Category: Reproductive Rights

Growing Pains

Whether puberty suppression is safe and effective when used for gender dysphoria remains unclear and unsupported by rigorous scientific evidence. This is especially worrying in light of the lack of understanding of the causes of gender dysphoria in children or adults. Conditions like precocious puberty, for instance, have a biological course that is relatively well understood. Hormone interventions that treat that condition are tailored to its causes. In the case of gender dysphoria, however, we simply do not know what causes a child to identify as the opposite sex, so medical interventions, like puberty suppression, cannot directly address it.

Puberty suppression as an intervention for gender dysphoria has been accepted so rapidly by much of the medical community, apparently without scientific scrutiny, that there is reason to be concerned about the welfare of children who are receiving it, as well as reason to question the veracity of some of the claims made to support its use — such as the assertion that it is physiologically and psychologically “reversible.”

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/growing-pains

http://nypost.com/2017/06/20/hormone-therapy-is-a-horrible-risk-for-kids/

Greens call on State Government to expand Wollongong Midwifery Service

“There is a real and systemic underfunding of women’s health and birthing services throughout NSW. From Murwillumbah to Tamworth and the Blue Mountains, these sort of maternity care models are being undermined and attempted to be closed down by this out-of-touch Liberal-National State Government, despite the popularity of these programs from pregnant women and their families.

http://www.dawnwalker.org.au/greens_call_on_state_government_to_allocate_funds_to_expand_wollongong_midwifery_service

Mission impossible? Managing the 10-week school holiday gap with a busy career –

For most working parents with the average 4 weeks of annual leave, there is a significant shortfall in time available to care for the kids during the holidays. It’s often referred to as ‘juggling work and caring responsibilities’; but a more accurate description is mission impossible.

And it’s a mission impossible that sees many chose (or feel forced) to instead drop out of the workforce.

Many families rely on school care and vacation care arrangements to plug the gap of 10-15 weeks of school holidays with only 4 weeks leave.

Children over the age of 12 are not eligible for these care arrangements. At age 12 (usually around Year 7 and older) many are unsupervised either at home or elsewhere, according to 2012 data from the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/mission-impossible-managing-10-week-school-holiday-gap-busy-career/

El Salvador teen rape victim sentenced to 30 years in prison after stillbirth

A teenage rape victim in El Salvador has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder after having a stillbirth, the latest in a long line of failures of justice against pregnant women in the Central American country.

Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, 19, from a small rural community in Cuscatlán, eastern El Salvador, was convicted on the grounds that failing to seek antenatal care amounted to murder.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/06/el-salvador-teen-rape-victim-sentenced-30-years-prison-stillbirth?

Without the basics, Indigenous girls still can’t participate in society

Reports earlier this week that Aboriginal girls from remote communities had been missing school during their periods came as little surprise to me.

On reading these reports, I saw a number of charitable organisations devoted to the provision of menstrual products to those in need step up and encourage people to donate so these girls had supplies available for them to access. The work such organisations do with homeless women, low socioeconomic status women and Indigenous communities in need is to be commended. Yet in my opinion, the very fact that we have to rely on the work of charities to provide pads and tampons in the first place is incredibly troubling.

Around half the population will undergo the normal, natural process of menstruation throughout the course of their lives. It’s bad enough that there are corporations getting rich off that fact while producing ads about blue liquid. It’s even worse that the government sees fit to continue having a tax on these items, treating them as luxuries rather than necessities and effectively financially penalising those who dare to bleed. Yet combine capitalist gain and government greed with service provision in remote areas: suddenly women and girls are expected to pay $10 per packet for the privilege of menstruating.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/05/without-the-basics-indigenous-girls-still-cant-participate-in-society?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/03/indigenous-girls-in-remote-areas-skip-school-because-they-lack-pads-and-tampons

Missouri Women Using Birth Control Could Be Denied Employment

Missouri’s Senate is considering legislation that would allow employers and landlords to discriminate against women who use birth control or have had abortions. The bill, which has the support of the state’s governor, Eric Greitens, was approved by the Missouri House Tuesday.

This would mean that landlords could refuse to offer housing to women based on their reproductive health choices, while employers could fire female staff members who were using birth control, or refuse to hire them. And while of course this isn’t information most landlords or employers have access to, under SB 5 they could ask women what forms of reproductive health care they are using.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/missouri-women-using-birth-control-denied-employment/?

Varadkar announces abortion referendum for next year

Health Minister Simon Harris would be responsible for bringing forward legislation to allow for the referendum on the eight amendment, which gives an equal right to life to the mother and the unborn.

On Tuesday, The United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled for the second time that Ireland’s abortion laws currently violate women’s human rights.

The ruling came after an Irish woman, Siobhán Whelan, was denied access to abortion services in Ireland following a diagnosis, in 2010 of a fatal foetal impairment.

The Committee said that Ireland must provide Ms. Whelan with reparations for the harm she suffered and reform its laws to ensure other women do not continue to face similar violations.

http://www.newstalk.com/Varadkar-announces-abortion-referendum-for-next-year–
[category: global, reproductive rights]

American Economic Association – Why do mother’s earn less?

Mothers tend to work fewer hours and earn less than women without children.

It’s called the “motherhood penalty,” and while economists are well-aware of the phenomenon, they have struggled to understand why it exists.

University of Amsterdam professor Erik Plug explores the motherhood penalty in a paper that appears in this month’s issue of the American Economic Review.

(ed: No idea why they should struggle with perceiving the obvious.)

https://www.aeaweb.org/research/why-do-mothers-earn-less

The Abortion Battlefield

The Trump administration has made it clear that it, along with the Republican Congress, will do everything possible to bring an end to abortion. Consider the omens: one of Trump’s first executive orders was to stop funding for overseas medical facilities that even mention abortion as an option. His attorney general, Jeff Sessions, referred to Roe v. Wade as “one of the worst, colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time.” The new Congress is poised to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of reproductive health care services in the United States—which includes cancer screening and contraception as well as abortions. As governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence signed one of the most restrictive of the state abortion laws. “I long for the day,” he has said, “that Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history.” If Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s addition to the Supreme Court, is in agreement, which is likely, Roe v. Wade could be overturned or further eroded if a relevant case comes before the Court.

In the past half-century, women have made giant strides toward equality, and there is no question that a major reason is the availability of reliable contraception and safe and legal abortions. Women now earn more undergraduate and graduate degrees than men and are closing the income gap (from 58 cents to a man’s dollar in 1968 to 78 cents in 2013). But they have not reached parity, and there is still a glass ceiling. Moreover, further progress is not inevitable, and change does not move in only one direction. We can go backward as well as forward—something Iranian women experienced in 1979, and Afghan women in the 1990s. It will take awareness of the fragility of progress, as well as political action, to stop the Trump administration from turning back the clock.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/22/the-abortion-battlefield
[category: global, reproductive rights]

Ending the Stigma and Prosecution of Self-Administered Abortions (US)

In just the first three months of this year, 431 abortion restrictions were introduced at the state level. Plus, 2017 has seen the confirmation of anti-choice Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, and the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule (an international policy that prohibits nongovernmental organizations across the globe that receive US family planning funds from advocating for or even discussing abortion). Add in the 338 state-level restrictions passed between 2010-2016, and it is increasingly clear that abortion access– at least in the short term — is slipping away in this country.

While few states explicitly ban individuals from ending their pregnancies at home without direct supervision by state-sanctioned physicians, there are 38 states that are attempting to frame abortions performed without a licensed physician as an unlawful practice of medicine. However, under Roe v. Wade such attempts are actually unconstitutional, according to multiple legal experts with whom I spoke.

“For those who’ve studied the impact of laws intended to restrict abortion and seen the impact on already marginalized communities, it will come as no surprise that laws and prosecutions that criminalize self-induced abortion have been disproportionately used against poor, immigrant, or young women and women of color,” said Diaz-Tello.