Blogs Comment On Democratic Party, S.C. Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, Other Topics

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Pregnancy / Obstetrics;  Abortion
Article Date: 18 Jan 2010 - 0:00 PDT

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

~ "Stupak: Two More Years?!?" Kate Harding, Salon's "Broadsheet": Harding writes that welcoming antiabortion Democrats like Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) into the party sends the message that it is willing to compromise its platform whenever "screwing over women is in our best interest." Harding writes that the party's platform -- which says the party "strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose" -- no longer matters, since party leaders desire a strong majority so much that they are willing to support candidates who are antithetical to that viewpoint. Harding endorses a return to "the good old days of ignoring, slighting, marginalizing, overlooking, excluding, critiquing and, above all, not voting for anti-choice Democrats." She also says that Democrats who oppose abortion have "re-awakened" feminists and "radicalized pro-choice voters" who will work to defeat them (Harding, "Broadsheet," Salon, 1/14).

~ "STOPP Unintended Teen Pregnancy," Janice Key, Huffington Post blogs: Key, a South Carolina pediatrician, describes how the development of the Sea Island Teen Opportunity for Prevention Programs in 2004 helped curb teen pregnancy in the Charleston area. The program was needed because about 30 of the 200 to 255 teens who attend the community's high school were giving birth each year, according to Key. "The program builds upon the community's greatest asset, large extended families with many generations caring for their young people" to help provide education and medical services to the teens, Key writes. Key adds that the program has reduced the number of teen pregnancies annually, and last year only three teens from the school gave girth. "And more good news: instead of diagnosing pregnancies, the STOPP clinic did a record number of college physicals," Key writes, adding, "These young people are on their way to building successful lives." Key continues that although the program's goals are difficult to achieve, they are not impossible, and it is "worth the effort when you think of what it could mean, empty jails and overflowing colleges whose graduates are productive tax-paying citizens" (Key, Huffington Post blogs, 1/15).

~ "Court Forces Bed Rest on Pregnant Woman," Diana Kasdan, ACLU's "Blog of Rights": The 1st District Court of Appeals began hearing arguments on Jan. 12 in a case in which a pregnant mother of two was ordered by the state of Florida to undergo bed rest in a hospital for pregnancy complications against her will, Kasdan writes. Following a "brief telephone hearing," a lower court ordered the woman to "submit to any and all medical treatments and interventions -- including eventually a [caesarean section] -- that the hospital's medical staff deemed appropriate" without reviewing her medical records or seeking a second medical opinion, according to Kasdan. The state of Florida defended its actions before the 1st District Court by "insisting that it was a very narrow intervention, for a 'short' time, designed to simply preserve the 'status quo' until the court could determine the proper course of medical care" for the woman, Kasdan writes. That view "is not only blatantly unconstitutional, it is dangerous" because it denies the woman "her fundamental right to make her own informed decisions about medical care during her pregnancy," Kasdan writes, adding, "It is hard to imagine any worse approach to helping pregnant women have safe pregnancies and healthy newborns" (Kasdan, "Blog of Rights," ACLU, 1/13).

~ "A Wolf in Pro-Choice Clothing," Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon's "Broadsheet": Clark-Flory writes about "a deceptive new tactic taken by anti-choice activists at a women's clinic in Louisville, Ky.," that has "flown under the radar." At the clinic, antiabortion protesters "are donning orange vests just like the ones worn by clinic escorts, the volunteers who shield patients from the onslaught of activists' religious rhetoric during the short walk from the parking lot into the facility," Clark-Flory writes. The protesters aim to "trick patients into thinking that protesters are actually friendly escorts and then -- wham! -- they're sideswiped by the antiabortion agenda," she writes. A video of the practice shows a patient arriving at the clinic as people in orange vests "swarm around them," making it difficult to distinguish between the escorts and the protesters, according to Clark-Flory, who adds, "It's enough to make me want to move to a conservative part of the country and don one of those orange vests (the kind meant for clarity, not obfuscation) to support women's rights to make their own choices about their own bodies" (Clark-Flory, "Broadsheet," Salon, 1/12).

Antiabortion-Rights Blog

~ "A New Welfare Program in the Obama Health Care Bill," Chris Gacek, FRCBlog: Gacek writes about a recent Washington Times account of the inclusion of a new maternal home-visit program in Congress' reform legislation in which nurses help new mothers adjust to the daily demands of having a young baby. Gacek has "concerns" about the program, such as what might occur if the "poor, at-risk, poorly-educated mother" fails to follow the nurse's advice, such as refusing to quit smoking. In addition, the program could lead to "governmental intrusion," he writes. The House health reform bill (HR 3962) contains the goal of "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies," according to Gacek, who adds that some observers fear that women who become pregnant "at a time that doesn't comport with the latest social science model's optimal birth spacing" could be referred to an abortion provider. "[H]ow long will it be before all new families have to have an initial 'screening' from the friendly nurses and the very friendly public health officials," Gacek asks, adding, "[B]efore we create another massive federal welfare bureaucracy it seems that much more needs to be learned about all the various facets of this program" (Gacek, FRCBlog, 1/13).

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.

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