Categories
Cardiovascular
Diagnostics
Endocrinology
Health Insurance
Medical Devices
Mental Health
Nutrition
Oncology
Public Health
Sexual Health
Popular Articles

Antiabortion-Rights Groups Push For State-Level Restrictions On Access
The Washington Post on Monday examined how antiabortion-rights advocates are pressing state legislatures to approve measures designed to restrict access to abortion and compel women seeking the procedure to reconsider. The Post reports that the election of President Obama, who supports abortion rights, and the Democratic majority in Congress have made it less likely that there will be new federal restrictions on abortion or an overturning of Roe v. Wade. In response, antiabortion-rights groups have pushed to enact more state-level restrictions, such as parental consent for minors and waiting periods. According to the Post, state legislatures in 2008 considered around 400 measures to restrict abortion. Gretchen Borchelt, senior counsel at the National Women"s Law Center, said, "The states are the battlegrounds and certainly the testing grounds of new kinds of restrictions." She added, "State legislatures can be more creative in what they"re trying to push and see what works."The restrictions -- known as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP laws -- include measures such as requiring a woman to visit a clinic twice at least 24 hours apart before obtaining an abortion, severely limiting public funding for abortion, mandating consent from both parents or a judge"s signature before minors can obtain abortions and requiring that women view ultrasounds before abortion procedures. The ultrasound laws are aimed at making women reconsider the decision to have an abortion, while the waiting period laws "have the added effect of raising the obstacles and the costs," particularly for low-income and working-class women, who are most likely to have unintended pregnancies, the Post reports.Terri Herring, head of Mississippi"s Pro-Life America Network, said, "We tried every which way, and we were successful in the state way." She added, "All-or-nothing means nothing. Incremental means something." Herring"s next goal is enacting a law in Mississippi requiring clinic staffers to report the identities of the sexual partners of minors. The Post reports that Mississippi, which has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, has become a model for antiabortion-rights groups in other states. According to Herring, the "greater goal, even in legislation, is to influence the culture." Felicia Brown-Williams, a Planned Parenthood staffer in Mississippi, said, "We"ve got a glut of bills we fight every year. We spend the first two months in sheer and utter panic that one of these bills is going to get past us" (Slevin, Washington Post, 6/8).
generic viagra online
Program Once Reserved For Alabama Inmates With HIV/AIDS Expanded To All Inmates
The Alabama Department of Corrections has expanded to all inmates a re-entry program that provides newly released inmates with HIV/AIDS "with information on obtaining licenses [and] other documents and preparing for returning to life outside prison," the AP/USA Today/Montgomery Advertiser reports (Hunter, 7/22). "In the past, prisoners at the end of their sentences were sent back into the free world with minimal assistance, not the in-depth services the inmates with HIV and AIDS had received," according to AP/WZTV.com. The expanded Alabama Prison Initiative will allow all inmates to enroll in classes that provide them with "practical tips" and guidance "that will hopefully help keep them from returning," the AP/WZTV.com reports (7/22). AIDS Alabama CEO Kathie Hiers said, "We"ve seen it help so much in the HIV community. They"re smart to take a good program and expand it" (Hunter, 7/22).
News of the day
Oregon Gov. Signs Sex Education Bill; Tenn. Rep. Withdraws Bill To Give Parents Record Access
The following summarizes recent action on reproductive health-related legislation in two states.~ Oregon: Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) on Tuesday signed a measure (H.B. 2509) that requires school districts to provide students in all public elementary and secondary schools with medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education courses, KOHD.com reports. The law stipulates that schools emphasize the best way for students to prevent pregnancy and reduce the spread of sexually transmitted infections is to practice abstinence and that the best approach for adults is to engage in mutually monogamous relationships with partners without STIs. In addition, the law requires that students be given current, statistically based information about the efficacy of all methods of preventing STIs. The measure also requires that sex education courses include instruction on the benefits of delaying pregnancy until after adolescence, as well as information about the characteristics of an emotionally and physically healthy relationship. The law directs schools to provide students with information on state laws related to young people"s rights and responsibilities with regard to childbearing and parenting (KOHD.com, 6/2).~ Tennessee: State Rep. Tony Shipley (R) on Tuesday withdrew from consideration a bill (H.B. 1762) he sponsored that would have given parents full access to their children"s medical records, the AP/Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. Under the measure, physicians would have been required to provide written results of any tests or procedures performed on minors upon request from their parents or guardians. The measure could have jeopardized about $6.5 million in federal family planning funding that is attached to privacy requirements, according to legislative analysts (AP/Chattanooga Times Free Press, 6/2).
Mental Health

Republicans Scold HELP Democrats Over Reform Bill's Price Tag, Government Control

"It was particularly devastating on Wednesday when [Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah]" - a longtime friend of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., - "warned Democrats on the panel that they have already made some grave errors in their effort to write legislation overhauling the health care system," reports the New York Times in The Caucus Blog. "Now unfortunately we are beginning a partisan exercise on perhaps the most important legislation of our lives," Hatch said during a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee yesterday (Herszenhorn, 6/17). Hatch wasn"t the only Republican to offer Democrats rejoinders on health reform. "[J]ust about every other Republican on the committeeò€¦ ripped the bill"s price tag, which exceeds more than $1 trillion because of new subsidies for the poor," the Salt Lake Tribune reports (Canham, 6/17). Also at the HELP Committee"s mark up Wednesday, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said, "This is a greased slide to single-payer. It"s not about the issue of care. It"s not about the issue of coverage. It"s more about the issue of controlò€¦ What it is about really is centralizing control right here amongst folks who think they really know how to run something from a central system," reports the NYT"s Caucus in a separate item. Gregg"s comments earned "the most memorable line of [the] proceedings" form Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who said, "This bill has just been accused of being somehow or another a combination between Rube Goldberg and Karl Marx. However, our current system is a combination of Adam Smith, Darth Vader and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. So I like our plan the better" (Herszenhorn, 6/17). On the House side, Republicans outlined their own plan for health reform and attacked the cost of the Senate Democrat"s proposals, Politico reports (6/17). This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009