Blogs Comment On Palin; USAID Cut Of Contraceptives To Marie Stopes; U.S. Abortion Rights; 'Born Alive' Bill Ad

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs;  Abortion
Article Date: 06 Oct 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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The following summarizes recent women's health-related blog entries.

~ "Women's Health: Yet Another Issue Sarah Palin Is Out of Touch On," Cecile Richards, Huffington Post: In the blog entry, Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, writes that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) interviews this week with CBS News' Katie Couric have shown that the Republican vice presidential nominee is out of touch on many issues, including women's health. According to Richards, Palin's "answers on reproductive health issues, such as criminalizing abortion, exceptions for rape and incest and what exactly the morning-after pill is, were a rambling mix of contradictions and platitudes." Richards adds, "We thought it couldn't get more anti-choice and more extreme for women and for health care" than President Bush and Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). "But let's face it -- with Sarah Palin, John McCain has outdone himself," Richards writes, concluding, "Women voting for McCain-Palin is like chickens voting for Col. Sanders. This is not a risk we can afford to take" (Richards, Huffington Post, 10/2).

~ "Update: More on USAID's Demand that African Governments Halt Contraceptive Supply to Marie Stopes," Emily Douglas, RH Reality Check: Douglas interviews Samantha Guy, deputy director of the British family planning group Marie Stopes International, about the impact of the State Department and USAID's notification to six African governments that the governments should stop providing U.S.-funded contraceptives donated to Marie Stopes. According to Douglas, USAID claims that "by virtue of working with" the United Nations Population Fund in China, Marie Stopes "runs afoul of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which bars U.S. funding for organizations that engage in coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization." Marie Stopes says that it "neither fund[s] nor participate[s] in either, and that their work in China focuses on promoting alternative, non-coercive family planning practices." Guy said that Marie Stopes' partners could run out of contraceptive commodities in two to three months and that she is concerned that even a new pro-family planning presidential administration will take time to restore the contraceptive donations because the Kemp-Kasten law is the basis for the cut off (Douglas, "RH Reality Check," 10/2).

~ "If Roe Goes," Feministe: The blog entry comments on a recent Washington Post opinion piece by Linda Hirshman on the status of abortion rights in the U.S. and the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned. According to the blog, the goal of antiabortion advocates is not "just to declare Roe invalid; it's to establish fetal personhood. And if that's the case, state laws allowing for abortion rights won't matter." The blog concludes that the November election "matters for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the future of the Supreme Court and reproductive rights" ("Feministe," 9/27).

~ "Why the Anti-Obama 'Botched Abortion' Ad is Inaccurate," Steve Waldman, Huffington Post: An advertisement featuring Gianna Jessen, a survivor of a botched abortion 31 years ago, is "powerful and moving" but "does not prove ... its central political claim" that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) opposition to so-called "[b]orn [a]live" legislation while serving in the Illinois legislature would have prevented her from surviving the abortion, Waldman writes in a blog entry. According to Waldman, the "key legal goal" of the legislation was "not protecting viable infants -- who were already protected under law -- but non-viable infants and those on the borderline." Jessen was a "clear 'viable' infant," Waldman writes, adding that the abortion procedure occurred when her mother was seven-and-a-half months pregnant and "therefore would have almost certainly been covered by any existing statute," Waldman writes. Jessen's case might "raise awareness about the sanctity of life" or "make a strong case for a ban on late-term abortions." What the advertisement does not do, Waldman concludes, is "prove the importance of the Born Alive bill" (Waldman, Huffington Post, 9/26).

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