Blogs Respond To NYT Opinion Piece, Bristol Palin Interview, Guttmacher Family Planning Report

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs;  Abortion
Article Date: 25 Feb 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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

~ "The Wrong Recipe for Ending the Culture Wars? A Response to Saletan," Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check: A recent New York Times opinion piece by Slate correspondent William Saletan "offers what appears to be a simple prescription for 'ending the culture wars,' by offering proposals for birth control, abortion and gay marriage," Jacobson writes. However, Saletan's suggestion that a major challenge for President Obama is putting the two issues of birth control and abortion together is "insulting." She writes that "women's rights advocates and reproductive health providers have always put these two issues together. It's called 'prevention' and it is the core of reproductive health services that include efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies, prevent infections, assist people who wish to get pregnant, offer pre-natal and maternal care and much more." Jacobson continues that access to birth control and accurate information is a "huge problem" in the U.S. and that Saletan is incorrect in his assertion "that access to birth control is not the problem, but rather the cavalier attitudes of women having sex." She writes that "everything from condoms to emergency contraception is contested by the Catholic Church and various entities on a daily basis." At the same time, "[i]t gets a little harder each day to deliver services to prevent unintended pregnancy" amid antiabortion-rights groups' bomb threats, hidden cameras and protest at clinics, "many of which don't even provide abortions," Jacobson writes. In addition, she writes that Saletan "simply glides over" the issue of abstinence-only education "as 'a second front in the culture wars' on a way to blaming women, providers and liberals, for, again, being too cavalier and not recognizing the moral dimensions of abortion." Saletan also claims that abortion is about a "'shortage of cultural and personal responsibility,'" which Jacobsen says "is the piece I find most insulting. And if Saletan wanted to bridge some sort of divide, he lost me right there." She writes that the abortion debate is in fact about "fundamental moral differences," adding, "The real issue is that when we talk about 'morals,' we only ever posit one set of morals in all of this" -- the morals of the antiabortion movement. Jacobson suggests that "part of the problem is that the issues of sex, birth control, reproduction, sexuality and abortion are always portrayed as 'moral' versus 'practical' or as 'lifestyle' issues," adding, "This is the argument of the far right. They are moral, we are hedonistic and 'practical' about the consequences." She writes that there are some people who believe that abortion is a moral choice, adding that the "premise of a pluralistic society is that we have the right to make moral decisions based on our personal beliefs in contested areas such as sex and reproduction." Jacobson calls for President Obama to be both "practical and moral" and list several policies toward that goal, including eliminating abstinence-only funding; ensuring that all government-funded reproductive health services are fully funded without delay in the next appropriations bill; reversing the HHS provider "conscience" rule and others. She concludes, "Recognizing diversity of moral choices and positions, and putting prevention first despite the outcry of the powerful minority, is the only way to move beyond the 'tired debates' of the past" (Jacobson, RH Reality Check, 2/22).

~ "Palin's Evangelical Base Slaps Down Bristol," Geoffrey Dunn, Huffington Post blogs: Dunn writes that a statement released by the National Abstinence Education Association, which responded to the recent Fox News interview with Bristol Palin, "issued a rather harsh and direct response to Bristol's claim" that abstinence is "unrealistic." Palin, the daughter of former Republican vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, recently gave birth after an unintended pregnancy. The NAEA statement said, "While Bristol's story makes for an interesting human interest story, her comment should not be the basis to form public policy on the complex issue of teen sex especially if we look at the facts regarding the teen sexual activity." Dunn writes that the "silence" from Sarah Palin in response to the NAEA statement and interview "says truck loads," adding that he "felt compelled to point out the irony of this new attack on Bristol and the hypocrisy of Palin's silence." He writes that "this is not the first time the NAEA has used Bristol's pregnancy to advance its own cause," citing a September 2008 opinion piece by Valerie Huber -- the executive director of NAEA -- which "invoked Bristol's pregnancy." He concludes, "[F]or the record, I think Bristol was spot-on in her comments about abstinence. If Sarah Palin's evangelical base really wants to confront teen pregnancy, they'd be smart to listen to Bristol Palin and others in her shoes and absorb some of their real-life wisdom" (Dunn, Huffington Post blogs, 2/21).

~ "The Future of Family Planning: Where Are We Headed?" Kay Steiger, RH Reality Check: The removal of a provision in the economic stimulus package to expand family planning services to low-income women enrolled in Medicaid "was a stark reminder that family planning is more controversial in this country than it ought to be," Steiger writes. She adds, "After all, as a comprehensive study from Guttmacher Institute released today points out, using birth control is a 'nearly universal' experience in this country -- more than 98% of women use birth control at some point in their reproductive lives." However, she adds that the report also found that the "use of contraceptives is becoming less common in this country for women who are black, Hispanic and low-income." Although the "first step to improving access to family planning will be to increase levels of funding," it is "about more than just increasing funding," according to Steiger. She adds that some of the "biggest changes in the U.S. approach to family planning ... might be ideological ones." The lack of an HHS secretary could inhibit changes to the Office of Population Affairs, she writes, concluding that groups like Guttmacher and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America "urge Congress and the administration to take on legislation that would increase access to family planning services sooner rather than later" (Steiger, RH Reality Check, 2/24).

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