At 2:00 this afternoon, the Bush administration launched an attack on women's health care and reproductive rights that has put Planned Parenthood and the people we serve in the fight of our lives.

We need your help today — and over the next few weeks — to fight back. Thank you in advance for standing with us during this critical time.

For the past month, we have been aware that the Bush administration was planning to release a rule that would limit the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate reproductive health information and services. With your help, we did all we could to stop the president from going through with the threat to release the new rule. But Bush was intent on delivering this "gift" to his extreme anti-choice supporters before he left office. Today was their lucky day.

I may be paranoid -- but -- I believe the recent HHS proposal to equate contraception with abortion is the first of a flood of nutty, radical reactionary ideas that the Bush mob will try to put into law, regulation, or executive order before leaving office in January 2009.

The Bush administration is about to release a rule that would allow federal funding specifically designed to prevent unintended pregnancies and promote reproductive health to now be used for anything but that.

I mean, this is my research, so most of my ranting takes place in a confined academic setting where I can't actually 'rant' more like humbly share my opinion in 10 to 15 second intervals (yes I'm a grad student).  I'm finding this all overlapping with my freakishly fucked up life and I'm just in the need to write a rant that covers the gamut of what I do each fucking day.  This morning, I woke up to this
article, "Do Self Breast Exams Do Any Good?":

Everyone's been talking theoretically about the everlasting legacy of Bush(es) nomination of conservative judges with an eye to overturning Roe.  One of the Fundies' strategies is death by a thousand cuts -- make acquiring an abortion so burdensome that it is not attainable at all.

A main battleground is South Dakota -- and South Dakota is well on its way to making all abortions illegal in the state.  Follow me after the jump to read about the latest barrier that has just been ruled constitutional.  It goes without saying that other states will now pass similar laws.

In yesterday's post on a case of an ambulance driver's "moral refusal" of taking a woman in severe pain to a women's clinic, a frequent criticism came up: "But wouldn't the EMT get in trouble if she died?  Surely they could revoke his license?"

This, sadly, can no longer be assumed.  In at least one state--Mississippi--the scenario of an EMT conducting a "moral refusal", the woman dying as a result, and the EMT getting off scot free is an unfortunate possibility.

Even worse, Mississippi's law is now considered a model "moral refusal" statute--as we'll see below.

Written by Melanie Ross Levin, Outreach Manager
National Women’s Law Center

Now that someone has opened a pro-life pharmacy, I’ve decided that I’m going to open a pro-choice bagel shop.

Features to include:

• When you order a baker’s dozen, you’ll get 12 bagels and a condom.
• Instead of green bagels for Saint Patrick’s Day, my shop will serve pink bagels on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut (that’s the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated anti-birth control laws, FYI).
• Our menu items will include Margaret Sanger Salad, Guttmacher Garlic Bagels, Alfred Kinsey Kippers, Estelle Griswold Guacamole, and Roe Rye Bread.
• For special occasions we will hand out stickers that read, "Dough the Right Thing — Stand Up for Choice" and "I’m Pro-Choice and I Eat Bagels."

http://nwlc.blogs.com/...

In Part 2 of the miniseries which we began yesterday, we discuss how "moral refusal" clauses are increasingly going far beyond just doctors and pharmacists, and are now extending to the most basic thing we associate with healthcare--the trip in the ambulance to have emergency surgery.

Yes, you're reading this right--dominionist ambulance drivers are now refusing to take people to women's clinics just because the woman needs a medically necessary abortion.

And at the end of the post--because I never like to just bring bad news without discussing ways to fix what's broken--I present some possible solutions to the problem of "moral refusal".

I have written rather extensively on Talk to Action regarding dominionists and reproductive health--one of the larger issues being the spread of so-called "moral refusal" clauses that do not just ban medical abortion but go towards banning the pill and even go so far as refusing reproductive health services to LGBT people and refusing prescriptions outright--including for antibiotics and prenatal vitamins--because they came from a women's clinic.

Now, in an end-run against "must dispense or refer" laws in several states, dominionists are now expanding the large "parallel economy" to a new area--namely, the dominionist-run pharmacy not providing contraceptives at all...and there are disturbing indications that a prediction I made re broad "moral refusal" clauses may have come to pass.

Unfortunately, many women are ignorant of John McCain's actual positions.  The Planned Parenthood Action Fund recently polled 1,205 women in 16 likely battleground states, finding that

* Despite his extreme voting record, 51 percent of women voters in battleground states have no idea what John McCain's positions are on women's reproductive health issues.

* Forty-nine percent of women currently backing McCain express pro-choice views, and 46 percent of women supporting McCain over Obama/Clinton want to see Roe v. Wade upheld.

* In a McCain-Obama matchup, 36 percent of pro-choice McCain supporters say they are less likely to vote for McCain when told that he opposes Roe v. Wade.

Welcome ladies (and curious gents), I think it's time to talk about one of the last remaining taboos of modern society, menstruation.  More specifically the products we use during menstruation.  And even more specifically dirty menstrual products that get tossed and flushed every day.

More after the fold.

Dear Brother,

You know what I do for a living.  You know that I work to make sure that the underserved and uninsured get proper and evidence-based healthcare, especially reproductive health services (not just abortion, but yes, abortion).  I know you're familiar with the trajectory of my career, in which I abandoned bringing healthcare to the wealthy because they can well afford it anyways, preferring instead to find a way to bring quality service to all and reduce health care disparities.  I also know that you know that there is nothing you can say that will ever convince me that women's reproductive health is "just one issue out of many."

You know that I own a shirt saying, "Tell your mama I'm voting for Obama."

And we both know that you have a daughter.

I have spent a bit of time arguing amongst the community here about health care and the need for "Single Payer" the latest euphemism for socialized medicine. Now that we have two nominees that favor continuing the current model of for profit insurance companies running the system with a few minor modifications my hopes for universal care are over. Both McCain and Obama have laid out programs that will tinker around the edges but do little to improve the everyday lives of people that are consumers of  health care in America.

Rather than bemoan the facts or belabor the point  I am attempting to do something positive.  Please read the whole diary before trying to defend Obama’s plan in the comments.

This is the first Mother's Day I will spend without my mother.  On the morning of November 9, 2007, my mother swam a mile, as she normally did three times a week.  By early in the morning of November 13 she was dead of a massive heart attack.

The story of her death is the story of ignorance about women's health in our healthcare system and our society at-large.

A new study has come out focusing on women's health and how beneficial it is to quit -- the sooner the better.

Typically, I dislike too much differentiating between women and men.

However, in this case, because quitting is so important, I highlight it here.

    In what is an alarming trend among American women, a study has found that for the first time in decades the life expectancy for women is declining. Women have always enjoyed longer life expectancies than men during modern times due in large part to their historic roles as homemakers. As more and more women have left the home and joined the workforce they have begun to suffer from the same stress related illnesses as men have suffered. As a result of their new roles outside the home they are now being diagnosed with larger instances of diseases such as diabetes, lung cancer, and heart disease. Most of these diseases are related to stress, poor eating and health habits.

So the life expectancy for women has decreaed and this is a big deal?  

Written by Lisa Codispoti, Senior Advisor
and Brigette Courtot, Policy Analyst
National Women’s Law Center

Recently, we learned that one-quarter of American young women ages 14 through 19 have a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Educating adolescents about the risks of STIs, and how to protect against them, is one way to respond to this shocking statistic –- an earlier NWLC blog post covered why comprehensive sex education should be promoted over ineffective abstinence-only programs. Another important way to prevent the spread of STIs is by ensuring that all sexually active people are regularly screened for these infections.

http://nwlc.blogs.com/...