Plan B (photo: vixyview/flickr)

Written by Catherine Rivera for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

Teenagers get a lot of crap for going above, under, and around the laws that are established to keep them “safe.” Some of these laws are completely well-founded. Others are not.  President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, betrayed millions of teens and young people (along with their doctors, parents, and supportive adults) by telling them that they were not mature enough to decide to prevent a pregnancy.

As a recent teenager, I want to set the record straight on some things that our politicians may not have realized. Teenagers do have the maturity to know how and when to take Plan B. Teenagers know that emergency contraception is what you use when the condom breaks, when pulling out doesn’t go as planned, when contraception wasn’t available. They know it can stop pregnancy from occurring and that they shouldn’t wait until Monday when they MAY be able to go to the doctor to get a prescription.

Because let’s face it, sex for teenagers happens more often when their parents are out for the night, when they don’t have school the next morning, and when they have the most free time. Monday isn’t going to cut it and while teenagers may want to go to the pharmacy and pick up Plan B because they want to protect themselves or their partners from becoming pregnant, they can’t. Not because they are going to abuse it, not because they don’t know how to use it, not because they lack the maturity to know what consequence the lack of action could have, but because politicians have deemed that it’s immoral to let teenagers to access Plan B. They are denying teenagers access to something that could help them continue being teenagers, because isn’t that what every parent, neighbor, and president wants?

Teenagers under 17, who can’t legally access Plan B, do sometimes have access to it. The majority of people that I know who have used Plan B were not 17 and they didn’t go to a doctor to get a prescription to get emergency contraception. Teenagers know that there are faster ways to get Plan B and so, while millions of adults don’t have the maturity to admit simple (or big) mistakes, teenagers admit to their friend, their sibling, their cousin that they messed up and they need that person to buy them or their partner emergency contraception. These teenagers use their birthday, babysitting, or lawn- mowing money to buy a $50 pill that will prevent a pregnancy and enable them to continue being teens. Read the rest of this entry →

Broken Caduceus (Photo: truthout/flickr)

Written by Dr. Megan Evans for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

Cross-posted in partnership with Amplify Your Voice. See all our coverage of Kathleen Sebelius’ 2011 Emergency Contraception Reversal here.

Like most of the pro-choice community, I was shocked by Secretary Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services overruling the FDA’s decision to make Plan B over-the-counter and available for all ages. This was unexpected, unprecedented, and extremely unfortunate.

Experts, who we count on for guidance and sound evidence-based medicine, have repeatedly shown Plan B to be not only extremely effective, but incredibly safe. Although the experts in the FDA agreed with the well-researched and well-presented data on Plan B, Secretary Sebelius and President Obama chose to ignore their expertise and base their decision on politics, not science.

Not only is this infuriating, but hypocritical. A certain document found on WhiteHouse.gov by The Obama Administration dated March 9, 2009 expresses quite the different sentiment. Interestingly, this release from The White House Press Secretary is entitled “Scientific Integrity” and the first line states “[s]cience and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health…”

I suppose I missed the footnote that implied exceptions for family planning.

As I read the press releases on Secretary Sebelius’ decision and the news about President Obama’s unwavering support of her overruling, I could not help but pick apart their few but telling remarks:

President Obama stated that ten- to 11-year-olds would be able to buy Plan B next to “batteries and bubble gum,” potentially putting these young girls at risk for adverse events if they did not use Plan B correctly. Interestingly, Tylenol is over-the-counter and far more dangerous with far more potential for adverse outcomes. Oh, and pregnancy in a ten- to 11-year-olds also has FAR more adverse outcomes than a small, but effective dose of Plan B. Read the rest of this entry →

Written by Lorraine Berry for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

Fool me twice. I’m an idiot.

I keep thinking someone in this administration is going to take a stand that will mean something.

It’s a small thing, really, but a huge thing when you’re a teenager. You need access to emergency contraception and you can’t get it because your government is controlled by fundamentalist body haters who think that sex is for procreation only.

*****

I’m still hunting for the right words to say. Nearly 40 years after abortion was made legal in this country, 50 years since we’ve had the Pill, and women are still told, day-after-day, that the only thing that matters about them is their ability to bear children. And if bearing a child costs you your life, well, what greater sacrifice can you make? (And besides, there are plenty of women to replace you.)

*****

To visit the local cemeteries is to see this philosophy carved in stone–acres of stones that tell the same story. One man will be buried with two, often three, wives. He died in his 80s. The first two wives died in their 20s or early 30s, but the third wife grew old with him. Frequently, there are newborns whose death dates approximate the death dates of their mothers.

We tell ourselves that this was before modern medicine. That puerperal fever, or ruptured uteri, or hearts weakened by childhood diseases and then too weak to bear the strains of pregnancy, that these things are all things of the past.

But, we maintain maternal mortality statistics because pregnancy is still potentially deadly. And lest any American think that we have the best health care system in the world, ask yourself why our rates of maternal death are among the highest in the industrialized world?

****

The FDA cannot find a single reason why Plan B contraception can’t be on a shelf where anyone can buy it. Katherine Sebelius, and her boss, Barack Obama, they moved the football again.

We were all so happy when Obama chose a pro-choice champion to head HHS. But, it turns out, just like her boss, she’s a political coward.

So what, the right wing thinks teenagers shouldn’t be having sex? How has that changed in all the years that we’ve been talking about it?

Sebelius, no doubt ordered to by her boss, overruled the FDA, denied scientific evidence, to make moralistic assholes happy.

I really thought you were going to hold the football steady this time, Obama. I really did.

I’m an idiot. I keep hoping against hope that you’re not going to throw women under the bus. That you can stand up to the ladies who swoon at the Concerned Women for America. You think they’re going to vote for you because you said no to Plan B?

I know you’re not stupid.

You’re a coward.

Written by Brook Kelly for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

On this Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 2010, we reflect back on the past year’s work around HIV/AIDS and women in the United States. The rate of HIV among women and girls has been steadily increasing over the years, with women of color the hardest hit.  HIV has now become the leading cause of death among Black women ages 25 to 34.

At the 2009 HIV/AIDS Prevention Conference in Atlanta, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius commented on the dramatic and disparate impact of the HIV epidemic on minority communities: "Today, African Americans make up just over one-tenth of the population. But they account for nearly half of new HIV infections. One in 30 African-American women will be diagnosed in her lifetime. One in sixteen African-American men will be diagnosed with HIV. The situation is also dire for Latinos. Think about that. Imagine if it were half the straight white women in Atlanta. Wouldn’t we be calling this a national emergency? Shouldn’t we be?"

The answer is, of course, yes we should be calling the HIV/AIDS crisis a national emergency.  

As the HIV Human Rights Attorney for the U.S. Positive Women’s Network, the only national membership organization for HIV-positive women, I have seen tremendous gains in advancing HIV-positive women’s issues to the highest policy levels. I have heard HIV-positive women’s voices where before there was only silence: in the White House, in Congress, at the tables where decisions are made.  But I am also struck by the continued blindness to the deeper structural challenges faced by women and girls affected and infected with HIV in the United States, a blindness that makes progress toward stemming the epidemic virtually impossible.

For the first time, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in its Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 2010 statement called for the promotion of women’s human rights as a key factor in reducing “the burden of the epidemic among women and girls,” here in the U.S. They addressed the most challenging structural barriers that women face in preventing HIV transmission and in caring for themselves when HIV-positive: not only our biological vulnerability as women to HIV, which can be alleviated through safer sex tools, but the crux of the issue: gender inequity; lack of financial autonomy; and sexual and domestic violence that prevents women from demanding the use of safer sex tools.

While the CDC has taken a giant step in recognizing that the HIV epidemic among women is a human rights issue, beyond increased testing, they have yet to offer solutions that account for the complex barriers to HIV prevention and treatment women face. Yet, the implementation of a human rights based solutions that take a holistic approach to HIV prevention and care is necessary not only abroad but here at home.

For the PWN, a human rights based approach means that:

• Every woman has access to and education about high quality, culturally appropriate, accessible, and integrated HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health services;

• Every HIV-positive woman can exercise her right to decide whether and when to have a child and has access to the information and services necessary to make an informed and voluntary decision; every woman’s right to confidentiality and dignity be respected;

• Stigmatizing laws and policies–like those that criminalize HIV transmission and exposure, or harm women in prostitution–are amended or repealed;

• Every woman has access to safe, adequate housing and meaningful employment, opportunities;

• HIV-positive women are meaningfully involved in all policy decisions affecting their lives; and

• Laws and policies that intentionally, or unintentionally negatively affect the prevention, or care and treatment of women living with or affected by HIV are changed.

Although the meaningful inclusion of HIV-positive women’s voices on issues most affecting their lives has been slow coming we see that progress has been made – voices have been heard.  For the first time the U.S. is in the process of drafting our first National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

As of today, however, the newly formed President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, which will review and monitor the Strategy has no Black HIV-positive woman member despite the fact that Black women carry the greatest burden of the HIV epidemic; as of today our U.S. foreign policy on HIV has a more woman-centered approach to HIV prevention and care than our own domestic policy – the PEPFAR Five-year Plan calls for the integration of HIV and reproductive health services and care as a mandatory component of HIV prevention and treatment; as of today we are still not calling HIV/AIDS among women of color in the U.S. a national emergency.

On this National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, I hope our leaders will begin to listen to the resounding voices of HIV-positive women in the U.S. who know that the best solutions to the epidemic only begin with increased testing but succeed with the recognition of and work towards realizing women’s human rights to health, dignity, and equality.

Are you a "fake" Catholic? Don’t worry, the majority of Catholics are. That’s at least according to the religious right which has taken to doling out titles like "alleged Catholic." The most recent Catholic to earn the epithet is Kathleen Sebelius – current Governor of Kansas and Obama’s choice for Secretary of HHS. Her nomination has drawn fire from right wing Catholic groups including the Catholic League and the American Life League, which refer to her as an "alleged Catholic." After Catholics United came to her defense, Life News, an "anti-abortion" online news site, labeled it "fake Catholic."

According to these extremists, to be a "real" Catholic one must agree with the U.S. Bishops, and through them, the Vatican, on every issue, but especially on abortion. Kathleen Sebelius is pro-choice, as are the majority of U.S. Catholics. But Bishops who don’t live in the real world where people juggle complicated lives, are free to be moral scolds. For these doctrinal purists, you’re either with us or against us. And lately the Bishops enemy’s list grows: John Kerry and recently Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, among the high value targets. And so they oppose Sebelius who the Read the rest of this entry →