What We're Reading - July 26
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Good morning, everyone! Here’s what we’re reading this morning…
Great new from North Carolina! “Planned Parenthood wins federal funds to replace money cut by GOP-led legislature”—“DURHAM -- One of the battles won by the conservatives who took over the state legislature this session was stripping Planned Parenthood of its funding. But it is turning out to be a short-lived victory. The women’s health organization has successfully applied for federal funds and will soon receive more than three times the amount Republican lawmakers had withheld. ‘We’ve weathered these increasing attacks on women’s health care access the past couple of years,’ Paige Johnson, vice president of external and governmental affairs for Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, said Tuesday. ‘Now we’re able to do more for our patients.’ The GOP strategy to defund Planned Parenthood would be considered more symbolic – by law, federal money can’t be used for abortions – than substantial if it wasn’t for its direct impact on the women’s health clinic in Durham. The amount legislators cut, $125,000, was a sliver of the $20.2 billion state budget, but losing it meant that Planned Parenthood’s clinic in North Durham would have to close. That clinic doesn’t handle abortions; it provides contraceptives, pap smears and breast exams and does testing for diabetes, high cholesterol and sexually transmitted diseases.”
In the last year, Arizona has faced a number of restrictions and attacks on women’s health and rights. “Arizona’s Ban At 20 Weeks Shows Country’s Shift On Abortion Law” — “In less than a decade, Arizona has gone from a state that abortion-rights groups viewed as friendly to one that’s hailed by abortion foes as a national model in their fight to protect the unborn. The shift is emblematic of the nation’s, as lawmakers push to diminish access to the procedure and target those who provide it. The state has become a laboratory for Republican priorities, on issues from gun rights to immigration to Medicaid, since Jan Brewer replaced Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who resigned to become the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security in 2009. ‘This is a really hard place for women of reproductive age,’ said Bryan Howard, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood Arizona. ‘We are seeing a much more aggressive agenda.’ States passed a record 92 abortion-restricting measures last year, more than double the previous record set in 2005, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights New York-based compiler of reproductive health data. Republicans winning a majority of governorships and making gains in statehouses in the 2010 elections have enabled that progress, said Denise Burke, vice president of legal affairs at Washington-based Americans United for Life, a group that opposes abortion. Last year it included Arizona on its list of ‘most improved’ states.”
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a new report with a surprising number of unplanned childbirths. “Why Are So Many Births Unplanned?” — “Speaking of how women end up being single mothers, the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has released a new report detailing the surprisingly complex realities of planned and unplanned childbirth. Unplanned births hit a low in the mid-'90s but have been creeping up again and now constitute 37 percent of births. Cohabitating women, who are more likely to have unplanned births than married women, have become a bigger chunk of the overall birth rate, shifting from 14 percent of births in 2002 to 23 percent in the 2006-2010 report. With contraception's universal popularity (99 percent of women who've ever had sexual intercourse have used it) and the option of abortion (43 percent of unintended pregnancies end in abortion), one does have to wonder why women keep having so many ’oops’ babies. Turns out that the situation is complicated, defying the easy ‘women are stupid’ or ‘women aren't careful’ rationales that have traditionally been so popular…”
