Blogs Comment On Privacy Rights, Faith-based Pharmacies, Parental Involvement Laws

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Abortion;  Pharmacy / Pharmacist;  Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 29 Oct 2008 - 10:00 PST

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

The following is a summary of selected women's health-related blogs.

~ "A Stealth Attack on Privacy," Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check:
"Anti-choicers who petulantly claim that there's no right to privacy in the Constitution are attacking many more decisions than Roe," Marcotte writes. She writes that "Roe was just the logical conclusion of a decision made by the Court eight years earlier." Marcotte writes that in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court "laid out the basic idea that citizens had a basic right to privacy that included sexual choices, medical decisions made with a doctor's supervision and a right to determine one's own child-bearing." Marcotte says that antiabortion advocates are "gunning for a return of contraception bans and sodomy laws" through ballot measures that challenge Roe, including a proposed abortion ban in South Dakota and a Colorado measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person. The Colorado measure "exploits the ambiguity of when pregnancy begins to create the groundwork for challenges to IUDs and hormonal contraception," Marcotte writes. She continues that "[a] majority of Americans don't want to see Roe overturned, but an ever greater majority don't want to see the right to contraception called into question. Most aren't aware that the anti-choice movement has contraception access in its sights, in fact." She argues that "[o]verturning Roe without attacking privacy rights seems more possible than it used to be" because of the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. She concludes, "Unfortunately, decisions like Roe were made without invoking equal protection, making continued ignoring of it in regards to reproductive rights a strong possibility" (Marcotte, RH Reality Check, 10/25).

~ "This Just In: Contraception Is Not Health Care," RepoRepro: Failing to define contraception as health care "devalues its importance for consumers to make decisions about their own bodies and health, safety and self-determination," according to a RepoRepro blog post. The post responds to an Associated Press article on the recent opening of Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy -- a faith-based pharmacy that does not sell contraception -- that said the pharmacy "'only sells items that are health-related, including vitamins, skin care products and over-the-counter medications.'" The blog post says "when mainstream media is actually believing and repeating this radical right-wing lie that contraception is not an essential part of health care ... we need to call them out on it." The post states that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists define contraception as "basic, preventive health care," adding, "We know -- and the numbers reflect -- that access to choices about contraception is an essential component to overall health and well-being." When the media do not recognize contraception as health care, it "conveys a dangerous and untrue message to readers; after all, what could be more essential to one's health than the decision to start (or delay starting) a family?" (RepoRepro, 10/25).

~ "Pro-Life Politicians Have Made a Difference," Michael New, ProLifeBlogs: The "pro-life movement has made some real progress" in the past 35 years, New writes in a blog entry, adding that the progress is something "that pro-lifers could at times do a better job of advertising." According to New, these "gains" -- including parental notification laws, mandated waiting periods and a decline in the number of abortions -- "are largely due to pro-life political victories at the federal level in the 1980s and at the state level in the 1990s" that have "made it easier to pass pro-life legislation." New concludes that "since the next president may have the opportunity to nominate as many as four justices to the Supreme Court, the right-to-life movement would be very well advised to stay the course in 2008" (New, ProLifeBlogs, 10/27).

~ "Illegal abortions? Who goes to jail?" Connie Schultz, Cleveland Plain Dealer blog: Schultz writes that if Roe "were overturned, and abortion became a criminal act, there must be a penalty." She asks, "So, who is punished? And how much prison time?" Schultz writes that some states have attempted to pass legislation that would send only the physician to prison, which suggests that women who have abortions "are just hapless victims of conniving evil-doers." She adds that of the nearly two dozen state that would outlaw abortion if Roe were overturned, "[a]lmost none penalize the women who have the abortions." According to Schultz, the reason for this fact is that lawmakers "know that most Americans, including their voting constituents, could not stomach putting a woman behind bars for ending her pregnancy. Most understand that this is a deeply personal decision." She adds that it is "inexcusable" that individuals who advocate outlawing abortion have not considered whether a woman should be criminally punished for having an abortion. Schultz writes that a television ad by the Winning Message Action Fund will help "force this conversation" leading up to next week's election. The ad shows women getting police mug shots and reads, "How much time should she do?" (Schultz, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 10/27).

~ "Parental Involvement Laws Have No Effect on Abortion Rates," Sharon Camp, RH Reality Check: Although antiabortion advocates claim that parental notification laws have been a significant factor in reducing abortions rates among minors, "there is strong evidence that the decline in minors' abortion rates is largely the result fewer teen pregnancies, which in turn, reflect better contraceptive use among adolescents," Camp writes in a blog post. Camp writes that an analysis by Michael New -- a visiting fellow at Family Research Council, an antiabortion group -- that claims to demonstrate a link between parental involvement laws and lower abortions rates among minors "has serious methodological flaws." Camp details several problems common to studies such as New's, including that they often "track abortions by state of occurrence, not by state of residence," and thus do not account for minors traveling to neighboring states to have abortions. She also writes, "Minors' abortion rates have been declining steadily for years, both in states with and without parental notification laws," and adds that some studies do not prove a causal relationship between parental involvement and the lower abortion rates. Camp writes that parental notification laws can cause harm by putting minors at risk for violence and abuse and leading minors to delay abortions until later in pregnancy, adding that "public-health and youth-serving organizations have consistently opposed" parental involvement laws (Camp, RH Reality Check, 10/24).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.