Blogs Comment On Plan B Decision, Sec. Clinton's Comments On Abortion, Other Topics

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Abortion;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 27 Apr 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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

~ "Restoring Reason at the FDA," Cristina Page, Birth Control Watch: "Behind all of the arguments against" nonprescription access to emergency contraception "lurks a persistent notion that women, and now in particular teens, are engaging in irresponsible behavior," Page writes. She continues that antiabortion-rights advocates like Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America seem to "[o]n one hand ... appear to view teens as completely unable to make responsible decisions for themselves, i.e., the availability of contraception will make them run wild." Meanwhile, "[a]t the same time, teens apparently have it so together that they will be both determined and quick-acting in order to prevent an unintended pregnancy." Page adds, "Seems like those teens most likely to use emergency contraception are, by definition, taking responsibility for their actions." Page writes that another argument used by opponents of nonprescription access to Plan B is that EC is unsafe. "Yet, the 2003 application to the FDA to grant the over-the-counter access to Plan B won unanimous support from all leading medical groups, including the most prestigious medical groups representing adolescents," such as from the Society for Adolescent Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics, "not to mention all women's health groups." Despite this, CWFA said in a statement released Thursday, "Parents should be furious that the FDA is putting their minor daughters at risk," Page notes. The era during which Wright and her counterparts "held sway on what should rightfully be medical and scientific decisions" is over, Page says, adding that the most relieved group is the "non-ideological researchers who'd watched years of hard earned effort for scientific integrity wasted in a matter of months" (Page, Birth Control Watch, 4/22).

~ "Clinton Takes on the Antis: This Is What Diplomacy Looks Like," Emily Douglas, RH Reality Check: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made "a clear and uncompromising case for [the] lifesaving role of international reproductive rights and health care access" during her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Douglas writes. Clinton "didn't mince words" when responding to staunch abortion-rights opponent Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who asked Clinton about "Margaret Sanger's supposed eugenic agenda, about the work of Planned Parenthood" and the Obama administration's plans regarding international family planning policies in regions such as South America and Asia. In her remarks, Clinton made clear "the connections between safe, legal, accessible abortion and maternal health; between family planning and women's socioeconomic level; between access to contraception and the need for abortion; and between abortion and the full spectrum of reproductive health care," Douglas writes. She continues that when "put in context, it becomes obvious that abortion is not only, not even primarily, a contested medical procedure but the key to a wholesale paradigm shift in valuing women's lives" (Douglas, RH Reality Check, 4/22).

~ "Emergency Contraception: Coming Soon to a Teenager Near You," Judy Berman, Salon's Broadsheet: "In some great Obama-era reproductive rights news," FDA on Wednesday "announced that it will comply with the decision" to allow nonprescription access to the emergency contraceptive Plan B for women ages 17 and older "as soon as it receives necessary information from Plan B's manufacturer," Berman writes. She adds that although "[w]e finally have a government that isn't going to try and control women's bodies," this "doesn't mean 17-year-olds will have instant, prescription-free access to Plan B; that could still take up to 10 months. And there will be a good deal of red tape to cut through before the FDA can evaluate the drug's over-the-counter suitability for younger teenagers." The development is a "major" victory "in the battle for greater access to and education about emergency contraception," according to Berman (Berman, Salon's Broadsheet, 4/23).

~ "'A Profound Disagreement:' Clinton Breaks the Political Sound Barrier," Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "broke the political sound barrier" on Wednesday when she told Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) that the Obama administration believes "family planning is an important part of women's health and reproductive health includes access to abortion, that I believe should be safe, legal and rare," Jacobson writes. Jacobson writes that "...Clinton spoke the truth and thereby shattered the myth that has existed for so long that we could talk about family planning, reproductive health, women's rights, women's health or even human rights, and not say the word 'abortion.' It was a day in which the issue of safe abortion services as a fundamental component of women's health and rights was put back on the U.S. foreign policy agenda." She adds that Clinton's statements were the "most courageous a secretary of state -- or any administration official -- has ever made on reproductive rights and one of the most courageous statements made by a secretary of state of any kind, on any issue, ever." Clinton's statements lead the U.S. "well beyond the lifting of the global gag rule because it makes possible a conversation about the various restrictions within U.S. policy that restrict women's rights to access safe abortion services and it puts back on the table how those restrictions actually increase, rather than reduce the number of abortions worldwide." The "real conversation" and the "real work to secure the rights of women and families to determine their own fate can be carried out," Jacobson says, concluding that Clinton "will be a heroine to women throughout the world and a path-breaking leader in an administration that continues to make history" (Jacobson, RH Reality Check, 4/23).

~ "Pro-Lifers Battle Over Sebelius," Anthony Stevens-Arroyo, Washington Post's On Faith: Although "[p]rominent Catholic leaders have praised" Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), President Obama's HHS secretary nominee, for her "pro-life administration," other Catholic leaders have "dismissed" her efforts to reduce the need for abortion though "advocacy for laws and programs to promote alternatives" to the procedure, Stevens-Arroyo writes. "Despite the vitriol that bubbles to the surface" of the abortion debate "it is worth pointing out that with few exceptions" both supporters and opponents of Sebelius' efforts to reduce abortion "oppose abortion as a moral evil and work within the framework of a Democratic society that honors separation of church and state," he writes. Stevens-Arroyo adds that he does not believe Sebelius' "Catholicism can be brought up in Senate confirmation hearings without causing a backlash" because the Constitution "outlaws any religious test for public office." In addition, "polls seem to indicate that most laity and bishops accept as valid Sebelius' pragmatic pro-life strategy" to reduce the need for abortion. He concludes, "I think [Sebelius] will be confirmed, but I also hope that charity and love will prevail so that God will find us" (Stevens-Arroyo, Washington Post's On Faith, 4/24).

Antiabortion-Rights Blog

~ "Your Help Is Needed! And Another Look at the Attack on Conscience," Dave Andrusko, National Right to Life blog: Andrusko writes that "a number of ongoing controversies require [the] attention" of abortion-rights opponents, including President Obama's health care reform proposal and the University of Notre Dame's invitation to Obama to speak at commencement. He urges abortion-rights opponents to write to Notre Dame President John Jenkins to protest the invitation. Andrusko also writes that Washington Times reporter Julia Duin "wrote a thoughtful column" referring to the Obama administration's "determination to make life as miserable as possible for pro-life physicians who refuse to be a party to abortions" by rescinding the HHS "conscience" rule. According to Andrusko, "[S]tudents who might well choose obstetrics are reluctant to do so" because they are concerned that their "right of conscience" would be violated. Andrusko concludes, "As we learn day in and day out, for 'pro-choicers' there is only one choice: the choice for death" (Andrusko, National Right to Life blog, 4/21).

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