the organization she had given up her day to volunteer for.

Last year, former NOW president Kim Gandy supported 33-year-old Latifa Lyles to replace her as president in the NOW national elections. Lyles lost the election to 56-year-old Terry O’Neill. Fair enough; O'Neill should not have lost because of her age any more than Lyles should have lost because of hers. But leaders must stop claiming that there are no young feminists out there, when in fact there are plenty. And many of them have gotten the message that they are not particularly valued by institutional feminism.

Keenan's surprise at the numbers of youthful anti-choice activists should not have made her shake her head at the passivity of those on her side, but to consider instead that her ideological foes have apparently found a way to respect the next generation and perhaps to harness its power. When older pro-choice groups begin treating young women not as ungrateful, unschooled whippersnappers but as powerful women who were raised with different sets of expectations, with new modes of communication and protest, and who face a different set of obstacles, perhaps then they will begin to really see them. Perhaps when these leaders stop demanding that young women acknowledge their history, their priorities, their forms of resistance, and start instead to acknowledge the new kinds of activism that young people, not their elders, have succeeded in creating online, perhaps they will start to be able to make out these phantom young women.

Because they are there. They are everywhere. As my colleague Judy Berman, 25, recently told me, "When I was in undergrad ... everyone except the very religious believed pretty strongly in reproductive rights -- we organized a LOT of young women (and men!) to go to the March for Women's Lives in '04, where, as far as I remember, college women made up the bulk of the marchers." Berman remembers correctly. I was at that march too, and looked around at a sea of young people who seemed eager to stand alongside their elders. The speakers castigated them for not knowing what a coat hanger was used for.

Many of the young women who formed and populate the feminist blogosphere will tell you that they took to the Internet because they found no welcome in institutional women's organizations and decided not to work within a system designed and run by leaders who did not trust them, take them seriously, or show any interest in their opinions. Instead, they set out to create their own approach to women's rights, to reach their own peers in their own way, rather than wait to be acknowledged by their elders. As a result, some feminist institutions indeed find themselves with an age imbalance, membership listing precariously toward the senescent.

The Newsweek piece reports that Keenan and her peers at Planned Parenthood and NOW "will retire in a decade or so." But perhaps if, instead of holding on to their crowns like Queen Elizabeth, they might consider passing them down to women who are frankly far better equipped to communicate with future generations than they are, there would not be quite such a perceived crisis. "It's not that pro-choice activism doesn't interest young women anymore," Berman told me. "It's that doing it through NOW, NARAL, etc., doesn't seem relevant when we have all these online outlets that take us seriously."

That's not to say that the bloggy form of activism is always preferable, or louder, or more effective than older iterations of protest or commentary. There's lots to criticize about a feminist blogosphere, about armchair activism, about the self-interest of the Internet, and about the age-old struggles within feminism that are being repeated, and not necessarily fixed, by today's young activists. I smile when I think of Debra Dickerson's exhortation a year ago that "today's feminists need to blog less and work more." Her chiding pissed off a lot of those feminists, but in taking them to task, Dickerson was doing a service to young women: She was admitting that she'd paid attention to the ways in which they raised their voices, considering how their forms of expression differed from those of her own generation. Stories like the one in Newsweek don't go that far, and in failing to do so, create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why should young people announce their investment or their allegiance to organizations that fail even to acknowledge that they exist?

You want young reproductive rights leaders? Look around you. Look to the Internet, look to the junior ranks of your own organizations, to the women checking people in at the door of your events, to the potential of the women whose pictures you put in your brochures, but whose voices you apparently still can't hear. Instead of clinging to your positions of leadership, hand them over. Share some of your power with the women who see the world and its challenges differently than you do, who may feel critical and not always reverential toward the choices of your generation, but who have hope and drive and means to take their experiences and perspectives into the future, instead of muttering defeatedly and getting stuck in the past.

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Daily Telegraph: Abortions 'could be offered in GP surgeries across England'

2010-04-19T16:40:00.000+01:00

Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
16 April 2010

One in six health care trusts in England wants to carry out the terminations in family doctors’ practices, new figures show.

Early terminations can be carried out using drugs and without surgery up until the ninth week of pregnancy.

Following two Government pilots which showed that they were both safe and effective to be given outside hospital they are allowed in GP surgeries.

The new figures show that 15 per cent of Primary Care Trusts in England have either applied for or are considering for an application for a licence to perform then in GP surgeries.

Some have been made in conjunction with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which already runs services offering medical terminations in GP surgeries in Wolverhampton and Newcastle.

Applications have been lodged by trusts as far apart as Bradford, North Staffordshire and Basingstoke in Hampshire.

The surgery has to be approved by both the Care Quality Commission and the Health Secretary before abortions can be carried out on the premises.

Fiona Loveless, from Marie Stopes International, said: “This type of service is not suitable for every women but some will want to be able to have an early medical abortion close to home."

But Dr Andrew Fergusson, from the Christian Medical Fellowship, warned that the move would “normalise a procedure where one life is intentionally ended.”
The applications were revealed in response to Freedom of Information requests by GP magazine.

They show that six PCTs have asked for licences to perform the procedures in GP surgeries.

Another 11 told the magazine that they were considering applying.

In total the magazine received responses from 114 of England’s 152 PCTs.
PCTs have to apply for an individual licence for each surgery where they wish the medical abortions to be carried out.

Some, including Harrow in London, said that they had applied for one licence and were considering applying for more.

At the moment GPs have to commission the service from independent providers.
However, from 2012, when GPs will become registered with the Care Quality Commission, they will be able to offer the services themselves.

Under the 1967 Abortion Act the Secretary of State for Health has to approve premises where abortions can be carried out.

Hospitals are automatically approved but after successful pilots the Government has agreed that GP surgeries can now also be used.

In 2008 there were 400 medical abortions carried out in GP surgeries run by BPAS.

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Irish Independent: Promise to rewrite Constitution will reignite debate on abortion

2010-04-19T16:36:00.000+01:00

By Fionnan Sheahan Political Editor
Monday April 19 2010

LABOUR Party leader Eamon Gilmore will re-open the divisive abortion debate through his promise to rewrite the Constitution if he gets into power.

Aside from abortion, Mr Gilmore's constitutional reform plan would also open up a host of contentious issues like the recognition of God, property rights, the definition of the family, gay marriage and the EU.

Any changes to the Constitution would have to be ratified by a referendum.

Following on from Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny's political reform proposals, such as scrapping the Seanad, Mr Gilmore said he also wanted to see institutional changes -- but didn't say what they should be.

In his keynote address to his party conference, he announced his intention to "develop a new constitution" -- eclipsing even former Fine Gael leader Garret Fitzgerald's 'constitutional crusade' in the early 1980s.

"It is time, in my view, for a fundamental review of our Constitution," he said.

"There is much about it that has served us well, but it is a document written in the 1930s for the 1930s," he said.

"A time when one church was considered to have a special position and women were considered to be second-class citizens.

"And if we are to truly learn from the experience of the last 10 years, then we need to look again, in a considered way, at the fundamental rules that bind us together."

Mr Gilmore said the Constitution would be rewritten by a convention, including experts, specialists and ordinary citizens randomly chosen in the same way as juries.

"Let us set ourselves the target to have it ready for the 100th anniversary of the 1916 rising, that seminal moment when our State was conceived," he said.

Labour has a long-standing policy on abortion, dating back to 2003, committed to bringing forward legislation to allow abortions in a number of circumstances.

The party policy is to support abortions where there is a risk to the life or health of the mother, or where there is a foetal abnormality that means the foetus would be stillborn.

This policy follows a vote at the Labour conference in 2001 to support a woman's right to choose on the issue, which was carried against the wishes of the party leadership.

In government, he said his party would set up a dedicated jobs fund, a strategic investment bank and a department for public sector reform.

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©Independent.ie

New York Times: In Subway Ads on Abortion, a Pretense of Neutrality

2010-03-29T15:51:00.001+01:00

March 26, 2010

By SUSAN DOMINUS

The woman in the ad is young and has a short, hip haircut, the kind you see all over the East Village. Her solemn face is half in shadow. “I thought life would be the way it was before,” the copy reads. And then: “Abortion changes you.”

The campaign, which has run in New York subways for the past month, makes a sweeping claim, but as anti-abortion strategies go, it is relatively oblique — a far cry from a brick in the window or a death threat to a member of Congress. A young woman pondering a difficult choice might check out the Web site abortionchangesyou.com, highlighted on the ad, which would lead her to the personal narrative of a woman troubled by her own abortion.

“We feel it’s really important for women and their families to have a safe place to experience their own range of emotions, apart from the controversy and debate,” said Michaelene Fredenburg, the source of that narrative and the founder of the Web site.

Especially since the recent abortion-fueled fight over the health care bill, we could use some more safe places to experience our own range of emotions apart from the controversy and debate. The numerous grim testimonials on the site, though, represent a somewhat limited range of perspectives —from depressed to tormented by guilt. It seems patently against women having abortions. So why not say so?

In its purported neutrality, the site, along with Ms. Fredenburg’s insistent representation of it as an apolitical “safe space,” undermines recent efforts by the poles of this most polarizing issue to find common ground.

To their credit, some who support abortion rights have, in recent years, allowed for more honest discussions about the range of emotions that can accompany terminating a pregnancy. Exhale, a postabortion hotline based in San Francisco, states on its Web site that for women who have had abortions, feelings of “happiness, sadness, empowerment, anxiety, relief or guilt are common.” It is also states that of the five founders, most support abortion rights and some have had abortions.

“To acknowledge that some people will feel remorse or shame but that it’s also all right not to — that’s what our movement has to do much better,” said Kelli Conlin, president of Naral Pro-Choice New York. That kind of conversation is a crack in the armor of abortion rights advocates that is long overdue, and Web sites like Ms. Fredenburg’s make evident why such advocates have long been wary of having it.

Nowhere on the site does abortionchangesyou.com mention an anti-abortion agenda. But when I clicked the “Find Help” button and typed in a Manhattan ZIP code, the first thing that popped up was Project Rachel, an initiative of the Roman Catholic Church to “present the truth of the impact and extensive damage abortion inflicts on the mother, father, extended family and society.”

So much for no judgment.

Ms. Fredenburg, who has collaborated with Feminists for Life, a group with an anti-abortion legislative platform, declined to name her financial backers. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, however, said the ad had been bought by the Vitae Caring Foundation, which seeks, according to its Web site, to “reduce the number of abortions by using mass media education.” Ms. Fredenburg said the group merely handled logistics of the purchase.

Someone seeking a safe space truly clear of the abortion debates might look, for a very different example, to the Doula Project, an organization based in New York that offers free emotional support and information both to women who want to continue with their pregnancies and to those who choose to undergo an abortion. Such a person might see progress in a consortium of abortion clinics that have started counseling women more fully about adoption options. She might be encouraged by the work of ProLife, ProObama, a group that aims to support social programs reducing the need for abortion, as opposed to pursuing a legislative agenda, which, its Web site says, “has intensified the division and partisanship around this issue, but has little effect at reducing the abortion rate itself.”

Cristina Page, who runs an online discussion for people seeking common ground in the abortion debate, said she found the abortionchangesyou.com campaign all the more disturbing for Ms. Fredenburg’s pretense of not taking sides. “What better way to destroy common ground than to make it meaningless?” she said.

Ms. Fredenburg claims the merely intends to help women who are suffering emotionally as a result of an abortion. But a site that seems to convince women that there’s only one appropriate emotional response, exquisite pain, is troubling — especially when its founder claims to be creating a judgment-free space.

An “Abortion Changed Me” campaign — that might be therapeutic. But “Abortion Changes You” — that sounds like propaganda masquerading as therapy.

E-mail: susan.dominus@nytimes.com

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Irish Examiner: 75% oppose contraception for youths

2010-03-26T20:52:00.001Z

By Evelyn Ring

Friday, March 26, 2010

THREE out of four adults oppose giving contraception to teenagers as young as 14 without parental consent, a new RED C poll shows.

A recent report by the Law Reform Commission suggested teens as young as 14 to 15 could have access to contraception.

The Red C telephone poll of 1,000 adults found 77% opposed giving contraception to 14 and 15-year-olds without parental consent.

One in five said they supported the proposal while the remaining 2% did not answer or said they did not know.

Results of the poll were released yesterday by the Iona Institute in Dublin that promotes the place of marriage and religion in society.

On the same day the institute hosted a talk given by Prof David Paton of Nottingham University, a researcher on the economics of teenage pregnancy.

He pointed out that the pregnancy rate among Irish teenagers aged under 16 was only a sixth of England’s rate, despite it being a long standing policy in England to prescribe contraception to this age group.

He said Irish teenage birth and pregnancy rates were extremely low in comparison with countries such as England and Wales.

"The low pregnancy rate among minors in Ireland is so striking that caution is surely warranted before making significant changes to the legal position surrounding access to contraception for minors," he said.

And, he said, evidence from peer-reviewed literature on the impact of increased access to family planning on contraception rates among minors was not encouraging.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, March 26, 2010

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Washington Post: DA Official Quits Over Delay on Plan B

2010-03-26T20:49:00.001Z

Women's Health Chief Says Commissioner's Decision on Contraceptive Was Political

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 1, 2005

The top Food and Drug Administration official in charge of women's health issues resigned yesterday in protest against the agency's decision to further delay a final ruling on whether the "morning-after pill" should be made more easily accessible.

Susan F. Wood, assistant FDA commissioner for women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health, said she was leaving her position after five years because Commissioner Lester M. Crawford's announcement Friday amounted to unwarranted interference in agency decision-making.

"I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled," she wrote in an e-mail to her staff and FDA colleagues.

Crawford said last week that unresolved regulatory issues made it impossible to approve expanded use of the emergency contraceptive. Wood said the decision was widely seen in the FDA as political.

"Many colleagues have made it known that they are deeply concerned about the direction of the agency," she said in an interview.

Wood also said other FDA officials who are typically involved in important matters were kept in the dark about the contraceptive, called Plan B, until Crawford announced his decision, which she believed was made at higher levels in the administration. Wood said that when she asked a colleague in the commissioner's office when the decision would be made, the answer was, "We're still awaiting a decision from above; it hasn't come down yet."

In a statement, the FDA said Wood's resignation "is unfortunate as we work toward solving the complex policy and regulatory issues related to Plan B. . . . The FDA is committed to protecting and advancing women's health, and under Susan Wood's leadership, the agency has made significant strides."

Before coming to the FDA in 2000 in a civil service position, Wood was the director for policy and program development at the Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health, where she led the development of policy for the office, and recommended initiatives for the secretary and assistant secretary for health. She has also worked as a research scientist specializing in the biochemistry of smell at Johns Hopkins University.

Her FDA job description was to "be a champion for women's health."

The Plan B issue has become an emotional one both for advocates who believe that the contraceptive will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, and for opponents who believe that it will encourage teenage promiscuity and that, in some cases, its mode of action constitutes abortion.

The FDA and mainstream medical associations say Plan B, which is generally effective in preventing pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of a contraceptive failure or unprotected sex, prevents a pregnancy rather than ends one.

Religious conservatives and some members of Congress say that pregnancy begins with the fertilizing of the egg. They argue that anything that harms the resulting embryo amounts to abortion. Although Plan B generally works by preventing fertilization, researchers believe that in some cases it might keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.

Wendy Wright, policy director for Concerned Women for America and a critic of easier access to Plan B, welcomed Wood's resignation.

"Thank goodness there is now one less political activist at the FDA who puts radical feminist ideology above women's health," she wrote in a statement. "Now that Susan Wood has some free time on her hands, she can look at the studies from countries that have made the morning-after pill available without a prescription. She'll find it creates a public health hazard, with no decrease in pregnancies, no decrease in abortion, but a substantial increase in sexually transmitted diseases."

Plan B has been available as a prescription-only drug since 1999, and distributor Barr Laboratories Inc. applied in 2003 for permission to sell it over the counter. An FDA expert advisory panel voted 23 to 4 in favor of the switch, which agency staff members believe would significantly cut the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies.

The FDA rejected the application last year, however, saying it did not have enough information about the possible consequences on teenagers younger than 16. At the suggestion of FDA officials, Barr Labs filed a new application that would allow over-the-counter sales for women 17 and older and prescription-only sales for those younger than 17. Crawford said Friday that the proposed division by age poses "unique" regulatory problems that cannot be resolved without a formal rule-making, which could take years.

Crawford also said FDA scientists and executives had concluded that the drug could be safely sold over the counter.

Many supporters of the Plan B application -- including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) -- accused Crawford of making a political decision that ignored science and public health. The two senators were especially angry at Crawford's ruling because they had lifted a hold on his pending nomination based on promises, relayed by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, that the Plan B issue would be resolved by Sept. 1.

Clinton and Murray have accused the administration of breaking its promise, but Leavitt has disagreed. "The commitment was they would act," he told Reuters on Monday. "Sometimes action isn't always yes and no. Sometimes it requires additional thought."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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Back Up Your Birth Control!

2010-03-24T15:12:00.002Z

Happy Back Up Your Birth Control Day of Action! Birth Control mishaps happen. Help spread the word that emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy AFTER sex.

TAKE ACTION! Tell a friend, spread the word, donate your Facebook status, or check out this website for other ideas: http://www.backupyourbirthcontrol.org/

Some Information on Emergency Contraception

2010-03-24T14:51:00.008Z

Irish Times: Let's Talk About Sex

2010-03-23T19:43:00.001Z

ALISON HEALY

Tue, Mar 23, 2010

A new study into young people’s attitudes to sex makes interesting reading

MOST TEENAGERS lose their virginity between the ages of 16 and 17, according to new research on young people’s attitudes to sexual health.

However, the 18-20 year olds surveyed said they believed a greater number of 14 and 15 year olds were having sex now, compared with five years ago.

The Voice of Young People – A Report on Attitudes to Sexual Health found that most parents did not want their children to have sex before they reached 18 years.

While the majority of teenagers interviewed said they first had sex at 16 or 17, a minority said they had lost their virginity at 15.

The report said it could be assumed that many teenagers engaged in other forms of sexual activity before they had sexual intercourse.

The perception that teenagers were having sex at a younger age was common, the report found. Teenagers pointed to the pregnancy of younger children at school and discussions with younger siblings and their friends to support this theory.

The study highlighted the denial practised by some parents who said their children’s friends were having sex but their own children weren’t.

“In the main, parents reported that they would be able to determine if their own child was sexually active,” the report said.

Most of the 18-20 year olds interviewed said they had had more than one sexual relationship and many acknowledged having one-night stands.

“It’s not that you go out intending to sleep with someone, but sometimes you can’t help yourself,” explained one 19-year-old Dublin woman.

The research involved about 120 young people aged 18-20 years in Dublin, Galway and Cork as well as four focus groups of parents whose children were aged 14-16 years. It was conducted by Drury Research for the Pfizer Way2Go health programme.

The report also found that young women were more likely to have casual sex with an associate or friend who they knew, whereas men were more likely to have a one-night stand with someone they had never met.

It also highlighted the double standards practised when it came to condom-carrying. Both young men and women agreed that it should be acceptable for men and women to carry condoms on a night out.

However, men said if they saw a girl carrying a condom, it would indicate that she was “seeking sex” and was “easy”. This view was reflected by the young women interviewed, with only a small minority saying they carried condoms.

Despite the introduction of the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme in schools, the study found that children still learned about sex outside the classroom, mainly from friends and older siblings.

Most young people surveyed were critical of the sex education offered in schools, saying it was often “too little, too late”.

Teachers spent too little time on the subject and very few teachers appeared to be adequately trained for it, they said.

Specific information on contraception and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was often given after the junior cycle but should be offered in first and second year.

They all spoke of the embarrassment of having “The Talk” with parents, and most teenagers said their parents never referred to sexually transmitted infections.

“In particular, when the subject of contraception was addressed during the course of such discussions, it was almost always in the context of avoiding a crisis pregnancy.”

The parents interviewed also spoke of the difficulty in talking about sex to their children. They said they were worried that they would begin a discussion before the child was ready for it.

“The primary fear for parents appears to be that they might shock their child or ‘steal their innocence’, something they are very mindful to protect,” the report said.

Most parents agreed that they did not raise the topic of STIs and many did not discuss contraception.

“A significant number of parents appear uncomfortable with raising the subject and acknowledged being somewhat embarrassed to do so.

“Furthermore, many parents reported a concern that by engaging in such ‘overt’ sexual discussions they may in fact send the wrong message to their children that they are condoning or even encouraging sexual activity.”

ON SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS

“I remember they showed us pictures of the different STIs and it was disgusting but it was only one class and you kind of forget all about it – 19-YEAR-OLD FEMALE

ON SEX EDUCATION

“We were taught by a teacher who we had for another subject. So it was real awkward. Everything was rushed. They wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible” – 19-YEAR-OLD FEMALE

ON CASUAL SEX AND STIs

“It would nearly be easier to say you’re pregnant. You would have your family supporting you – 18-YEAR-OLD FEMALE

ON SEX EDUCATION

““I really don’t know much about the different STIs, so I don’t think I could tell my daughter anything. “In fact, I’m sure that already she knows much more than me.” – A MOTHER

“I think you know by your child. My girl has a boyfriend but she is not streetwise. I would know if she was [having sex]. She’s very innocent.” – A FATHER

“I don’t feel there’s a need for me to get into the birds and the bees. They’re taught that in school.” – A FATHER

SOURCE: The Voice of Young People – A Report on Attitudes to Sexual Health, commissioned by Pfizer Healthcare

© 2010 The Irish Times

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Irish Examiner: Majority of teens sexually active at 16, research finds

2010-03-23T19:19:00.000Z

By Noel Baker

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

THE majority of teenagers are sexually active at 16, according to research which indicates that young people find sex education programmes in school "too little, too late".

In a study published yesterday, a sizeable number of young people admit to having one night stands, while a considerable proportion of those surveyed said they had had more than one sexual partner.

Parents questioned in the report admit that while they do not want their children to become sexually active until they are 18, they are often reluctant to openly discuss safe sex with their children and have a limited knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases.

The research, commissioned by Pfizer Healthcare, was conducted with 12 focus groups comprising six female groups and six male groups, in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

Half the groups of eight people featured 18-year-olds, the other half people aged 19 and 20, while another four groups of parents of children aged 14 to 16 were also surveyed.

Tara Delaney, director of external affairs at Pfizer, said the findings indicated that a new approach to the discussion of sex was needed, both in school and in the home.

"The majority of parents find it a difficult topic to discuss and would rather not discuss it at the age at which it clearly needs to be discussed," she said.

"Sex education is highly variable, depending on who is teaching it, and some of the respondents say it comes too late in the cycle from an education point of view."

She said it was now time for sex education to be provided at an earlier age and for a "more open and mature dialogue" on the issue of young people and sex in what is increasingly a more sexualised society.

The research indicates that parents are often not authoritative, "open communicators" when it comes to sex, but instead fall into other categories, such as "silent witness" (where the issue of sex is not discussed), or "blind witness" (where parents view the school as managing the issue).

On the part of young people, some of those questioned in the focus groups said they believed becoming pregnant would be more acceptable than contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

The use of condoms often went hand-in-hand with a fear of becoming pregnant, with the contraction of a STI down the list of considerations.

The report quotes the chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association, Niall Behan, as suggesting Ireland follow countries such as the Netherlands in discussing sex more openly and at a younger age with children.

Aoife Price, welfare officer with the Irish Secondary Schools Union, said: "There is a lot of pressure on young people to have sex in order to fit in. If there was proper sex education, young people could learn that they do not have to have sex if they are not ready for it."

LINK

Irish Examiner: Young people 'unwilling to talk about STIs'

2010-03-22T20:03:00.001Z

Monday, March 22, 2010 - 01:14 PM

Young people are putting themselves at risk of sexually transmitted diseases because they will not talk about them, a report claimed today.

A survey found most 18 to 20-year-olds would not tell anyone if they contracted an infection through sex because they are more concerned with the social stigma than the potential health consequences.

The majority also said they would not confront the partner from whom they contracted the sexually transmitted infection (STI) out of fear that they might be exposed or blamed for it.

Dr John Lambert, a consultant in infectious diseases and genitourinary medicine, warned young adults they were risking illness, infertility and even death.

He said: “This research indicates that although young people’s awareness of the term sexually transmitted infection is relatively high, their knowledge of specific STIs and their respective symptoms and consequences, remains low.

“This lack of awareness and understanding is putting their health at risk.”

The survey on attitudes to sexual health was carried out among 12 groups of 18 to 20-year-olds in Dublin, Cork and Galway over December and January for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

Both young men and young women believed the social stigma of contracting an STI would be worse than that of an unplanned pregnancy.

Most said they had become sexually active between the age of 16 and 17 years, with a minority reporting having sex as young as 15 years. The majority had already had sex with more than one partner.

A “sizeable” number said they have had a “one night stand” while a “notable” proportion have had sex more than once without using a condom, according to the researchers, who did not take percentages but gathered responses for the report.

Condoms were viewed by all to be a necessity, but more out of fear of unplanned pregnancy rather than protection against contracting an STI, the study found.

Dr Shirley McQuade, medical director at The Well Woman Clinic, warned that anyone can get an STI and having unprotected sex increases the risk.

“If you take a risk and have unprotected sex, get tested afterwards,” she advised.

“And if you are about to start a new relationship and begin to have unprotected sex, both partners should get tested beforehand. Don’t put yourself at risk.”

LINK

RH Reality Check: Ireland: You Can Force Women to Be Mothers, But You Can't Force Men to Be Fathers

2010-03-19T14:02:00.001Z

By Jodi Jacobson
Created Mar 18 2010 - 2:55pm

A regular commentor at RH Reality Check, who goes by the handle of Princess Rot, recently wrote in response to an article we published:

I have found that there is a strong prediliction [in the anti-choice community]...to believe in what Amanda Marcotte who blogs here calls "sperm magic" - basically, the belief that shoring up male pride in virility trumps the bodily autonomy of women. Entitling the fetus to special rights is a by-proxy way of ensuring females and their reproduction remains under patriarchal control.

Her statement--and the contention that controversies about abortion, contraception, motherhood and social roles are about a broader power struggle around women's roles--is regularly contested on our site.

Yet in re-reading through some recent reports, I came across an article about the decision in December by the Irish Supreme Court that denied a woman access to her frozen embryos because her ex-partner objected and did not want embryos fertilized with his sperm to be implanted and brought to term.

According to the article [1]:

Despite the Irish constitutional guarantee for the right to life "from conception," the Supreme Court ruled that the three embryos cannot be implanted against the wishes of the woman's estranged husband. Mary and Thomas Roche underwent IVF treatment in 2001.

Let me say at the outset that I am not in favor of forcing anyone to become a parent, and I am in favor of every person having full access to the information and services they need to exercise their reproductive and sexual rights (including not to reproduce or have sex), and to ensure their own sexual and reproductive health. I also do not believe in the "personhood" of embryos.

But the decision by the Irish Supreme Court underscores the hypocrisy that underlies not only the "pro-life" position when it comes to women versus men--in Ireland, the US and elsewhere--it also underscores the hypocrisy of the wider ranging public conversations about abortion and contraception in which we are now engaged.

In Ireland, according to the Human Rights Watch report A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland [2]"abortion is legally restricted in almost all circumstances, with potential penalties of penal servitude for life for both patients and service providers, except where the pregnant woman's life is in danger."

There is, however, according to HRW:

Little legal and policy guidance on when, specifically, an abortion might be legally performed within Ireland. As a result, some doctors are reluctant even to provide pre-natal screening for severe fetal abnormalities, and very few - if any - women have access to legal abortions at home. The government has indicated that it has no current plans to clarify the possible reach of the criminal penalties. The government does not keep figures on legal and illegal abortions carried out in Ireland, or on the number of women traveling abroad for services.

So women are left hanging as to what exactly their rights are in what circumstances and under what potential "penalities" and doctors are effectively prohibited by the same lack of clarity from providing women a full range of services and information pertaining to pregnancy.

And as a result of lack of access to abortion care at home, every year thousands of women and girls travel from Ireland to other European countries for abortions. In a 57-page report entitled "A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland," [2] HRW details how women "struggle to overcome the financial, logistical, physical, and emotional burdens imposed by restrictive laws and policies that force them to seek care abroad, without support from the state."

Ironically, the severe curtailment of women's rights coexists with "ambiguity" about the status of the embryo.

In short, according to the Irish Supreme Court, an embryo is apparently an "unborn person" when it is inside the womb of a woman--and is then equal to and can compromise her own health--but it is not an "unborn person" when a man does not want it to be.

The five judges ruled that the human embryo does not enjoy protection under Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution that says, "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother." An embryo frozen in storage does not constitute "the unborn," the ruling said.

Hmmmm....

This is confusing! And indeed both lawyers and doctors also find it confusing.

In an article for Irish Medical News, Solicitors Tom Hayes and Hilary Coveney outline Ireland’s current legal position on fertility treatment and the status of the embryo.

Medical and scientific advances have generated a “reproductive revolution” through new or assisted reproductive technologies. These technologies include artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation (IVF), surrogacy and use of sperm, egg and embryo donation. They have been available in Ireland since the 1980s with the first Irish “test tube” baby having been born in 1987.

Multiple embryos are often created in the course of IVF treatment to avoid women undergoing further courses of treatment where possible. Surplus embryos can then be stored or frozen for a period of time to be used at a later date. However, the status of these embryos and how they are to be used and protected raise many important questions.

Yet "unlike many other jurisdictions," they write, "there is currently no statutory or legislative guidance in relation to the practice of IVF or the status of the embryo in Ireland."

Embryo = person once inside a woman. Embryo = not-a-person when a man decides he does not want it to be.

To be fair, while pro-life groups in Ireland apparently disagreed with the ruling, they did so on the grounds that they prefer invitro-fertilization be entirely banned, thereby of course strengthening the control of patriarchal institutions over the unborn and ensuring patrimony, while of course ensuring that no single women or gay couples can bear children using new technologies.

"Although it would be unethical for embryos outside the body to be implanted, it is permission for IVF, and not the Roches' estrangement, which has created this tragedy in which their children will never be born. Any legislation, therefore, which may be passed following this case should ban IVF," said Pat Buckley, spokesperson for the Society of the Unborn in Ireland.

It's never unethical to control a woman, though.

LINK

Guardian Blog: Utah bill reduces women to incubators

2010-03-18T14:05:00.002Z

by Melissa McEwan
Tuesday 16 March 2010

It's already hard to get an abortion in Utah. Now a new bill opens the door to prosecuting women who 'intentionally' miscarry

Last week, Utah governor Gary Herbert signed into law Utah HB 462, known ignominiously as "the miscarriage bill". It was a reworked version of the original bill, introduced by Republican State Representative Carl D Wimmer, adjusted to address criticisms that the initial language "could have got women sent away for lifelong prison terms for falling down stairs or staying in an abusive relationship". The revised version "designates the 'intentional or knowing' miscarriage as criminal homicide" and "stipulates that a woman can be charged with homicide for 'the death of her unborn child', unless the death qualifies as legal abortion".

Thus are the women of Utah left with a new law that criminalises illegal abortion in a state that increasingly discourages legal abortions.

Utah already requires parental notification and consent for minors seeking abortions, mandates a 24-hour waiting period to terminate a pregnancy, subjects women seeking abortions to state-directed counselling which overtly discourages abortion, and allows public funding for terminations only in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or threat to the women's life or physical health. (Don't think you can get away with claiming your psychological health is at risk, ladies! Everyone knows that women would just lie about that to get an abortion because there's nothing conceivably traumatising about being forced to carry a pregnancy you don't want to term.)

As of 2005, according to the Guttmacher Institute, 93% of Utah counties had no abortion provider, leaving 25% of women in the state to travel at least 50 miles, and 8% to travel more than 100 miles, to get an abortion. There were six abortion providers in the whole of the state in 2005, and currently the state has only one licensed abortion clinic.

Utah has become, like many other states, a frontline in the war against legal abortion. Yes, Roe is still in place, but anti-abortion activists are battling to render it an impotent and largely symbolic statute, hollowed out by state legislation that chips away at abortion rights with "partial-birth abortion bans" and "parental consent laws" and mandatory (ostensible) disincentives like "look at your foetus on an ultrasound".

The Democrats, and the leftwing activists who try to use the spectre of a world without Roe to coerce progressive feminists into line during every election, tend to regard legal abortion like an on-off switch, but it doesn't work that way. Legal abortion is only worth as much as the number of women who have reasonable and affordable and unencumbered access to it, and that number is dwindling: the National Abortion Federation reports that 88% of counties in the US have no identifiable abortion provider – a figure that rises to 97% in non-metropolitan areas.

That's not merely an inconvenience – between travel expenses and time off work, especially when a 24-hour waiting period necessitates at least two days of one's time, the cost of securing an abortion can become an undue burden. It can put legal abortion out of a woman's reach.

That's what state legislatures like Utah's are hoping. And because even the most publicly mendacious anti-choice activists know that even criminalising abortion doesn't stop women from getting them, they know that merely restricting access to legal abortion isn't enough – a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant will find a way to not be pregnant.

Thus is their current strategy is to make legal abortion as inaccessible as possible and criminalise everything else. An abortion performed by someone other than a doctor is ergo illegal. An abortion performed on a minor without parental consent, or on an adult without state-mandated counselling and a 24-hour waiting period, is ergo illegal. An abortion late in the pregnancy is ergo illegal. Inducing a miscarriage is ergo illegal. Terminating a pregnancy by any other method than the one which has been most ruthlessly restricted – via piecemeal legislation and the defunding of clinics and the unfettered terrorising of abortion providers – is illegal.

In Utah, women still have a technical legal right to abortion, but very little means to exercise that right.

And now, in pursuit of ensuring that women's right to abortion is as limited as possible, the state has opened the door to prosecuting women who miscarry after having a drink of caffeinated coffee or a beer or a cigarette, or take a vigorous walk, or miss a prenatal care appointment, or shoot up heroin, or go to spinning class, or any one of a number of things that pregnant women do every day, good and bad, during pregnancies that come to term, if there's someone who will testify she did it to miscarry; she was trying to miscarry; she told me.

In pursuit of ensuring that women's right to abortion is as limited, the state has conferred personhood on foetuses, and reduced women to incubators. And watch out if the machinery breaks.

The architects of this legislation insist it was not designed to punish women, but to protect the unborn. Somehow I don't find that comforting, coming from the same lot who won't properly fund childhood education or support universal healthcare. Or any other legislation that would make a material difference in the lives of the born.

LINK

Irish Health: Free contraception link to less abortion

2010-03-18T13:42:00.002Z

Posted: Mon 15/03/2010 by Deborah Condon

Offering young women free hormonal contraception could lead to a significant fall in abortions, the results of a new health project indicate.

As part of the project, 3,500 women aged 20-24, who were living in two different cities in Norway, were offered free hormonal contraception for one year. By the end of the year, the abortion rate in both cities had halved.

The Norwegian Directorate of Health initiated the project after a previous project led to similar success. In 2002, Norwegian women aged between 16 and 19 were offered free hormone-based contraception. Abortion rates fell dramatically and reached their lowest level in 2005.

In 2006, after the authorities modified the scheme and introduced part-payment for hormonal contraception, the number of terminations among this age group began to rise again. Since then, the abortion rate among 16 to 19-year-olds has risen every year.

This latest project focused on women aged 20 to 24 because they have the highest abortion rate in Norway and this rate has risen steadily over the past few years.

According to the project manager, Anita Øren, this study demonstrates that when women in this age group are offered free contraception, their abortion rate falls.

The participants claimed that an important reason for their continuous use of the contraception was the fact that it was free. Many indicated that they tend to avoid using contraception when they are less well-off.

The researchers also looked at how the contraceptives were picked up from chemists, both before and during the study period. The figures clearly showed that users picked up their contraception more often during the period when it was free.

“The offer of free hormonal contraception does not necessarily lead to more users, but to more frequent use. If the aim is to reduce the number of terminations, the project shows that the offer of free hormonal contraception can be an effective measure. It is also what women themselves say that they want,” Ms Øren said.

In the cities involved in the trial, the use of long-term methods of contraception such as IUDs/implants more than doubled. These methods work continuously for three to five years and provide the best protection against unwanted pregnancies. As a one-off investment, however, they are regarded as more expensive alternatives to the oral contraceptive pill.

“Women themselves say that they are very pleased to have the freedom to choose the type of product they prefer, irrespective of price,” Ms Øren added.

LINK

Sonya Renee "What Women Deserve"

2010-03-18T13:31:00.000Z

Irish Examiner: Women on maternity leave targeted by employers

2010-03-08T17:31:00.001Z

By Catherine Shanahan

Monday, March 08, 2010

WOMEN who are pregnant, on maternity leave or returning to work after having a baby are being illegally targeted by employers engaged in cost-cutting exercises, according to the Equality and Rights Alliance.

The Alliance said discrimination has become more widespread since the recession took hold and includes:

* Cuts to women’s salaries.

* Changes in terms and conditions of employment.

* Withdrawal of full or top-up maternity pay which the employer had previously paid.

Joanna McMinn, chairwoman of the Alliance, said pregnancy-related discrimination was "a very blunt, overt form of unfairness and gender discrimination".

"It is against the law and, despite 30 years of legislation against it, we are seeing evidence that this particular form of discrimination is getting worse because of the recession," Ms McMinn said.

She said women could not be soft targets simply because they took the time out to have a family.

Member groups of the Alliance coalition, including the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) and the trade unions, are tracking an increasing number of calls from women with pregnancy-related employment enquiries and complaints.

In April 2009, the number of queries represented just 1.3% of all employment-related calls. In January 2010, it had increased to 14.3%. Issues reported by women include being guilt-tripped into not taking full maternity leave or not taking the extra unpaid maternity leave; getting a P45 while still on maternity; notice that there is no more work to do upon returning from maternity leave; denial of bonuses due while on maternity; bullying or deteriorating position upon return as a means of "managing them out" and denial of previously agreed work-sharing or part-time work.

The Alliance, a coalition of 130 organisations and activists lobbying for improved equality and human rights, chose to highlight the issue of pregnancy-related discrimination on March 8, International Women’s Day.

The Marie Stopes Reproductive Choices sexual health agency also chose International Women’s Day to launch a new booklet providing information for women seeking abortion advice and treatment.

The launch of the booklet coincides with the publication of new independent research into attitudes towards abortion, conducted by YouGov Plc. The research suggests that the majority of Irish men and women agree that abortion should be permitted in Ireland in some circumstances.

About nine out 10 respondents (87%) agreed that termination of pregnancy should be permitted, if the pregnancy seriously endangers the woman’s life; more than four out of 10 respondents (41%) agreed that termination of pregnancy should be permitted if the woman believes it is in her and/or her family’s best interest. Only 3% of respondents felt abortion in Ireland is not acceptable under any circumstances.

The Irish Family Planning Clinic (IFPC) welcomed the poll’s findings and called on the Government to "face up to its responsibilities and stop exiling women who are experiencing crisis pregnancies".

Separately, some of Ireland’s leading women writers and feminists will gather at the Dublin Book Festival today to celebrate International Woman’s Day.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, March 08, 2010

LINK

Cork Women's Right to Choose Group Welcomes YouGov/Marie Stopes Poll

2010-03-08T17:18:00.004Z

Monday 8th March 2010

OVER THREE QUARTERS OF IRISH POPULATION SUPPORT LIBERALISATION OF ABORTION LAWS

To mark the 100th International Women's Day, Cork Women's Right to Choose Group welcomes the results of a new YouGov poll commissioned by Marie Stopes International, which shows that over three quarters of the Irish population support increased access to abortion in Ireland.

The poll indicates a significant shift in public support for legal access to abortion in Ireland and a comprehensive understanding of the many different and difficult situations faced by women experiencing unplanned pregnancies. The results are in line with a recent poll commissioned by the Irish Examiner and conducted by Red C published in January 2010, which showed that three out of five adults aged 18-35 believe abortion should be legalised in Ireland.

Cork Women's Right to Choose spokesperson Dr. Sandra McAvoy said, "It is time for the government to face the reality of people's changing attitudes towards abortion. The majority of the Irish population recognises that safe and legal access to abortion protects women's life and health. The government must stop exiling women and legalise abortion in Ireland."

Irish Independent: Call to relax abortion laws

2010-03-08T17:16:00.001Z

Monday 8 March 2010

The Government has been urged to relax abortion laws after a poll showed more than three-quarters of the population favour such a move.

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) said the survey reveals a significant shift in public attitudes to pregnancy termination.

The YouGov opinion poll showed 78% of those questioned support access to abortion in Ireland if the pregnancy endangers a woman's health or is the result of sexual abuse, rape or incest. Where a pregnancy seriously endangers a woman's life, support for abortion rose to 87%.

Niall Behan, chief executive of the IFPA, said Irish laws on abortion are out of step with the population and with those of European neighbours.

"Attitudes towards abortion in Ireland have changed dramatically in recent years and the vast majority of Irish people now recognise that many women face difficult dilemmas in pregnancy," he said.

"This poll is the latest in a long line of opinion polls which indicate that the Irish people want the Government to face up to reality of women's and girls' lives."

The IFPA said the current laws merely add to the burden and stress experienced by women experiencing crisis pregnancies.

Since 1980, at least 138,000 women have travelled from the Irish Republic to Britain for abortion services.

The IFPA said an increasing number of women are opting for abortion services in European countries other than Britain.

The organisation called on the Government to stop exiling women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy.

Press Association

LINK

IFPA Press Release on results of new YouGov/Marie Stopes Poll

2010-03-08T14:46:00.001Z

New poll to mark International Women's Day finds that three quarters of Irish population want liberalisation of abortion laws

8th March, 2010

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) has welcomed the publication today of a new YouGov national opinion poll which indicates high levels of support for increased access to abortion in Ireland.

The poll reflects a significant shift in public attitudes with three quarters of those questioned in favour of liberalisation of Irish abortion laws. 78 per cent of those questioned support access to abortion in Ireland if the pregnancy endangers a woman’s health or if the pregnancy is the result of sexual abuse, rape or incest.

Support for abortion when a pregnancy seriously endangers a woman’s life increases further to 87 per cent.

The IFPA believes that the criminalisation of abortion in Ireland has little impact on abortion rates; it merely adds to the burden and stress experienced by women experiencing crisis pregnancies.
It is the view of the Irish Family Planning Association that Irish laws on abortion are out of step with those of its European neighbours. Forty four out of 47 European countries provide for abortion to protect women’s health.

In the light of growing public support for liberalisation of Ireland’s abortion laws the IFPA has called on the Government to face up to its responsibilities and stop exiling women who are experiencing crisis pregnancies.

Niall Behan, Chief Executive of the IFPA said: “Attitudes towards abortion in Ireland have changed dramatically in recent years and the vast majority of Irish people now recognise that many women face difficult dilemmas in pregnancy. This poll is the latest in a long line of opinion polls which indicate that the Irish people want the Government to face up to reality of women’s and girls’ lives.”

The YouGov poll comissioned by Marie Stopes found:
- Approximately nine out 10 respondents (87%) agreed that termination of pregnancy should be permitted if the pregnancy seriously endangers the woman’s life;
- More than three quarters of respondents (79%) agreed that termination of pregnancy should be permitted if the woman’s health is at risk;
- Nearly eight out of 10 respondents (78%) agreed that termination of pregnancy should be permitted if the pregnancy is the result of sexual abuse / rape or incest;
- Just under two thirds of respondents (62%) agreed that termination of pregnancy should be permitted if there is evidence of a profound foetal abnormality;
- Over four out of 10 respondents (41%) agreed that termination of pregnancy should be permitted if the woman believes it is in her and / or her family's best interest;
- Only three per cent of respondents felt that abortion in Ireland is not acceptable under any circumstances

Guttmacher Institute: Spain Expands Legal Access to Abortion

2010-03-03T23:41:00.001Z

March 3, 2010

On February 24, the Spanish senate approved a new law on sexual and reproductive health, which relaxes restrictions on women’s access to abortion. The law allows abortion under any circumstances up to 14 weeks’ gestation and declares the procedure a woman’s right. It also permits abortion at up to 22 weeks if two doctors certify that the pregnancy poses a serious threat to the woman’s life or health, as well as in cases of fetal impairment, and beyond 22 weeks in cases of severe fetal impairment. Previously, safe abortion was widely available in Spain, but was legal only to save the life of a woman, or to preserve her physical and mental health.

The expansion of legal access to abortion—which takes effect in June—is part of a comprehensive law aimed at improving universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and information, especially for young people. It grants 16- and 17-year-olds abortion access, but requires notification of at least one parent or legal guardian.

Spain’s new law also requires that public policies related to health, education and social issues promote universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and programs—including family planning services—and makes comprehensive sexuality education mandatory in schools. Additionally, it requires public health facilities to provide pregnancy-related care and effective family planning methods to all women and their partners.

This legislative change echoes a global trend toward liberalizing abortion laws. Between 1997 and 2008, according to a 2009 report by the Guttmacher Institute, 19 countries significantly liberalized their abortion laws, while only three substantially increased restrictions. Despite this trend, 40% of the world’s women live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, virtually all of them in the developing world.

The report also showed that while the incidence of abortion is closely related to the rate of unintended pregnancy, it does not correlate with abortion’s legal status. Indeed, abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is broadly legal and in regions where it is highly restricted. The key difference between permissive and restrictive countries is safety—illegal, clandestine abortions cause significant harm to women, especially in developing countries.

Worldwide, unsafe abortion causes an estimated 70,000 deaths each year, and an additional five million women are treated annually for complications resulting from unsafe abortion. Approximately three million women who experience serious complications from unsafe procedures go untreated.

While increasing access to legal and safe abortion is a necessary step toward protecting women’s health, a more integrated approach is needed to improve their lives. Addressing the unmet need for contraception, which remains very high in many parts of the world, is a critical step toward promoting the well-being of women and their families.

Click here for more information: Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress and Facts on Abortion Worldwide

LINK

Irish Times: Women cannot get abortion to save lives, says group

2010-03-01T14:00:00.000Z

by MARIE O'HALLORAN

Mon, Mar 01, 2010

FAILURE TO legislate on the X-case means that a woman cannot access an abortion even when it is necessary to save her life, according to a pro-choice organisation.

Choice Ireland has criticised what it believes to be the failure of successive governments to legislate on the issue. “Without legislation many medical practitioners do not know what services they may lawfully provide to women and what the standard of medical care should be when an abortion is performed in Ireland,” according to Choice Ireland activist and founding member Sinéad Ahern.

She was speaking at Choice Ireland’s third annual conference, marking the 18th anniversary of the controversial X-case on abortion. Ms Ahern said “service providers also do not know when they can advise their clients to request an abortion”.

Doctors have stated it is not absolutely clear-cut when an abortion can be performed to save the life of a woman, she said. “And as a result no doctor is willing to take a risk. And even though the ethical guidelines of the medical council of Ireland do admit that abortion is available where there is a grave risk to the life of the mother, doctors are given no guidance as to how they might make that assessment.

“The result of this is that despite the legal and constitutional position, without legislation a woman cannot practically access abortion even when it is necessary to save her life.”

In the X-case of the Attorney General vs X, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14-year-old girl, whose pregnancy resulted from rape, faced a real and substantial risk to her life due to threat of suicide and this threat could only be averted by the termination of her pregnancy. Therefore the court found that she was entitled to an abortion in Ireland under the provision of article 40.3.3 of the Constitution that requires the State to have “due regard to the equal right to life of the mother”.

Ms Ahern said “there have been two attempts to hold referenda to overturn the X-case, in 1992 and again in 2002. On both occasions the Irish electorate has refused to reject suicide as grounds to access abortion.

“We are now 18 years later and our governments have refused to listen to the will of the Irish people and have refused to legislate for the X-case judgment.”

Ireland is “perhaps unique in the western world of having no effective means for a woman, even when her life is gravely threatened, to access an abortion on Irish soil”.

Ireland is one of only three countries in the EU along with Malta and Poland which “place stringent restrictions on a woman’s right to access abortion services. Even in Malta however there is some leeway on this issue and there have been documented cases of women being able to access life-saving abortions in the country without being prosecuted.”

© 2010 The Irish Times

LINK

RH Reality Check: Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage

2010-02-28T16:30:00.001Z

By Rachel Larris

Created Feb 20 2010 - 9:00am

A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor's signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some instances.

According Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, what makes Utah's proposed law unique is that it is specifically designed to be punitive toward pregnant women, not those who might assist or cause an illegal abortion or unintended miscarriage.

The bill passed by legislators amends Utah's criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her [2] in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because, at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.

The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor's care, with penalties including up to life in prison.

"What is really radical and different about this statute is that all of the other states' feticide laws are directed to third party attackers," Paltrow explained. "[Other states' feticide laws] were passed in response to a pregnant woman who has been beaten up by a husband or boyfriend. Utah's law is directed to the woman herself and that's what makes it different and dangerous."

In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by "reckless" behavior.

Using the legal standard of "reckless behavior" all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn't intend to lose the pregnancy. Drink too much alcohol and have a miscarriage? Under the new law such actions could be cause for prosecution.

"This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder," says Missy Bird, executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah. Bird says there are no exemptions in the bill for victims of domestic violence or for those who are substance abusers. The standard is so broad, Bird says, "there nothing in the bill to exempt a woman for not wearing her seatbelt who got into a car accident."

Such a standard could even make falling down stairs a prosecutable event, such as the recent case in Iowa [3] where a pregnant woman who fell down the stairs at her home was arrested under the suspicion she was trying to terminate her pregnancy.

"This statute and the standards chosen leave a large number of pregnant women vulnerable to arrest even though they have no intention of ending a pregnancy," Paltrow said. "Whether or not the legislature intended this bill to become a tool for policing and punishing all pregnant women, if enacted this law would permit prosecution of a pregnant woman who stayed with her abusive husband because she was unable to leave. Not leaving would, under the 'reckless' standard, constitute conduct that consciously disregarded a substantial risk," Paltrow explained.

While many states have fetal homicide laws most apply only in the third trimester. Utah's bill would apply throughout the entirety of a woman's pregnancy. Even first trimester miscarriages could become the basis for a murder trial.

Bird said she is also concerned that the law will drive pregnant women with substance abuse problems "underground;" afraid to seek treatment lest they have a miscarriage and be charged for murder. She said it directly reverses the attempts made, though a bill passed in 2008, to encourage pregnant women to seek treatment for addiction.

Paltrow added that the commonly thought belief that pregnant women who use drugs are engaging in behavior that is likely to cause a stillbirth or a miscarriage is wrong.

"Science now makes clear that drug use by pregnant women does not create unique risks for pregnant women, although it is likely that among those targeted for prosecutions by this statute will be women who go to term under drug usage," she said.

The bill does exempt from prosecution fetal deaths due to failure to follow medical advice, accept treatment or refuse a cesarean section. Bird said this exemption was likely because of a 2004 case where a woman who was pregnant with twins was later charged with criminal homicide after one of the babies was stillborn, which the state deemed due to her refusal to have a cesarean section.

Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Utah worked together to "amend the hell out of the bill," Bird said. One of their few accomplishments was at least dropping the legal standard of "negligence" from the bill, a much lower standard than "recklessness."

Bird was shaken with emotion after the Senate vote. "I broke down and cried," she admitted. "I normally never let these kind of [legislative] battles get to me."

"What really sucks is that we had three supposed allies in the Senate, three [Democratic] women, who voted for the bill," Bird said, adding she didn't yet know why the three senators switched votes.

Marina Lowe is legislative and policy counsel for the ACLU of Utah. She worked in tandem with Bird on trying to derail or at least mitigate the worst aspects of the bill. Lowe says at this point she doesn't know if there is a potential constitutional challenge to the law once it is signed by the governor.

But she points to cases like the one in Iowa [3] as exactly the kind of situation that might arise once this law is put into place.

Paltrow says this bill puts a lie to the idea that the pro-life movement cares about women.

"For all these years the anti-choice movement has said ‘we want to outlaw abortion, not put women in jail, but what this law says is ‘no, we really want to put women in jail.'"

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Sunday Business Post: Fighting for the rights of women

2010-02-23T16:01:00.000Z

Sunday, February 21, 2010

By Helen Boylan

Loretta Ross became pregnant by her 27year-old cousin when she was 15-years-old.

Forty-five years later, Texas-born Ross tells calmly how her cousin ‘‘decided that it would be a lark to have sex with me’’ while he was babysitting her one day.

Crucially, the occurrence was pre-Roe v Wade - the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion in the United States - meaning Ross had no choice but to have the baby.

Now approaching her 60th year, Ross, who is the national coordinator of Sister Song: Women of Colour Reproductive Health Collective in Atlanta, Georgia, tells how she planned to give the baby up for adoption on birth. ‘‘It was definitely not the way I was planning on becoming a parent. I mean, who wants to become a young teenage mother through incest?” she says.

But the morning after the delivery, the nurses brought all the babies who had been born the night before to their mothers for breastfeeding.

‘‘They brought my baby to me and he had my face,” she says. ‘‘I couldn’t go through with the adoption.”

At the time, Ross was in 11th grade in a Texan school. ‘‘It was the policy of the school system at the time to expel girls who had been pregnant,” she says. ‘‘That policy disproportionately affected the black girls.

It wasn’t race-based - it was just that it was common for the white girls who got pregnant to go off, secretly have the baby and come back and pretend nothing happened. But it was more common for black girls to keep their babies. So for those who kept their babies, there was proof that we had fallen from grace,” Ross says with a wry smile. ‘‘And so we were pushed out of school.”

A bright student with an interest in science, Ross fought hard for her right to return to school. She successfully sued the school authorities and was allowed to return. Upon graduation, she was granted a full scholarship for Howard’s University in Washington DC.

Although she didn’t know it at the time, this fight against the system would be the first of many which would forge a dynamic international career in women’s rights.

As the coordinator of SisterSong, she oversees 76 separate organisations supporting ‘women of colour’.

The term ‘woman of colour’, she says, is an important one. ‘‘We were tired of being called ‘minority women’.

When we were together, we weren’t a minority at all,” she says.

‘‘It’s not a biological designation, like being born Chinese or native American. You adopt the term for yourself when you choose to work in solidarity with other oppressed women.”

At 16,Rossmoved to Washington DC to attend college. It was here she faced what she describes as another human rights issue, when she was denied access to birth control.

‘‘Back then, if you were under 18 you had to have parental consent to use birth control,” she says. ‘‘But my mother wouldn’t sign a permission form for me. I got pregnant again, this time with my boyfriend.

I decided to have an abortion because Washington DC was one of the few US jurisdictions which legalised abortions before Roe v Wade.”

In order to avoid another pregnancy, Ross was fitted with a contraceptive intrauterine device (IUD) called the Dalkon Shield, which has been on the market for ten years. However, the device was found to have been designed with a fault which had a sterilising effect in Ross and thousands of other users of the device worldwide.

‘‘It was a piece of plastic with a string hanging down from it. The only purpose for that string was for the doctor to pull it out when they tried to remove it,” Ross says.

‘‘But the string acted like a bacterial wick, leeching all kinds of bad stuff up into the uterus.”

Her doctor at the time refused to remove the IUD, instead treating her for repeated venereal diseases.

‘‘He accused me of sleeping with soldiers coming from Vietnam - saying that I had some kind of Vietnam VD - it was unreal. I said ‘I don’t know anybody who’s been to Vietnam.’ I told him that my boyfriend who was in law school hadn’t been to Vietnam.”

Ross’s infections eventually caused severe pelvic inflammatory disease and she lapsed into a coma.

She was rushed to hospital, only to be confronted with a new nightmare.

‘‘When I woke up, the same doctor was standing over me at the hospital bed basically saying, ‘Ooops’ and ‘I’m sorry, I had to perform a complete hysterectomy to save your life’. Then he said it shouldn’t be a problem because I already had a kid.” Ross was 23 years old.

Spurred by what she describes as unbelievable anger, she brought her medical records to a private physician.

‘‘He took one look at them and said ‘this doctor has mistreated you’. He told me that the doctor should have immediately removed the IUD when I was diagnosed with pelvic infection, but instead he left it in for another six months. He said he could have avoided the hysterectomy.”

Once again, a massive hurdle in Ross’s life became an impetus for change. She was one of the first women to win a suit against the company that marketed the IUD, along with a ruling of medical malpractice against the doctor who treated her.

‘‘I settled at a little over $100,000, which sounded like a huge amount at the time,” says Ross. ‘‘But I later learned that because the company was trying to keep so many of their lawsuits hush-hush, several women [who had been sterilised by the Dalkon Shield] had each been paid several million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.

I think that the advantage the other women had was that they were white, and several of them had not had children already.”

So why does she believe that colour made a difference? ‘‘There’s a stereotype against young black mothers, in particular. We’re accused of being sexually irresponsible, a burden on society, unwilling to take care of our children and unwilling to work.

‘‘I, of course, tried my best to live down all those stereotypes, but that didn’t seem to matter. The fact that I’d had a child as a teenager seemed to write a script for what I deserved.”

In 1979, Ross began to turn her experiences into a positive force, when she began to volunteer at the Washington DC rape crisis centre.

In 1976, she became the centre’s director and was the first African American woman to fulfil this role in the US.

For the next decade she worked steadily for women’s rights, all the while resisting the tag of ‘feminism’.

‘‘I even used to drag my boyfriend along to meetings with me to prove that I was heterosexual. And I couldn’t burn my bra. My breasts would have flopped too much,” she says smiling.

Ross has spent the past 20 years travelling in pursuit of furthering human rights. ‘‘I have known for years the restrictions that are placed on women in Ireland,” she says. ‘‘We[in SisterSong] pay particular attention to any country that is dominated by the Catholic Church because the women in these countries live under a special degree of oppression that isn’t necessarily experienced in more liberal countries.”

The problems she sees in Ireland include abortion being against the law, that there is often a shame attached to sex and sexuality, and that ‘‘there is a gender-based prohibition in society because boys are expected to be boys and girls are expected to be saints.”

Having spoken with many Irish women’s rights activists, Ross says she ‘‘often hears about the fact that they can’t even get a conversation in Ireland about the human right to accurate sex education and information.

‘‘They cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube. The information is there and wherever women have sex, they should be allowed to control their own fertility.”

Undivided Rights: Women of Colour Organized for Reproductive Justice by Loretta Ross, Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried and Elena Gutierrez, is published by South End Press and is available online from www.amazon.co.uk (£15, €17)

New York Times Editorial: Respect for Women in Uniform

2010-02-18T19:43:00.001Z

February 15, 2010

The Pentagon’s decision to begin making so-called morning-after emergency contraception available at military bases around the world marked welcome, if overdue, progress in meeting the health needs of women serving the United States in the military.

The decision followed a recommendation by the Pentagon’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee. The medical advisory panel voted in November to add emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, to the list of drugs required to be stocked at every military facility.

A similar recommendation by the panel in 2002 was blocked by the Bush administration, which chose to ill-treat servicewomen — including victims of sexual assault — to placate antiabortion extremists who view emergency contraception as a form of abortion.

In 2006, after a protracted fight, the Food and Drug Administration approved the over-the-counter sale of the morning-after pill to adults. That made the military’s policy of denying its soldiers access even harder to justify. The turnaround on emergency contraception is all the more significant given the serious, continuing problem of sexual assaults among service members.

Next, Pentagon officials and members of Congress need to address the callous treatment of servicewomen with regard to abortion. Under current rules, military doctors may perform abortions only in cases of rape, incest or when the women’s lives are endangered. And even in cases of rape and incest, the women must pay.

It is outrageous that politics is allowed to interfere with the health care decisions of women who wear the nation’s uniform.

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Irish Times: Can Kissing Make You Pregnant?

2010-02-16T13:28:00.000Z

Tue, Feb 16, 2010

Are dads getting better at discussing sex with their children, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL

ABOUT THREE months before leaving primary school in the late 1980s, I, like many others of that generation, was officially told the ins and outs of the birds and the bees. This was pre-internet and cable television days, and without an older brother or sister to fill me in, there was a lot of sexual and biological ambiguity that needed clarifying.

The majority of us in the class in the Christian Brothers’ primary school in Ennis knew that a meeting on the “facts of life” would be called towards the end of school term. This happened every year and so there was little surprise when notes about the meeting were sent home. A few nights later, we all filed into the school hall, along with our parents, while a nun with a flip chart proceeded to take us through who did what to whom and why. It was mortifying. At one point, a basket was passed around and we were allowed to write any questions we wanted answered on a piece of paper for the nun to address.

“Can you get pregnant by French-kissing, sister?”, “Is toothpaste good for curing love bites?”, “Sister, do you think Kylie and Jason will ever do it?” were some of the tamer offerings. It was a very awkward, shoe-staring evening for most present.

These were not issues we discussed with our parents in what was still a relatively sexually closed society. My father asked me after if there was anything else I wanted to know. I lied and said no, and that was that. Big phew. But what of today’s pre-teens and their need to be filled in on the facts of life?

Are Irish men much more comfortable discussing issues of sex and biology with their children in Ireland of 2010? Or has the internet and influence of mass media made having “the chat” largely unnecessary?

Retired school principal Aidan Herron, who wrote a guidebook on the facts of life in the mid-1990s, says that whereas society may have changed significantly in the past two decades, the need for information on this issue hasn’t. Despite our presumed openness around issues of sex, Herron believes we still have hang-ups when it comes to informing our children of the “facts of life”. “We need to normalise sex education and bring it out of the realms of textbook and into normal conversation in the home,” he says.

“Conversations about the facts of life should not be prompted by something on television. It should be part of normal developmental conversation in the home. The same way perhaps as answering questions about why does the sun come up or how does the rain fall.”

And although much of the relaying of information is now incorporated into the school curriculum, Herron argues that there is still avoidance of the issue even there.

“Teaching of this is now part of the primary and post-primary school syllabus through the social and personal health programmes and it’s covered in co-operation with parents. I know that some schools still bring outsiders in to do this part of the course. I think the teacher should teach it. There is still some avoidance there, and not biting the bullet on the subject is making it harder.”

One Irish male who has been there is Cork-based father of two, Greg Canty (44), who draws comparisons between the attitudes of present day fathers and those of past generations.

“I don’t even think there was a time in our school days when we sat down and had it explained to us. It was stuff you learned as you went along. I don’t ever remember a class in school or a conversation with my parents. When it did come around with my own kids, I’d got the response of, ‘Don’t be silly, Daddy – we know all that’. I remember thinking, ‘Great, this is all covered already’!”

Canty believes that for the next generation the same hang-ups about imparting sex education won’t be as prevalent. “I think it is getting easier and easier. My sense is that parents and children are having conversations about it and it’s not as big a deal. Also, parents have gotten younger-minded and kids have gotten more sophisticated, with access to more information. There are a lot more ways for them to satisfy their own natural curiosity. Back in our day, you couldn’t even buy condoms.”

But do today’s young people appreciate this social progression and how au fait are they with discussing matters of sex with their parents?

Canty’s son Brendan (21) says that while society may be more tolerant, some things never change. “I went to a country school and I think as a kid you always know more than you let on. I think boys always have a tendency to say, ‘I don’t fancy girls’. I remember being about five years old and having a crush and not letting on. You were always interested in that and fancied girls. I wouldn’t have been comfortable in primary school talking to my parents about sex. I would have been a bit awkward with my parents sitting me down.”

By the time Brendan had moved onto secondary education, much of the material traditionally left to parents was included on the curriculum. “We had a class in secondary school – basically it was once a week and we’d deal with these topics. It was more someone talking to us or they would show us a video. I learned off my own back really. Nowadays kids learn it from media all around them. I mean to be honest I probably learned a lot from TV. Books are a bit old fashioned.” Brendan says that parents should be wary of telling their children too much too soon. Despite the rapid maturing of many aspects of children’s experience, innocence still has its role to play.

“I don’t think kids need to understand the full-on facts of the birds and the bees too young,” he says. “A lot of kids will get the gist of it. That’s all they need to start out with. It’s only when they’re about 13 or 14 when they need to understand the full facts of life. That’s when the real fun starts!”

© 2010 The Irish Times

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EU Parliament Press Release: Male-female equality: tackle violence and guarantee paternity leave, say MEPs

2010-02-10T22:38:00.001Z

10 February 2010

In its annual resolution on equality between men and women in the EU, Parliament called on Wednesday for greater efforts to tackle violence against women, for pater- nity leave to be addressed at EU level and for equal pay legislation to be revised. A majority of MEPs also say women must have control over their sexual and reproduc- tive rights, through easy access to contraception and abortion.

The resolution, drafted by Marc Tarabella, (S&D, BE), was adopted by 381 votes to 253, with 31 abstentions.

Eradicating violence against women
MEPs call on the Commission to draft a comprehensive directive on preventing and com- bating all forms of violence against women. They call for a European Year of Combating Violence against Women, pointing out that almost one in four women in the EU suffer physical violence and more than 10% sexual violence. MEPs also endorse the Spanish Presidency's proposals to introduce an EU-wide "European protection order for victims" and a common EU-wide telephone helpline for victims.

Sexual and reproductive rights
Parliament believes recognition of the full physical and sexual autonomy of women is a first step for any policies designed to combat violence against women. Women must have control over their sexual and reproductive rights, notably through easy access to contraception and abortion (this point was adopted by 412 votes to 212, with 36 abstentions) and abortion consultations must be free of charge. A majority of MEPs thus backed measures to improve women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Fighting human trafficking
So far, only 16 EU Member States have ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which is the strongest European legal instrument in the fight against trafficking in human beings, a modern form of slavery. MEPs call on the Member States that have not yet done so (i. e. the Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden) to ratify this Convention.

Establishing paternity leave entitlement
The EU has a directive on maternity leave and a directive on parental leave, but no legislation on paternity leave. The House therefore calls on the Commission "to support any moves to establish paternity-leave entitlement on a Europe-wide basis" and says that maternity and paternity leave should be linked so as to afford better protection to women in the labour market. MEPs regret that the Social Partners' Framework Agreement on Parental Leave from July 2009 fails to address the issue of paid leave as a way of achieving male-female equality.

Equal pay
Parliament deplores the fact that the Commission has not responded to the EP's request that it present draft legislation revising the existing law on application of the principle of equal pay and that it present such a proposal without delay.

Gender balance in high-level positions
A better gender balance in corporate, administrative and political positions of responsibility in the Member States should be encouraged, say MEPs, pointing to the Norwegian Government's decision to increase the rate of female members on the boards of private and public companies to at least 40%.

As to the composition of the Commission, a majority of MEPs call on Member States, in future nominations, to put forward two candidates, one of each gender, so as to facilitate the composition of a more representative Commission.

Migrant women
Migrant women, especially Romani women, regularly experience multiple forms of discrim- ination and national equality bodies should address this matter, says the report. MEPs also ask the Member States "to provide social security cover for female workers in domestic and other sectors where it is not available, with a view to promoting the integration of migrants".

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Marie Stopes: Unplanned pregnancy is as much a risk for older women than teenagers

2010-02-10T15:23:00.001Z

Tuesday, 09, Feb 2010 12:00

Research highlighted today (Tuesday 9th February) by the fpa as part of their Contraceptive Awareness Week campaign conceivable? reveals that unplanned pregnancies do not just happen to teenagers; in fact, abortion rates are the same for women aged 40-44 as for the under 16 year olds1. Leading sexual health charity Marie Stopes International makes the following statement:

“We welcome the fpa's latest campaign, which importantly highlights that unplanned pregnancies do not just happen to teenagers. Unplanned pregnancy is a risk for any woman of reproductive age, and we at Marie Stopes International see women of all ages, including those over the age of 35, seeking advice and treatment for unplanned pregnancy.

Older women facing an unplanned pregnancy are often shocked to find themselves in this position - many assume that their age protects them against unplanned pregnancy, and are surprised to learn that they are in fact pregnant. The current storyline surrounding Lynette in Channel Four television series Desperate Housewives realistically portrays the shock, confusion and unhappiness an unplanned pregnancy can bring to older women, particularly those who consider their family to be complete. It is therefore vital that women of all ages are provided with medically accurate and non-judgmental information and advice, and are supported through an unplanned pregnancy.

The fpa's campaign also reveals the importance of making sure women of all ages can access contraceptive advice and services. Many of the educational campaigns in the UK target younger women, which although important, may leave older women unaware of the full range of contraceptive options available to them. It is vital that all women are fully informed about their contraceptive choices, so that they can choose the method most suited to their personal circumstances and lifestyle, and protect themselves not just against unplanned pregnancy but also sexually transmitted infections.

Personal choice is very important, as individual circumstances can vary greatly for women in their thirties and forties – some women over 35 may have completed their family, so might prefer a longer term method of contraception such as the contraceptive implant to prevent an unplanned pregnancy. Other women over 35 may be planning a family in the not-to-distant future, so for them a long-acting method may not be suitable. We advise women of all ages to visit their local Marie Stopes International clinic or their healthcare provider for further information.

For women who have had unprotected sex and think they might be pregnant, our advice would be to bite the bullet and seek advice from your healthcare provider or specialist centre such as Marie Stopes International as soon as possible. Within five days of unprotected sex, emergency contraception is available. A test for sexually transmitted infections is also advisable.”

1. Abortion statistics, England and Wales: 2008 showing that under 16s have an abortion rate of 4 per 1,000 women and women aged 40-44 have an abortion rate of 4 per 1,000 women.

All quotes are attributable to Emily James, Marie Stopes International.

- Ends -

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Irish Times: Concern over deaths linked to pregnancy in Afghanistan

2010-02-04T14:11:00.000Z

by KITTY HOLLAND

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

THE DEATH rate among women and girls in Afghanistan due to pregnancy and childbirth is like a “silent tsunami”, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.

Dr Shinkai Zahin Karokhail, an Afghan MP, addressed the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, urging members to press the Government and the EU to direct aid towards non-military and women’s organisations in Afghanistan.

Her visit to Ireland comes against the backdrop of concern among Afghan women’s groups at an EU plan to offer the Taliban a share of $500 million if they lay down their arms.

“For sure it is the women in Afghanistan who are best placed to improve the situation of all people there. But no one is thinking about how to invest in women’s and girls’ education.”

She said despite improvements in the situation of women and girls in her country since the fall of the Taliban, women’s rights remained a low priority.

Some 90 per cent of women suffered some form of domestic violence while the country had the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world. “The death rates among women and girls caused by unsafe pregnancies and deliveries is like a silent tsunami.

“My concern is how to get the message to the Irish Government and the EU to support the Government of Afghanistan and how the aid should be non-militarised and spent by non-military NGOs.”

Seán Ardagh TD said he was “absolutely horrified” at the report that 90 per cent of Afghan women suffered domestic violence. Senator David Norris said some of the information given “calls into question the moral authority of President Karzai.

Ireland has committed €20 million in aid to Afghanistan over the next three years.

© 2010 The Irish Times

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New York Times: Abortion Foe Found Guilty in Doctor’s Killing

2010-01-30T14:28:00.001Z

January 30, 2010

By MONICA DAVEY

WICHITA, Kan. — In the end, it took jurors 37 minutes on Friday to convict Scott Roeder, an abortion opponent, of first-degree murder in the death of George R. Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions.

Mr. Roeder, who admitted in court to shooting Dr. Tiller in May and who said he felt it was the only way that he could halt the deaths of babies, stared straight ahead and showed no reaction at the verdict, which carries a sentence of life in prison.

For Wichita, it appeared to be a final chapter in the struggle over abortion that has focused on this city for three decades. Dr. Tiller, 67, who grew up here and had provided abortions here since the 1970s, had been attacked before (he was shot in both arms in 1993) but refused to stop his work and drew patients from all over the country. After his murder, his family closed the abortion clinic, leaving Wichita, so long a magnet for the debate, with no such facility.

But elsewhere around the country, the debate over abortion continued.

Nationally, abortion-rights supporters lauded Mr. Roeder’s conviction, saying it sent a powerful, unambiguous message to those who commit violence against abortion providers. But the trial, they said, also pointed up an urgent need for more law enforcement and further investigation into those who conspire to such violence. The federal Department of Justice has said it is investigating whether others were also involved in the killing of Dr. Tiller.

“They need to take this investigation to the next stage,” said Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who attended the trial. “We don’t have rigorous-enough enforcement.”

The case divided abortion opponents. Leaders of the best-known national groups had denounced Mr. Roeder’s acts. But some others who say they believe the killing of an abortion provider can be justified had portrayed the trial as unfair, and said they were disappointed by the outcome. They also asserted that the result might breed more violence.

“People had said if he were acquitted it would be open season on doctors,” said Michael Bray, who served time in prison for a conspiracy involving abortion clinic bombings in the 1980s and who also attended Mr. Roeder’s trial. “But if you want to see what’s going to stimulate people to do something, you’re inviting more of the same by not giving him a fair trial.”

Serving as the only witness in his own defense, Mr. Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., took a highly unusual step on Thursday: he admitted to jurors that he had planned for many years to kill Dr. Tiller, that he had gone to the doctor’s church carrying a gun several times until he ultimately succeeded.

On May 31, Mr. Roeder admitted, he walked into the church and shot Dr. Tiller point-blank in the forehead. Mr. Roeder testified that he believed that all abortions amounted to murder and that Dr. Tiller was breaking abortion laws.

Mr. Roeder’s defense team had hoped the judge in the case, Warren Wilbert, would instruct jurors that they could take into account Mr. Roeder’s motive and consider a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter if they believed he held, as Kansas law states, “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.”

But the judge ruled that the circumstances did not meet the requirements for such a conviction, and jurors on Friday were essentially given two choices: convict Mr. Roeder of pre-meditated murder or send him home.

Mr. Roeder will be sentenced in March; the conviction carries a life sentence, but prosecutors say they hope to ensure that he is not eligible for parole for 50 years. He was also convicted of aggravated assault for aiming his gun at other church members as he fled. Mr. Roeder’s defense team plans to appeal.

The three-week trial was extremely tense, and security measures extremely tight. In addition, a tiny courtroom left abortion-rights leaders sitting, silently, beside those who say violence against abortion providers can be justified.

Throughout, Dr. Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller, sat in the front row, sometimes leaning against family members, other times looking down, her face in her hands. Family lawyers issued a statement on her behalf, describing the verdict as just.

“At this time, we hope that George can be remembered for his legacy of service to women,” the statement said, “the help he provided for those who needed it and the love and happiness he provided us as a husband, father and grandfather.”

Reflecting the split over this case among some abortion opponents, Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, which has headquarters here, said he was appalled by Mr. Roeder’s admissions, which he deemed “cold, calculated and despicable,” and unsurprised by the verdict. The anti-abortion movement itself, Mr. Newman said, had not been on trial here.

“Pro-life is a vibrant, relevant movement in America,” he said. “Scott Roeder is not.”

But Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue (who is in a dispute with Mr. Newman over the rights to the group’s name), described the trial as a “scam” because, he contended, Mr. Roeder had not been permitted to “really tell his side of the story.”

By not allowing Mr. Roeder to present, for example, descriptions and images of aborted fetuses, Mr. Terry said, jurors could not fully understand why he had killed Dr. Tiller.

Emma Graves Fitzsimmons contributed reporting from Chicago.

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Irish Examiner: Human rights group attacks state policy on abortion

2010-01-29T11:04:00.001Z

By Evelyn Ring

Friday, January 29, 2010

WOMEN entitled to a legal abortion in Ireland cannot get one because of deliberately obscure anti-abortion policies, a leading human rights organisation has claimed.

Human Rights Watch has accused the Government of actively seeking to restrict access to abortion services and information, both within Ireland and for residents seeking care abroad.

In particular, it has criticised the lack of legal and policy guidance on when an abortion might be legally performed within Ireland.

"The Irish Government has failed utterly to ensure that health services are available to those women who are legally entitled to an abortion," claims a report by the independent body.

It says some doctors in Ireland are reluctant even to provide pre-natal screening for severe foetal abnormalities and very few, if any, women, have access to legal abortions at home.

Marianne Mollmann, women’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said women in need of abortion services should be able to count on support from their government as they face a difficult situation.

"But in Ireland they are actively stonewalled, stigmatised and written out," Ms Mollmann said at the launch of a 57-paper report, entitled A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland, in Dublin yesterday.

"Irish law on abortion is in and of itself an affront to human rights. But it is made worse by the fact that even those who may qualify for a legal abortion in Ireland cannot get one due to deliberately murky policies that carry an implied threat of prosecution."

Ms Mollmann said women should have publicly available information on how to seek abortion services abroad and there should be medical guidelines for the kind of abortions that are currently legal within Ireland.

"Your newspaper (Irish Examiner) just published a survey saying that over 60% of young adults agree that abortion should be legalised. So it is a little bit of a myth that the Irish population believes that abortion should be a criminal offence."

Rosie Toner, crisis pregnancy counsellor with the Irish Family Planning Association, said the report illustrated the reality faced by thousands of Irish women. Since 1980, over 140,000 women have been forced to travel abroad for an abortion, she pointed out.

"Women are put under severe burdens of distress to try and find medical services in other countries to give them a service they believe should be available to them here in Ireland," said Ms Toner.

The IFPA had been advocating for safe and legal abortion in Ireland over the last two decades.

The Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group said the report and three cases taken by Irish women to the European Court of Human rights demonstrate that successive governments had been blind to women’s needs.

"Making abortion illegal does not stop it happening, it simply makes it more stressful and dangerous," said spokesperson Dr Sandra McAvoy.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, January 29, 2010

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IFPA Welcomes International Scrutiny of Ireland's Restrictive Abortion Laws in new Human Rights Watch Report

2010-01-28T16:15:00.000Z

Press Release - 28 January 2010

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) has today (28.01.10) welcomed the publication of the Human Rights Watch report A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland.

The IFPA is not surprised that the Irish Government has been criticised by this important international human rights group. As a service provider IFPA has extensive knowledge of the extreme physical, financial and emotional hardship experienced by women who are forced to travel abroad for health care that should be available to them at home. According to the IFPA, the criminalisation of abortion in Ireland violates international human rights standards because it disproportionately harms women's health and well-being. T

he organisation believes that women and girls do not give up their human rights when they become pregnant nor should the State take these human rights away with impunity.

The experiences of women outlined in the Human Rights Watch report are illustrative of the reality faced by thousands of women in Ireland. Since 1980, at least 138,000 women have been forced to travel abroad to access safe and legal abortion services.

The IFPA believes that the criminalisation of abortion has little impact on abortion rates, it merely adds to the burden and stress experienced by women experiencing crisis pregnancies.

Ireland’s restrictive laws on abortion are out of step with those of its European neighbours. Forty four out of 47 European countries provide for abortion to protect women’s health.

This is the second time in the last two months that Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws have been scrutinised by international human rights bodies. In December the European Court of Human Rights heard a challenge to Ireland’s abortion laws.

According to the IFPA, Ireland has a strong reputation for promoting human rights values around the world, yet it is unwilling to recognise the human rights of women in its own country. Ireland’s restrictions on abortion put it firmly outside of human rights norms.

The IFPA has called on the Government to take responsibility and stop exiling women experiencing crisis pregnancies.

ENDS

Human Rights Watch: Ireland: Abortion Limits Violate Human Rights

2010-01-28T16:01:00.001Z

Policies Designed to Sabotage Access Both at Home and Abroad
January 28, 2010

(Dublin, January 28, 2010) - The Irish government actively seeks to restrict access to abortion services and information both within Ireland and for its residents seeking care abroad, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 57-page report, "A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland," details how women struggle to overcome the financial, logistical, physical, and emotional burdens imposed by restrictive laws and policies that force them to seek care abroad, without support from the state. Every year thousands of women and girls travel from Ireland to other European countries for abortions.

"Women in need of abortion services should, as a matter of international law and - frankly -human decency, be able to count on support from their government as they face a difficult situation," said Marianne Mollmann, women's rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "But in Ireland they are actively stonewalled, stigmatized, and written out."

In Ireland, abortion is legally restricted in almost all circumstances, with potential penalties of penal servitude for life for both patients and service providers, except where the pregnant woman's life is in danger, but there is little legal and policy guidance on when, specifically, an abortion might be legally performed within Ireland. As a result, some doctors are reluctant even to provide pre-natal screening for severe fetal abnormalities, and very few - if any - women have access to legal abortions at home. The government has indicated that it has no current plans to clarify the possible reach of the criminal penalties. The government does not keep figures on legal and illegal abortions carried out in Ireland, or on the number of women traveling abroad for services.

"Irish law on abortion is in and of itself an affront to human rights," Mollmann said. "But it is made worse by the fact that even those who may qualify for a legal abortion in Ireland cannot get one due to deliberately murky policies that carry an implied threat of prosecution."

But women also face more active sabotaging of their health decisions by the state. Throughout the last two decades, the Irish government has used injunctions to prevent individuals from traveling abroad for abortion. As recently as 2007, a 17-year-old girl in the custody of the Health Services Executive had to go to court to get permission to travel to the United Kingdom for an abortion.

Organizations that provide information on how to access abortion services abroad face restrictions on when and how this information can legally be conveyed, under threat of penalties. And the government does nothing to prevent "rogue" agencies that represent themselves as providers of information about abortion from circulating blatantly misleading and false information.

"Women should not have to make decisions about their health and lives based on lies," Mollmann said. "Yet the law leaves ‘rogue' agencies unregulated and threatens honest service providers with fines or worse if they help a distressed woman make a phone call to a clinic abroad."

© Copyright 2010, Human Rights Watch

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Guardian: Summary of the Irish abortion legislation report

2010-01-28T15:37:00.002Z

by Alexandra Topping
Thursday 28 January 2010

What Human Rights Watch discovered in its investigations of abortion laws and pro-life groups in Ireland

The Human Rights Watch report A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland accuses the Irish government of limiting information about how to access abortion services abroad.

According to the report, "rogue" agencies, representing themselves as providers of information about abortion, have told women that, should they choose to have an abortion, their relationships are likely to fail, that they may become infertile or need a hysterectomy, or a colostomy bag after the procedure.

Sinead Ahern from Choice Ireland, a pro-choice group, went undercover to visit an agency. Having told the woman that she was five weeks pregnant, at which point her foetus would have been the size of a grain of rice, she was shown a plastic fetus the size of a pen.

"[The woman] told me that's what my baby looked like … the plastic foetus was sucking its thumb and had eyelashes."

She described being asked to sign a consent form. "It said I understand that I most certainly will need a hysterectomy ... that I might end up with the need for a colostomy bag ... [it said] most women end up with infections, infertile."

Another woman who visited an agency with her boyfriend described being separated from him. "They said I'd probably never have kids [if I had an abortion] that we'd probably split up … They said your family is going to reject you."

A women who contacted a service called British Alternatives in the Golden Pages [the Irish equivalent of the Yellow Pages] was asked from the start of her consultation about adoption.

"I was devastated I was in this situation and I was afraid of getting a doctor who was unsympathetic [...] Nothing tipped me off about whether they were pro-life. I was in a state and just looking for something friendly. British Alternatives sounded very friendly."

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guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Download the Human Rights Watch Report on Abortion in Ireland

2010-01-28T15:32:00.002Z

The Human Rights Watch report 'A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland' launched today (28th January 2010) in Dublin
can be downloaded at: http://www.hrw.org/node/87910

Guardian: Ireland accused of 'grossly misleading' women over abortion risks

2010-01-28T15:28:00.002Z

by Alexandra Topping

Thursday 28 January 2010 13.27 GMT

Human rights group says women seeking information about terminations are told they will often cause irreparable damage

The Irish government came under increasing pressure to overhaul its ban on abortion today, after it was accused of exposing women to "grossly misleading" information about the procedure.

According to Human Rights Watch, Irish legislation – under which women who have an abortion in Ireland face a life sentence in prison if prosecuted – is putting women's health at risk and exposing them to deliberate misinformation from rogue pro-life agencies.

Women have been told they may become infertile, require a hysterectomy or possibly need a colostomy bag after an abortion by agencies that target women seeking advice about unwanted pregnancies, says the report.

It comes as Ireland waits for a landmark ruling from the European court of human rights on the case of three women who accuse the government of putting their health at risk by forcing them to travel abroad for terminations.

"Women in need of abortion services should, as a matter of international law and human decency, be able to count on support from their government as they face a difficult situation," said Marianne Mollmann, the women's rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "But in Ireland they are actively stonewalled, stigmatised, and written out."

According to the report, the government limits information about legal abortion services and has failed to crack down on false claims from "rogue" agencies masquerading as unwanted pregnancy support groups.

One 29-year-old woman was shown a video of ultrasound images and pictures of mothers by an agency called "British Alternatives".

"[The woman] put a model of a small foetus in my hand ... told me to name my baby, asked me how I would feel if I killed the baby," she said.

Another woman described being harassed over the phone by a pro-life agency for weeks: "They would ask 'Is your baby still alive? Have you killed it yet?'."

The Irish government recently launched a campaign urging women who feel that have been given false information about abortions to inform the authorities, but this assumes that women have access to the correct information, said Mollmann.

"This is abdicating their responsibility and putting it on the shoulders of already distressed women. The government needs to take decisive action to shut down and prosecute these rogue agencies," she said.

It is currently illegal to have an abortion in Ireland under any circumstances, unless the life of the pregnant woman is at risk, although women have the legal right to terminate their pregnancy abroad.

According to UK Department of Health figures, 4,600 women who had abortions in the UK in 2008 gave Irish addresses, but the real number of Irish women having terminations is likely to be significantly higher, said Mollmann.

"This law does not stop women getting abortions but it does prevent them getting one in a timely manner, which increases the risk involved," she said.

The difficult economic situation in Ireland is making it increasingly difficult for some women to meet the cost of an abortion, estimated by HRW at between €800 and €1000 (£690 and £862) for the procedure and travel costs, said Niall Behan, CEO of the Irish Family Planning Association.

"We are increasingly seeing women who can't travel being forced to look at other options that are not safe. There is evidence to suggest that women are having illegal abortions, not on a huge scale, but on any scale is unacceptable," he said.

The Pro-Life Campaign in Ireland has previously accused the IFPA of creating unnecessary fears about women's health and argues that Ireland without abortion is the safest country in the world in which to be pregnant.

In the case currently before the European court , three women, known as A, B and C, are arguing their right to privacy and family life have been violated.

One of the women who had a termination became pregnant while undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer and feared for her health and that of her child. Another is a former alcoholic and drug addict whose four children were in care. She feared her pregnancy would prevent her getting her children back, and borrowed cash from a money lender to finance the termination. A judgment is expected in the autumn.

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Cork Women's Right to Choose Group welcomes publication of Human Rights Watch Report on Abortion in Ireland

2010-01-28T15:23:00.002Z

Press Release
Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group

Issued: Thursday 28th January, 2010 at 11.00am

Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group today welcomed the publication of the Human Rights Watch report “A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland.”

Spokeswoman Dr Sandra McAvoy said:

“The report does not just set out in legal language how Ireland is in breach of international human rights law. It demonstrates, in their own words, how real women’s health and well-being suffer because our government is blind to their needs. We are not talking small numbers. At least 140,000 Irish women have had abortions, have had the stress of a crisis pregnancy, from whatever cause, and then the stress of raising money and travelling abroad.

“The report lays out what an abortion costs, close to €1,000 after 15 weeks. On top of that there is travel cost, accommodation and childcare, if you have children. A waitress is quoted about how she was ‘so broke, I was up to my eyeballs in debt’ another woman talks about the stress of raising money, ‘there was panic over the money – there was a lot of panic.’ It talks about women going to loan sharks, with the threat of violence if they can’t pay back, and about women forced to continue pregnancies because they cannot afford to travel. The report shows that the situation is even more difficult for Traveller women and for asylum seekers whose allowance is €19.10 a week.

“Women talk about being made to feel they are doing something criminal because the penalty for having an abortion here is up to life imprisonment. One talks about ‘having to lie to everyone … the lies and the shame make you feel like you’re doing something really wrong, like a drug dealer.’ Abortion is available as a health service in other European countries and women in Ireland face the same health and pregnancy problems as their European sisters. Having an abortion has to be decriminalised.

“Other women talk about the lies they were told about abortion in rogue agencies, the activities of which have been known for at least a decade but on which the government has resisted taking action, though counselling services that provide genuine information are strictly regulated.

“The message is clear. This report and the three cases taken by Irish women to the European Court of Human Rights demonstrate that successive governments have been blind to real women’s needs. For thirty years they have been too much under the influence of anti-abortion lobbying groups, they deserve to have their failure to protect women’s health and well-being women exposed to international scrutiny. Making abortion illegal does not stop it happening, it simply makes it more stressful and dangerous. We call on the government to take the recommendations in the report seriously, to redress the balance, and begin to protect real, live women’s interests.”
Release ends.

Irish Examiner: Rights body calls for legalised abortion

2010-01-28T10:24:00.001Z

By Catherine Shanahan

Thursday, January 28, 2010

ONE of the world’s leading human rights organisations has called on the Government to decriminalise abortion.

In a report by Human Rights Watch, the Government is accused of violating a long list of human rights in its treatment of abortion and related issues including "health, information, privacy, freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, life, equal protection under the law, and nondiscrimination".

Entitled A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland, the report says the actions of the Government in the face of the "need for abortion" have been "erratic and divisive" and it calls for a change to its restrictive abortion laws to meet its obligations under international law.

Last week, the results of an Irish Examiner/Red C poll found two-thirds of 18- 34-year-olds believe abortion should be legalised in Ireland.

The document urges the Government to take "immediate steps toward decriminalising all abortion for women living in Ireland", and it criticises the Government for doing "little to mitigate the effects of a condemnatory public discourse on abortion".

The report, which will be launched in Dublin today, was partially leaked on LifeSiteNews.com, an online news service set up by Canadian pro-life organisation, Campaign Life Coalition.

The website accuses Human Rights Watch of promoting the "right" to abortion and claims it "advises the elimination of other civil rights" because "it urges that doctors be legally obliged to refer their patients to an abortionist, that publicly funded health institutions be required to have an abortionist on staff, and even that conscientious objection be limited "to individual medical staff, excluding institutions and administrative staff’."

LifeSiteNews.com also reports that Human Rights Watch bases its plea for a change in the Irish abortion laws on grounds that "authoritative interpretations of international law recognise that obtaining a safe and legal abortion is crucial to women’s effective enjoyment and exercise of their human rights".

Abortion is illegal in Ireland except where there is a real and substantial risk to the life (as distinct from the health) of the mother.

This includes a risk arising from a threat of suicide.

Women can travel abroad to get an abortion and it is lawful to provide information about abortions abroad, subject to strict conditions. It is not legal to encourage or advocate an abortion in individual cases.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, January 28, 2010

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RHRealityCheck: What Does Choice Mean to You?

2010-01-22T16:43:00.002Z

For Immediate Release
Friday, January 22, 2009

The RH Reality Check Community Commemorates the 37th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Thirty-seven years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, ruled that a woman may choose to terminate a pregnancy under specific conditions set forth by the court. In many countries, abortion is still criminalized, clandestine, unsafe, and potentially deadly. Even in the United States, where abortion is still nominally legal, the freedom to choose abortion is seriously limited by lack of access to providers, cost and other restrictions.

Access to safe abortion is a necessary but not sufficient condition for realizing reproductive health and rights. A woman's right to bodily autonomy also depends on access to sexuality education, freedom from violence, the right to choices in childbirth, the ability to afford preventive and curative care for sexual and reproductive health needs, and other conditions.

In honor of Roe v. Wade Day, RH Reality Check asked established and emerging leaders in the field to answer the question: "What Does Choice Mean to You?"

Essays in the series come from Gloria Feldt, former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America who talks about her perspectives on choice from a career spanning over 30 years and now as a grandmother; Bianca Velez, a young professional with the Pro-Choice Public Education Project (PEP), who talks about choice as a meaningless concept in the absence of reproductive justice, and Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, founder of PEP, who talks about the first time she realized the importance of choice in her personal life; Bianca Laureano, who recalls the death of Rosie Jimenez, the first woman to die under the Hyde Amendment; Eileen Ehudin Beard, of the American College of Nurse-Midwives tells the story of Joy Szabo, whose local hospital threatened her with a lawsuit if she didn't consent to have a cesarean section simply because she wanted the freedom to choose a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean); and Steff Hedenkamp who talks about choice in childbirth, among others.

Silvia Henriquez, Executive Director for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, shares the story of her father, a physician from El Salvador who saw women with botched abortions come through the emergency rooms in his home country, only to see many of them die. Henriquez writes, "The term "choice" was not used to describe [what] led women to the emergency room in El Salvador 37 years ago. And in 2010…"choice" does not encompass the reproductive health decisions that low-income Latinas are making every day."

What does choice mean to women around the world in 2010? These leaders and others answer today on RH Reality Check.

For more information: Jodi Jacobson, jodi@rhrealitycheck.org, +1 (301) 257-7897

Irish Times: Cost of CervicalCheck service higher than in other countries

2010-01-22T02:29:00.001Z

by MARTIN WALL

Tue, Jan 19, 2010

THE COST of the provision of the CervicalCheck service in Ireland is high by international comparisons, a new report published by the Health Information and Quality authority (Hiqa) has found.

The report on the Evaluation of the Use of Resources in the National Population-based Cancer Screening Programme and Associated Services , which was published last Friday, said that the current professional fee paid to GPs for performing the smear test and providing the appropriate follow-up and communication with the patient is €51.69, following an 8 per cent reduction introduced last year.

The Hiqa report said that this cost “appeared high”. It said that in the Netherlands, for example, the cost was €10.95 (based on 2005 figures).

“The overall cost to the Irish health service of delivering the CervicalCheck programme, based on the current information, is estimated to be €43 million annually to screen approximately 300,000 women.

“In the UK, the annual cost to the National Health Service of providing such a service to 3.8 million women is estimated to be €175.95 million (£155 million). The average cost per woman screened in the UK is therefore €45.95 (£41) compared to the average cost per woman screened in Ireland of €144,” it stated.

The report found that differences in costs between countries may reflect differences in service configuration and reimbursement.

“However, the degree of variation in costs between countries is unlikely to be explained by these differences alone, suggesting that the costs of CervicalCheck are high”, it stated.

The report said that fees in Ireland in respect of smear tests presented an opportunity for cost efficiencies in the overall screening service. “A significant withdrawal from the programme by any contractor due to a fee reduction could however limit the choice of smeartaking locations”, it stated.

The report said that there were clear benefits associated with the provision of cervical smear tests in the primary care setting. These included:

* The holistic relationship established between the woman and her GP/practice nurse, which is beneficial for other aspects of her healthcare;
* The ready availability of the full medical history and case records for the woman if previously seen within that primary care practice;
* Continuity of care including the follow-up of abnormalities;
* Support of the GP for the practice nurse, and immediate access to the GP for a second opinion if required.

Irish Examiner: Survey: 60% in favour of legal abortion

2010-01-22T00:48:00.001Z

By Catherine Shanahan and Orla Barry

Thursday, January 21, 2010

THREE-in-five 18-35 year olds believe abortion should be legalised, according to a sex survey which found one-in-four women has experienced an unplanned pregnancy.

The national poll also found almost 10% of 18-34 year olds has been involved in a relationship where an abortion took place.

The survey carried out by Red C on behalf of the Irish Examiner found three-in-four women believe the morning-after pill should be available over-the-counter (OTC). Curiously, less than one in seven men said they had been in a relationship that resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. But Dr Stephanie O’Keeffe, research and policy manager with the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme, said not all men may know their partner is pregnant.

According to the Irish Family Planning Agency (IFPA), the cost of
accessing the morning-after pill has been an increasing cause of
complaint, particularly in the last 12 months.

CEO Niall Behan said they had also seen a fall in the numbers seeking long-term contraceptive methods because of prohibitive costs. The morning-after pill is inexpensive but a GP prescription is required.

Dr Mel Bates, spokesperson for the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), does not believe that free GP visits for the morning-after pill would work. "The woman will come in for the pill, but we may deal with many other issues. How would you decide who to charge and who not to charge?" he said.

Kerry-based GP Dr Eamonn Shanahan said he used the opportunity to "talk to her about why she found herself in this predicament and what her plans are for her sexual health in the future".

Family planning clinics, the Wellwoman Centre and the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme are all in disagreement with doctors over fears about abuse of emergency contraception if it was available OTC.

Dr O’Keeffe said a number of studies had concluded that the pill does not impact on a woman’s primary use of contraception.

The recession may also be impacting on the numbers becoming pregnant. Women in their late 20s and 30s attending Dublin’s Wellwoman Centre on discovery that they are pregnant are less distressed than during the healthy economic times. The clinic believes women see the recession as a good time to have a baby.

"I noticed the change about a year and a half ago" said Dr Shirley McQuade, the centre’s medical director.

"Women in long-term relationships with mid-range jobs were saying this might not be the worst time to be pregnant. Most are working shorter weeks and they don’t see themselves in line for a bonus anytime soon."

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Irish Examiner: 75% of young adults had unprotected sex but most go untested for STIs

2010-01-20T20:54:00.000Z

By Catherine Shanahan and Orla Barry

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

THREE in four young adults have had unprotected sex – but less than two in five have ever been tested for sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

An analysis of sexual behaviour of adults aged 18 to 34 – carried out by Red C on behalf of the Irish Examiner – also found men are more casual in their attitude to unprotected sex and more likely to have one-night stands.

On average, men admitted to six one-night stands, double that of women. The more casual of both sexes admitted to 11 one-night stands or more; however two thirds lived to regret it, particularly women.

Overall, a third of the 500 adults surveyed said they had sex within the first three dates.

Niall Behan, chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) blamed the casual attitude to safe sex on the failure by people to have "the conversation".

"The quality of the conversation being had, both in Irish households, and in wider society regarding our sexual behaviour, needs to vastly improve," he said.

Unsurprisingly, the poll also found two in five felt the quality of sex and relationship education they had received at school was poor.

The findings, described as ‘alarming’ by the Dublin Aids Alliance, more than a quarter of males surveyed said they had had 11 or more sexual partners, one in five women said they had 11 or more sexual partners.

Men were also more likely to say they had sex within the first three dates (46%) compared to 21% of women.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, January 20, 2010

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Cork Independent: Pill Stoppers

2010-01-15T17:34:00.003Z

by Deirdre O'Shaughnessy

14 January 2010

Since the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, women have been encouraged to take control of their own fertility cycles and sexual health. With contraception legalised inIreland as late as 1979 – by prescription only – we have been slower than other nations to adapt to the reality of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unwanted pregnancies.

STIs are on the rise here, and the issue of unwanted pregnancy remains sensitive, with thousands of women still travelling to the UK each year for abortions. NGOs like the Irish Family Planning Association are to the forefront of offering advice on sexual health, particularly following the abolition of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency as a stand-alone body in 2007.

While many women planning to become sexually active consider the Pill as the obvious choice of contraceptive, the Pill does not protect against STIs and, increasingly, is being replaced by alternatives.

Health factors that may put women off the Pill include high cholesterol and high blood pressure, as well as painful periods, while lifestyle factors as varied as smoking and shift work mean that the routine of popping a Pill at the same time each day does not suit every woman.

*Mary, a 25-year-old scientist from North Cork, says she gave up the Pill "in order to be assured of not getting pregnant. "I am in a long-term relationship and was tired of having to remember taking it daily. I was also tired of worrying about being pregnant if I had a stomach upset or a split condom." She has had the contraceptive implant for a number of months now. " I feel overall that it has been a good move as I do not need to replace the implant for another three years," she says.

Meanwhile, *Ellen, a student from Cork City, "gave up on the pill years ago". She uses Evra, a transdermal patch.

"Hardly anyone seems to know about this form of contraceptive but it's much handier, you have three patches per month, changing just once per week and having a free week when your period is due," she explains.

"You don't need to take it orally or every day, which is great for scatter brains like me, or even for travelling or staying overnight somewhere, it allows you to be more spontaneous in your planning. They don't fall off in the shower or bath and are easy to conceal, I usually put it on my butt cheek, that way even if I was wearing a bikini you wouldn't see it. I also only go on contraception when I am in a relationship, and give my body a break from the hormones in between."

*Joanne, a teacher living in the city, stopped using the Pill after five years when her periods became debilitating. "I always had bad periods, losing a day of work every time, and realized that I could fix that by changing my contraceptive. After visiting a gynaecologist I had the Mirena coil inserted. It is brilliant – I don't need to remember to take anything, being sick doesn't affect it, and best of all, my period is down to two days of minor spotting."

Interestingly, *Sarah, an information officer, uses a modern natural method called the 'symptom-thermal method'. It involves taking your basal (waking) temperature daily and noting other fertility indicators such as cervical mucus and position of the cervix. "The modern technique is as effective as any pill if used correctly, has no side effects and has the added advantage of giving you a much better understanding of your own body. Another bonus for me is that both partners need to cooperate and take responsibility for their fertility," she says. It might sound complicated, but there is even an iPhone app dedicated to helping women with the method, and it is more commonly used in mainland Europe.

While none of these methods protect against STIs – only a barrier method such as condoms or Femidoms will do that – they all provide just as effective protection against unwanted pregnancy as the Pill does.
So why don't we know about them?

According to Dr Caitriona Henchion, Medical Director of the Irish Family Planning Association, many Irish women have "at least some" knowledge of contraception, which comes from friends, GPs, and maternity hospitals. "However," she says, "this knowledge can be very patchy and often inaccurate reflecting a friend's experience rather than scientific evidence.

"Knowledge in the area of sexual health generally is much poorer particularly in relation to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and gynaecological issues suggesting that these subjects are still taboo with less knowledge sharing. "Many women also look for information on line, which also is very variable. Generally, sites which have personal accounts can be misleading and cause unnecessary alarm. A good site is yoursexualhealth.ie."

She says the combined oral contraceptive Pill is still a very popular contraceptive choice in Ireland. This pill contains both oestrogen and progestogen. However, there has been a move, as illustrated above, towards 'LARCs'; Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives.

These are:

Depoprovera, contraceptive injection, lasts 12 weeks, contains progestogen only, very effective;

Implanon subdermal contraceptive implant, progestogen only, very effective, lasts three years;

Mirena Intrauterine system (IUS), progestogen only, very effective, lasts five years;

Copper intrauterine device (IUCD), hormone free, lasts three to ten years depending on device, very effective.

According to Dr Henchion, "Many women prefer these methods as they offer high efficacy and eliminate the need to remember daily pill taking. Also as they are progestogen only or hormone free, they are suitable for older women, smokers and some women who cannot take COCs." They do have drawbacks; they may interfere with period and may not suit everyone.

As well as this, new brands of Pill are coming on the market all the time. One such pill is Yaz, which eliminates the break between packs, usually the cause of the user forgetting to take the next pill.

Choice of method depends on medical and family history, past history of problems with contraceptive use and personal choice.

"Women should ask for written information on any method of interest to them before deciding," Dr Henchion advises.

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Irish Times: Cervical Cancer Vaccine Proceeds

2010-01-15T17:33:00.001Z

by MARTIN WALL

Fri, Jan 15, 2010

Up to 30,000 girls in first year at secondary school are to be offered the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine against cervical cancer by this summer.

In 2008, the Government said it was not in a position to introduce the vaccine on cost grounds. However, Minister for Health Mary Harney said this afternoon that following talks with pharmaceutical companies the price for the vaccine has been "quashed".

She said originally the cost of introducing the HPV vaccine scheme was estimated at €16 million but the new price was €3 million.

"The vaccine will be offered free of charge this year for approximately 30,000 girls who are now in first year of secondary school," Ms Harney said. "This is the same group of girls who would have received the vaccine under the previous plan for 2009."

The minister also announced plans to establish a national colorectal screening service.

She said that detailed preparations would commence immediately and screening would be introduced from 2012.

Research published last year by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) found that the vaccination scheme was the most cost-effective strategy option in the Irish healthcare setting regarding the prevention of HPV types 16 and 18, which account for 70 per cent of all cervical cancers.

Evidence from the European Cervical Cancer Association (ECCA) concerning the vaccination’s effectiveness shows that a nationwide free school-based programme is vital to achieve coverage of more than 85 per cent of the target population.

Fine Gael this afternoon welcomed the decision to introduce the cervical cancer vaccine programme and colorectal cancer screening

“It is not often that I have cause to commend the health minister but I am happy to do so without reservation on her announcement today. A wrong has been righted and lives will be saved as a result of this initiative,” said health spokesman Dr James Reilly.

“It was always my view that this vital health measure could be introduced affordably through negotiation with the pharmaceutical companies and I am glad to see that this has now come to pass."

Senator Phil Prendergast of the Labour Party praised the savings secured by the Minister.

“She should be applauded for squeezing a better deal from these companies, but the question now arises, that if she was able to play hardball with these multi-national companies in December 2009, why was she not able to do so in October 2008?”

Liz Hoctor, president of the Irish Pharmacy Union, said these were "very positive developments for patients and will lead to the early detection and treatment of colorectal cancer and reduce the risk of cervical cancer among women".

© 2010 irishtimes.com

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Irish Times: Up to 683 may have had lawful abortions in 2008

2010-01-06T15:39:00.000Z

by CARL O'BRIEN Chief Reporter

Wed, Jan 06, 2010

UP TO 683 women developed complications during pregnancy in 2008 which may have required a lawful abortion, according to Government estimates.

However, authorities do not have any precise figures to show how many lawful terminations of pregnancies took place in Ireland. The details are contained in State documents lodged with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last month as part of its defence to a challenge to Ireland’s abortion laws.

In this case – known as A, B and C versus Ireland – three women are challenging the State’s abortion laws on the basis that they were forced to travel abroad to terminate a pregnancy which threatened their health or wellbeing.

The case was heard last month and a ruling is expected towards the end of the year.

After a request from the ECHR for figures on the number of lawful abortions which take place in Ireland, the State said it was not possible to provide these details.

However, it said the Department of Health had undertaken a recent analysis of a number of medical conditions that might require the termination of a pregnancy.

It says the number of these cases – 683 in 2008, 628 in 2007 and 543 in 2006 – as well as Ireland’s low rate of maternal death challenge the assertion made by the women’s lawyers that abortion is not available in life-threatening situations.

Data from the State’s acute hospitals show there were 683 discharges with a diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy in 2008. Such pregnancies – where the foetus develops outside the uterus – can be life-threatening as there is a risk of rupture and haemorrhage.

However, the figures do not differentiate between procedures to terminate an ectopic pregnancy, procedures following a spontaneous miscarriage as a result of an ectopic pregnancy, or “procedures to treat a ruptured ectopic pregnancy”.

As a result, the State says it is not possible to state exactly how many of the procedures were to terminate an ectopic pregnancy.

It emphasises, however, that Ireland has a particularly low level of maternal death which is significantly below the EU average.

This, the State argues, challenges the “unsubstantiated” argument made by legal representatives for the three women that abortion is largely unavailable in Ireland even in life-threatening situations.

It adds: “Such statements fail to take account of the evidence of medical practitioners that in life-threatening situations they ‘will intervene always’.”

Submissions on behalf of the women state that there remains considerable ambiguity over guidelines available to medical professionals over the precise circumstances when it is legal to terminate a pregnancy.

Much of this doubt is down to the Government’s repeated failure to legislate for abortion in the circumstances of the X case, where the life of the mother is at risk.

They also state that abortion was not an option for the three women despite threats to their health and wellbeing.

One of the cases – “Ms B” – involved a woman who became pregnant despite taking the morning-after pill the day after intercourse.

She says she was advised by two different doctors that she ran a significant risk of an ectopic pregnancy, but that terminating her pregnancy in Ireland was not an option.

Another of the women – “Ms C” – was in remission from cancer and became unintentionally pregnant. She was unable to find a doctor willing to make a determination as to whether her life would be at risk if she continued to term and, as a result, felt compelled to travel abroad for an abortion.

© 2010 The Irish Times

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Cork Independent: Cork lobby group call for legislation on abortion

2009-12-17T12:52:00.000Z

Written by Mary O’ Keeffe
Thursday, 06 December 2007

A Cork lobby group is calling on the government to introduce legislation on abortion in Ireland. At a recent event held by the Cork Women’s Right to Choose group, members of the group said the time had come for government to face up to the job of legalising abortion in the country.

Sandra McAvoy of Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group said that attitudes in Ireland had changed since the 1980s and that it was time for the government to face up to the job of legalising abortion instead of turning a blind eye while thousands of women are exiled every year to seek services abroad.

“Abortion provision is a matter of justice as well as one of women’s health and well-being. It is ridiculous that the private concerns of young women like Miss D, whose case was heard earlier this year, are exposed in open court in the most distressing circumstances.

“We urgently need legislation to establish the grounds for abortion in Ireland in cases of threat to women’s lives and health or when a foetus is non-viable,” she said.

Richard Keane, Coordinator of the Safe and Legal (in Ireland) Abortion Rights Campaign added that there was a need for the Government to make abortion safe and legal in Ireland. “Public opinion and civil society have changed dramatically to support a pro-choice position and recognise that women are entitled to be trusted on this public health issue. At a minimum, the Government has a duty to legislate for the X case, as it has promised, but has consistently failed to do,” he said.

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Irish Examiner: MEANING OF LIFE

2009-12-16T10:05:00.001Z

By Claire O’Sullivan

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

THE GOVERNMENT is under mounting pressure to finally enact legislation on assisted human reproduction after a landmark Supreme Court ruling relating to frozen embryos stated life for the "unborn" only begins when a foetus or a fertilised egg is implanted in the womb.

In a unanimous ruling, the five judges of the Supreme Court also stated that regulation on assisted human reproduction was a matter for the Oireachtas and not the judiciary.

In the ruling the Supreme Court found that frozen embryos do not have an automatic right to life and as a result are not afforded the legal protection guaranteed by article 40.3.3 of the Constitution.

Up to 1,500 children are born each year in this country following IVF treatment.

The judgments followed an appeal of a High Court decision by a separated mother-of-two from south Dublin, who was seeking to use frozen embryos against the wishes of her estranged husband.

The embryos were created in early 2002 when the couple underwent care at the Sims clinic, Rathgar, Dublin.

Dismissing the appeal, the Supreme Court also judged no agreement had been made between Thomas and Mary Roche for her to be implanted with three unused embryos in a second course of fertility treatment.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said: "There has been a marked reluctance on the part of the legislature actually to legislate on these issues.

"The court simply draws attention to this. That is all it can do. That is what Mr Justice McCarthy did, apparently in vain, in the X case 18 years ago. But the court does so as seriously and as urgently as it can. The issue is all the more urgent because, of course, scientific developments in the area of embryology and the culturing of stem cells will not stand still."

Mr Justice Nial Fennelly said it was disturbing that four years after the Oireachtas received the Report of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction, no legislative proposals had been formulated and it appeared the state has no immediate intention to propose any legislation.

Last night, 43-year-old Ms Roche said she respected the Supreme Court’s decision: "I acted as any mother would do to defend the interests of my unborn embryos and I trust that the public will understand that I had no alternative but to bring this case."

Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter last night said it was "absolutely scandalous" that the Government has failed to bring the necessary legislation before the Oireachtas.

"The Government’s abdication of its legislative responsibility in this area for over a decade has left the judiciary in the most unenviable of positions of not only having to fulfil their judicial duties but also of having to decide on matters of sensitive social policy. This is an area which has been subject to such legislation in the vast majority of European Union countries," he said.

Last week, the court ruled that a man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple should have access to the child he fathered.

A spokesman for Health Minister Mary Harney last night said an update on the progress of legislation was brought to Cabinet in recent weeks.

Draft legislation is expected at some point next year: "The legislation is being prepared. It is extremely complex from a medical, ethical, social and legal perspective and there is a need to have political consensus."

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, December 16, 2009

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