The timing seems perfect, then, for showings of “Pink Ribbons, Inc.,” a documentary film directed by Léa Pool that takes on corporate pink ribbon campaigns, pinkwashing, and what really happens as a result of this cause-related marketing.

Variety called the film “indignant and subversive,” saying it:

resoundingly pops the shiny pink balloon of the breast cancer movement/industry, debunking the ‘comfortable lies’ and corporate double-talk that permeate the massive and thus-far-ineffectual campaign against a disease that claims nearly 60,000 lives each year in North America alone.

Based on the trailer (below), I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, and will be shown in several U.S. cities over the coming weeks and months, including San Francisco, D.C., Madison, and Nashville. It also opened in Canadian theaters last week.

Everyone can agree that rape is not a joke, right? Apparently not, based on the popularity of the blog Barstool Sports.

At first glance, the blog appears to be a collection of comedic sports commentaries interspersed with predictable photos of scantily clad women, or “smokeshows,” to use the vernacular. However, this archive of good, clean misogynistic fun has a darker side. Many of the postings make jokes about rape and sexual assault, such as this commentary about the acquittal of a man accused of raping a woman wearing tight jeans: “[E]ven though I never condone rape if you’re a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right?”

Now, Barstool is hosting the “Barstool Blackout Tour,” a series of sponsored dance parties on or near college campuses across the country. Think that sounds a little dicey? Women shouldn’t worry, according to the blog: “Just to make friends with the feminists I’d like to reiterate that we don’t condone rape of any kind at our Blackout Parties in mid January. However if a chick passes out that’s a grey area though.”

Your humble blogger is not the only one shaking with indignation. When Barstool scheduled the Northeastern University Blackout Party at the House of Blues in Boston, a group of Northeastern students called Knock Out Barstool began to rally students in the Boston area to boycott and protest the event scheduled for this Thursday, Feb. 2.

In an letter published in Northeastern’s Huntington News, students and members of Knock Out Barstool wrote, “We demand Northeastern University and its administration stand for women and denounce Barstool Sports and the NU Blackout Party. These organizations do not represent the values of our community nor our institution.”

Much to their (and my) dismay, Northeastern University has not come out directly against the parties, other than to tweet it doesn’t officially endorse them.

Visit Knock Out Barstool’s website, and if you’re in the Boston area, stand in solidarity with Northeastern students protesting this event outside the House of Blues in Boston at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Meg Young is a sophomore at Tufts University, where she studies anthropology and community health. She became interested in women’s reproductive health during her time as an intern at Our Bodies Ourselves in 2009.

Early in the day, Jaclyn Friedman, the symposium’s mistress of ceremonies, explained her belief that women’s health activism moves in a spiral, not a circle, because while we are connected to our beginnings, we are also continually moving forward. The day’s discussions provided a perfect demonstration of that concept.

If you weren’t able to join us for those discussions, check out video from the event, including presentations from Byllye Avery, Loretta Ross, a welcome message from Governor Patrick Deval, panels with our global partners, and more.

If you haven’t checked out the NWHN site lately, go take a look – it has been redesigned to a spiffy new look, with news and blog posts, connections to social media, and lots of great information about the organization and the health issues they work on.

Why the massive collaborative push now? As eloquently explained by Ellen Shaffer of the Center for Policy Analysis:

In 2011, a record numbers of bills were introduced or passed by state legislatures and the U.S. House of representatives restricting women’s access to: basic health care services, family planning, and safe abortion care. It has been called a “War on Women,” Many women are shocked and dismayed by these attacks and want to send a strong message to policy-makers: Government should stay out of making decisions about what happens in my womb. I have self-determination, autonomy.

The Guttmacher Institute has more detailed coverage of the abortion restrictions enacted in 2011, noting that legislators across the country “introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions, a sharp increase from the 950 introduced in 2010. By year’s end, 135 of these provisions had been enacted in 36 states, an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.”

If you, too, have had enough, add your name and location to a map, along with one of six messages like, “I Trust Women and I Vote,” “Reproductive Rights are Human Rights,” and “Contraception is Prevention.” If you watch the map, new names pop up in real time as more people sign on.

The next steps of this national action, as explained by Our Silver Blog, involve sending messages from virtual marchers directly to members of Congress, governors and state legislators “to underscore that Americans trust women to make their own decisions about their bodies and their lives.”

Please join all of us concerned about women’s health and rights by signing on to the march, and sharing info about the event with your friends via Facebook and Twitter.

by Ayesha Chatterjee and Judy Norsigian

As current staff members at Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS), an organization that has advanced the health and human rights of women and girls over four decades, and longtime reproductive justice activists, we continue to hope that safe and affordable abortion care will, someday, become a reality for everyone. With increasing attacks and restrictions on abortion access worldwide, we have our work cut out.

Here, in the U.S., the debate around abortion has become especially polarized. Right-wing and anti-choice groups bombard young people with messages that stereotype and stigmatize those seeking abortion services — both individuals and entire communities.

Think: billboards have popped up around the country equating abortion to the genocide of African-American children, who are further described as an “endangered species.” These — and other — oversimplified messages mock a personal and often complex decision, not to mention the right to a constitutionally protected and medically safe procedure. They influence how people, especially young people, articulate and align themselves on abortion. They drive our activism — our tireless commitment to alliances across aisles and opinions, and to conversations that move beyond “pro-life” and “pro-choice” rhetoric to focus on the individual, her needs, rights and circumstances.

Engaging, mobilizing and building alliances on an issue like abortion can be an uphill climb. But as 2012 rolls in, we want to take a few minutes to remind you about why it is important and suggest a few ways you can go about this challenge.

Building Up Our Friends
Our allies are our greatest strength. We especially need to appeal to the hearts and minds of people “on the fence,” by connecting abortion rights to principles that they hold valuable — equality, privacy, dignity, security and more. We must show how these principles will be affected if we do not have the fundamental right to reproductive freedom.

We believe that we can even engage anti-choice people in conversations about how restrictions on access to abortion affect women and girls — especially those who are uninsured, under-insured, socially or ethnically marginalized and isolated.

Create safe spaces for respectful dialogue
We need to take a few minutes to contact the judges in our communities and ask them to defend the rights of women and girls. Monica Roa, the lawyer who argued a case before Colombia’s Supreme Court that liberalized that nation’s restrictive abortion law in May 2006, identifies judges as a key audience: “Judicial bias is a major conflict throughout the world.” She proposes a highly effective “court targeting” approach that includes getting better acquainted with specific judges and their position on issues.

And we must not forget our friends, our existing allies — an activist neighbor, a local abortion fund or a provider — on the forefront of the abortion rights movement and under threat because of it. Supporting them is critical and we can do so in a number of ways. We can donate money to local abortion funds which provide financial and logistical assistance to women that need abortions, or simply volunteer our time to their activities — a list of abortion funds is online.

We can also volunteer at clinics, in roles that range from administrative to serving as clinic escorts that guide staff, providers and clients in and out of clinics and shield them from harassment and pro-life demonstrators. If these options seem daunting, we can help tremendously by just talking — with family and friends at home, with our community via blogs and local newspapers, and with our political representatives on the phone.

Listening and Engaging Listeners
In our bid to build alliances across the table, those of us involved in the struggle to preserve abortion rights must develop new tools of moral suasion. How? For a start, we need to be good listeners, good storytellers and patient communicators, and to create safe spaces for respectful dialogue, either one-on-one or in groups.

Judy Norsigian:
I remember an eye-opening conversation many years ago with a priest — a family friend — who had regularly sermonized about the evils of abortion. He described how one year a woman came to him afterwards and described WHY she had had her own abortion and why what he had said in church was so wrong and hurtful to her and many other women. A thoughtful and compassionate person, he decided to cease such sermons, but his comment about this encounter was instructive: “Don’t get me wrong, I still think of abortion as killing life in some form…I have not changed my mind about that. But what I realize now is that an abortion can be the RIGHT and moral thing to do.”

In the years that followed, I found a number of people who resonated with this kind of thinking and who could find a way to support a woman’s right to choose, while, at the same time, holding on to the concept of abortion as an act that destroyed life in some form. They noted that society does, at times, sanction even the killing of human beings (during war, in self defense) and, thus, could envision abortion as a moral choice and one to be preserved for women needing to make that choice.

Ayesha Chatterjee:
Active in the grassroots abortion access movement in the Boston area, I am also expecting my first baby in the spring of 2012. While I see absolutely no dichotomy in my activist and parenting roles, I have been asked a few times whether becoming a mother has softened my position on abortion rights, made me more empathetic to pro-life reasoning. My response: Far from it!

My decision to have children is situated within my unique context and personal needs and capacity. If anything, the hands-on experience with the ongoing physical, emotional and financial commitment needed to nurture another human being has only deepened my understanding of an incredibly complex and personal issue, as well as my appreciation of why some decide to terminate their pregnancy and others, despite the many and different challenges, carry theirs to term.

When we are at a loss for words, drawing on other eloquent voices in the reproductive justice movement can help get the discussion started.

For starters, here are a couple such individuals:

Dr. Garson Romalis, a Canadian abortion doctor, whose speech on January 25, 2008 at the University of Toronto Law School Symposium is well worth reading. Dr. Romalis had been physically attacked — shot and stabbed, on two different occasions six years apart — and remained deeply committed to providing abortion services throughout his long career.

At the close of his speech, he wanted to describe “one last story that I think epitomizes the satisfaction I get from my privileged work.” He continued, “Some years ago I spoke to a class of University of British Columbia medical students. As I left the classroom, a student followed me out. She said: ‘Dr. Romalis, you won’t remember me, but you did an abortion on me in 1992. I am a second year medical student now, and if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here now.’”

Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, offers many compelling insights in, for example, “Missed Opportunities in McCorvey v. Hill: The Limits of Pro-Choice Lawyering,” (pdf) in the New York University Review of Law & Social Change in 2011, or “Long-Term Policies, Long-Term Gains,” (pdf) in Conscience in Winter 2006-2007.

In the latter, Paltrow writes: “those who defend the right to choose abortion often frame their defense in terms of protecting Roe v.Wade and access to abortion services. But far more than Roe and abortion is at stake. The health, dignity and human rights of all pregnant women are threatened by anti-abortion and fetal rights laws. Such laws create the basis not only for outlawing abortion but also for forcing women to have unnecessary Caesarean sections, for banning vaginal births after Caesarean sections and for treating pregnant women with drug, alcohol and other health problems as child abusers before they have even given birth.”

It also helps to be prepared for contentious conversations with compelling arguments and facts.

Anti-abortion advocates often use dangerous and misleading approaches to restrict access to abortion and birth control, and having a counter argument ready goes a long way. This misinformation runs the gamut — from claiming that the emergency contraception or morning-after pill (Plan B) is the same as the “abortion pill” to asserting that feticide laws, now existing in about 38 states and on the federal level, protect pregnant women, when in reality they are frequently used against pregnant women, especially those who may have used drugs during a pregnancy.

So, staying abreast of facts to counter their fiction is critical and there are innumerable on-line and off-line resources. Here are two: Guttmacher Institute and Ipas.

Converting Our Energy
When we gain ground by changing hearts, minds or policies, we have to ensure it translates into action — securing real and affordable access to birth control and abortion for women and girls.

While we have a long way to go before reproductive justice is a reality for everyone, the looming possibility of an anti-choice administration (and all that this would entail) has serious implications for women and girls in the U.S. and, through policies that restrict the use of U.S. development aid overseas, women and girls around the world. Your voice is important.

Our goals are substantial and clear. We need to become involved — to educate one another and ourselves on the nuances of abortion rights and access; defend the fast dwindling numbers of abortion clinics and abortion providers nationwide; express our outrage when they are attacked and vilified; demand greater and equal access to all reproductive health services including affordable and safe birth control and abortion care; counter misleading and dishonest anti-abortion propaganda and hold the people behind these tactics accountable for their actions.

Doing this effectively will require creativity, tenacity and abiding respect of all women’s realities and circumstances. We’re up for the challenge — are you?

BCA will discuss some of their concerns about the report, as well as focus policy changes required to reduce exposures to potentially cancer-causing agents.

The report, commissioned by Komen, explores the difficulties of studying how environmental factors affect breast cancer risk, recommends future research, and makes recommendations for steps women can take to reduce their breast cancer risk. Unfortunately, many of the clear actions provided in the report for reducing risk are well-covered things like “quit smoking,” while the strongest conclusion that could be drawn on many other exposures (like cosmetic and personal care products, plastics and other pollutants) was that more research was needed.

If you’re interested, you can register for register for 2pm-3pm (PST) on the 24th or 10am-11am (PST) on the 25th.

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) is launching “¡Acábalo Ya! Working Together to End Cervical Cancer.” The campaign is aimed at educating Latinas about this disease and how to protect their health; raising the profile of cervical cancer prevention as a national reproductive justice and women’s health priority; and advocating for greater access to the tools and care needed to prevent, detect, and eventually end cervical cancer.

The NLIRH is hosting a blog carnival this week on the topic: What will it take to end cervical cancer? Read more on Why Cervical Cancer is a LGBT Issue by Verónica Bayetti-Flores, NLIRH policy research specialist; Cervical Cancer Awareness Month: Trans Men and Genderqueer/Gender Nonconforming People by the National Center for Transgender Equality; Screen More Women for Cervical Cancer – Not the Same Women More Often! by Kate Ryan, program coordinator, National Women’s Health Network; and Thank YOU Affordable Care Act for Helping Cervixes Stay Healthy by Keely Monroe, program coordinator, National Women’s Health Network.

The following text on disparities in access to Pap tests and HPV vaccines has been adapted from the 2011 edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

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Most women who die of cervical cancer never had regular Pap tests, had false-negative results, or did not receive proper follow-up.

In the United States, socioeconomic and racial disparities are evident in statistics for cervical cancer. Vietnamese immigrants are five times more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than white women. African-American and Native-American women are twice as likely to die of the disease as are white women. In one study, Hispanic women had about twice the cervical cancer incidence of non-Hispanic women in border counties near Mexico, and Hispanic women are 1.5 times more likely to die from cervical cancer as compared to non-Hispanic white women.

Disparities are due, at least in part, to women of color having less access to Pap screening and regular health care. It is quite possible that those women with the highest rates of cervical cancer will also have less access not only to Pap screening but also to the HPV vaccine. Until our health care system addresses such disparities in access, girls and women likely to benefit the most from this vaccine may well not be able to choose it.

To ensure more equal access to any adolescent vaccine, adequate infrastructure and resources must be made available. Some recommend implementation of school-based adolescent immunization programs similar to those formerly in place for delivery of hepatitis B vaccines. The United Kingdom and Australia have volunteer, nationally supported school-based campaigns that have resulted in high HPV vaccine coverage for about 70 percent of girls.

Currently, school-based health programs and routine preventive care visits for adolescents are limited in the United States, making it highly difficult to provide good access to HPV vaccines, especially the type of access needed to ensure all three required vaccine doses are administered. Available data suggest HPV vaccine coverage in the United States is low (less than 50 percent), and the proportion of girls receiving all three doses of the HPV vaccine is even lower (less than 25 percent).

Pap Tests Essential for Prevention and Treatment

HPV vaccines do not protect against all types of HPV associated with cervical cancer, and it is currently unclear how long they remain effective or whether booster shots will be needed to maintain protection throughout adulthood. Thus, regular Pap tests among sexually active women remain essential for cervical cancer prevention. Resources should not be diverted away from Pap screening programs to pay for the unusually expensive cervical cancer vaccine. Because Merck marketed Gardasil with a campaign that unnecessarily frightened girls, young women, and parents, many people now have a distorted view of this disease, the vaccine, and the continued importance of Pap screening.

There is no question that HPV vaccines represent an important scientific advance in the field of vaccine research, but exaggerating their potential benefit in places such as North America will not serve us well. In countries where there is little or no access to Pap screening, current HPV vaccines might have much more potential for saving lives if their costs were reduced considerably and if adequate infrastructure to prove them responsibly were securely in place.

The District of Columbia and dozens of states — many of which have been lobbied by vaccine makers to expand vaccination requirements — have introduced legislation to require, fund, or educate the public about the HPV vaccine. However, since 30 percent of infections are now caused by virus types for which the HPV vaccines do not provide protection, universal access to Pap tests remains critically important. Unfortunately, many girls in underserved communities (where HPV infection rates are often high) have less access to both the Pap test and the HPV vaccine.

For example, as of September 2009, when the CDC released its first state-level statistics for Gardasil, only 15.8 percent of girls in the relatively poor state of Mississippi had received the vaccine, compared with 54.7 percent of girls in the relatively wealthy state of Rhode Island. Partly because of greater access to Pap testing, the cervical cancer mortality rate in Rhode Island was already 50 percent lower than in Mississippi — which means the girls in Rhode Island are at much lower risk of contracting HPV to start with.

To reduce disparities for Latinas and other under-served women, we will need to make systemic changes in our health care system to increase access to screening and vaccinations for those who need it most.

Today, the Huffington Post reports that the banners have drawn attacks from the anti-choice Life Legal Defense Foundation, which has threatened to sue the city for allowing the banner poles to be used to promote a political message not related to a specific event.

In response, Department of Public Works Spokeswoman Gloria Chan:

…defended her agency’s decision to allow the Center for Policy Analysis to buy space on the poles, saying that the banners are running in conjunction with two events: the Walk for Trust Women scheduled to take place on Market Street on January 20th and the The Bay Area Coalition For Reproductive Rights’ West Coast Rally For Reproductive Justice slated for Justin Herman Plaza the following day. Chan noted that any event expected to draw over 500 people, which DPW officials expect both of these to do easily, qualifies as a “city-wide special event” and is permitted to have its ads posted.

For more on the banners, including links to pictures, see our previous post.

A reminder: an online Virtual March will be held with MoveOn during Trust Women Week, January 20-27, to express support for reproductive health, rights, and justice, and to send pro-choice messages to Washington. Look for more details on the Our Silver Ribbon blog.

Our Bodies Ourselves is one of 42 partners in the Trust Women/Silver Ribbon campaign, a project to increase the visibility of pro-choice messages.

Two years later, she is returning — leaving today to spend 10 days working alongside the two local Haitian midwives that staff the HCM Maternity Clinic, a birth center that serves more than 2,000 women a year. While the midwives provide the best care possible under difficult conditions, outcomes for mothers and babies could be improved with additional training and support.

Karen’s trip is sponsored by Circle of Health International, which works with local health care providers in crisis- and disaster-struck regions to ensure access to quality reproductive, maternal and newborn care. Like all COHI volunteers, Karen is donating her time, and COHI is fundraising to cover the transportation to Haiti (about $800 in airfare and local travel) and room and board on the compound where the birth center is located (about $300).

Here’s where you come in. For as little as $10, you can help send Karen to Haiti. Want to donate more? Please do so! Numerous gifts are available as perks for donors who can offer $20, $35, $50 or more.

Training drills like the one shown (left) help ensure safer births in unsafe times. Women in areas of crisis or disaster often struggle to secure basic reproductive health care. The Fond Parisien Birth Center (right) serves more than 2,000 women a year, providing critical care.

It’s all part of the Get Karen to Haiti campaign that Our Bodies Our Blog and other bloggers involved in improving maternal health are participating in for the next two weeks. Hillary Boucher and Jeanette McCulloch at BirthSwell have more information about the collaborative effort.

Your donation can make a huge difference. According to COHI:

Birth Centers like the one at Fond Parisian provide a model of care for other areas in Haiti and around the world, where maternal mortality is at the highest rate in the Western Hemisphere, with 630 deaths per 100,000 live births (compared to 11 deaths per 100,000 births in the US).

The midwives at the Fond Parisien birth center have received training in supporting women in low-risk births, providing care in common emergencies, and are developing protocols for when to transfer to other emergency medical facilities. But unlike their peers in the U.S. and in other industrialized societies, they do not have access to the latest research or journals, conferences where they can share skills, or even family support.

Karen took a moment as she was preparing for her trip to talk with Our Bodies Our Blog about her birth philosophy and why she’s returning to Haiti now (see below). Her goals are specific:

* Review existing protocols for managing emergencies and deciding when to transfer to the local hospital. Provide clinical support and skill-building where it could improve outcomes for Haitian women and their babies.

* Run emergency drills using improved protocol for complications most likely to be seen at the clinic, including shoulder dystocia and postpartum hemorrhage.

* Improve monitoring processes so that the clinic can evaluate their existing protocols and make improvements based on evidence, not just anecdotal understanding.

We hope you’ll consider supporting Karen’s efforts in Haiti and visit COHI’s Facebook page to follow along on Karen’s journey. You can learn more about COHI’s efforts in Haiti on its website.

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Our Bodies Our Blog: You first visited Haiti after the earthquake. How did that experience affect you and your commitment to expanding access to evidence-based care?

Karen Feltham: Arriving in Haiti, especially Port Au Prince, was overwhelming. I kept thinking of how long the earthquake lasted, counting in my head and imagining the earth shaking and the buildings falling — the world changing in 30 seconds. What was that like? Homes become rubble, the living-dead. It has changed everything for me, in a way. Anything can happen, in any instant. It might sound funny, but I run through worst-case scenarios in my head and with my family. Where will you go? Where will we meet?

Witnessing the work of countless NGOs and volunteers was inspiring, as well as a bit maddening. There was (and is) really good work happening in Haiti. There are excellent providers and logisticians providing great, life-changing (and life-providing) services. And that is inspiring.

At the same time, I think that there is a feeling of, “Anything is better than nothing.” I have seen that lead to a neglect of clinical standards.

OBOB: Why are you returning now?

KF: The organization that I volunteer with (Circle of Health International) is completing their work there and turning over the operation of the clinic to a local organization. This is a nice opportunity to re-connect with midwife colleagues who I had worked with previously. My goals for the trip are to run emergency obstetric care management drills, review core competencies, and always to reinforce and encourage the midwifery model of care.

Also, skilled birth attendants at delivery (and fewer pregnancies) definitely lower the maternal mortality rate. The international community is expecting quite a bit from newly trained midwives, and midwifery is a tough job. In the United States, a licensed midwife is more likely to begin independent practice with the benefit of collaboration and experienced colleagues. And so, I feel a commitment to providing something similar to this midwife team.

OBOB: How does your birth philosophy inform your volunteer efforts?

KF: I absolutely believe in the power of kindness and how it can be transformative, even revolutionary. Think of what women bear, here and elsewhere — assault, abuse, submission. I can’t change a country’s infrastructure, health care and education policies. But I can listen. I can provide the most gentle pelvic exam and the most respectful atmosphere.

If my touch is the first that a newborn feels, then I promise to make it a gentle one. If my voice is the first that she hears, then let it be welcoming. This is what I can bring, a reminder that excellent clinical skills are essential, but that kindness is life-changing. At least that’s what I think, and it’s the best that I can offer.

OBOB: You’ve identified three goals for your time in Haiti. Can you give readers a sense of how those goals will be achieved?

KF: I’m not sure how each day will unfold. One must be very flexible in these situations. But I’m certain that each day will be very full. My volunteer partners and I will run through management of the obstetric emergencies; postpartum hemorrhage and shoulder dystocia — the “what-ifs.” It’s so valuable to run through what everyone does in these situations, and then do it again.

Also, each day will include conferencing with the midwives, which involves reviewing clinical cases and addressing whatever concerns that they might have, along with symptoms, diagnoses, and procedures they have questions about.

OBOB: Have you incorporated into your teaching at Binghamton any experiences or lessons learned from working alongside midwives in Haiti and Nicaragua?

I guess that every experience influences every other, even in subtle ways.

I teach at the Decker School of Nursing at Binghamton University in both the graduate and undergraduate programs. I love working with nursing students! They are amazingly good people. One of the courses that I teach is in global nursing. So many students are interested in really making a difference but don’t know where to begin. I try to share a bit of my own experience and encourage each individual student to find their own way. I believe in the ripple effect of good work.

Also, one thing I try to do intentionally with students is to blur the line between “us” and “them.” Haiti and Nicaragua are very far away, and it’s easy to think that the people, clinicians and patients are so very different from us. I try to refer to clinical cases that I have seen elsewhere and good clinical work and speak to the shared experience between provider and patients that happens everywhere.

Health care is what happens between midwife (and doctor and nurse) and patient. It doesn’t happen at the upper levels of the bureaucracy. It’s the thing that takes place between two people. And that is true in Ithaca, N.Y., Fond Parisien, Haiti and Managua, Nicaragua.

This week, the campaign has placed banners along Market Street in San Francisco to “spark conversations and to help build momentum and solidarity among supporters of women’s rights, equality and autonomy and access to comprehensive health care, including reproductive health care services.”

The banners display messages like “Reproductive Rights are Human Rights,” “Her Decision, Her Health,” and “U.S. Out of My Uterus,” and include related banners from the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights, SisterSong/Trust Black Women, Catholics for Choice, NARAL-ProChoice California, and Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific. More photos of the banners in place around San Francisco are online, and more coverage is provided at Our Silver Blog.

Look for more activity later this month – during Trust Women Week, January 20-27, a virtual march will be held with MoveOn to express support for reproductive health, rights, and justice, and to send pro-choice messages to Washington.