Will court enforce rules about RU-486?

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

An Ohio law dealing with the abortion drug RU-486 will see even more court action. The law simply requires abortion facilities administering the drug to do so according to federal guidelines, rather misusing it. An abortion business filed a lawsuit in 2004, saying the statute was ambiguous. The case has been in the courts since then, but Mark Lally of Ohio Right to Life tells OneNewsNow the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=651832

Iran’s plummeting birth rates

Michael Cook

Despite its fundamentalist Islamic reputation Iran has experimented with birth control with some unexpected, and unwelcome, consequences. If demography is destiny, the family of Farzaneh Roudi is a snapshot of Iran’s past, present and future. A program director at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC, Ms Roudi was born in Iran. Her grandmother had 11 children, her father had 6 and she has 2.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/irans_plummeting_birth_rates/

China’s abortion surge blamed on young, single women

Carolyn Moynihan

A report in the official Chinese newspaper China Daily reveals some shocking figures on abortion in that country: 13 million surgical abortions a year performed in hospitals, 10 million abortion pills sold every year, and unknown number of abortions done in unregistered rural hospitals. “Family planning” statistics are usually considered state secrets, so why this sudden revelation?
Apparently, nobody knows, but the original report -- picked up by media around the world -- highlighted the information that nearly two thirds of the hospital abortions were done on single women aged between 20 and 29. A government official quoted in the report said nearly half of those having abortions reported using no contraception when they conceived. A sex therapist blamed it all on a lack of sex education (and doesn’t that sound familiar?).

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/chinas_abortion_surge_blamed_on_young_single_women/

Court: Conscientious pharmacists must sell 'Plan B'

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against pharmacists exercising their conscience. The lawsuit was filed to block the state of Washington from enforcing a law requiring pharmacists to dispense medication in violation of their religious beliefs. That is especially related to Plan B, otherwise known as the "morning-after" pill -- which some medical professionals believe induces abortion. Brad Dacus heads the Pacific Justice Institute.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=597878

£6m drive to cut teen pregnancies sees them DOUBLE

By Daniel Martin

A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving. The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex. But research funded by the Department of Health shows that young women who attended the programme, at a cost of £2,500 each, were 'significantly' more likely to become pregnant than those on other youth programmes who were not given contraception and sex advice. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198228/6m-drive-cut-teen-pregnancies-sees-DOUBLE.html

Christian legal group battles FDA over 'morning after' pill

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -
The Alliance Defense Fund is seeking permission to intervene in a court decision ordering the Food and Drug Administration to sell the "Plan B" pill to minors. The Plan B pill, otherwise known as the "morning-after pill," is a very strong dose the same hormones used in oral contraceptive pills. Some doctors believe it could cause an abortion to an expectant mother. Matt Bowman is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=589130

Nancy Pelosi's New Ideology: Condom-ism

BY Jennifer Roback Morse Ph.D.

Barack Obama promised us “change we can believe in.” He promised to move beyond all the tired ideologies and culture wars of the past. How strange then, that on his watch, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi should propose the implementation of one of the most outdated and laughable ideologies of all. I call that ideology “condom-ism.”

Condomists believe we could put an end to all the world’s problems, poverty, global warming and human misery — if only we had enough condoms. If only the condomists had enough money and power, if only its Neanderthal opponents would surrender their squeamishness, condom-ism could usher in a new heaven on earth.

Nancy Pelosi added a new link to this chain of human salvation: Condoms will stimulate the economy, increase consumer spending, solve the subprime mortgage crisis, and Get Americans Working Again. I’m not sure exactly which parts of the economy will be stimulated by a fresh supply of Trojans, but she assured us in all seriousness that new spending for “family planning” belongs in the economic stimulus package.

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/18325/

Abstinence ed 'outperforms' comprehensive sex ed

Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow -

According to a research analyst, comprehensive sex education does not outperform abstinence education. Irene Ericksen of the Institute for Research and Evaluation says that media reports continually claim that abstinence education is a failure and that comprehensive sex ed is the only way to reduce teen pregnancies and promote safe-sex practices. She adds that they continually site a federal study that is riddled with myths and did not find abstinence education effective.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=533758

Obama would ax abstinence-only funding

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow -

If Congress approves President Obama's budget requests, there will be no more federal funding of abstinence-only education programs. Barack Obama has recommended completely zeroing out Title V abstinence programs to states, as well as abstinence education programs to community-based organizations (CBAE) and replacing them with more than $100 million for contraceptive-based sex-education programs. The massive omnibus bill signed by the president had already reduced funding to abstinence programs by $14 million.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=522676

The Racist Origins of U.S. Family-Planning Policy

by Daniel Patrick Moloney
May 05, 2009

The senators who originally designed our family planning policies believed that the mostly black welfare population was incurably lazy, promiscuous, intellectually substandard, and a burden on public schools, and, moreover, that they probably would remain so indefinitely. Birth control, therefore, was in their eyes a way to reduce the number of these undesirable people. This article is the second installment in a three-part series.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2009.05.05.001.pdart

Forcing the Poor to Stop Having Children

by Daniel Patrick Moloney

“Family planning services reduce costs.” That’s what Speaker Nancy Pelosi told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week. She was defending a provision in the original stimulus bill that would have spent hundreds of millions of dollars for birth control. Republicans had criticized this provision, and so the Speaker responded that promoting contraception among poor people would both stimulate the economy and save the government money on welfare payments.

As the video clip shot around the web, public reaction was intense, and overwhelmingly negative—how could anybody think that preventing poor people from being born was the moral way to help poor people out of poverty? It had the air of eugenics about it, as if she were saying that one generation of poor people is enough. Even the liberal partisan Chris Matthews thought Pelosi’s position resembled China’s one-child policy. In response to the backlash, the President told Pelosi to remove the contraception funding from the stimulus bill.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2009.05.01.002.pdart

Forcing the Poor to Stop Having Children

by Daniel Patrick Moloney

“Family planning services reduce costs.” That’s what Speaker Nancy Pelosi told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week. She was defending a provision in the original stimulus bill that would have spent hundreds of millions of dollars for birth control. Republicans had criticized this provision, and so the Speaker responded that promoting contraception among poor people would both stimulate the economy and save the government money on welfare payments.

As the video clip shot around the web, public reaction was intense, and overwhelmingly negative—how could anybody think that preventing poor people from being born was the moral way to help poor people out of poverty? It had the air of eugenics about it, as if she were saying that one generation of poor people is enough. Even the liberal partisan Chris Matthews thought Pelosi’s position resembled China’s one-child policy. In response to the backlash, the President told Pelosi to remove the contraception funding from the stimulus bill.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2009.05.01.002.pdart

US targets population growth, urges women's power

EDITH M. LEDERER

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The new U.S. ambassador for global women's issues pledged Thursday the Obama administration's "deep commitment" to a U.N. blueprint aimed at slowing the world's population explosion and empowering women.
At the heart of the action plan adopted at a U.N. population conference in Cairo 15 years ago is a demand for women's equality through education, economic development, access to modern birth control and the right to choose if and when to become pregnant.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_EMPOWERING_WOMEN?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

Plan B - over the counter and off the deep end

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

Parents should be furious that a federal agency is putting their minor daughters at great health risk. That's one reaction to a recent ruling on the "morning-after" pill. The "morning-after" pill is to be sold, without prescription, to minors as young as 17. The Food and Drug Administration issued the order after one New York federal judge ruled along the same line. Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, is livid.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=501516

Harvard Aids expert supports Pope's stance on contraception

by Anne Thomas

A leading Aids expert from Harvard University has come out in support of comments made by the Pope Benedict XVI suggesting that the distribution of contraception actually spreads rather than prevents Aids.
Edward C Green, the director of the Aids Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, said that research into the spread of AIDS actually supports the position of the Catholic Church and the Pope.

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/harvard.aids.expert.supports.popes.stance.on.contraception/22827.htm

The Politics of Condoms

When it comes to AIDS prevention, science stoops to narrow ideology

By CHRISTOPHER B. LACARIA

“The Pope may be right,” suggested Dr. Edward C. Green to The Harvard Crimson, “The marketing and distribution of condoms won’t solve the problem. Partner fidelity has a much better chance.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=527691

Bleak stories behind failed condom campaigns

Chinwuba Iyizoba

Before blanketing the continent with condoms to stop AIDS, why don't you live in rural Africa for a while?

Sub-Saharan Africa has two-thirds of the world’s HIV/AIDS cases. So you would think that Western journalists and politicians might condescend to ask us what we think about how to fight AIDS. But they haven’t. A pity, because they would have found that many of us support Pope Benedict XVI’s scepticism about the effectiveness of distributing condoms.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/bleak_stories_behind_failed_condom_campaigns/

Condom distribution at church - UCC likes the idea

Allie Martin - OneNewsNow

The Institute on Religion & Democracy is blasting the religious denomination of President Barack Obama for its recent stance on condom distribution inside houses of worship. Recently, the HIV and AIDS Network of the United Church of Christ (UCC) said condoms should be handed out at places of worship. The statement was issued during a presentation to the denomination's Wider Church Ministries Board and also advocated making condoms available at faith-based educational settings.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=468294

'Plan B for girls' court decision hailed as triumph of science over politics

Carolyn Moynihan

With new bosses about to take over at the US Food and Drug Administration, a New York judge has ordered the federal drug regulator to make the morning after pill available to 17-year-olds and to review whether to make the emergency contraceptive available to all ages without a doctor’s order. Judge Edward R Korman’s 52-page decision is the outcome of a lawsuit by the Centre for Reproductive Rights against the FDA’s 2006 decision to deny girls younger than 18 access to the Plan B pill without a prescription.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/plan_b_for_girls_court_decision_hailed_as_triumph_of_science_over_politics/

Parents' rights paramount in Calif. school district

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow

One school district in California has bucked the trend and opted to protect parental rights. The board of trustees of the Vista Unified School District voted unanimously to require that pupils obtain parental permission before leaving campus for "confidential medical services" -- including birth control and abortions.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=459736

Plan B ruling 'puts politics above women's health'

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

A judge has ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make the controversial Plan B "morning-after" pill available to 17-year-olds without a prescription.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=463218

Pill linked with low-weight and premature babies

by Carolyn Moynihan

Women who get pregnant within a few weeks of taking birth control pills seem much more likely to have low-weight or premature babies, a new Canadian study indicates. The study does not definitively prove a cause and effect relationship and needs to be confirmed by more research, says lead investigator Xi-Kuan Chen, an epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa. However, babies with low birth weight or who are born prematurely are a growing problem and the cause is not always clear.

The researchers used comprehensive Canadian databases to distinguish three groups of women using oral contraceptives: those who had taken them within 30 days, 31-60 days, and 61-90 days of their last period before getting pregnant -- 1500 in all. They were compared to 6100 women who had not used birth control pills for at least a year before they gave birth.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/pill_linked_with_low_weight_and_premature_babies/#comments

Brazil: soap opera sociology as birth control

by Carolyn Moynihan

Why would an aid agency be interested in television soap operas? Because the agencies like to see the population growth of developing countries slowing down, and because soap operas in one developing country seem to be linked with lower fertility.

In Brazil, where population growth is down to 1.1 per cent, about 40 million people watch the mid-evening telenovela from Globo, the leading television network. The action often takes place in Rio de Janiero, where Globo is based, among families which are smaller, whiter and richer than average. The scriptwriters have, let's say, an agenda. "Their plots often tilt in a progressive direction: AIDS is discussed, condoms are promoted and social mobility is exemplified," reports The Economist.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/brazil_soap_opera_sociology_as_birth_control/#comments

Contraception: Why Not?

Janet Smith explains why the Catholic Church keeps insisting, in the face of the opposite position held by most of the rest of the modern world, that contraception is one of the worst inventions of our time.

My topic for tonight is the Church's teaching on contraception and various sexual issues. As you know, we live in a culture that thinks that contraception is one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind. If you were to ask people if they wanted to give up their car or their computer or their contraceptive, it would be a hard choice to make. It's really considered to be something that has really put us, greatly, into the modern age and one of the greatest advances of modern medicine and modern times. Yet, there's this archaic church that tells us that, really, this is one of the worst inventions of mankind. According to the Church, contraception is one of the things that's plunging us into a kind of a disaster.

So we have this great polarization: a world that thinks contraception is one of the greatest inventions of our time and the Catholic Church that says it's one of the worst. I am going to try to help people see tonight why the Church's teaching certainly deserves serious consideration.

http://catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

FDA cracks down on pill’s lifestyle claims

Carolyn Moynihan

To some of us it may seem that the contraceptive pill has always promised too much. It’s chief claim, “99 per cent effective in preventing pregnancy when taken as directed”, depends on reading all the fine print, knowing all your contra-indications and never missing a day. But how many women do all that? Even granted that it prevents pregnancy, many women have been disillusioned by side effects ranging from weight gain to cancer risks, and have given up taking the pill.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/fda_cracks_down_on_pills_lifestyle_claims/

University Uses God to Promote Condoms

by Marcia Segelstein

As part of its “Sexual Responsibility Week,” the University of Georgia recently placed posters in dormitories depicting a scene from the famous Michaelangelo painting on the Sistene Chapel ceiling, but with an added twist. The poster shows a close-up of the hand of God reaching out to Adam’s hand – with a packaged condom in between – as though God is handing it to Adam. The accompanying message urges students to open condom packages carefully.

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Pill has brought ‘demographic catastrophe’ says Austrian inventor

by Carolyn Moynihan

One of the inventors of the contraceptive pill spoiled the holiday season for some diehard birth-controllers by publicly ruminating on the harm the Pill has done to Europe -- if not the rest of the world. The 85-year-old Carl Djerassi wrote a commentary in the Austrian paper, Der Standard, outlining the “horror scenario” of plunging birth rates the pill had helped to create.

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US 'baby bust' may come without govt. funding

by Carolyn Moynihan

Another thing Nancy Pelosi should have thought of before trying to justify $200 million for birth control in the stimulus package: during the Great Depression of the 1930s the birth rate in the US fell to an unprecedented low of 2.1 children per woman, without the contraceptive pill or government intervention. During the inflationary “oil shock” of the 1970s, it fell again to 1.7 -- this time, no doubt, with the help of the Pill, but with how much government funding?

Since people seem likely to postpone births anyway during this recession, putting hundreds of millions of dollars at the disposal of Planned Parenthood could make the birthrate sink dangerously low. The Population Reference Bureau -- a population control organisation -- thinks there could be a “baby bust”, but we won’t know until early 2010, “when the recession will probably already be over.”

However, the problems from such a “bust” might only be beginning. ~ PRB, January 2009

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/us_baby_bust_may_come_without_govt_funding/

Excuse me, Madam Speaker

by Jennifer Roback Morse

If Nancy Pelosi wants to save the American economy some money she needs to stop investing in irresponsible sex.

Nancy Pelosi made “stupid” history this week by her claim that “family planning” funds will stimulate the economy. Her argument, if you can dignify it with that term, is that reducing unwanted pregnancies will reduce the burden on taxpayers. But she doesn’t ask herself whether more contraception is really the answer to “unwanted” pregnancies.

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Stimulus still funds anti-family programs

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown- OneNewsNow - 1/29/2009

A multi-million dollar proposal for contraception and abortion has been removed from the huge economic stimulus bill. But the bill still contains funding for controversial projects.

Earlier this week Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) vehemently defended the idea of spending millions of dollars on birth control and abortion as part of the economic stimulus package. "Contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government," she stated on ABC. But after pro-life advocates -- including several in Congress -- cast a spotlight on that portion of the package, it was removed. The U.S. House passed the stimulus package on Wednesday and has now passed it on to the Senate.

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Use of condoms misreported by young people

By Carolyn Moynihan

Here’s something to be taken into account when claims and counter-claims are being made about the relative importance of abstinence and contraceptive use in the ups and downs of teenage pregnancy and STIs. A study by Eve Rose of Emory University and colleagues conducted among 715 black women and girls ages 15 to 21, who were enrolled in an HIV prevention programme, showed that one third (34 per cent) of those reporting condom use every time they had sex had physical evidence (Y chromosome DNA in vaginal fluid) to the contrary.

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Calling population control

Amongst the 1800 workers at a New Delhi call centre taking calls for US retail and technology companies are 17 graduates handling enquiries on birth control. Placed there to make their "socially sensitive work" invisible, the mainly female workers are paid by India's National Population Stabilisation Fund - a name that needs no further explanation. The Washington Post gives a run-down on India's 1 billion-plus population, quoting officials who say it will take some Indian states 18 to 45 years to achieve the stabilising fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman. As a matter of fact some states must be below replacement already, as the national fertility rate is already down to 2.76.

The National Population Stabilisation Fund's executive director speaks of "empowering" callers with answers to their queries about contraception and related issues, but power to the people is clearly not the main motive of this -- and other -- population control strategies. And the effects can be drastic: badly-skewed sex ratios in favour of males in some states are largely the result of ultrasound scanning and abortion.

Many calls are made by cellphone and are said to be from areas outside big cities where there are few "health-care and social workers". When the centre opened in June 2008 it received almost 800 calls a day, but slowly the number declined to 250 a day. Staff blame this on the service not being toll-free. If it were free, says one agent, the calls could go up to 1000 a day. ~ Washington Post, Jan 5

ACLU: No contraception? No federal dollars...

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 1/14/2009

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to prevent the use of federal funds for religious and pro-life organizations that help victims of sexual trafficking.

According to an ACLU news release, the lawsuit was filed to ensure that groups or ministries who help victims of human and sex trafficking can provide a so-called "full range of needed services," including birth-control pills and other forms of contraception, the "morning-after pill," and abortion.

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Pill inventor slams ... pill

Eighty five year old Carl Djerassi the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill now says that his co-creation has led to a "demographic catastrophe."

In an article published by the Vatican this week, the head of the world's Catholic doctors broadened the attack on the pill, claiming it had also brought "devastating ecological effects" by releasing into the environment "tonnes of hormones" that had impaired male fertility, The Taiwan Times says.

The assault began with a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard by Carl Djerassi. The Austrian chemist was one of three whose formulation of the synthetic progestogen Norethisterone marked a key step toward the earliest oral contraceptive pill.

Read the rest of this article here.