Population & Reproductive Rights

• improved screening for cervical cancer, counseling for sexually transmitted infections, and counseling and screening for HIV;
• a fuller range of contraceptive education, counseling, methods, and services so that women can better avoid unwanted pregnancies and space their pregnancies to promote optimal birth outcomes;
• services for pregnant women including screening for gestational diabetes and lactation counseling and equipment to help women who choose to breastfeed do so successfully;
• at least one well-woman preventive care visit annually for women to receive comprehensive services; and
• screening and counseling for all women and adolescent girls for interpersonal and domestic violence in a culturally sensitive and supportive manner.

Americans United for Life, AUL Special Report: The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood

From the Executive Summary:

From the Washington Independent:

The publication manufactured by AUL rejects scientific evidence, promotes false health claims, and recycles misleading and discredited charges, as well as old issues that have already been addressed. … Simply put, this “so-called” report actually insults the intelligence of anyone who reads it.

[...]

It’s clear that AUL is an ideological organization that will not let facts get in the way of their goal to overturn Roe v. Wade, and undermine women’s ability to go to Planned Parenthood and see the health care provider they trust.

AUL Claim: The 2010 U.S. General Accounting Office report “demonstrates that even the federal government does not know” how much federal funding Planned Parenthood receives (p.8).

PPFA FACT CHECK: “This is a recycled charge about alleged missing money that a 2011 PolitiFact fact check rejected as ‘Pants on Fire’ lie. Planned Parenthood health centers … receive payments from public programs like Medicaid for specific medical visits, treatments, and procedures. Planned Parenthood undergoes routine audits to ensure proper use of public funds.”

AUL Claim: “Planned Parenthood failed to provide the young woman who sought its advice essential information, including the fact that induced abortion increases the risk of miscarriage by 55 percent in subsequent pregnancies, and that there exists a heightened risk of suicide and psychiatric admissions to women s who have had an induced abortion” (p.22).

PPFA FACT CHECK: “This is blatantly false and scientifically inaccurate. A 2008 American Psychiatric Association report found no reliable evidence that abortion is linked to suicide. … A Guttmacher report states, “Several reviews of the available scientific literature affirm that vacuum aspiration—the modern method most commonly used during first-trimester abortions—poses virtually no long-term risks of future fertility-related problems, such as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion or congenital malformation.”

AUL Claim: “Notably, the RU-486 regimen often fails to cause a complete abortion. … [O]ff-label use by Planned Parenthood clinics up to 63 days or beyond is common, despite the increased risk of failure and the increased risks to women’s lives and health” (p.22).

PPFA FACT CHECK: AUL is false in asserting a high failure rate of medication abortion (RU-486). Medication abortions are successful about 97 percent of cases. AUL is also false in asserting that Planned Parenthood’s use of evidence-based protocol is unsafe. … Planned Parenthood’s Medical Standards and Guidelines are evidenced-based and the 63 day protocol was only approved after research was completed and published in the leading peer-reviewed journals.”

AUL Claim: “[A]bortion represented over 97 percent of PPFA’s pregnancy-related services in 2009” (pg. 2).

PPFA FACT CHECK: “This is a recycled charge similar to a misleading claim made by Rep. Jean Schmidt [R-Ohio] that PolitiFact fact checked, and called ‘false.’ They write, ‘(t)he anti-abortion groups came up with the 98 percent figure by comparing the number of abortions to the number of procedures in the other two categories. … But there are problems with that calculation. First, it assumes that pregnant women only go to Planned Parenthood for one of those three options.’”

AUL Claim: “Ectopic pregnancies ‘treated’ with the RU-486 regimen can rupture and kill the woman” (p.22).

PPFA FACT CHECK: “There is no evidence from published research studies to suggest that mifepristone increases the likelihood of rupture in an ectopic preganancy. In fact there are several studies, including aCochrane review of 35 studies, that demonstrate that mifepristone increases the success of standard medical treatment for ectopic pregnancy (methotexate). This would suggest that if mifepristone has any impact on the natural course of an ectopic pregnancy it is positive.”

AUL Claim: “Planned Parenthood boasts of its role in the approval of a new drug, ella, yet provides considerable misinformation about the drug” (p. 24).

PPFA FACT CHECK: “The health information on Planned Parenthood’s website is medically accurate and evidenced-based. … For patients that receive emergency contraception (EC), the information shared during the consent process is as follows: How does EC work? One type of EC (Plan B One-Step, Next Choice) is made of one of the hormones made by a woman’s body — progestin. Another type (ella) blocks the body’s own progestin.  Both types of EC keep a woman’s ovaries from releasing eggs — ovulation. Pregnancy cannot happen if there is no egg to join with sperm.”

AUL Claim: AUL’s website says: “Some drugs classified as ‘contraceptives’ by the FDA, such as Intrauterine Devices (IUDs) and Plan B (the so-called ‘morning after pill’), can kill an embryo by blocking its ability to implant in the uterus. … Thus, if HHS decides to include ‘contraception’ as ‘preventive care,’ all insurance plans will be required to provide coverage of these abortion-inducing drugs.”

PPFA FACT CHECK: “It is scientifically and medically inaccurate to claim that contraceptives such as IUDs and Plan B are ‘abortion-inducing drugs.’ … It is further scientifically and medically inaccurate to claim that blocking implantation is an ‘abortion.’ A World Health Organization letter states, ‘To date, there is no scientific evidence supporting the contention that hormonal contraceptives and IUD prevent implantation of the fertilized.

 

 

• 33% of women stated that their pregnancy was a crisis pregnancy
• The economic down-turn is having a clear impact on reports of crisis pregnancy as almost 50% of the women who experienced a crisis pregnancy stated that financial concerns contributed to the crisis 
• 27% of working women who experienced a crisis pregnancy stated that workplace factors such as ‘work plans’ or ‘work commitments’ or ‘concern about the reaction from employers or co-workers’ to the pregnancy had contributed to the crisis
• There is a strong link between experiences of unfair treatment at work and crisis pregnancy: Women who experienced more than one form of unfair treatment were at an increased risk of experiencing a crisis pregnancy. 

• Up to 30% reported experiencing unfair treatment even though 71%, reported that they had a supportive employer in the context of their pregnancy
• 5% of women employed during pregnancy reported that they were dismissed, made redundant or treated so badly that they had to leave their job. 
• Unfair treatment was more commonly reported by younger women, women expecting their second child, women working in the retail and wholesale sector, women working in organisations with few flexible work arrangements and in workplaces that didn’t have a formal equality policy. - Unfair treatment was less common among women working for small organizations and in workplaces that had a formal equality policy
• The most common form of unfair treatment was being assigned unsuitable work or workloads (12%).
• Unfavourable treatment was also experienced by some women returning to work after childbirth. Almost one quarter felt that their opportunities for promotion had decreased on returning to work while over one fifth of women felt that their opportunities for training had decreased.

From the press release: 

20 JUNE 2011 | GENEVA - The first State of the World's Midwifery report confirms the critical role midwives play in improving maternal and newborn health and survival. It highlights the shortage of skilled midwives in many low-income countries, stressing the need to train and deploy more midwives in all parts of a country - especially remote and rural areas.

The report, commissioned and coordinated by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was launched at the Triennial Congress of the International Confederation of Midwives in Durban, South Africa today.

Every year 358 000 women and 3.6 million newborn babies die due to largely preventable complications during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period. In addition, every year, nearly 3 million babies are stillborn. Most of these deaths occur in low-income countries and happen because women – often poor and marginalized – have no access to functioning health facilities or to qualified health professionals, notably midwives and others with midwifery skills.

The report surveyed 58 countries, which together represent just under 60% of all births worldwide, but 91% of all maternal deaths. Among the 38 countries most desperately in need of midwives, 22 need to double the workforce by 2015; seven need to triple or quadruple it; and nine countries - Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan - need to dramatically scale up midwifery by a factor of between 6 and 15. The report estimates that countries require a minimum of six skilled birth attendants per 1000 births if they are to achieve the aim of 95% coverage.

Increasing women’s access to quality midwifery has become a focus of global efforts to realize the right of every woman to the best possible health care during pregnancy and childbirth. It is also at the heart of three health-related Millennium Development Goals – reduce child death (MDG 4), improve maternal health (MDG 5) and fight AIDS, malaria and other diseases (MDG 6).

From the article:

The general went on to insist that the tests were necessary because "we didn't want (the women) to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove they weren't virgins in the first place."

What are virginity tests? They are a controversial but relatively common practice in Egypt -- so much so that hymenoplasty (hymen restoration) is often sought by Egyptian brides to protect their reputation on their wedding night. But their use as an intimidation factor by security forces seems to be a new twist.

And based on the outrage across Egypt over this abuse, it seems that the military's attempt to intimidate and smear the women protesters has backfired. Human rights groups are demanding a full investigation and several demonstrations are planned in coming days in support of the women.

Egyptian security forces have a long and troubling history of abusing and torturing citizens for political ends. They have engaged in widespread intimidation tactics since the upsurge in political violence and Islamic militancy in the early 1990s, including the detention of women, children, and the elderly. In the last two decades, the practice of arrest and detention without trial has expanded to anyone considered a threat to the military or the former regime of Hosni Mubarak, especially those advocating political reform.

Women suffer special mistreatment. For example, Esraa Abdel Fattah -- better known as the "Facebook Girl" who in 2008 mobilized thousands of young people to march for political change -- was arrested for her leadership role in those protests. Egypt's security forces tried to destroy her reputation by accusing her of being a prostitute, but her Facebook compatriots saw through that ploy and several young men even proposed marriage to her while she was detained.

From Time:

The rate of abortion among American women has dropped overall, but not among the poorest women, according to study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology by the Guttmacher Institute.

From the Los Angeles Times: