Blogs Comment On Health Reform Hearing, Guttmacher Study, Other Topics

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  Litigation / Medical Malpractice;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 19 Oct 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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

• Blogs Examine Women and Health Insurance: During Thursday's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, witnesses gave testimony regarding "women who have had trouble getting adequate [health] coverage just because they are women," ABC News' Tom Shine writes in "The World Newser." The hearing was chaired by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who said a 25-year-old woman pays up to 45% more than her male counterpart for the same policy and up to 140% more when she reaches age 40. Shine profiles two female witnesses at the hearing, one of whom was denied coverage because of a previous caesarean section and then told she could receive coverage if she underwent sterilization. The other woman dropped her insurance plan -- which included a $5,000 monthly maternity care deductible -- to deal with the medical debt incurred from her pregnancy and delivery after she gave birth (Shine, "The World Newser," ABC News, 10/15). Meanwhile, Allyson Kapin, founder of Rad Campaign, writes in the Huffington Post that while she was researching maternity benefits under her health insurance plan, she was "shocked to learn as a fertile woman, I'm basically considered a pre-existing condition." She writes, "I get that health insurance companies are in the business of making money, but considering women a pre-existing condition is despicable" (Kapin, Huffington Post, 10/15).

• Blogs Comment on Contraception, Health Reform: Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic's "The Daily Dish" "careens very close to revelation about the anti-choice movement" in a recent blog entry regarding no-cost contraception and the proposed public option in health care reform legislation, Amanda Marcotte writes in a blog post on "The XX Factor" (Marcotte, "The XX Factor," Double X, 10/15). In his blog post, Sullivan writes that "Christianists are prepared to do the one thing that would actually reduce abortions dramatically: guarantee free contraception as part of a public option." He adds that "[n]othing would make the GOP's head explode more; and yet nothing would do more to achieve one of their alleged chief goals" (Sullivan, "The Daily Dish," The Atlantic, 10/15). Marcotte also praises Dan Savage's blog post stating that "the organized anti-choice movement is motivated by the desire to punish what they consider deviant sexuality much more than they are motivated by any love of fetal life." Marcotte says that when "given the choice between punishing sex and reducing the abortion rate," antiabortion-rights advocates "will choose the former every time." She adds that the "movement's hostility toward contraception is an open secret; most people on both sides of the debate know about it, but anti-choice activists also know better than to flaunt their hatred of contraception when trying to woo people on the issue of abortion" ("The XX Factor," Double X, 10/15).

• "Implications for U.S. Policy From New Evidence on Global Abortion Trends," Susan Cohen, The Hill 's "Congress Blog" : A recent Guttmacher Institute report that shows increased global contraceptive use and declining abortion rates "highlight[s] the urgency for boosting U.S. international family planning assistance and the need for the United States to be more engaged in mitigating the impact of unsafe abortion," according to Cohen, Guttmacher's director of government affairs. However, the report also found that "unsafe abortion remains a critical global health challenge," causing more than 70,000 deaths and five million cases of severe complications each year, Cohen notes. The report "provides new proof that abortion legality has much more to do with safety than incidence," she writes, adding, "Abortion rates correspond mostly to the rates of unintended pregnancy, which in turn correspond closely to rates of contraceptive use." The U.S. is "well-positioned to be a leader in helping prevent unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortion worldwide," and the report is "an urgent call to action," Cohen writes. While the Obama administration "deserves praise for reprioritizing international family planning assistance" -- such as repealing the "global gag rule" and restoring funding to the United Nations Population Fund -- "these positive steps are not enough," and "there is much more the United States can do," she continues. Congress should further increase foreign aid to international family programs and "re-examine restrictive abortion policies" that prevent the government "from paying for safe abortion services overseas," Cohen writes. She continues that Congress should also "boost programs that aim to prevent the worst consequences of unsafe abortions" and "return the United States to its traditional role as a strong advocate for family planning at the international level." Cohen concludes, "It's time for the U.S. to get serious about addressing better access to contraception, unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion as the key public health challenges they are" (Cohen, "Congress Blog," The Hill, 10/14).
  
  
• "One Report on Abortion and Contraception, But Many Nuances," Tami Dennis, Los Angeles Times ' "Booster Shots": "The numbers are just part of the story" in the Guttmacher Institute's new report on trends in worldwide abortion rates, Dennis writes, adding, "So too are the reasons for those changes." Dennis notes that the variety of headlines on the report are revealing, ranging from "Unsafe abortions kill 70,0000 per year" to "Bans do not cut abortion rate" to "Moving away from abortion" -- adding that the actual report title is "Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress." Although many headlines focused on the statistics, the report "makes a point of stating that the relationship between abortion and contraception can't be ignored" (Dennis, "Booster Shots," Los Angeles Times, 10/14).

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