A giant pack of birth control called Pillamina can now be found flowing, er, following behind Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and recently showed up at events in Ohio and New Hampshire. Planned Parenthood Action Fund, creator of the costume, hopes the massive pills will draw attention to Romney’s opposition towards President Obama’s birth control coverage mandate in health care reform. After two Democratic, female state reps in Michigan were banned from speaking for saying the words “vagina,” Pillamina decided to pop her way over to Troy, Michigan. Keep on fighting the good fight, Pillamina! [The Hill] [Image via Flickr]
Tag Archives: contraception
OK Doctor Refuses To Provide Emergency Contraception To Rape Victim In ER
- An Oklahoma doctor working in an emergency room refused to provide emergency contraception to a 24-year-old rape victim because EC is against her personal beliefs. (Yes, the doctor was a woman.) According to the rape victim’s mother Rhonda, the doctor said, “I will not give you emergency contraceptives because it goes against my beliefs.” And guess what! It is perfectly legal for this doctor to do this in the state of Oklahoma because it has a so-called “conscience clause.” This poor rape victim and her mom had to travel to another hospital to get EC and prevent an unwanted pregnancy from rape. This is embarrassing, Oklahoma. [Think Progress]
- Washington state’s same-sex marriage law will be voted on in a November referendum, after opponents of marriage equality have gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballet. In the meantime, the measure to allow civil marriage will sit in limbo. [USA Today] Keep reading »
WTF Chart: Men Overwhelmingly Quoted In Media About Women’s Rights, Abortion & Birth Control
This is a chart made by the media watchdog group 4thEstate.net about the numbers of women and men quoted in the media in print and on TV on women’s issues. As you can read about in more detail on 4th Estate’s site, regardless of the publication or show, men’s voices still over-represent even when the issue being discussed is women’s rights, abortion, birth control or attacks on Planned Parenthood.
The chart itself requires little explanation. The questions it arises? Those are endless. [4thEstate.net]
Catholic Orgs File Massive Organized Lawsuits Against Obama Administration Over Birth Control
- Earlier today, 43 Catholic dioceses, schools and other institutions filed lawsuits in 12 federal courts over birth control coverage in President Obama’s plans for health care reform. The Obama administration has long touted its compromise that contraception coverage will be provided free by health care insurers if the employer refused to cover it; however, the people filing the lawsuit claim their religious liberty is under attack. Additionally, two Catholic universities recently dropped their student health plans entirely rather than deal with the compromise. [New York Times]
- North Carolina pastor Charles L. Worley was videotaped saying that lesbians and gays should be put behind an electrocuted fence and left to die off. “Build a great, big, large fence — 150- or 100-mile long — put all the lesbians in there,” he said. “Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out … and you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out … do you know why? They can’t reproduce!” How grossly inhumane. [Huffington Post] Keep reading »
Today’s Lady News: Catholic College Drops Entire Student Health Plan Rather Than Cover Birth Control
- A Catholic college in Ohio will drop its entire student health insurance plan beginning in the fall 2012 semester rather than cover birth control under its policy. Franciscan University would have been required to do so under Obama’s health care reform, given how the school is not a religious institution (i.e. it employs many non-religious “civilians”). It is not clear why the school didn’t opt for the compromise proposed by the government, which was to have the insurers pick up the tab if the employer wouldn’t. What a shame that the university would do this to their students. [Huffington Post]
- This week marks the official beginning of women soldiers integrating into nine previously all-male units in the Army, which will open up 14,000 jobs. The policy change will eventually go Army-wide. [TIME, Boston.com]
- Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed into law a bill that allows a pharmacist to refuse to dispense a medication that he or she believes would terminate a life, like the morning-after pill. [Kansas City Star] Keep reading »
Today’s Lady News: More Than Half Of Young Adults Misinformed About Birth Control
- Here’s a depressing statistic: 60 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds may not understand how to properly use birth control to prevent pregnancy, according to a new study of 1,800 young adults by the Guttmacher Institute. Shocker of shocks, abstinence-only sex education — which refuses to teach children how contraception works — is being fingered as a prime reason for the misunderstanding. [International Business Times]
- Tennessee’s governor signed into law on Friday a bill that bans teaching students about “gateway sexual behavior,” which includes everything from outercourse to hand-holding and hugging. The bill requires sex ed instructors to teach only abstinence and fines teachers $500 for each violation. Clearly this entire state did not read that Guttmacher study. [Feminist.org]
- Arizona Governor Jan Brew signed into law on Friday a bill that allows any employer that identifies as “religiously affiliated” to refuse to cover birth control in the company’s health insurance plan. Thankfully, an even crazier original version of the bill was changed. [Feminist.org] Keep reading »
Slutty, Slutty Girl Scouts To Be Investigated By Bishops
Girl Scouts Attacked
Indiana lawmaker accused the Girl Scouts of promoting homosexuality. Read More »
Those little tramps are at it again. The nefarious-cookie sellers are trying to pull a fast one on us! The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has launched an official inquiry on the Girl Scouts out of concern that scouting materials contain links to other groups like Oxfam, the Sierra Club, and Doctors Without Borders, which support family planning and contraception. Apparently the connection here is that some Girl Scout troops are held in Catholic churches. Mind you, Oxfam works to end world poverty, the Sierra Club is an environmental organization, and Doctors Without Borders supports medical professionals in conflict zones. Nevertheless, those tenuous links to the Girl Scouts are “problematic,” say the bishops.
Sigh. Can’t we just leave the poor Girl Scouts alone already? [New York Times] Keep reading »
Today’s Lady News: More Teens Using “Highly Effective” Birth Control
- Recently we lamented that teen girls are just not getting pregnant like they used to. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has one theory as to why: more teens are using “highly effective” contraception, such as the Pill or the patch, when they have sex. [New York Times]
- Over one-third of OBGYNs who work for religiously-affiliated hospitals say they have had a conflict with their employer over providing patient care that did not gel with the institution’s religious tenets — such as contraception and sterilization. Of OBGYN’s working at Catholic hospitals, half of them reported a conflict. [Baltimore Sun]
- American University’s outgoing Student Body President came out as transgender in an op-ed in the student newspaper, in which she asked to be called by her chosen name Sarah and female pronouns (she/her). [Human Rights Campaign, American University's The Eagle] Keep reading »
Elizabeth Banks Thanks Birth Control Pills For Her Son
Birth Control Victory
Birth control will be covered by most employers under health care reform. Read More »
Just over a year ago, my son Felix was born via gestational surrogacy. He came out of me nine months early and because of my broken belly, his babycake was baked in a wonderful angel’s oven and now — I can’t believe it — he’s a year old and walking. He has expanded my capacity for joy a thousand-fold. Keep reading »
Girl Talk: I Was An Unplanned Pregnancy
I was born out of wedlock in Minnesota, to a white mother and an Afghan (not the blanket, the country) father. It was considered pretty scandalous for my mom to be a single mother with a brown baby back in 1979 in Minnesota.
My mother had been with my father off and on for nearly seven years before I came along. Just before my conception, Mom had “escaped” down to South Carolina to stay with her sister after my father informed her that he was already in an arranged marriage with his 15-year-old cousin, who would be arriving soon from Afghanistan. My father’s family had arranged the marriage before relocating to the Unites States; apparently, they felt the need to bring tradition — the child bride tradition—along with them.
You can’t blame my father for wanting my mom for the time that he did, though, as his intended wife was a nine-year-old in Kabul when he met my mom at a Twin Cities bar in 1973, coincidentally the year Roe v. Wade was decided. Still, just before his teen wife was to arrive, my father drove all the way from Minnesota to South Carolina to conceive me in the back seat of his Camaro. Keep reading »
