Planned Parenthood Expands its Reach: “Flush with cash, Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide are aggressively expanding their reach, seeking to woo more affluent patients with a network of suburban clinics and huge new health centers that project a decidedly upscale image,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately the full story is available to subscribers only, but the WSJ health blog has a summary that includes these remarks:

Despite some critiques to the contrary, Planned Parenthood insists it’s not compromising is long-held focus on serving the poor with birth control, sexual-health care and abortions. Officials there say they take a loss of nearly $1 on each packet of birth-control pills distributed to poor women under a federal program that funds reproductive care. But they make a profit of nearly $22 on each month of pills sold to an adult who can afford to pay full price. That money helps subsidize other operations, including care for the poor as well as pursuing Planned Parenthood’s political agenda.

“It is high time we follow the population,” said Sarah Stoesz, who heads Planned Parenthood operations in three Midwest states. She recently opened three express centers in wealthy Minnesota suburbs, “in shopping centers and malls, places where women are already doing their grocery shopping, picking up their Starbucks, living their daily lives,” she said.

Pregnant in Gloucester: Concerning the 18 high school students pregnant in Gloucester, Mass, that have received national news coverage for supposedly choosing to get pregnant and raise their children together, Kelly McBride, who covers media ethics for Poynter Institute, has an excellent piece on pack journalism in search of a “pact..” Meanwhile, the high school principal who first said their was evidence of a pact defends his comments and his memory.

Plus: Courtney Macavinta of Respect RX discusses her own sex “pact” at age 15 and the cycle of disrespect that leads girls who don’t value themselves to make choices “in which the fine print (that life is about to get even harder) is written in invisible ink.”

Teen Pregnancies at 30-Year Low: Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Lisa Anderson reports on the latest pregnancy statistics released by the Guttmacher Institute.

Pregnancies — whether they end in birth, miscarriage or abortion — among women age 15 to 19 dropped to 72.2 per 1,000 women in 2004, down from a peak of 117 per 1,000 women in 1990 [...]

While some 700,000 women age 15 to 19 become pregnant every year, the rate has declined 36 percent since it peaked in 1990. The rate of abortions among teens also plummeted, to 19.8 per 1,000 women in 2004 from a high of 43.5 per 1,000 in 1988.

But researchers are keeping a close eye on the numbers, as there are some signs that the drop may be reversing:

Despite decades of improvement and for reasons yet unknown, there is statistical evidence that the drop in pregnancy rates, the age of first sexual activity and contraceptive use among teens stalled after 2001.

The exception may be in the teen birthrate. After a 14-year decline, the birthrate, meaning the number of live births, among women age 15 to 19 rose 3 percent in 2006 to 41.9 per 1,000 women from 40.5 per 1,000 women in 2005, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Until more data are compiled, it is unclear whether the 2006 uptick in births was an isolated blip or the harbinger of a more significant and negative change on the teen reproductive landscape, according to David Landry, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute.

Mandating Insurance Coverage for Psychiatric Ailments: Illinois will become the 17th state to mandate insurance coverage for treatment of anorexia and bulimia, assuming the governor signs a bill recently approved by the state Legislature.

Bonnie Miller Rubin and Ashley Wiehle of the Chicago Tribune write:

The measure is part of a larger national debate about addressing inequities in insurance coverage between psychiatric and physical ailments.

More than 12 million Americans, mostly young women, have eating disorders in their lifetime, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. The organization ranked risk of death as higher with anorexia than with any other mental illness. Among patients with anorexia, almost half of all deaths are suicides, according to ANAD. Yet many insurers balk at covering the tab, which can run as high as $2,500 a day.

“I’ve met so many parents who have had to refinance their homes,” said Rep. Fred Crespo (D-Hoffman Estates), one of the bill’s sponsors.

But others cite the financial cost of such a law. Richard Cauchi, health program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Illinois has taken “an unusual action” for 2008, when the trend is to move away from mandates on business and governments.

“There’s more pressure now to repeal and restrict mandates than to enact new ones,” he said..

“Neglected Infections of Poverty”: “Despite plummeting mortality rates for most infectious diseases over the last century, a group of largely overlooked bacterial, viral and parasitic infections is still plaguing the nation’s poor, according to a report released this week,” writes Wendy Hansen in the L.A. Times.

“Many of the diseases are typically associated with tropical developing countries but are surprisingly common in poor regions of the United States, according to the analysis, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.”

The study’s author, Dr. Peter Hotez, chairman of George Washington University’s department of microbiology, immunology and tropical disease, says there are 24 diseases affecting at least 300,000 Americans, and possibly millions. Poverty-stricken regions, including Appalachia, inner cities, the Mississippi Delta and the border with Mexico, are the areas most severely affected.

Will Women Give Hormone Maker a Second Chance?: “Can Wyeth win back the 40 million Premarin and Prempro users it’s lost since 2002 — along with $1 billion a year in profits — with a new menopause drug? Or will the once-bitten women who have filed more than 5,000 lawsuits claiming the hormones gave them cancer feel fooled twice?” asks Martha Rosenberg at AlterNet.org, in this look at Wyeth’s hope of marketing Pristiq as the first nonhormonal treatment for menopause symptoms.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Affects Women More: “The Army and Air Force discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military, according to Pentagon statistics gathered by an advocacy group,” reports The New York Times.

While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women. By comparison for 2006, about 35 percent of the Army’s discharges and 36 percent of the Air Force’s were women, according to the statistics.

The information was gathered under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a policy advocacy organization.

Gardasil Not Approved for Older Women: “U.S. regulators have told Merck & Co they cannot yet approve Merck’s application to expand marketing of its cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil to an older group of women, the drugmaker said on Wednesday,” reports Reuters.

“Merck had applied for the use of Gardasil in women ages 27 through 45. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a letter regarding the application that it has completed its review and there are ‘issues’ that preclude approval within the expected review time frame, Merck said.”

Exercise as a Tonic for Aging: The New York Times reports on an updated series of physical activity recommendations for older adults from the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine, which are expected to match new federal activity guidelines due in October from the United States Health and Human Services Department.

“Contrary to what many active adults seem to believe, physical fitness does not end with aerobics,” writes Jane Brody. “Strength training has long been advocated by the National Institute on Aging, and the heart association has finally recognized the added value of muscle strength to reduce stress on joints, bones and soft tissues; enhance stability and reduce the risk of falls; and increase the ability to meet the demands of daily life, like rising from a chair, climbing stairs and opening jars.”

Best Headline: “Abstinence-only funding is like an evil Energizer Bunny,” courtesy of Vannesa at Feministing. Why the evil? The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies voted to continue funding the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program, an abstinence-only education funding stream, despite all the research that’s it’s a waste of money and resources. Scott Swenson of RH Reality Check has a good wrap-up here.

Share This: Via Brownfemipower, I found an online petition — Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women — written in the wake of R. Kelly’s acquittal. The petition and related useful books, films and organizations are also listed on Mark Anthony Neal’s blog, which itself is a terrific resource on issues on issues of race and masculinity.

UN Addresses Rape as a War Crime: “In Sudan, girls as young as four are raped by rebel forces and government-backed militias. In Democratic Republic of Congo, women are sexually mutilated by roving gangs. In Burma, they are systematically raped as part of a military offensive,” writes Olivia Ward in the Toronto Sun. “[Thursday], the United Nations Security Council agreed that sexual violence against women and girls in war zones is a threat to international stability, opening the way for action against countries that condone or promote atrocities.”

Here’s more from the BBC, and the full text of UN Resolution 1820, which states that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.” The 15-member Security Council also demanded the “immediate and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians.”

In Europe, Debate Over Islam and Virginity: From The New York Times:

As Europe’s Muslim population grows, many young Muslim women are caught between the freedoms that European society affords and the deep-rooted traditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

Gynecologists say that in the past few years, more Muslim women are seeking certificates of virginity to provide proof to others. That in turn has created a demand among cosmetic surgeons for hymen replacements, which, if done properly, they say, will not be detected and will produce tell-tale vaginal bleeding on the wedding night. The service is widely advertised on the Internet; medical tourism packages are available to countries like Tunisia where it is less expensive.

“If you’re a Muslim woman growing up in more open societies in Europe, you can easily end up having sex before marriage,” said Dr. Hicham Mouallem, who is based in London and performs the operation. “So if you’re looking to marry a Muslim and don’t want to have problems, you’ll try to recapture your virginity.”

A 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent who paid $2,900 for the procedure, said: “In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt … Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

Plus: Read Judith Warner’s column, which links hymen surgery, father-daughter purity balls and other news stories related to patriarchy and female chastity.

World Refugee Day: In recognition of the 8th Annual UN World Refugee Day on June 20, Worldview looked at the plight of Iraqi refugees.

Cervical Cancer Screenings Lacking in Developing Countries: “A study published in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine has found that women in the developing world are not getting the cervical cancer screenings that they need,” according to Medical News Today. “Researcher Emmanuela Gakidou (University of Washington) and colleagues report that although women in the developing world have the highest risk of developing cervical cancer, few are effectively screened. Additionally, there exist severe inequalities between and within countries concerning the access to cervical cancer screening.”

Plus: A survey of 38,000 Canadian women found that obese women are significantly less likely (30 to 40 percent, depending on the degree of obesity) to be tested for cervical cancer than women of average body weight, according to CBC News. Breast and colon cancer screening are unaffected by a woman’s body mass.

Shopping for Breast Cancer: The Center for Media & Democracy’s PRWatch recently posted an article about “Pinkwashing” — which is what happens when corporations try to boost sales by associating their products with the fight against breast cancer. “The worst pinkwashers exploit the intense emotions associated with breast cancer while selling products that actually contribute to breast cancer,” writes Ann Landman, who goes on to offer some key examples, including a Ford 2008 V-6 Mustang with Warriors in Pink Package, which proclaims to “add more muscle to the fight.”

Landman also links to Breast Cancer Action’s excellent Think Before You Pink campaign.

Study Finds Drop in Use of HRT: “Fewer older women in Canada are using hormone-replacement therapies to treat the symptoms of menopause, turning instead to natural remedies, says a study released Thursday,” reports The Vancouver Sun.

“The Canadian Institute for Health Information has found only five per cent of women in five provinces who are 65 years and older use hormone-replacement therapies — a drop from 14 per cent six years ago, when a report found the risks of using the menopause therapies outweigh the benefits.”

The Number of Underinsured Grows: Via the L.A. Times – A new study published in Health Affairs journal found that 25 million people ages 19 to 64 were underinsured in 2007, up from 16 million in 2003.

Nearly 50 million additional people have no health insurance at all. In all, “You end up with about 75 million adults who were either underinsured or uninsured at some time during the year,” says study co-author Sara Collins, an assistant vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that supports independent healthcare research.

Those who had inadequate insurance coverage were almost as likely as those with no insurance to avoid getting needed care or to suffer medically related financial problems. Some 53% of the underinsured went without needed care, compared with 68% of the uninsured. And 45% of underinsured people had trouble paying medical bills, compared with 51% of uninsured people. “You can have health insurance and still go bankrupt if you get sick,” the authors note.

ACLU Symposium on LGBTQ Rights: Melissa points to a number of pieces posted at the symposium, including her piece on gay marriage written as a LGBTQ ally. I loved what Rachel Maddow had to say in an interview with the ACLU:

So far the state where I grew up (California) and the state where I live (Massachusetts) and the state where I work most of the time (New York) have legalized, legalized, and agreed-to-recognize-other-states’ same-sex-marriages, respectively. I am accepting applications now from other states that want me to relocate, since apparently I am to second-class gay citizenship what Saint Patrick was to snakes.

Congratulations to Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 84 — longtime gay rights activists who were the first to wed in San Francisco Monday, on the eve of the legalization of same-sex marriage throughout California.

“When we first got together we weren’t thinking about getting married,” said Lyon before cutting a wedding cake, according to The New York Times. “I think it’s a wonderful day.”

It was actually their second wedding — their first took place four years ago, also in San Francisco, when Mayor Gavin Newsom sanctioned same-sex weddings. The California Supreme Court later invalidated those marriages.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Martin and Lyon have been at the forefront of the gay-rights movement since they moved in together in 1953. They’ve fought for equality for gays and lesbians in the workplace, housing, the medical establishment, the feminist movement and, most recently, the institution of marriage.

Martin wore a purple pantsuit and stood up from her wheelchair to face Lyon, dressed in a blue pantsuit. During the six-minute ceremony, the two held hands as they recited their vows to love and honor each other, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Their eyes welled with tears.

Lyon was the first to say “I do,” her voice resonating in the room. Martin’s “I do,” which came next, was more muted, audible only to those close by. They exchanged rings – the ones they’ve worn before – hugged, and then kissed each other lightly.

The room erupted in cheers – and tears.

For more coverage, check out the Chronicle’s multimedia section on same-sex marriage, which includes profiles of couples saying, “I do”; multiple photo albums; and Chronicle reporter Jim Doyle discussing the recent history of same-sex marriage.

The L.A. Times, meanwhile, looks at the high number of marriage licenses issued as of 5 p.m. Tuesday in California. Here’s a map that shows how counties are handling same-sex marriages; a report on the tactics of opponents (who are apparently lying low for now); and a reader Q&A that even answers questions like this: “Our friend was ‘ordained’ by the ‘Church of the Latter-Day Dude’ and performed his sister’s ceremony in South Carolina last month. Does he need to do anything else to be able to marry us in California?”

Finally, here’s a look at reaction from other countries. Bruce Wallace writes:

Many parts of Europe have reacted with a collective shrug to the California Supreme Court ruling that found the ban on same-sex marriage to be discriminatory. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the Netherlands since 2001, in Belgium since 2003 and in Spain since 2005. The move by the second U.S. state to join them brought only cursory news coverage.

Elsewhere, Canada has officially recognized same-sex marriage since 2005. South Africa stands out as the exception on a continent where homosexuality is largely taboo. It passed a law in 2006 to recognize homosexual marriages after a Constitutional Court ruling said anything less would treat gays and lesbians as inferior.

And Norway happened to legalize same-sex marriage today.

Press speculation is now underway about the type of first lady Michelle Obama might be (comparisons to Barbara Bush? Please).

Writing at Disability Studies, Penny L. Richards, a research scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, acknowledges that she’s usually not interested in discussing the role of the first lady, but she offers an informative analysis of how the physical disabilities of First Lady Ida McKinley helped shaped the press coverage of her husband’s presidency.

Throughout her adulthood, McKinley had epilepsy, intense headaches and phlebitis, which made walking difficult. She was also under great emotional stress: Both her daughters died young in the 1870s; her only brother was murdered. Richards notes that she was probably overmedicated with sedatives.

A discreet press was mostly silent about her “fainting spells,” and “a special campaign biography” of her was released to frame her health in the most gentle terms. Reporters, forbidden to write about her health, instead focused on her gowns. Her husband, President William McKinley, was devoted to Ida’s care: like many partners, he could see the subtle signs of an impending seizure, and knew how to cover for her during required periods of rest. And that devotion became part of his public reputation. Even her absence on the campaign trail was seen as helpful — a gap that reminded voters of the candidate’s tender personal life. Her “frailty” was held up as ladylike and unthreatening, in contrast to Mary Baird, Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, the trained lawyer and reform-minded woman who was rumored to write her husband’s fiery speeches. [...]

Privately, some in Washington read Ida McKinley as a manipulative “invalid,” using her perceived delicacy to demand indulgences (think of Zeena in Ethan Frome for a well-known literary version of this archetype). She would appear at state events propped in a velvet chair, with the understanding that she would neither rise from her seat nor shake hands. She wore luxurious lacy gowns and jewels, to enhance her persona as a fragile beauty. (She was the first First Lady to appear in newsreels, so she had a much wider audience for her fashion choices than previous First Ladies). Ida McKinley crocheted a lot — a fine sickbed tradition; while in the White House she reportedly made 3500 pairs of slippers to raise money for charities. There’s some evidence that she was sedated not only for medical necessity but to control her “irrational” personality.

Despite her husband’s devotion, the story of Ida McKinley seems to be a lesson in the early power of image and how the first lady becomes the most acute projection of our gendered desires.

For additional reading, Richards lists sources on McKinley and on the representation of feminine illness.

* * * * * *
In other news …

- “Three islanders from Lesbos told a court Tuesday that gay women insult their home’s identity by calling themselves lesbians,” reports the AP. “The plaintiffs — two women and a man — are seeking to ban a Greek gay rights group from using the word ‘lesbian’ in its name.”

- Some great feminist events in New York this week, via Feministing.

- Following up on the study we mentioned last week on how well journalists cover health news, I wanted to mention that the study’s lead author, journalism professor Gary Schwitzer, has his own blog, in addition to publishing Health News Review.

Wide Disparities in Health Care by Race and Region: “Race and place of residence can have a staggering impact on the course and quality of the medical treatment a patient receives, according to new research showing that blacks with diabetes or vascular disease are nearly five times more likely than whites to have a leg amputated and that women in Mississippi are far less likely to have mammograms than those in Maine,” reports The New York Times.

The study was conducted by researchers at Dartmouth and was commissioned by the nation’s largest health-related philanthropy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which announced a three-year, $300 million initiative intended to narrow health care disparities across lines of race and geography.

Repairing the Damage, Before Roe: “With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside,” writes Waldo L. Fielding in this op-ed. “When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe ‘bad old days.’ Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.” Read on.

Legal Effects of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples: The San Francisco Chronicle has a comprehensive run-down of the legal and financial changes same-sex couples face if they get married in California.

Plus: What happens to the status of couples already married if the November initiative to ban same-sex marriage passes? Expect heavy litigation and a decision ultimately decided by the California Supreme Court, says UCLA law professor Brad Sears.

Paying for Health Care in Retirement – Good Luck: “I write about health care, and still the realization hit me like a ton of bricks today after I put down a just-released report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. None of the presidential candidates have been talking about how to fix Medicare," writes Judith Graham at the Chicago Tribune.

Here’s the sobering EBRI report (PDF), effectively titled: “Savings Needed to Fund Health Insurance and Health Care Expenses in Retirement: Findings from a Simulation Model.”

On Becoming a Woman: In case you were looking for some, er, real-life advice, Blinky has excerpts from this 1950′s guide. Here’s analysis from Echidne, who calls it “a fascinating trip into the sexual politics of the past.”

“On the other hand,” she adds, “almost everything in those excerpts is advocated in this country somewhere, right this very moment. Abstinence is the responsibility of girls, for example. Women gentle and home-directed while men are strong and outer-directed? I was just told this by a liberal guy.”

Speaking of Abstinence: The National Abstinence Education Association has launched a $1 million campaign to recruit 1 million parents to “lobby local schools to adopt sex education programs focusing on abstinence and to work to elect local, state and national officials who support the approach,” reports the Washington Post.

The campaign comes as Congress is debating whether to authorize about $190 million in federal funding for such programs, which have come under increasing criticism because of a series of reports that concluded they are ineffective. Such criticism has prompted at least 17 states to refuse federal funding for such programs.

The group hopes to counter that trend, in part with a provocative video that asserts that comprehensive sex education encourages sexual activity by teenagers and a Web site that offers advice to parents about sex education.

Plus: Five days later, the same WaPo reporter, Rob Stein, wrote a page-one story about a new study by the Centers for Disease Control that found “a decade-long decline in sexual activity among high school students leveled off between 2001 and 2007, and that the rise in condom use by teens flattened out in 2003.”

The new figures renewed the heated debate about sex-education classes that focus on abstinence until marriage, which began receiving federal funding during the period covered by the latest survey and have come under increasing criticism that they are ineffective.

“Since we’ve started pushing abstinence, we have seen no change in the numbers on sexual activity,” said John Santelli, chairman of the department of population and family health at Columbia University. “The other piece of it is: Abstinence education spends a good amount of time bashing condoms. So it’s not surprising, if that’s the message young people are getting, that we’re seeing condom use start to decrease.”

Not surprisingly, proponents of abstinence-only programs blamed comprehensive sex-ed.

Hands Up if You’ve Experienced Street Harassment: The F-Word is gathering comments here, in response to comments here.

Breast Cancer News from ASCO Conference: Several breast cancer-related studies presented at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago are summarized here by Daily Women’s Health Policy Report. Meeting abstracts from the conference are available here.

Eat Locally, Think …: “The local food movement typically has been about improving the health of the planet,” writes Tara Parker-Pope. “But now researchers are trying to find out if eating locally farmed food is also better for your health. A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a grant to study the public health impact of moving toward a local, sustainable food system.”

Chicago can’t hold a carrot stick to California when it comes to the availability of locally grown produce, but the farmers markets rock during the summer and fall. How ’bout where you live?

If I Could Be Anywhere Right Now: It would be here.

Much news to cover this week concerning same-sex marriage on opposite coasts. First up, wedding bells will ring for gay and lesbian couples in California starting June 17, the first day marriage licenses can be issued.

That day was decided upon by the state’s Office of Vital Records, in order to allow the state Supreme Court the maximum time to consider any challenge to its ruling before it takes effect, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Office of Vital Records also announced how the new marriage forms will be worded — the forms refer to applicants simply as “Party A” and “Party B.”

And here’s more good news in California: The statewide Field Poll that has been conducted in that state for 30 years found, for the first time ever, a majority of voters support same-sex marriage. The majority was slim — only 51 percent — but it’s still a big step. Back in 1977, when the Field Poll first asked the question, only 28 percent favored same-sex marriage.

“This is a milestone in California,” Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director, told the Chronicle. “You can’t downplay the importance of a change in an issue we’ve been tracking for 30 years.”

View the full poll (PDF), which breaks down responses by age, region, party, political ideology and religion.

New York, meanwhile, is poised to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Gov. David A. Patterson acted on a directive issued by legal counsel May 14, which notified state agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

Jeremy W. Peters writes in The New York Times:

The directive cited a Feb. 1 ruling by a State Appellate Court in Rochester that Patricia Martinez, who works at Monroe Community College and who married her partner in Canada, could not be denied health benefits by the college because of New York’s longstanding policy of recognizing marriages performed elsewhere, even if they are not explicitly allowed under New York law. The appeals court said that New York must recognize marriages performed in other states that allow the practice and in countries that permit it, like Canada and Spain.

Monroe County filed an appeal with the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, but it was rejected on technical grounds. The county has not decided whether to file another appeal, a county spokesman said on Wednesday. The Court of Appeals has previously ruled that the state’s Constitution did not compel the recognition of same-sex marriages and that it was up to the Legislature to decide whether do so.

Groups that oppose gay marriage said the governor was essentially trying to circumvent the Legislature.

“It’s a perfect example of a governor overstepping his authority and sidestepping the democratic process,” said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a national organization opposed to same-sex marriage. “It’s an issue of public policy that should be decided by the voters.”

Gay rights advocates, however, applauded Mr. Paterson, saying the broad directive would make it clear that gay couples wed in other states were entitled to all of the benefits of marriage in New York and relieve them of the burden of challenging or suing individual agencies.

The majority leader of the State Senate, Republican Joe Bruno, told the Times on Thursday “that he and his staff would look at whether the governor had violated the checks and balances that stand between the executive and the legislative branches. But he stopped short of saying that Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, had overstepped his authority. ‘There’s a constitutional question here,’ Mr. Bruno added.”

State agencies are going to have to revise “as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses,” according to the Times.

Some gay New Yorkers may be packing their bags for California next month — or Canada. While marriages performed in Massachusetts would be recognized in New York, Massachusetts doesn’t allow same-sex couples to marry there if their home state prohibits same-sex unions. For New Yorkers, that might just be a matter of time — if the Republican-controlled Senate quits stalling.

Advocates of same-sex marriage were quick to note the irony of New York’s position.

“If you’re going to treat us as equals, why don’t you just give us the marriage license?” said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda. “So this is a temporary but necessary fix for a longer-term problem, which is marriage equality in New York State.”

Bush Ally Orr Leaves Just as Domestic Gag Rule Is Reconsidered: RH Reality Check has good coverage of the surprise resignation of Dr. Susan Orr, the assistant deputy secretary for population affairs. Orr previously worked for the Family Research Council — one of several conservative groups now pressuring President Bush to cut Title X family planning funding for clinics who also provide abortion services.

“Her most notable accomplishment in the year she has served is to defend the abstinence-until-marriage approach in the face of incontrovertible evidence it has failed,” writes Cristina Page. “Now that the Unplanned Family Research Council is within days of hitting another nail into Title X’s coffin, Dr. Orr suddenly and quietly resigns from her post so, one suspects, to not appear to have orchestrated the undermining of her own program from within.”

Read related posts by Amie Newman and Emily Douglas, and here’s more on the domestic gag rule by Marilyn Keefe of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Plus: The Hill reports on how a group of centrist House Republicans are squaring off with GOP conservatives over modifying Title X regulations.

Domestic Partners Can Wed Without Dissolution: “Same-sex couples who are registered as domestic partners do not have to dissolve that union before getting married, attorneys that advise the state Legislature said Thursday, just as county clerks and other local officials met to determine how they will enact last week’s historic state Supreme Court ruling,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Of course, there’s still the possibility of voters this November approving a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. State Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco warned that in light of future uncertainty, couples should not dissolve their domestic partnerships until that question is settled.

“It would be foolhardy to dissolve because it would create a period of vulnerability” for couples, Migden said.

For answers to more questions on the legality and logistics of same-sex marriage in California, check out this special news section.

FDA Warns Mothers About Nipple Cream: The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to nursing mothers on Friday not to use or purchase Mommy’s Bliss Nipple Cream, marketed by MOM Enterprises Inc. of San Rafael, Calif., The product label says there’s no need to remove the cream before nursing, but it contains ingredients that may cause respiratory distress, vomiting and diarrhea in infants. Whoa.

The potentially harmful ingredients in the cream are chlorphenesin and phenoxyethanol. From the FDA release:

“Chlorphenesin relaxes skeletal muscle and can depress the central nervous system and cause respiratory depression (slow or shallow breathing) in infants. Phenoxyethanol is a preservative that is primarily used in cosmetics and medications. It also can depress the central nervous system and may cause vomiting and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration in infants.”

“FDA is particularly concerned that nursing infants are being unwittingly exposed by their mothers to this product with dangerous side effects,” said Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Additionally, these two ingredients may interact with one another to further compound and increase the risk of respiratory depression in nursing infants.”

The FDA said it has not received any reports of injury to infants. The company has stopped selling the cream.

Chemicals in Nail Salons Affect Workers: A new survey from the Northern California Cancer Center and Asian Health Services of Oakland has found that Vietnamese nail salon workers suffer from acute health effects associated with the chemicals they use in that work, according to this release. Toxic and potentially hazardous ingredients, including solvents, plasticizers, resins and acids, are commonly found in nail care products.

“A majority of the workers reported health concerns from exposures to workplace chemicals,” reports Dung Nguyen of Asian Health Services who directed the face-to-face interviews with 201 Vietnamese nail salon workers at 74 salons. “Many of them reported having some health problem after they began working in the industry, particularly skin and eye irritation, breathing difficulties and headaches.” said Nguyen.

“Our findings highlight a critical need for further investigation into the breast cancer risk of nail salon workers, underscored by the workers’ routine use of carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, their prevalent health concerns about such chemicals, and their high level of acute health problems,” adds Thu Quach, MPH, of the Northern California Cancer Center.

The study was published online and is scheduled to appear in the October issue of Journal of Community Health.

New Safety Program to Monitor Medicare Drug Use: “Federal health officials will begin monitoring prescription drug usage by millions of Medicare participants in an effort to identify potential safety problems,” reports the Associated Press. Kevin Freking writes:

The Food and Drug Administration has been under increasing pressure to develop a comprehensive drug surveillance system since the painkiller Vioxx was pulled from the market in 2004 after it was linked to increased risk of stroke and heart attack.

New regulations announced Thursday by the Health and Human Services Department will enable the FDA, states and academic researchers to screen the Medicare claims data. Under the regulation, the Medicare data can be made available in 30 days.

My favorite quote from the story: “The era of wait and see is going to become the era of tell me right now,” the FDA commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, said.

At first glance it sounds great. But then you read that only general details about the cost of enacting this new “Sentinel Initiative” were provided and, as Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said, it’s still in the planing states. Our verdict: We’ll wait and see.

Legal Rights of the Uninsured: The Chicago Tribune blog Triage, written by Judith Graham, covers issues related to the health-care industry. Here’s an interesting post on the legal rights of the uninsured — which in Illinois refers to 1.75 million people, almost 60 percent of whom are employed. For starters:

There is no such thing as a “right to care” for people who don’t have health insurance, with one major exception.

If you’re experiencing a medical emergency, you can go to any hospitals and get treatment. Hospitals are enjoined from turning you away under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal act passed by Congress in 1986.

Plus: For up-to-date statistics and analysis of health care coverage and the uninsured, visit this section of the Kaiser Family Foundation. And check out the new Kaiser Fast Facts.

My Veggie Hero: Meet Johanna McCloy, who is taking on one ballpark at a time, trying to get vegetarian hot dogs added to the menu so all baseball fans can experience the joy of filling a bun with sauerkraut and mustard (ketchup? yeah, right). Check out her site, SoyHappy.org. And go Cubs!

When Chick Flicks Get Knocked Up: “Eventually, your female friends — the ones who married late and retained youthful obsessions with Yo La Tengo and graphic art books until forty — may shock you by having children,” writes Alissa Quart at Mother Jones. “This year, at least, they have cinematic alter egos; those millennium Mary Tyler Moores Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt have left their cosmos and canned laughter behind and gotten knocked up onscreen too. In the process, they have created a new genre: The Fertility Film. But are the new fertility film stars actually feminists?” (via Feministing)

Silicone Gel Implants May Lose Approval: From our enlightened neighbor to the north … “Health Canada may have to reverse its controversial 2006 decision to allow women to get silicone gel-filled breast implants if it proceeds with a plan to declare key chemicals found in them to be toxic, experts say,” reports The Ottawa Citizen. (via Beauty and the Breast)

South Carolina Supreme Court Overturns Conviction: “A South Carolina woman convicted of homicide by child abuse after her stillborn baby tested positive for cocaine should get a new trial because of several mistakes her attorneys made, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday,” reports the Associated Press. “Attorneys for Regina McKnight did not introduce the baby’s autopsy report into evidence and failed to rebut the prosecution’s medical expert, the court said in the unanimous decision.”

Prosecutors have 15 days to decide whether to appeal. From the Myrtle Beach Online:

Attorneys for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women and the S.C. Civil Liberties Union became involved in McKnight’s case when she asked for post-conviction relief.

“The groups got involved because there is complete consensus that prosecuting pregnant women is bad for mothers and babies,” said Lynn Paltrow, with the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “Regina McKnight was convicted on junk science and was not fairly represented at trial.”

A Place to Pump: “Washington area women have hooked up electric or manual versions in parked cars, restrooms, a telephone booth and the basement storage room of the National Zoo visitors center, where a box of panda costumes doubled this spring as a table on which one woman set her pump, bottles and other equipment,” writes Rebecca Adams at the Washington Post.

“Not perhaps what the D.C. Council had in mind when it passed a law in December requiring employers to provide female workers a private, clean space, outside a restroom, to express milk. The Child’s Right to Nurse Act also gives a woman the right to breast-feed, covered or not, in any place, public or private, where she has a right to be.”

Maternal Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants Linked to Urologic Conditions in Boys: This release from the American Urological Association summarizes studies that confirm existing hypotheses that maternal exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals – including total polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs, such as Arochlor) and organochlorinated pesticides (such as dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT) may contribute to an increased incidences of congenital anomalies.

Mammograms Coupled with Ultrasounds: Deborah Katz of U.S. News & World Report looks at new research on combining mammography and ultrasounds, which may be better for finding cancers in some women, but it also greatly increases the rate of false-positive results. Plus: Check out our analysis on routine mammograms for premenopausal women.

The Business of Bacteria: The L.A. Times reports on the popularity of probioitics, live "friendly" bacteria that is showing up in more foods, like Dannon’s Activia yogurt. “Companies claim that the daily consumption of probiotics can provide consumers with benefits such as a boost to the immune system and relief from intestinal distress — and researchers think that certain probiotic strains hold promise in a number of areas,” writes Brendan Borrell. “But how significant these benefits are is a matter of debate. And it can be tough to decipher which products offer verifiable health claims and which are piggybacking on the hype of the booming industry.

Doctors Start to Say “I’m Sorry” Long Before “See You in Court”: The New York Times reports on a change in hospital policy: full disclosure when a doctor makes a mistake. Kevin Sack writes:

For decades, malpractice lawyers and insurers have counseled doctors and hospitals to “deny and defend.” Many still warn clients that any admission of fault, or even expression of regret, is likely to invite litigation and imperil careers.

But with providers choking on malpractice costs and consumers demanding action against medical errors, a handful of prominent academic medical centers, like Johns Hopkins and Stanford, are trying a disarming approach.

By promptly disclosing medical errors and offering earnest apologies and fair compensation, they hope to restore integrity to dealings with patients, make it easier to learn from mistakes and dilute anger that often fuels lawsuits.

Malpractice lawyers say that what often transforms a reasonable patient into an indignant plaintiff is less an error than its concealment, and the victim’s concern that it will happen again.

Culture Affects How Teen Girls See Harassment: “Teenage girls of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds still experience sexism and sexual harassment – but cultural factors may control whether they perceive sexism as an environmental problem or as evidence of their own shortcomings,” according to this release from the University of Kentucky summarizing a study of 600 girls, ages 12 to 18, in California and Georgia.

Ninety percent of the girls reported experiencing at least one incident of sexual harassment, the researchers from University of Kentucky and University of California Santa Cruz found.

Specifically, 67 percent of girls reported receiving unwanted romantic attention, 62 percent were exposed to demeaning gender-related comments, 58 percent were teased because of their appearance, 52 percent received unwanted physical contact and 25 percent were bullied or threatened with harm by a male. 52 percent of girls also reported receiving discouraging gender-based comments on the math, science and computer abilities, usually from male peers, and 76 percent of girls reported sexist comments on their athletic abilities, again
predominantly from male peers.

The researchers found that girls have different levels of understanding of sexism and sexual harassment, which may affect reporting data. Older girls and those from a lower socioeconomic background reported more sexism than did their peers. Latin and Asian American girls reported less sexual harassment than did girls of other ethnic groups. Girls who had been exposed to feminist ideas, either through the media or an adult such as a mother or teacher, were more likely to identify and report sexist behavior than were girls who had no information about feminism. Girls who reported feeling pressure from their parents to conform to gender stereotypes were also more likely to perceive sexism. Girls who felt atypical for their gender and/or were unhappy with stereotypical gender roles were most likely to report sexism and harassment.

The study appears in the May/June issue of Child Development.

The California Supreme Court has overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, by a vote of 4-3.

From The New York Times:

The court’s 4-to-3 decision striking down state laws that had limited marriages to unions between a man and a woman makes California only the second state, after Massachusetts, to allow same-sex marriages. The decision, which becomes effective in 30 days, is certain to play a role in the presidential campaign.

“In view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship,” Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote of marriage for the majority, “the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.”

Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing from here, as the L.A. Times notes:

The state high court’s 4-3 ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. A group has circulated petitions for a November ballot initiative that would amend the state Constitution to block same-sex marriage, while the Legislature has twice passed bills to authorize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both.

Here’s a PDF of the court ruling and reactions in California. Our reaction: w00t!

Beyond Rape – A Survivor’s Journey: Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Joanna Connors has written a five-part story about being raped 24 years ago when she was on assignment for the paper.

The story is notable not only for Connors’ reach in describing how her life (and by extension her husband and children) was affected by the rape, but she also sets out to learn more about her rapist — and in doing so peels back the layers on a family trapped in a cycle of violence and abuse toward women. While exploring the related race and class issues, Connors raises many questions as she sets about trying to answer them.

All the sections to the series are available here, along with an introduction by the paper’s editor and resources for victims of rape.

Plus: Editor & Publisher looks at responses to Joanna Connors’ story.

Are Doctors Shilling for Drug Companies on Public Radio?: Check this out — as Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer write at Slate:

A few weeks ago, devoted listeners of public radio* were treated to an episode of the award-winning radio series The Infinite Mind called “Prozac Nation: Revisited.” The segment featured four prestigious medical experts discussing the controversial link between antidepressants and suicide. In their considered opinions, all four said that worries about the drugs have been overblown.

The radio show, which was broadcast nationwide and paid for in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, had the air of quiet, authoritative credibility. Host Dr. Fred Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, interviewed three prominent guests, and any radio producer would be hard-pressed to find a more seemingly credible quartet. Credible, that is, except for a crucial detail that was never revealed to listeners: All four of the experts on the show, including Goodwin, have financial ties to the makers of antidepressants. Also unmentioned were the “unrestricted grants” that The Infinite Mind has received from drug makers, including Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Prozac.

Continue reading ….

For Prospective Moms, Biology and Culture Clash: Just before Mother’s Day, NPR’s “Morning Edition” looks at the rising age of first-time mothers and the “clash” between culture and biology.

The average age of first-time mothers in the United States has been rising steadily over the past four decades — up from 21.4 in 1970 to a little over 25 in 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics reports. [...]

“Women are no longer marrying the boy they met in high school,” [Rutgers anthropologist Helen] Fisher says. “They’re concerned with getting a career before they marry. This takes time.”

But this is time on the biological clock that cannot be recaptured. …

I appreciate that the story includes a couple sharing household duties while both work, and Fisher notes that businesses are recognizing women want to keep their careers, but there’s still a tone of women should know better — and should get on with making babies.

A story on, say, the glacial speed of government and business to provide adequate paternity and maternity leave and to accommodate breastfeeding moms returning to work — along with the lack of access to quality childcare and the advocacy work of groups like Moms Rising — would be a more welcome and appreciated “Mother’s Day” story.

Plus: This Wall Street Journal’s Heath Matters column focuses on unplanned pregnancies later in life. Close to 40 percent of pregnancies among women over 40 are unplanned, according to a 2001 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics in Atlanta, the most recent data available.

Public Citizen Calls on FDA To Withdraw Ortho Evra Patch From Market: Public Citizen’s Health Research Group called on the FDA this week to withdraw the birth control patch Ortho Evra from the market, citing studies that found an increased risk of dangerous blood clots, reports Reuters.

“The considerable safety concern of high-dose, variable estrogen exposure tips the balance of risks and benefits against the availability of Ortho-Evra as a contraceptive,” wrote Sidney Wolfe, head of the research group.

A Better Method for Handling Rape Kit Evidence: Jessica Voorhees Norris, a Ph.D. candidate in forensic chemistry at University of Virginia, has created a method for handling rape kit evidence that reduces part of the DNA analysis time from 24 hours to as little as 30 to 45 minutes and improves the sperm cell recovery rate by 100 percent, according to this university release.

If her method was to be adopted by forensic labs — and the results accepted by courts — the backlog could potentially be reduced within months.

“There is an overwhelming demand for DNA analysis of sexual assault evidence, but laboratories have neither the funding nor the manpower to handle the caseload in a timely manner,” Norris said. “Juries have come to expect DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, but forensic labs are not able to perform in a timely and efficient manner due to limitations in the currently used technologies.”

“Homosexuality,” “Sexually Explicit” Most Common Reasons for Challenging Books: For the second year in a row, “And Tango makes Three,” a children’s story by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell about two male penguins caring for an orphaned egg, was the most “challenged” book in U.S. public schools and libraries, according to the American Library Association.

Other books in the top 10 cited as “sexually explicit” include “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker; “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris; and “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier.

“Overall, the number of reported library challenges dropped from 546 in 2006 to 420 last year, well below the mid-1990s, when complaints topped 750,” reports the Associated Press. “For every challenge listed, about four to five go unreported, the library association estimates.”

National Women’s Health Week: We here at OBOS like to think of every week as Women’s Health Week, but next week it’s official: National Women’s Health Week runs May 11 – May 17, and the push this year is to encourage women to make their health a top priority and take simple steps for a longer, healthier and happier life.

There are a number of interesting stories in The New York Times, so let’s do a mini-double dose …

Pain as an Art Form: Well’s Tara Parker-Pope does a nice job describing how art is used to communicate physical pain, from some of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits (now on exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art) to a new online gallery called the Pain Exhibit.

The gallery is the brainchild of Mark Collen, 47, a former insurance salesman who struggled to explain his chronic back pain to a new doctor.

“It was only when I started doing art about pain, and physicians saw the art, that they understood what I was going through,” Collen said. “Words are limiting, but art elicits an emotional response.”

Taking it a step further, Collen started soliciting art from pain patients around the world. He teamed up with James Gregory, a 21-year-old college student who suffers from chronic pain following a car accident, and together they created the Pain Exhibit.

Parker-Pope writes:

Finding ways to communicate pain is essential to patients who are suffering, many of whom don’t receive adequate treatment from doctors. In January, Virtual Mentor, the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, reported that certain groups are less likely to receive adequate pain care. Hispanics are half as likely as whites to receive pain medications in emergency rooms for the same injuries; older women of color have the highest likelihood of being undertreated for cancer pain; and being uneducated is a risk factor for poor pain care in AIDS patients, the journal reported.

Some of the images from the Pain Exhibit, like “Broken People” by Robert S. Beal of Tulsa, Okla., depict the physical side of pain. Others, such as “Against the Barrier to Life,” convey the emotional challenges of chronic pain. “I feel like I am constantly fighting against a tidal wave of pain in order to achieve some quality of life,” wrote the work’s creator, Judith Ann Seabrook of Happy Valley in South Australia. “I am in danger of losing the fight and giving up.”

The art is connecting with medical professionals. The journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain features an image from the exhibit on the cover of its November issue, which focuses on women and pain.

Quieting the Demons and Giving Art a Voice: Like sculpture and painting, writing is also a form of expression and release. This review looks at “Madness: A Bipolar Life,” a new memoir by Marya Hornbacher, whom writer Abigail Zuger, MD, describes as “a virtuoso writer: humorous, articulate and self-aware. She is also, as she has now documented in two books, incurably mentally ill.”

Zuger continues:

For scientists trying to parse the mystery of brain and mind, she is one more case of the possible link between mental illness and artistic creativity. With all our scans and neurotransmitters, we are not much closer to figuring out that relationship than was Lord Byron, who announced that poets are “all crazy” and left it at that. But effective drugs make the question more urgent now: would Virginia Woolf, medicated, have survived to write her final masterpiece, or would she have spent her extra years happily shopping?

Ms. Hornbacher brings to the discussion more than the usual pairing of disturbed brain and talented mind. Her talent has created a third self, an appealing, rueful narrator who can look back on three decades of manic-depressive illness, much of it untreated, and spin a story that is almost impossible to put down.

Zuger also considers “Poets on Prozac: Mental Illness, Treatment and the Creative Process,” edited by Richard M. Berlin, M.D. Essays were solicited from published poets with psychiatric illness.

“Most of the 16 contributors are decades older than Ms. Hornbacher, but while they may lack her vivid prose style, they do supply a long-term perspective on the terrain,” writes Zuger.

Genes Explain Race Disparity in Response to a Heart Drug: This is a fascinating story. Researchers at Washington University and the University of Maryland found that patients who are non-responsive to a beta-blockers used in the treatment of heart failure may be making what amounts to their version of the drug, all the time, due to a gene variant.

What’s also surprising is that as many as 40 percent of blacks have this altered gene, compared to 2 percent of whites. The website of the journal Nature Medicine published a paper explaining the study.

“Something that occurs with a 40 percent frequency is not something that was a blip on the radar screen,” said Dr. Gerald W. Dorn, a cardiologist at Washington University and principal investigator for the study. “It must have given a survival advantage.” — Though what that advantage is is still the big unknown.

Gina Kolata writes:

The discovery raises questions about whom to treat with beta blockers and how to decide, researchers say. But, they add, its implications go beyond heart failure.

For example, the gene variant may help explain why some healthy people cannot exercise vigorously — they may be making chemicals that act like beta blockers, making their hearts beat less forcefully. And variations in other genes might explain why some people with different conditions, like depression, do not respond to drugs used to treat it. It is possible that those people are already making their own versions of antidepressant drugs, and that adding more may not help.

But researchers say that people who make their own beta blockers are not protected from developing heart failure. That is because beta blockers are helpful only after the disease is established. And beta blockers can slow the disease’s progress but not cure it.

Through Sickness, Health and Sex Change: Finally, here’s a story from the Sunday paper about a married couple in New Jersey who are concerned about the legal status of their relationship, since the male partner underwent a sex change in 2005. The couple, who have three children, are still very much committed to each other. Tina Kelley writes:

Massachusetts is the only state to have legalized same-sex marriage, and the Brunners are two women married to each other in New Jersey. As this state (along with Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire) confronts challenges over whether its civil unions fulfill the mandate of providing same-sex couples equal rights and benefits, the Brunners offer themselves as Exhibit A on how the nation’s dizzying patchwork of marriage laws, which include the domestic partnerships of California and other states, may be out of step with people’s lives.

And here’s another mind-blowing breakdown of the complexities state by state:

The Brunners were already married when Donald became Denise. Transsexuals who marry after surgery pose a different set of questions, and there have been a number of custody, probate and other cases with decisions all over the legal map.

Urging the United States Supreme Court to tackle the issue in 2000, lawyers for Christie Lee Littleton, a Texas male-to-female transsexual suing her husband’s doctors for wrongful death, noted the confused landscape: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Texas, is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Texas, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

The Supreme Court declined to take the case.

Planned Parenthood Stands to Lose State Funding: “The Virginia Senate voted Wednesday to cut off state funding to Planned Parenthood of Virginia because it offers abortions, an action that could endanger hundreds of thousands of dollars in state aid for women’s health-care program,” reports the Washington Post.

“The irony is, Planned Parenthood probably prevents more abortions than any other organization in the country,” said Sen. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax).

Online Rally for Paid Sick Days: Join in at EveryoneGetsSick.org a project of the National Partnership for Women & Families and the Healthy Families Act Coalition.

EveryoneGetsSick.org supports the Healthy Families Act, proposed federal legislation that would guarantee workers up to seven paid sick days per year to recover from an illness or care for a sick family member. (Radical stuff, eh?) Via Half-Changed World, which has more good links.

Hormone Therapy Impedes Cancer Tests: “Women who take hormones to ease the symptoms of menopause are more likely to have abnormal mammogram results – and, therefore, more breast biopsies – than women who don’t take the therapy, researchers found,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle, which also notes that “the tools used to diagnose breast cancer are less likely to catch malignant tumors in women taking hormone replacement therapy, despite the fact that they have a slightly increased risk of cancer.”

The findings were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The Wrong Target: “Society (and thus law enforcement) needs to view any adult who sexually exploits a child as a villain, and the exploited child as a victim of that villainy,” writes New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. “If a 35-year-old pimp puts a 16-year-old girl on the street and a 30-year-old john pays to have sex with her, how is it reasonable that the girl is most often the point in that triangle that is targeted by law enforcement?”

Mark the Calendar: March is Women’s History Month and March 8 is International Women’s Day. And Feminist Peace Network is the go-site for information and events related to both.

UN Meetings on Status of Women: The 52nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women is meeting in New York from Feb. 25 – March 7. Here’s a look at all the panels (PDF).

Zohra Moosa and Jane Gabriel are live blogging the sessions. Check out their reports at Open Democracy. Developments will also be posted at PeaceWomen, the website for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Plus: “[N]ot one presidential candidate has chosen to highlight the profound threat that gender inequality is posing to the development, economic stability and future peace of our world,” writes Kavita Nandini Ramdas, president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, in The Nation.

Africa’s Lesbians Demand Change: BBC News reports on efforts by the Coalition of African Lesbians to highlight discrimination across Africa and to get governments to stop treating homosexuality as a criminal offense. The Coalition organized a conference in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, that was attended by 75 activists. According to the International Gay and Lesbian Association, homosexuality is outlawed in 38 African countries and is legal (or unmentioned in the statute book) in at least 13.

Postpartum Depression: A University of Iowa survey of 4,332 new mothers from four Iowa counties found that 40 percent of Iowa mothers with a household income less than $20,000 suffered from clinically significant postpartum depression. In contrast, only 13 percent of new mothers with a household income of $80,000 or more were considered clinically depressed, according to this release.

A second UI study on race and postpartum emotions found that African-American mothers are more likely than white mothers to experience depressed moods immediately after giving birth, while Latina mothers are less likely to experience depressed moods. The study’s authors are now working to help mothers suffering from postpartum depression by teaching caseworkers and nurses how to screen for depression and by implementing a new intervention program involving “listening visits.”

A Dose of Slow Medicine: “For the very elderly … most agree the usual tough love of modern medicine in all its hospital-based, medication-obsessed, high-tech impersonality may hurt more than it helps,” writes Abigail Zuber, M.D., in this look at “slow medicine” — described as “a family-centered, less expensive” alternative to modern, impersonal treatments — and review of the new book “My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing ‘Slow Medicine,’ the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones,” by Dennis McCullough, M.D.

Caffeine and Pregnancy: A new study (PDF) published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology says too much caffeine during pregnancy may increase the risk of miscarriage. Researchers found that “pregnant women who consume 200 milligrams or more of caffeine a day — the amount in 10 ounces of coffee or 25 ounces of tea — may double their risk of miscarriage,” reports The New York Times.

Dr. De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif., and lead author of the study, said pregnant women should try to give up caffeine for at least the first three or four months. But some physicians had reservations about the study.

“Just interviewing women, over half of whom had already had their miscarriage, does not strike me as the best way to get at the real scientific question here,” said Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and of epidemiology, at Columbia University Medical Center. “But it is an excellent way to scare women.”

Kindness RX: Women’s eNews looks at a social-support campaign by and for pregnant African American women, who are nearly four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women.The community-based campaign is called “100 Intentional Acts of Kindness Toward a Pregnant Woman.”

No More Drive-By Mastectomies: Celebrities, activists and lawmakers called on Congress this week to pass the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2007, which would require that insurers cover up to a 48-hour stay in a hospital after a woman has had a mastectomy if the doctor and patient deem it necessary. Lifetime’s website collected 20 million signatures in support of the legislation.

According to the Baltimore Sun, only 10 states require up to 48 hours of coverage after mastectomies, and 10 states have no specific time limit. The remaining 30 have no protections.

Interview with Lisa Jackson: Melissa Silverstein interviews fillmmaker Lisa Jackson, who went to the Congo to take the testimony of women and girls being raped and sexually assaulted for the last decade in her new film, “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.” The film made its premiere at Sundance and will appear on HBO in April.

Plus: Chances are you saw the Oscar nominations this week, but did you catch the nominees for the 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards? Here’s the full list of nominees.

The Pill Protects Against Cancer: “British researchers found that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing ovarian cancer, and that the risk remained low more than 30 years later, though protection weakened over time,” reports the Washington post. The findings were published Friday in The Lancet.

In response to the study, The Lancet’s editors called for oral contraceptives to be made more widely available to women over the counter.

Calcium Effects Boosted by Vitamin D: The combination of calcium and vitamin D is more effective than calcium alone in preventing bone loss in elderly women, according to a new study that will appear in the March issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Buying into Botox: In a story about “How Not to Look Old,” a new advice book by Charla Krupp, a former beauty director at Glamour and columnist for More magazine, New York Times writer Natasha Singer notes that the book “is the latest makeover title to treat the aging of one’s exterior as a disease whose symptoms are to be fought to the death or, at least, mightily camouflaged.” She continues:

But the book offers a serious rationale for such vigilant attempts at age control, arguing that trying to pass for younger is not so much a matter of sexual allure as of job security. [...] Many people would shun a book if it were titled “How Not to Look Jewish” or “How Not to Look Gay” because to cater to discrimination is to capitulate to it. But the success of “How Not to Look Old” indicates that popular culture is willing to buy into ageism as an acceptable form of prejudice, even against oneself.

“Teeth” Provides Feminist Bite: In a review of the new film “Teeth,” a satire based on the myth of vagina dentata, Wesley Morris writes: “[T]here’s something almost subversive about Lichtenstein’s affection for his heroine and the pleasure she ultimately takes in re-appropriating a misogynistic myth. By the end of the film she’s not some virginal damsel. She’s on the verge of becoming a vaginal vigilante.”

Pop Goes Abortion: Yep. Another story about recent films that have avoided abortion … but this Newsday story goes further, addressing television’s representation (and lack thereof) as well: “More frequently, shows duck the issue by having characters back out at the last second (“Beverly Hills 90210,” “Melrose Place,” “The O.C.,” “Felicity,” “Sex and the City”) or miscarry (“Party of Five,” “Beverly Hills, 90210″ and “Melrose Place” – twice.) And Erica Kane? In 2005 she learned her baby wasn’t aborted after all, but transferred to another woman’s uterus.”

OK, it’s been ages since I watched “All My Children,” but he’s joking, right??

Plus: Susan J. Douglas puts in context “The Jamie Lynn Effect.”

Pro-Choice Carnival: The first Pro-Choice Carnival was recently published at Abortion is a Woman’s Right. Two of Rachel’s posts are featured: “More Disturbing Ballot Initiatives – Abortion Access in Missouri,” from Our Bodies Our Blog, and “How Operation Rescue and National Right to Life Spin Abortion Research,” from Women’s Health News.

The second edition will be posted at the same blog Feb. 28; submissions deadline is Feb. 27. Check here for more information.

21 Leaders Worth Getting to Know: Women’s eNews has announced its 21 Leaders for the 21st Century 2008: “20 women and one man who are dedicated to improving the lives of women in their homes, in their communities, in their nations and across the globe.” Included among them are four women being honored for their work on behalf of women’s health.

Civil Unions Spark Excitement as Well as Yawns: On Jan. 1, New Hampshire became the fourth state — behind Vermont, Connecticut and New Jersey — to allow civil unions, and the first to do so without legal challenge. Massachusetts remains the only state that allows gays and lesbians to marry.

This Boston Globe editorial page notes that “the event was met with a collective yawn,” adding: “There are several reasons for this change, but the most important is that residents of New Hampshire have had a chance to observe Vermont and Connecticut’s civil unions and Massachusetts’ same-sex marriage, and realized that extending rights to a minority is no threat to the majority — or to the institution of marriage.”

Prescription Plan Includes Pill: In Oregon, a state law that went into effect Jan. 1 requires health insurance plans that cover prescription drugs to include contraception and requires hospitals to offer emergency contraceptives to women who seek care after a sexual assault, reports The Oregonian.

A separate Oregonian story describes a state law requiring employers with 25 or more workers to provide a separate space and adequate time for mothers to pump breast milk.

“This law is national-precedent setting,” said Amelia Psmythe, executive director of the Nursing Mothers Counsel of Oregon. “It is the most detailed, toughest mandate of its kind in the country, so all eyes are on Oregon.”

Most Free Products Go to the Insured: “Free drug samples are more likely to go to wealthy and insured people than to poor or uninsured Americans, according to a study by Boston-area doctors that conflicts with the view that giving away prescription medications forms a safety net for low-income patients,” reports the Boston Globe.

“That finding suggests that the samples were a marketing tool and not a safety net because the poor and uninsured patients were not finding their way to where the samples were,” said lead author Dr. Sarah L. Cutrona. The study appears in the February issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Doctors Connect with the Mind-Body: The Chicago Tribune reports on the medical community’s growing acceptance of the mind-body connection. In fact, “About 75 percent of medical schools now have some CAM [complementary and alternative medicine] courses in the curriculum, and the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine includes 39 academic health centers, including the Mayo Clinic plus Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Duke and Yale Universities.”

Blog for Choice: The annual Blog for Choice Day takes place Jan. 22, the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This year’s topic — why it’s important to vote pro-choice.

A recently released study conducted by a group of Bay Area organizations serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families “found that same-sex couples raising children in California are more likely to be people of color and that their median household income is 17 percent lower than the income of married couples with children,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Judy Appel, director of the Our Family Coalition in San Francisco, told the Chronicle, “There is an idea of LGBT families, when people think about it at all, there’s this perception that it’s affluent white folks, and the data show that’s based on our own misperceptions. We’re in every neighborhood, every race, ethnicity and economic group. Our kids are playing in the playgrounds and parks with all other kids.”

The report (PDF) was produced by the Our Family Coalition, the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center and Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, using U.S. census data from 2000, the first year respondents reported on whether they were living with a same-sex partner, and several other studies, including two by the Williams Project at the UCLA School of Law.

From the Chronicle:

The Williams Project found 1,400 same-sex couples raising children in Alameda County and close to 700 in San Francisco. The Our Families report notes that the numbers are probably on the low side because the census tracked only same-gender couples raising children, not gay and lesbian individuals with children.

The “Our Families” report focused on San Francisco and Alameda counties, which are ranked No. 2 and No. 4 respectively for the number of gay and lesbian couples among counties in the state. Los Angeles is No. 1, and San Diego is No. 3.

In Alameda and San Francisco counties, the report found, a large proportion of gay and lesbian couples raising children were nonwhite. In addition, 69 percent of same-sex parents were women. Those two factors could help explain why same-sex families have lower incomes, Appel said, because women and people of color earn less on average.

Plus: The Williams Institute released a research brief this month that looks at how the geographic distribution of same-sex couples is changing across the United States. The report, available here (PDF), includes these key findings:

* The number of same-sex couples reporting themselves as “unmarried partners” has quintupled since 1990 from 145,000 to nearly 780,000.

* The number of same-sex couples increased 21 times faster than the U.S. population from 1990 to 2006.

* The biggest increases from 1990 to 2006 were in Southern and Mountain states.

* Top 10 rankings of states and cities by concentration of same-sex couples (same-sex couples per 1,000 households) have remained quite stable comparing 1990, 2000 and 2006. But there have been a few big movers:
– Utah has moved from the lower third of states in 1990 to the upper third in 2006 (38th to 14th).
– Delaware has gone from 33rd to 12th.
– New Mexico from 16th to 2nd.

As the report notes, the regional increases in same-sex couples are likely due in large part to an increasing number of lesbians and gay men who are more forthcoming in surveys about their sexual orientation and living arrangements.

One indication of this, according to the research, is that socially conservative areas experienced the largest increases. Check out these numbers:

* From 2000 to 2006, states that banned same-sex marriage had increases in same-sex couples of 37 percent, exceeding the national pace of 31 percent.

* Places that actually had voter referendums had even larger increases of 41 percent.

* Places with no bans had an increase of 27 percent, below the national average.

* Conversely, states that created formal recognition of same-sex couples had the lowest average percentage increase — 23 percent.

The analysis is based on census enumerations along with data from the 2002 through 2006 American Community Surveys.