When a Global Gag Rule’s not Enough, Bring it on Home

If you’re not familiar with the “Global Gag Rule” (or “Mexico City Policy”), it’s a rule that the U.S. will not provide any family planning funds to organizations that (use their own money to) provide abortions, make referrals for abortion, or lobby to make abortion legal in their own country - see globalgagrule.org and this section from the International Women’s Health Coalition for further background.

Now, “nearly 80 conservative groups” have signed on to a letter asking Bush to revise a “Domestic Family Planning Gag Rule,” which would essentially create Global Gag Rule for the United States, preventing organizations that provide family planning services (such as Planned Parenthood) from receiving Title X funds if they also provide abortions or abortion referrals.

As explained in The Hill: “Former President Ronald Reagan first issued regulations more than 20 years ago that prohibited family planning organizations from providing advice to help women obtain abortions. The Reagan-era regulations were upheld by the Supreme Court, but were then rescinded soon after former President Bill Clinton took office in 1993.”

“Conservative leaders say they are perplexed why Bush has not reversed Clinton’s decision during more than eight years in office.They say that Bush could re-implement the regulations though a simple order that would go into effect after a brief public comment period.”

The National Abortion Federation notes that under the old policy governing Title X family planning funds, “These revised regulations implemented the ‘gag rule’ which prohibited the discussion of abortion as a family planning option. Although never actually enforced nationwide, the ‘gag rule’ also prohibited referrals to abortion providers and required a physical and financial separation of abortion-related activities from Title X activities.”

The “conservative groups” are also trying to drum up support for the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act (HR 4133), which would “amend title X of the Public Health Service Act to prohibit family planning grants from being awarded to any entity that performs abortions.”

[Hat tip to the National Partnership for Women & Families]

The Global War in Your Pants - The Daily Show on the Recent Abstinence Hearing

Monday’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart features highlights from the recent hearings on abstinence-only sex education that I mentioned on Friday. I don’t want to spoil the punchlines, so just watch [stupid WordPress won't let me embed it].

Committee Holds Hearing on Abstinence-Only Sex Education

Yesterday the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing yesterday on “Domestic Abstinence-Only Programs: Assessing the Evidence” and had a conversation about whether the current approach to federally-funded sex education is effective and appropriate. The committee heard testimony from public and adolescent health experts, representatives of the Government Accountability Office, Health and Human Services, and Institute of Medicine, as well as Rep. Lois Capps and Sen. Sam Brownback.

Documents containing the witnesses’ statements are available as PDFs, and if you just can’t get enough, there is also video.

Committee Member and Indiana Rep Mark Souder made a statement - if he’s your Rep, and you believe abstinence-only sex ed is lacking, you should really watch his remarks (At about 35 minute mark).

If you’re in Tennessee, check out Rep. John Duncan (~the 72 minute mark) blaming sex on the media and stating, “It seems rather elitist to me for people who maybe have degrees in this field to feel that because they’ve studied it somehow they know better than the parents what is best for [their children].” Oh, good grief - ~20% of those in Duncan’s home state don’t graduate high school (and only ~20% earn a bachelor’s degree or higher), so, yeah, I kind of think it’s possible that they’re less qualified to evaluate the scientific evidence on this topic than someone with a masters in public health, an MD, etc. No, they’re not specially qualified to decide what parents should want, but they are specially qualified to understand what the evidence says about whether programs work, especially from a public health standpoint - which is the whole point of the hearing.

Despite Duncan’s comment, you’ll have to last >85 minutes into the video before any actual subject experts appear. The earlier bits are largely dominated by Brownback’s opinionating.

Reuters has a brief summary, as does the LA Times.

I may have more commentary when I have a chance to view the whole video.

OBOS Post: Is Teen Pregnancy Really Up or Down?

Today at Our Bodies Our Blog: “You may have seen recent headlines such as “US teen pregnancy rate near historic low” and been somewhat confused (I certainly was). After all, didn’t the CDC just announce that teen pregnancy rates were going up?” - Find out why recent reports conflict.

10 Most Terrifying Contraceptives

Cracked Magazine is probably not your best source of contraceptive information, but they do have an amusing piece right now, History’s 10 Most Terrifying Contraceptives, including the old crocodile poo technique. Don’t try this at home.

The Onion also has their own twisted take on the news that 25% of young women may be infected with an STI.

Feminists and Attractiveness, and Comprehensive Sex Ed and Teen Pregnancy

There are two new studies out that I want to talk about here, but I want to do them justice and will write more tonight. The first examines women’s perceptions of other women’s attractiveness by the judged woman’s BMI and the rater’s self-identification as a feminist (or lack thereof). The second looks at abstinence-only vs. comprehensive sex ed and initiation of sexual activity and teen pregnancy. Both of these are probably going to fall into the “things we were pretty sure about already” category, but from a quick glance there are some interesting tidbits there that deserve more examination than I can give them at the moment (such as that both feminists and non-feminists rated the “underweight” woman as most attractive). Suffice it to say that they’re being reported as “feminists are less judgy about weight” and “comprehensive sex ed is probably more effective.”

Here are the citations, if you have access and want to get a jump on reading the articles:
-Swami V, Salem N, Furnham A, Tovée MJ. The influence of feminist ascription on judgements of women’s physical attractiveness. Body Image. 2008 Feb 13; [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 18280228
-Kohler PK, Manhart LE, Lafferty WE. Abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education and the initiation of sexual activity and teen pregnancy. J Adolesc Health. 2008 Apr;42(4):344-51. Epub 2008 Jan 31. PMID: 18346659

Shocking: 1 in 4 Teenage Girls Has an STD

A CDC study was released today at the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference that reported that, among 800+ girls ages 14-19 examined in 2003-2004 for chlamydia, HPV, herpes, and trichomonas, nearly 26% had at least one of these sexually transmitted infections. 1 in 4. Seriously. And they didn’t even count HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis… Yikes.

Among those with any STD, 15% had more than one, and nearly 25% had bacterial vaginosis, regardless of reported sexual activity.

Strangely, the rate was 39.5% among those who actually admitted having sex, so a percentage of these girls both had a sexually transmitted infection and denied having had sex. I’m assuming that some were lying, and some simply weren’t counting oral sex and the like.

The full study isn’t available yet, but the abstract is online, as is a related press release. Now, about that abstinence-only sex ed…

On Gardasil Mandates, Vaccination Rates, and Annoying Websites

Newsweek has a current piece asking why Gardasil vaccination rates are less than might have been anticipated. Don’t run off to read the story just yet, though, for two reasons: 1) there’s nothing new in this piece, which reminds us that the shots are expensive, people are afraid it will turn their daughters in sluts, not enough people understand the HPV/cervical cancer connection, and so on; 2) doing so will bombard your ears with an automatically launched video and sound on the unrelated beef recall story.

Dear website managers everywhere: Please don’t force me to listen to and turn off video or audio on your site just because I went there, especially if it’s unrelated to the story I’m reading. I don’t pop into your office and start blathering about things - don’t make your websites do the same to me. I promise, it’s even more irritating than an all-flash homepage. MySpace users, this means you and your profile songs, too.

Meanwhile, the Women’s Bioethics Project blog is talking about whether Gardasil mandates are responsible. The author raises some good points, about long-term effects, the unknowns with regard to cost effectiveness over time, and expected competing vaccines that would allow for more choice. My only comment is that it’s difficult to make such an expensive vaccine accessible without requiring it - many states and counties will provide additional financial assistance when a vaccine is mandated. Counterintuitively, mandating a vaccine (with generous opt out provisions) make actually give many people more choice with regards to the >$300 shot series than not doing so, because it would help make it affordable through county health departments. Of course, this could be circumvented by providing assistance for all vaccines regardless of school entry requirements.

Dear Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey: This is Incredibly Bad PR

Via Junkfood Science, I learned that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, in response to a lawsuit from parents over the insurer’s refusal to cover their children’s anorexia or bulimia, is demanding access to the children’s emails and MySpace and Facebook accounts. According to this news item:

Horizon claims that the children’s online writings, as well as journal and diary entries, could shed light on the causes of the disorders, which determines the insurer’s responsibility for payment. New Jersey law requires coverage of mental illness only if it is biologically based.

 

Horizon claims the eating problems are not biologically based and that the writings could point to emotional causes. It contends that access to the writings is especially important because the court has barred taking the minors’ depositions.

Essentially, the insurer is claiming that the eating disorders are simply an emotional problem, and want to root around in children’s communications to try to demonstrate that nothing is physically wrong - it’s all in their heads. And mental health concerns never have a biological basis, right? That must be why psychiatrists never prescribe drugs to help with mental health. Or not.

I wonder how BCBS plans to separate normal teenage angst from writings demonstrating a direct cause of their eating disorders? Somehow I doubt that’s even possible, because, let’s be frank - if someone dug up all of your teenage missives, would it seem like you were a mature, mentally stable person? Probably not. Also, teens never exaggerate their mental suffering, right? Way to try to humiliate them in the process of trying to get their serious (sometimes fatal) disorders covered so they can have access to treatment. Ugh.

Panel Discussion Tonight on Public School HPV Vaccine Mandates (Nashville, TN)

I’m going to have to pass on this due to the election, but Vanderbilt is hosting a forum discussion of HPV vaccine mandates in public schools tonight from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Flynn Auditorium of the Vanderbilt Law School. The discussion “will focus on the debate over efforts by several states to mandate the inoculation of public school students with Gardasil, which protects against certain types of the human papilloma virus, or HPV.”

According to the release:

The panel is moderated by Josh Perry, adjunct professor of law and assistant professor of medical education and administration at Vanderbilt Medical Center, and features: Dr. Todd Callahan, assistant professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine specialist at Vanderbilt; Jessica Farrar, a Texas state representative who authored legislation to enact an HPV vaccine requirement for Texas girls entering the sixth grade; Linda MacDonald Glenn, a faculty member at the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical Center; Dwayne Hastings, vice president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; and Hedy Weinberg, executive director, American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.

Live streaming video will be available online, and should be archived shortly thereafter for those of us busy doing our civic duty.

Update: The video is now available.