Last week, Raising Women’s Voices and Women of Color United for Health Reform delivered a letter [PDF] to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and several committee chairs on health care reform. The letter — signed by Our Bodies Ourselves and many other supporting organizations — thanks these leaders for their support of healthcare reform and provides recommendations related to women’s health for inclusion in the final legislation.

The signing organizations believe that the final legislation must not add new barriers or burdens to women’s access to abortion coverage and should eliminate the controversial Nelson/Stupak amendments. Instead, they argue, the legislation should return to the Capps amendment [PDF], which “preserves the ban on use of federal funds for abortion coverage, but does not exclude abortion from private insurance policies for which women will be using their own funds.” (See the Planned Parenthood Action Center for a good discussion of the three provisions.)

The groups also recommend a requirement that women’s preventive health services and screenings be covered without co-pays or deductibles; coverage of more people through expansion of Medicaid eligibility; establishment of an “exchange”; coverage for legal immigrants without a five-year waiting period; and making coverage more affordable while keeping penalties for violating coverage mandates less burdensome for low-income people.

The letter also expresses support for expansion of translation/language services; bringing Medicaid payment rates up to the same level as Medicare payments (in order to increase the number of providers accepting Medicaid); and a mandate that all Health and Human Services agencies collect data on ethnicity and primary language along with gender, race and other categories .

RWV is also running a cartoon postcard campaign to encourage people to contact their legislators and express their dissatisfaction with current versions of health care reform.

Related: The Center for Reproductive Rights recently released a video questioning the singling out of abortion for restriction in health reform legislation. The video asks what else an individual might not want to pay for with their own tax dollars. Watch it below, or read the transcript at Feministe.

“In Haiti, as is always true in the aftermath of a major disaster, in addition to the urgent need for what we traditionally consider the pillars of immediate aid – food, water, shelter, medical care – there are needs that are specific to women, particularly for pregnant women and mothers with new babies and the need to address the added vulnerability to violence that women face when government infrastructures are dysfunctional,” writes Lucinda Marshall at Feminist Peace Network.

Our Bodies Ourselves has compiled a list of organizations focused on addressing the health needs in Haiti, particularly the needs of women and girls, during and beyond the initial aid effort. Additional background articles and press releases are also included.

These organizations have contacted us directly, or we have received emails from people on their communication lists. Please add groups we may have missed in the comments. Thank you!

• MADRE
  Working with its partner in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, to bring humanitarian aid overland into the country. Teams of healthcare workers from the project have established a functioning supply chain through the Dominican Republic and are currently delivering medical aid to those most in need in Haiti.

  Read more about MADRE’s model, which ensures that women in communities are integral to designing and carrying out relief efforts.

• Global Fund for Women
  Read the Global Fund’s solidarity statement sent to their sisters in Haiti, and learn how you can support long-term work there through their crisis fund. More information about the Global Fund’s recent grantee partners in Haiti is available here.
• Circle of Health International
  COHI’s team of women’s health providers and public health professionals are leaving for Haiti on Jan. 19 to conduct a Rapid Health Assessment, in order to identify and begin addressing women’s most critical health needs. Recent estimates show that there are 37,000 pregnant women among the 3 million people affected by the disaster.

  COHI defines its target population as women in crisis, specifically partnering with women surviving conflict and disaster, and has a tradition of collaborating with locally based, grassroots organizations when invited into a country context to contribute to women’s health programming.

• International Planned Parenthood Federation
  100% of donations collected will go directly to PROFAMIL’s operations, so they can get their clinics and mobile health units up and working as soon as possible.
• Partners in Health
  PIH has been working in Haiti for 20 years. Its focus is tri-fold: to care for patients, to alleviate the root causes of disease in their communities, and to share lessons learned around the world. Read an op-ed by Paul Farmer, PIH co-founder, in Sunday’s Miami Herald: “If Haiti is to ‘Build Back Better’“
• Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders
  Learn more about their current efforts in Haiti. Donation information is available here.
• United Nations Population Fund
  UNFPA’s immediate humanitarian response includes delivering emergency reproductive health kits that contain essential drugs, equipment and supplies to provide life-saving services to pregnant women. UNFPA will also work to ensure that women and girls have access to basic hygiene supplies so that they can live with dignity, even amidst the worst circumstances.
• Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom
  Provides an extensive list of non-governmental organizations as well as United Nations and government contacts working in Haiti.
• V-Day
  V-Day is initiating a Haiti Rescue Fund immediately to be ready with funds for the V-Day Haiti Sorority Safe House in Port Au Prince that provides shelter to women survivors of violence and their children, as well as psychological, legal and medical support.

For additional reading:

• Top 10 critical needs facing those affected by the earthquake in Haiti, compiled by the Women’s Refugee Commission
• “Protection of Human Rights Must Accompany Relief Efforts in Haiti” – press release from Amnesty International.

  “Before the devastating earthquake, Haiti was unable to effectively protect human rights and in particular, women and girls from sexual violence. Unless action is taken now while relief efforts are ongoing, the situation is only likely to deteriorate,” said researcher Gerardo Ducos.

• “Haitian Women: Pillars of the Economy, and of Resistance” – by Masum Momaya, Association for Women’s Rights in Development
  – adapted from the film “Poto Mitan“

Today pro-choice folks are converging on D.C. for a National Day of Action to support health care reform that includes a full range of reproductive health services for women and to oppose the Stupak Amendment, which prohibits abortion coverage in any public option and creates bureaucratic hurdles that could make it difficult for women to pay for abortion coverage with their own money.

Christine has written about the amendment several times on this blog, and the NPR pieces linked above also provide good background info.

Supporters include Planned Parenthood, NOW, YWCA, Choice USA, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Association of University Women, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the ACLU, and others. Each of these organization websites has information on the basic schedule for the day, background materials on the issue, and tips for/ways of taking action for those not in D.C., including petitions, draft emails, and guidance for making phone calls to Senators/Representatives.

Tweets from the event can be followed at #stopstupak. Have photos or reports from the scene? Let us know in the comments!

In our second self-referential moment of the week, I wanted to point to several posts by OBOS blogger Rachel Walden that are featured in this month’s MedLib’s Round, a monthly blog carnival that highlights some of the best writing on medical librarianship.

From the carnival intro:

A 2008 study by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest found that searching for health information online can be dangerous, with search engine results pages dominated by websites that appeared legitimate but had zero medical authority [1]. Our hope is that this edition of MedLib’s Round — themed Finding credible health information online— will offer ideas and advice to help people use the Web more effectively to search and find credible health information.

This post, “Tips for Savvy Medical Web Surfing” – A Critique, from Rachel’s own site, Women’s Health News, reviews  a CNN article on how to conduct online medical searches.

Can You Trust That Health Website?, published here, explains how to evaluate the reliability of health information websites. In Understanding Medical Research, also published at OBOB, Rachel offers tips on how to make sense of complex (and sometimes contradictory) studies and what it all means for your health.

Visit Highlight Health for more great selections from this month’s carnival, and congrats to Rachel!

A new, freely available, open-access journal that launched this month reflects a position Our Bodies Ourselves has long held: Healthcare is better, and people are healthier and more empowered, when individuals are informed and can actively participate in their own care.

The Journal of Participatory Medicine, launched at last week’s Connected Health Symposium in Boston, will publish online peer-reviewed articles that “explore the extent to which shared decision-making in health care, and deep patient engagement, affect outcomes.” The inaugural issue includes articles from all stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, payers, and others.

The journal’s significance is underscored by the fact that current or former editors of three of the most prominent medical journals – JAMA, BMJ, and the Annals of Family Medicine – also contributed to the first issue. As Amy Romano at Science & Sensibility points out, even the journal’s peer review process is participatory and values the input of all stakeholders, especially patients themselves.

The journal is being published by the relatively new Society for Participatory Medicine. The organization also has a blog, e-patients.net, which focuses on and includes stories from patients becoming informed, connecting with other patients, finding support, and exploring potential treatments for their healthcare concerns.

The existence of this organization and its publications reflect a growing trend toward patient involvement in health care that has been inspired and enabled by the internet. The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report earlier this year indicating that 61 percent of American adults look online for health information, and that “six in ten e-patients … say their most recent search had an impact, mostly minor, on their own health or the way they care for someone else.”

More than half said information they found online lead them to ask their physician new questions or to get a second opinion on their care.

The internet is also enabling access to personal health records and new ways of collecting and sharing health data. The Society and the Journal will promote efforts to encourage these developments while protecting patient confidentiality.

As one physician wrote of the e-patient phenomenon in 2008:

Patients want information, ideally tailored to their needs. They want to discuss this with their physicians without being shooed away, and would appreciate getting pointers. They even want access to their test results and medical records. Although many physicians feel threatened by all this, engaging the patient as a partner in her own care can be quite gratifying, improves patient satisfaction, and may even lead to better outcomes.

As an organization that has long held that women can become their own health experts and that women, as informed health consumers, are catalysts for social change, we agree.

Those of you who are engaged in conversations with opponents to a public health insurance option might want to try pulling them away from Fox News for a moment and ask them to read Ellen Shaffer’s new piece, “U.S Health Care: Myths and Facts.”

Schaffer is co-director of the Center for Policy Analysis, which runs the EQUAL Health listserv (Equitable, Quality, Universal, Affordable Health). List members contributed to this comprehensive document, which answers such questions as:

• Who’s More Efficient, Government or the Private Insurance Market?
• Are We Spending Too Much on Health Care?
• Do We Pay Too Much for Drugs?
• Could Importing Drugs Reduce Prices?
• Can Prevention Programs Reduce Health Care Costs?
• Is Health Information Technology a Silver Bullet for Reducing Costs?
• Are there really 46 Million Americans Who Can’t Get Health Care?
• Can Universal Coverage Be Achieved by Mandating Everyone to Buy Insurance?
• Do We Need More Government Programs to Cover Low-Income People?

Action Items:
- If you or your friends live in states where Democrats (or pretend-Democrats) are hesitating over the public option, call or write your elected officials and urge support.

- Starting Oct. 28 and running at least through Nov. 4, Healthcare-NOW is organizing Patients Not Profit Sit-Ins. Learn more at MobilizeForHealthcare.org.

- Raising Women’s Voices has coverage of a teach-in on health reform held at Columbia University on Oct. 22. Sponsored by the Student Committee of the Public Health Association of NYC and the Black and Latino Caucus of the Mailman School of Public Health, the event drew nearly 60 students, faculty and members of the community.

If you want to sponsor a teach-in on a college campus, contact RWV: info [at] raisingwomensvoices [dot] org for sample materials and programs. And check RWV’s calendar for upcoming events and speak-outs.

- Organizing for America received around a thousand videos made by healthcare advocates; here are the 20 finalists for your vote. The winner’s video will air on national television.

by Meg Young
Our Bodies Ourselves intern

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SEICUS) would like you to get REAL about sex education.

SEICUS has declared October “Sex Ed Month of Action,” and the organization is encouraging young people to raise awareness for the need for comprehensive sex ed — and specifically the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act [pdf].

Introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the legislation (S.611, HR.1551) calls for a dedicated federal funding stream ($50 million) that would cover state grants for developing comprehensive sexuality education programs. A petition in support of the REAL Act is online at AmplifyYourVoice.org.

Reviewing these quick facts about the need for comprehensive sex education, I was reminded of my own “real” sex education.

Picture this: It’s Sunday morning, and I’m competing in a condom-stretching contest in the basement of a pre-school. Other kids are trying to blow up the largest condom-balloon, shoot a condom the farthest (rubber-band style), or beat my record of 24-inches for the condom-stretch (all the way from the floor to my hip). Four adults are recording scores and announcing winners. In the center of the room, next to a few condom-clad bananas, sits a box of donuts, a subtle bribe to get us out of bed so early on a weekend.

I was in eighth grade, and I was a reluctant student in Our Whole Lives.

Our Whole Lives (OWL), a sexuality education curriculum developed jointly by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, was first published in 1999, and subsequently updated in 2005. The class provides a comprehensive, interactive, unabashed look at sexuality, offering six sets of curricula for age groups spanning kindergarten to adulthood.

The “big curriculum” for seventh-to-ninth graders is predominantly offered outside of schools (I took OWL as part of Sunday school at my local UU church), and tends to take a more personal angle than classroom based sex-ed classes, offering time for discussion, games and unlimited questions.

The first sessions of the curriculum focus on building rapport between the instructors and the students, as well as creating a high level of comfort between the students themselves. One of my OWL classmates recently said: “Because of the intimate environment of OWL, it felt really awkward at times, but in the end was really effective in achieving its purpose… There was room for open discussion, and questions arose that never would have when surrounded by 22 random kids from school.”

This “intimate environment,” as well as the fact that, by virtue of being taught outside of the school system, OWL does not need to conform to any state or federally-imposed limitations, means that OWL can address sexuality education more broadly. Topics include everything from anatomy and physiology (I clearly remember being ejaculated on by a working model of a penis built by a class-mate), to gender roles in dating (we had a long argument about who should pay for dinner and a movie).

There was a whole session devoted to “love making,” and another devoted to masturbation. Trading colored m&ms taught us about the terrifying ease of spreading sexually transmitted diseases. We played with condoms, diaphragms, female condoms and spermicidal gels. We discussed our feelings about abortion at length. We spent three weeks discussing sexual orientation and gender identity. At an all-class sleepover, as part of our unit on responsible sexual behavior, we watched “American Pie.”

When I took OWL at age 14, issues like herpes, emergency contraception and “responsible sexual decisions” often seemed remote to the point of irrelevance, and I can’t deny that my high school health class served as somewhat of a necessary refresher. However, what I really absorbed from OWL at the time, and what I have carried with me ever since, is an outlook on sexuality that was strikingly absent from my sex-ed unit in health class: OWL taught me that sexuality is not something to be ashamed of, to be hidden or feared. It is something to be questioned and explored, respected and protected. It is nuanced and complex, and sometimes infuriatingly confusing.

Most of all, it is an essential part of the human experience that last from birth until death – Our Whole Lives.

So, am I bitter that I had to be up by 9 a.m. every Sunday for a year? Yes. I’m I glad my parent made me do it? Absolutely.

Meg Young recently graduated from high school in Middlebury, Vt., and will enroll at Tufts University in the fall of 2010 after taking a gap year.

On the heels of Rachel’s post yesterday on the medicalization of sex and sexual healing (vibrator/egg beater? oh my), I wanted to mention a petition we just learned about to honor psychologist Virginia Johnson for her pioneering work on sexuality.

Johnson teamed with William Masters in the 1950s to study the nature of sexual response and sexual disorders. Together they wrote “Human Sexual Response” (1966) and “Human Sexual Inadequacy” (1970). Though they began their work at Washington University Medical School, the university has not celebrated their contributions to the field.

Masters died in 2001, and Washington University’s Student Forum on Sexuality, a student group dedicated to promoting the discussion of sexuality on campus, wants to make sure Johnson is honored in 2010, as she turns 85.

From the petition (which is open to anyone to sign):

Despite the controversial nature of their work, Virginia Johnson and William Masters revolutionized the way the world thought about the physiology of sex. Yet their names remain virtually unknown as a part of Washington University history. We want to uncover the legacy of this innovative duo, and more specifically, we want to honor Virginia Johnson’s lasting contributions to the field of sex therapy by requesting that she receive an honorary degree from the place she started her work, Washington University in St. Louis. Please show your support in this effort by signing this petition.

Some of the controversy relates to their studies in the 1960s and 1970s on whether homosexual men and women could be converted. Their contributions to demystifying female sexual response and legitimizing sexual responsiveness among older adults, however, are cornerstones of contemporary sex therapy.

Masters and Johnson’s work led to the four-stages of the human sexual response: excitement phase; plateau phase; orgasm; resolution phase. Their findings also revealed that while men undergo a refractory period following orgasm during which ejaculation is not possible, there is no refractory period in women. Bottom line: We can thank Johnson for confirming our ability to have multiple orgasms.

As many of you may know, OBOS Executive Director Judy Norsigian is on Twitter, where she shares links to our posts and other items of interest. If you’re unfamiliar with this social networking tool, Twitter allows users to post very short (140-character) messages to share with their “followers,” and to view these updates from those they are “following.” Here is a sampling of health-related government, news, and organization Twitter accounts I’m familiar with; please leave additional suggestions in the comments!

U.S. Government

• AIDSgov – HIV/AIDS information and news
• CDCFlu – flu information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• CDCEmergency – emergency preparedness info from the CDC
• Disabilitygov – disability resources
• girlshealth – from HHS’s girlshealth.gov
• HHSGov – Health and Human Services
• medlineplus4you – MedlinePlus, consumer health information provider from the National Library of Medicine
• NCIprevention – cancer prevention info from the National Cancer Institute
• NIMHgov – from the National Institute of Mental Health
• womenshealth – from the National Women’s Health Information Service

Health News

• BBCHealth
• Globehealth – Boston Globe
• LATimeshealth
• NPRhealth
• nytimeshealth
• WSJHealthBlog – from the Wall Street Journal

Also, WeNews, from Women’s eNews

Organizations

• PublicHealth – American Public Health Association
• ChoiceUSA
• CancerLGBT – National LGBT Cancer Network
• Guttmacher – the Guttmacher Institute
• MADREspeaks – MADRE
• MSFC – Medical Students for Choice
• NARAL – NARAL Pro-Choice America
• ppact – Planned Parenthood
• Reprodocs – Physicians for Reproductive Choice
• RWV4HealthCare – Raising Women’s Voices

It is with heavy heart that so many of us receive the news of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death. Although I have been anticipating this moment for weeks now, the reality is still such a shock.

I know that for so many women’s health activists, Kennedy’s passing will only strengthen our resolve to continue his valiant fight for meaningful health care reform. I have started writing letters to several more liberal Republicans, beseeching them to honor his memory by breaking ranks with the Republican Party and its current efforts to eliminate the public health insurance option from any bill coming out of Congress.

As a tribute to this tireless advocate for the millions who had no political power, each of us can think of one gesture we can carry out in the coming weeks.

In 2002, I testified before the Senate HELP Committee on the topic of somatic cell nuclear transfer (which involves creating cloned human embryos to serve as a source of embryonic stem cells for scientific research; it poses health risks for women who provide eggs for such research). Kennedy, who was co-chairing that particular HELP Committee hearing, was ever so gracious, even though I knew he did not agree with the position of Our Bodies Ourselves at that time.

And when my late husband, Irving Kenneth Zola, died in 1994, shortly after he was appointed to the National Council on Disability, Kennedy’s remarks at a special memorial service for Irv in Washington, D.C., brought tears to everyone’s eyes. His compassion, tenacity and commitment to the needs of all remain an inspiration to me both personally and professionally.

We will miss you terribly, Ted, and we will all fight even harder for the causes you championed for more decades than some of us have even been alive.

Judy Norsigian is executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves.

Women in the developing world are the focus of the Aug. 23 edition of The New York Times Magazine.

The main feature is an essay adapted from a new book by Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff and former Times correspondent Sheryl Wudunn. Titled “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” the book and its companion website look at three major abuses against women: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; and maternal mortality. Here’s the intro:

In the 19th century, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.

Change, however, may not be that simple. In a separate article, “The Daughter Deficit,” Tina Rosenberg probes why discrimination against girls persists even among wealthier, more developed areas:

To be sure, development can eventually lead to more equal treatment for girls: South Korea’s birth ratios are now approaching normality. But policymakers need to realize that this type of development works slowly and mainly indirectly, by softening a son-centered culture. The solution is not to abandon development or to stop providing, say, microcredit to women. But these efforts should be joined by an awareness of the unintended consequences of development and by efforts, aimed at parents, to weaken the cultural preference for sons.

Other stories in this magazine issue look at women and philanthropy; a Q & A with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on plans to push women’s rights issues on the international stage; a reporter returns to a school for girls in Afghanistan that was the site of a violent attack; an interview with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the only female head of state in Africa; a look at the “feminist hawk” position that advocates the use of force to aid women; and a poignant “Lives” column that concludes with an HIV-positive 16-year-old’s simple plea: a safe place to be a girl.

Plus: If you want to share the work that you’re doing to educate and empower women, Kristof is collecting personal stories on his blog that describe efforts by individuals and organizations worldwide. Some of the submissions will be highlighted in future columns; three winners will be chosen to receive a signed copy of the book. You can also submit photos that capture the theme of women’s empowerment.

Have you seen this video?

I think Flashmobs are the the coolest. What first appears as spontaneous and organic comes to be understood by the bystanders as something orchestrated and substantial. It’s grassroots. It’s guerrilla. And it can be an incredibly effective way of making a point.

From the text that appears in the video clip above — “Worldwide, 1,400 women die everyday in pregnancy and childbirth due to lack of basic healthcare” — the point here is to raise awareness of maternal health in poor countries and around the world. Who couldn’t groove to that?

Is it just me, though, who finds the action less than convincing? The description of the YouTube clip makes the intentions clear:

If you think this is dangerous, try giving birth in poor countries without a midwife, hospital or medicine. This flashmob is one of a series happening in Paris, Berlin, Utrecht and across Canada to highlight the scandal that millions of women in poor countries and around the world aren’t getting the healthcare they need for a safe and healthy pregnancy.

But if you were in the crowd in London or elsewhere, would you get that? Or would you respond, as several YouTube commenters have, with statements like: “I’m so proud of those women doing that pregnant! GO GIRLS!!!!!” or “who said pregnant ladies can’t get down!”

A blog post on Oxfam’s website notes that the actual dancers were not really pregnant (and it’s mentioned in a parenthetical note in the YouTube description, but you have to click “more info” to see it) — and other YouTube commenters are quick to point that out to the uninformed.

But if the action itself doesn’t have that context or conversation, is it effective?

Maybe I’m being too critical here. As on YouTube, I’m sure most bystanders were sparked to have a conversation — and maybe literature was passed around afterwards. And it’s the cognitive dissonance of pregnant women dancing that grabs everyone’s attention. It’s difficult to construct a creative action that will inspire people to think about such a difficult-to-think-about issue, but I’m not convinced this hits the mark.

(hat-tip: Wendy, thanks!)

In what’s being touted as a legitimate display of common ground, two Democratic representatives, pro-life Tim Ryan of Ohio and pro-choice Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, are introducing legislation today aimed at reducing the number of abortions by expanding prengnancy prevention programs while also increasing goverment support for mothers.

Steven Waldman has a good summary of the bill’s provisions. Here are statements in support of the bill (pdf), gathered by Third Way, a D.C. think tank that helped to broker the compromise.

The bill, “Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act,” was first introduced in 2007, but as Amy Sullivan writes at Time, Ryan and DeLauro “could persuade only one religious organization — and not a single abortion-rights group — to support them.”

Compare that with today, when “leaders from Planned Parenthood and NARAL will be crowded elbow to elbow with Catholics and conservative Evangelicals to stand behind Ryan and DeLauro. It may not be an end to the culture war, but it looks a lot like a cease-fire.”

Sullivan continues:

Aside from its support for contraception, none of the new or expanded initiatives it contains are terribly controversial: a national campaign to teach parents how to talk to their kids about sex, efforts to educate the public about adoption, home nurse visits for low-income mothers, expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage.

Interestingly, the arduous work of getting traditional adversaries on the abortion issue to endorse the Ryan-DeLauro effort had relatively little to do with concerns about the substance of specific provisions. Instead, the bill’s backers found they needed to give people on both sides time to learn to let down their guard a little after decades of skirmishes. “We had to reach a level of trust,” says DeLauro. “Because so often this issue has been one about which there was nothing other than trying to score political points.”

One way to encourage trust was to make changes that Rachel Laser, director of the culture program of the think tank Third Way, says were designed to “turn down the heat.” Laser began her career in the pro-choice community and agreed four years ago to help Ryan craft a common-ground bill. She shouldered the task of patiently hearing out each group’s concerns and turning them into a final product that could garner broad support without being uselessly watered down or split into two. When abortion-rights advocates, for example, objected to a provision to have abortion providers obtain what is called “informed consent” from patients (a requirement already mandated in all 50 states), Laser removed it. And she did the same when some of the bill’s pro-life supporters complained that a section requiring homes for pregnant women to provide family-planning counseling would take funding away from Catholic group homes that don’t support contraception.

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Democrats for Life kicked Ryan off its national advisory board for supporting the bill. Why is it so hard for some folks to see that contraception is the easiest way to prevent abortion? Maybe because it’s really not about life; it’s about control.

Meanwhile, the debate over insurance coverage for reproductive health services continues. Yes, it’s frustrating work — making sure health reform addresses the needs of a mere 51 percent of the population. But as Jodi Jacobson writes at RH Reality Check, if women want coverage for reproductive health services, or simply want to keep the coverage they have now for reproductive health care, contraception and abortion services, they have to demand it.

Last week, at the 2009 Planned Parenthood Organizing and Policy Summit, Tina Tchen, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement — on a panel with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and PPFA President Cecile Richards — told participants it’s time to “bring it” and get back into campaign mode.

Jacobson explains what we’re up against:

Some of the opposition comes from likely suspects and is based on misinformation campaigns that belie their true purpose. Republicans in Congress, like Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Mike Pence — who introduced an amendment today to the House appropriations bills to defund Planned Parenthood — just can’t seem to get the connection between increased access to prevention services, improved health and reduced need for abortions, the women’s right they love to hate.

And it is no surprise that groups like Family Research Council and the National Right to Life Committee are against not only funding for abortion services, but also for contraception. FRC, for example, continues to perpetuate myths about an amendment to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee health reform bill originally sponsored by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). This amendment, which was passed, would ensure coverage of well-woman care, HIV prevention and testing, pap smears, pregnancy care, and contraceptive supplies. FRC continues to claim it forces taxpayers to pay for abortions for the first time in 30 years.

It does not address abortion coverage. At all.

But then there are Democrats who may either “cut a deal” on coverage of abortion services or who oppose it outright.

For example: while the House and Senate HELP Committees have passed their bills, and neither of those includes any restrictions on coverage of reproductive health care, Tchen noted:

This was not easy to achieve in committee and won’t be easy to hold on to the Senate floor or on the House floor. And the President can not do it alone. His efforts alone will not be enough. It will take each of you to raise your voices when you go home and here in DC and to spread the word.

We’ve been posting action alerts from groups such as National Women’s Law Center and National Partnership for Women and Families. Visit their websites and the sites of PPFA and NARAL Pro-Choice America, all of which are mobilizing efforts to protect reproductive health coverage. Raising Women’s Voices blog has also been keeping tabs on the debate.

Demeter Press, the publishing division of the Association for Research on Mothering, is seeking submissions for an edited collection on mothering and hip hop to be published in 2011. The editors are Maki Motapanyane and Shana Calixte.

Previously published anthologies by Demeter Press include “Mothering and Blogging: The Radical Act of the MommyBlog,” and “Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the “Experts.”

Additional upcoming titles focus on intersections of mothering and disability, adoption and identifying as Latina/Chicana. One collection due out in 2010 that I definitely won’t miss: “The Palin Factor: Political Mothers and Public Motherhood in the 21st Century.”

Here’s the call for papers for the new book on mothering and hip hop. Contact information is at the bottom:

Motherhood is an experience that has been ever‑present yet invisible in the global music genre of Hip-Hop. Yet this aspect of women’s experiences within the movement has garnered little or no interest from journalists, writers and scholars of Hip-Hop culture. Nor do we have any understanding of how mothers who remain Hip-Hop enthusiasts negotiate their relationship to the culture of Hip‑Hop and its music with their children.

What are the spaces that motherhood occupies in Hip-Hop? Are there ways of understanding mothering in Hip-Hop along a historical continuum? What are some of the ways that motherhood complicates the very masculinist discourses around hip hop? How can we create an empowered and feminist Hip-Hop mothering, what would it look like and how would it challenge the status quo? How are mothers engaging with Hip-Hop, both locally and globally?

The aim of this collection is to give motherhood within Hip-Hop culture an intellectual point of entry into an existing field of academic debates. Themes that submitted proposals engage may include:

* Hip-Hop histories
* Masculinity
* Misogyny and violence
* Consumerism and capitalism
* The globalization and/or transnationality of Hip-Hop
* Cultural appropriation
* Political subversion
* Cultural diversity
* Feminist mothering
* Heterosexualities
* Queer identities and sexuality
* Aesthetic continuity and change
* Representation and the marketing of identities
* Other themes not mentioned here

We seek both creative and academic submissions that tackle the complex ways in which motherhood and Hip-Hop frame these and other discussions. Abstracts are welcome from a variety of academic disciplines and perspectives.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Abstracts: 250 words in length.
Deadline for Abstracts: August 1, 2009
Papers: 15-18 pages
Deadline for Papers: January 7, 2010

Please submit proposals to: Maki Motapanyane (maki AT yorku.ca) and Shana Calixte (scalixte AT laurentian.ca).

Picture this: You walk up to a magazine rack at your favorite bookstore and you’re confronted with numerous self-improvement suggestions: “10 Easy Ways to Lose Weight” … “Exercises to Get a Bikini Body” … “Fashion Tips to Look More Like [Someone Else] … OK, you’ve been here before. You know exactly what this looks like.

Now imagine that instead of walking away frustrated, you reach into your Super Activist Bag and pull out a new, empowering cover — it rereads: “BEAUTIFUL just the way you are.”

You slip it in front of one of the make-over-you magazines and walk away, satisfied for having spread a new message.

This newly launched “art action” is more than a good story. It’s the brainchild of Massachusetts artist Lillian Hsu, who created the website www.bjtwya.com to protest the objectification of girls and women — and to do something about it.

Hsu encourages placing one of the BJTWYA posters “over every stack of magazines that uses the female body to sell something — to sell the magazine, or to sell an article, or to sell a product, or to sell a lifestyle, or to sell a promise, or to sell the idea that you need to match your body to the picture. You decide which covers qualify. You place a poster over them. Then you walk away. That’s it.”

All you need to participate is a supply of posters, which you can get by emailing “bjtwya AT yahoo DOT com” with your name, mailing address, contact information, and number of posters needed. The posters are printed on 8.5×11″ paper, heavy enough to stand up on a magazine rack.

If you have a color printer or can’t wait for delivery, print your own copies of the poster (PDF).

Either way, be sure to visit bjtwya.com to learn more about how Hsu came up with the art action. You’ll also find links to organizations and activists that address media and body image issues. And if you’re anywhere near Gloucester, Mass., an exhibition related to Beautiful Just The Way You Are is at the Jane Deering Gallery through Aug. 3. The opening reception is this Thursday, July 9, 6-8 p.m.

Here’s an excerpt from Hsu’s smartly worded and compelling statement:

The magazine rack is only one of many locations where we are taught the lessons of our culture, but it is one that is ubiquitous throughout our towns and cities and reaches every stratum of the population. At the magazine rack words and pictures work together seamlessly, like a good children’s book, to teach and tell a story of who we are. The covers shout their messages with surprising confidence that we will know these commands are for us. Before we are ten, and then without pause throughout our lives, we internalize the lesson that our bodies are how we will be first judged as individuals, and that there is a body type that we must attain to be judged worthy of attention. We learn that the female body can be used to sell anything — tangible or intangible — to women, men, and children. The use of a motorcycle, a deodorant, a vacation, a necktie, or a beverage implies ownership of the woman’s body pasted into the advertisement. Although all humans are born with beauty and power, our early unquestioned self is quickly corrupted. We adopt an anxiety in navigating a path towards a culturally dictated state of beauty and power.

BEAUTIFUL Just The Way You Are seeks to intervene in the space between all who stand before the magazine rack and the engine of advertising and mass culture. In that space of daily life it places an alternative.