The Bush administration is poised to “grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds,” despite the fact the rule change has provoked a “torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job discrimination laws,” writes Robert Pear in The New York Times.
It’s not just access to reproductive health services that will be affected. Once the new Health and Human services rule is implemented, it would would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and drugstores from requiring employees with religious or moral objections to “assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity” that receives funding from HHS.
Opposition has been intense — the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, 28 senators, more than 110 representatives and the attorneys general of 13 states are against the rule, according to the Times.
Officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — including its legal counsel, who was appointed by Bush — also are against it. Still, it’s clear the Bush administration is hell-bent on pushing through the rule, despite critics’ warnings that it would upset decades of court decisions that had weighed “employees’ rights to religious freedom and employers’ business needs.”
The “provider conscience” rule has missed the deadline by which new regulations are supposed to be issued, but the White House can waive the deadline “in extraordinary circumstances.” The Times notes that the White House was “unable to say immediately why an exception might be justified in this case.”
It seems clear, however, once you look at who’s supporting the rule — social conservatives, like the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who have been pushing the administration to take a stronger stand against abortion and contraception.
Rachel previously wrote about the dangers of this HHS rule. We’ll be keeping an eye on updates to the situation. Birth Control Watch and RH Reality Check are also good places to check in with for background and the latest news.
One silver lining is that aides to President-elect Barack Obama said he would try to rescind the law upon taking office, though the process could take three to six months.
During that time, rape victims may no longer learn about emergency contraception and Medicaid recipients could be denied certain prescriptions — all because Bush couldn’t resist playing politics with women’s health.
Double Dose: Obama’s Pre-Inauguration Boom for Women’s Health; Baby in the Home (and Garden); Changing the Culture of Rape Prevention; Prescription Drugs Deliver Phthalates …
Obama Does More for Women’s Health Pre-Inauguration Than Bush in 8 Years: “President-Elect Obama has not been inaugurated yet and, already, he’s taken some critical steps towards restoring the United States as a leader in global women’s health,” writes Amie Newman at RH Reality Check. Newman goes on to identify global reproductive and sexual health mandates that Obama has prioritized since he won the election way back on, oh, Nov. 4.
Baby, You’re in the Home (and Garden): The New York Times published a cool story on the increasing number of women opting for home births (still a very small percentage of all births) that took a very New-York perspective: How does one give birth in a small apartment — especially if the room is filled with family and the walls between neighbors are thin?
If the story had left it there, it’s placement in the Home & Garden section might have been more justified. But as it reads — complete with condemnation of home births from the American Medical Association — it’s better suited for Health.
Plus: Don’t miss the related slide show of home births. And here’s a great trivia question: Who was the first American president to be born in a hospital? Answer: Jimmy Carter.
Sexual Assault on Campus - Changing the Culture: Terrific story in the Star Tribune about rape prevention programs on college campuses that focus on men. Check out the intro below, and be sure to read the rest:
Tyler Jones was tipping back a couple of beers with friends at a Dinkytown bar when he suddenly had to take a stand.
“Hey, see that girl over there?” Jones recalled an acquaintance asking, nodding toward a woman he wanted to take home. “She’s almost drunk. Not quite drunk enough. … What shot should I buy her?”
There was a time, Jones says, when he might have laughed off the remark. Not anymore.
“You want to buy her something really strong to like, basically knock her out?” Jones, a University of Minnesota senior, recalled saying. “Man, that’s not right. That’s rape. That’s sexual assault.”
The acquaintance looked stunned. “Whatever,” he mumbled, and walked away.
It was one moment at one bar. But it’s also a sign of a big shift in strategy on campuses trying to tackle a culture that some say tolerates sexual assault. Instead of teaching women not to walk alone at night or to carry Mace, some colleges are trying something much harder — changing college men. Jones, fresh from sex assault prevention training, is in the vanguard of the movement.
Women Gain Some Access, but Not Political Power: “Women still lag far behind men in top political and decision-making roles, though their access to education and health care is nearly equal, the World Economic Forum said Wednesday,” reports Reuters. “In its 2008 Global Gender Gap report, the forum, a Swiss research organization, ranked Norway, Finland and Sweden as the countries that have the most equality of the sexes, and Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen as having the least.”
Where does the United States rank? A measly 27th — below Germany (11th), Britain (13th), France (15th), Lesotho (16th), Trinidad and Tobago (19th), South Africa (22nd), Argentina (24th) and Cuba (25th). Here’s the full report (PDF).
The EPA’s Stalin Era: Yes, it really has been that bad, reports Rebecca Claren at Salon. To wit: “[T]he story of the hundreds of sick people who live near the former Kelly Air Force Base illuminates an entirely new manner in which the Bush administration has diluted science and put public health at risk. This year, largely in obeisance to the Pentagon, the nation’s biggest polluter, the White House diminished a little-known but critical process at the Environmental Protection Agency for assessing toxic chemicals that impacts thousands of Americans.”
Prescription Drugs May Deliver Phthalates: We’ve written before about the potential dangers of phthalates — chemical compounds commonly found in plastics, perfumes and lotions that are linked to reproductive abnormalities. But this one is news to me: Environmental Health News reports that prescription drugs can deliver high doses of phthalates.
“At least 47 prescription medications — including the colitis drug Asacol, an antacid and an HIV drug — contain phthalates, according to scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” writes Marla Cone.
Victoria’s Toxic Secret: Feminist Peace Network picks up the story concerning allegations that Victoria’s Secret’s bras are causing skin irritations. The suspect irritant? Formaldehyde.
Racial Barriers Between Doctors and Patients: “In politics, the racial barriers might have fallen, I thought, but what about in health care?” asks Pauline Chen, MD, in her latest doctor/patient column in The New York Times. Chen looks not only at the striking health care disparities and racial inequality, but also at the experiences of minority physicians:
Of all the surgical residents I trained with, “Eric” was easily one of the smartest. He possessed a great bedside manner, brilliant clinical skills and plenty of that Obama cool. Eric was African-American, and one night, when we were both on call together, he told me something I have never forgotten.
“You know, Pauline,” he said, “there are a lot of times when I go to a patient’s room for the first time and they ask me, ‘Are you transport? Are you here to wheel me to radiology?’” I can remember Eric shaking his head as he spoke. “They never assume I’m one of the doctors.”
Supreme Court Hears Gun Rights Case: Allison Stevens of Women’s eNews explains a gun-control case heard before the Supreme Court this week that could effect abusers’ access to guns in some states.
If the justices side with the U.S. government’s challenge — which argues the law should not be restricted to just a portion of the states — batterers in every state and territory would be subject to the gun control ban.
If the court rejects the government’s reading of the law and limits the application of the law to those states with specific anti-domestic violence laws, safety advocates are apprehensive that thousands of abusers across the country will be erased from criminal lists, giving them new access to guns, said Peter Hamm, a spokesperson for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group in Washington, D.C., that lobbies for gun control.
The Real Deal, the blog of the National Council for Research on Women (and a new addition to our blogroll!), last week asked leaders of women’s organizations to speculate how life might be different in an Obama era, that is: “more equitable, healthier, more secure — for women and girls.”
Among the responses — Women’s eNews founder and editor Rita Henley Jensen calls for the creation of an Office of Maternal Health; Marie Wilson, president and founder of The White House Project, calls for the nation’s first Presidential Commission on Women and Democracy; and Marcia D. Greenberger and Nancy Duff Campbell, co-presidents of the National Women’s Law Center, note that “the nation has no time to spare in providing guaranteed, affordable health care for all, passing essential legislation that provides basic fairness in the workplace, like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and undoing some of the onerous restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health that were imposed by the Bush Administration.”
The NCRW is hoping readers of blogs like OBOB will add their suggestions to the comments sections at HuffPo. So have at it.
Speaking of the National Women’s Law Center, the organization has been very tuned into health care and is hosting monthly Reform Matters conference calls for women’s advocates who are focused on health reform at the state and federal level.
The next call takes place Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008 at 1 p.m. (EST), and the discussion will focus on what the election means for women and health care reform. Interested? Register for the call here.
These calls provide a collaborative forum to share experiences and questions that have come up in addressing various health reform proposals. So if you miss this one, keep NWLC in mind for future conversations. You might also check out the NWLC’s resources on comprehensive and affordable health care.
Double Dose: Ending Eight Years of Failed Women’s Health Policies; State Ballot Initiatives; More Analysis on Prop 8; Sarah Palin and Feminism - Once More for the Road
Sure we’ll be back to other health news soon, but first here’s a wrap on presidential politics and women’s health priorities. And, just to remind you that voting feels oh-so-good, Babeland’s voter discount continues through Nov. 11. Enjoy!
Yes We Can … End Eight Years of Failed Women’s Health Policies: Sign the RH Reality Check petition, which asks President-elect Barack Obama to:
Defund failed abstinence only programs in favor of proven, effective comprehensive sex ed programs,
Reinstate global family planning funds that save women’s health and lives and overturn the Global Gag Rule,
Take action on ensuring availability of publicly funded contraception for low-income women and women in poverty,
Immediately implement your HIV/AIDS domestic agenda,
Pass FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) that overturns dangerous anti-choice state legislation, and
Protect Roe v. Wade.
Plus: Theresa Braine, writing at Women’s eNews, notes that women’s groups aren’t wasting any time organizing around priorities: “From fixing the domestic health-care system and the economy, to making child care more accessible to working mothers, to rescinding the so-called global gag rule that cuts off foreign aid to groups that provide abortion or counseling, or even lobby for changes in abortion laws, women’s groups started exercising the type of grassroots activism that political analysts say helped bring the Democrats to power on Tuesday.”
What’s On the Agenda (So Far): Here’s the new Obama-Biden administration’s agenda on issues addressing women. Health care is up there at the top.
Health Care Ballot Initiatives: A wrap-up of several health care measures that passed on state ballots.
Why Prop 8 Won: “If exit polls are to be believed, some 70 percent of African-Americans voted Yes on 8, as did 52 percent of Latinos and 49 percent of Asians; each of these demographics went heavily for Obama, blacks by a 94-to-6 margin,” writes Richard Kim, associate editor of The Nation.
The easy, dangerous explanation for this gap, and one already tossed around by some white gay liberals in the bitter aftermath, is that people of color are not so secretly homophobic. But a more complicated reckoning — one that takes into account both the organizing successes of the Christian right and the failures of the gay movement — will have to take place if activists want a different result next time. First, there’s the matter of the Yes on 8 coalition’s staggering disinformation campaign.
The Mom on the Bus: Jodi Kantor has a great piece up at the The Caucus blog about covering the presidential and raising her daughter, Talia, who is almost 3.
Sayonara, Sarah: Katha Pollitt bids good-bye to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but not without first explaining how Palin was a gift to feminism –
[T]he first way Palin was good for feminism is that she helped us clarify what it isn’t: feminism doesn’t mean voting for “the woman” just because she’s female, and it doesn’t mean confusing self-injury with empowerment, like the Ellen Jamesians in The World According to Garp (I’ll vote for the forced-childbirth candidate, that’ll show Howard Dean!). It isn’t just feel-good “you go, girl” appreciation of female moxie, which I cheerfully acknowledge Palin has by the gallon. As I wrote when she was selected, if she were my neighbor I would probably like her — at least until she organized with her fellow Christians to ban abortion at the local hospital, as Palin did in the 1990s. [...]
Second, Palin’s presence on the Republican ticket forced family-values conservatives to give public support to working mothers, equal marriages, pregnant teens and their much-maligned parents. Talk-show frothers, Christian zealots and professional antifeminists — Rush Limbaugh and Phyllis Schlafly — insisted that a mother of five, including a “special-needs” newborn, could perfectly well manage governing a state (a really big state, as we were frequently reminded), while simultaneously running for veep and, who knows, field-dressing a moose. No one said she belonged at home. No one said she was neglecting her husband or failing to be appropriately submissive to him. No one blamed her for 17-year-old Bristol’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy or hard-partying high-school-dropout boyfriend. No one even wondered out loud why Bristol wasn’t getting married before the baby arrived. All these things have officially morphed from sins to “challenges,” just part of normal family life. No matter how strategic this newfound broadmindedness is, it will not be easy to row away from it.
Now that the election is over, are you feeling a little blue (and not just because of the passage of California’s Proposition 8)?
After months of obsessing over tracking polls and following up-to-the-second campaign news round the clock, much of the nation seems to be going through a withdrawal of sorts. New York Times health writer Tara Parker-Pope points to several news stories about our collective crash, some of which include suggestions from psychologists on how to bounce back and re-focus.
Of course, there are still many important issues that demand our attention. Elissa Epel, an associate professor in the psychiatry department at UCSF, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that we are likely to continue intense discussions, though perhaps on different terms: “People will be less plugged into the political pundits each day. They will start to pay attention to neglected longer-term issues - how to survive the recession, how to take of their family and health better. We may notice we are in one of the most stressful eras in recent history.”
Over at Slate, Farhad Manjoo offers suggestions for new topics to obsess over if you’re still glued to your computer screen. The list also includes social networks to join and cool games to play, if you’re looking to take a vacation from the news.
Good morning, readers! By now you all know that Barack Obama is our President-Elect. However, a number of specific reproductive health issues were up for a vote in this election - RH Reality Check has great coverage of the fate of anti-choice ballot initiatives in this election (links below), and Feministing has a good summary.
The stand-out negative of the election? Prop 8 — the California ballot proposition to amend the state’s Constitution to eliminate any rights to same-sex marriage, officially designating marriage as “between a man and woman” — has passed. You can find out more here.
The Center for Reproductive Rights has issued a call on “President-Elect Barack Obama to champion women’s reproductive freedom and equality and restore America’s leadership on these issues.” In their letter [PDF], the Center asks for reproductive health policies guided by science, not ideology, judicial appointments that support established rights, and support of reproductive rights and health in foreign assistance programs.
Most of us are expecting long lines at the polling place on election day. Here are a few websites providing information that may be useful to you as you prepare to vote.
As for me, my Election Day survival kit is going to include a cell phone, numbers for reporting problems, a snack, and maybe some water and reading material. And I’m bringing a buddy!
PS-You may have heard that a number of companies are offering free treats or beverages to voters on Election Day. I just learned this morning that this includes Babeland stores in New York and Seattle, who are giving out free sex toys to voters!
With less than one week to go until Election Day, we’re taking a look at some of the women’s health issues at stake. Want to add more? Leave links to blog entries or other resources in the comments.
One other note — I can’t believe some folks aren’t voting. If you know anyone who plans on sitting this one out, please urge them to consider the importance of their vote on local and state issues, in addition to what’s obviously a national turning point for women’s reproductive rights and access to health care.
Through the stories of seven “fictional women,” each with a different set of health problems and insurance coverage, readers can understand what each candidates’ health reform plan means to them. The report was published by the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
And don’t forget Kaiser Family Foundation’s excellent Health08.org, which includes in-depth comparisons of the candidates’ health care plans and positions on issues.
Turning to ballot propositions, USC’s Initiative and Referendum Institute (IRI) offers a good overview (PDF) of the 153 ballot propositions before voters in 36 states, including headline issues of same-sex marriage and abortion (also the subject of discussion on Monday’s “Talk of the Nation”).
Measures to ban gay marriage are on the ballot in California, Arizona and Florida, with most eyes on California, which the IRI refers to as a “critical firewall in the battle over gay marriage.” This document (PDF) analyzes the likelihood of passage in each of the three states, and it features a list of all same-sex marriage propositions. Did you know that 29 of 30 measures banning same-sex marriage — some proposed by initiative, others by state legislatures — have passed?
BallotPedia.org is another comprehensive site. It’s easy to search and it does a nice job of listing initiatives by category, including abortion, marriage and health care. These pages include not only this year’s ballot items, but also initiatives coming up next year — and even those that failed to get on the ballot. Very cool.
Here’s a look at some of the discussions on three specific ballot items:
1. Colorado Amendment 48 Definition of Person: This amendment seeks to define “person” and grant constitutional rights from the “moment of fertilization.” It’s also been tied to “Horton Hears a Who” (”a person’s a person, no matter how small”) — much to the consternation of thinking Dr. Seuss fans everywhere.
Emergency contraception for rape and incest victims would be banned. By giving legal rights to fertilized eggs, this amendment could ban birth control options like the Pill and IUD’s. (These kinds of birth control can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.)
Establishing rights from the moment of fertilization would ban some stem cell research being used to find cures for chronic disease and disabilities. In vitro fertilization could be banned since fertilized eggs used in these processes would have full legal rights.
A woman with cancer could be denied access to life saving medical treatment because it could endanger a fertilized egg.
Former U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder recently wrote: “Years ago, when I was asked how I could be both a mother and a Congresswoman, I replied, ‘I have a brain and a uterus and I use both.’ On November 4, I urge Coloradans to use their brains and protect women’s uteruses. Vote no on Amendment 48.”
2. South Dakota Abortion Ban Initiative: Following South Dakota’s failed attempt in 2006 to ban abortion, this kindler, gentler initiative “now makes convoluted exceptions for rape, incest and, when there is a full moon and Mount Rushmore spouts Strawberry Quik, the health or life of the woman.” It’s being pushed by anti-choice activist Leslee Unruh, who has trouble following the facts of life (including her own).
South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families has an incredible amount of useful information, including statements in opposition to the initiative submitted by the South Dakota State Medical Association and the South Dakota section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Plus: Katha Pollitt this week spotlightsWomen Run! South Dakota, the umbrella organization for progressive pro-choice Native American women running for the state legislature.
The initiative purports to protect California girls from dangers associated with abortions by requiring that their parents be notified. But Proposition 4 attempts to solve something that isn’t much of a problem. There’s no evidence that California’s teenage girls are harmed by abortions with any frequency, whether or not their parents have been notified. [...]
In fact, under the guise of protecting underage girls, this proposal really is just the latest attempt to impose any obstacle in the exercise of reproductive freedom. This represents the third try in recent years to pass such a measure. California should reject it again.
The editorial goes on to note, in no uncertain terms, the ridiculousness of the measures included to protect girls in abusive situations:
Proposition 4’s writers say they crafted a measure that would permit girls in potentially abusive situations to get an abortion without their parents being notified. To do so, they would need to tell another adult relative. But a girl can use this option only if she makes a written accusation alleging that her parents are repeat child abusers, with the complaint to be turned over to authorities. Spoiler language like this makes it hard to believe that Proposition 4 is chiefly about girls’ safety.
Read more editorials against Proposition 4. Planned Parenthood has posted a number of videos about how the proposition would endanger teens, including the one below, “Jane’s Journey,” which shows the complexity of the judicial maze that teens would be forced to navigate if they can’t talk to their parents.
While issues that greatly affect women have hardly been front and center during this presidential campaign, there was one moment during last night’s debate, when the subject turned to abortion, that Sen. John McCain kissed the votes of moderate women voters good-bye.
McCain was attacking Sen. Barack Obama for being in cahoots “with the extreme aspect of the pro-abortion movement” (the what?) because, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama voted against the so-called partial-birth abortion ban.
Obama explained that he did so because there was no exception for the life or health of the mother, to which McCain responded, complete with air quotes:
Just again — just again the example of the eloquence of Senator Obama. He’s — health of the mother. You know, that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement, in America, to mean almost anything. That’s — that’s the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, “health.”
I’m with Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars, who writes: “Clearly, in all his debate prep, no one thought to coach McCain not to go to the third rail of the abortion issue. Boy, was that an oversight. Because not only did McCain go there, he jumped right on to it. [...] Not a legitimate concern? Tell that to these women.”
The story Belle points to is about women whose lives were saved by late-term abortions.
If you managed to miss the moment, you can watch the exchange below:
It’s mid-October, but the warm weather here in Chicago has me thinking we’re approaching summer. My small garden thinks so, too. Lettuce, basil, kale, peppers and chives are coming up strong, undaunted by the brown, crinkly leaves falling from the trees above.
Living in the city, planting space is limited and the season is (eventually) finite; I can’t rely solely on what I grow. But along with trips to the Green City Market downtown, and smaller farmers’ markets nearby, we probably eat locally grown produce for over half the year.
Of course, we are fortunate to have easy access to an abundance of fresh food choices. Huge swaths of Chicago are considered “food deserts” — in these neighborhoods, corner convenience stores and fast food restaurants greatly outnumber supermarkets, and access to affordable, healthy produce is severely limited by distance and cost.
Not surprisingly, residents in Chicago’s food deserts, the majority of whom are African American, experience a higher rate of diet-related illnesses (as a recent report shows), including diabetes, certain kinds of cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Support for urban agriculture is growing, along with a push to increase the number of farmers markets located throughout the city — a new market opened in Englewood, an impoverished South Side neighborhood, earlier this year. Yet affordability remains an issue. As this story points out, equipment is not available to process food stamp debit cards at all farmers markets, and even at markets with the equipment, not all vendors accept the cards.
Meanwhile, as Rachel has mentioned, the federal Women, Infants and Children program (WIC) is adding a paltry $8 a month for use at farmers markets by mid-2009 (read the latest here).
Despite increased public interest in farmers markets and community-supported agriculture (CSAs) that offer consumers a stake in a local farm, the relationship between food, health and the environment, as well as the importance of affordable and sustainable agriculture, doesn’t exactly make for a crowd-rousing stump-speech.
In fact, we’ve heard almost nothing from the presidential candidates about federal food policy, even as food prices keep rising. Perhaps that will change in the final weeks, but I wouldn’t bet my kale on it.
The political aspect hasn’t escaped Michael Pollan, however. The author of, most recently, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” Pollan penned an open letter to the president-elect that was published in The New York Times Magazine. It is perhaps the smartest and most engaging piece you’ll read this year on what a McCain or Obama administration should do to overhaul the way we grow food and radically change our approach to healthy eating.
Pollan begins by explaining, in no uncertain terms, the urgency:
[W]ith a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.
Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon’s example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won’t work this time around; for one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on. For another, expanding production of industrial agriculture today would require you to sacrifice important values on which you did campaign.
Which brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them.
Pollan takes readers on a detailed yet easy-to-follow journey of how the United States food system developed the way it did — and what it can count as its chief success: namely, we produce cheap calories in great abundance.
He then offers an agenda for a 21st-century food system with specific proposals under three main sections: resolarizing the American farm; reregionalizing the food system; and rebuilding America’s food culture. His plan plan for a decentralized food system includes such essentials as modifying the food stamp program and expanding WIC:
Food-stamp debit cards should double in value whenever swiped at a farmers’ markets — all of which, by the way, need to be equipped with the Electronic Benefit Transfer card readers that supermarkets already have. We should expand the WIC program that gives farmers’-market vouchers to low-income women with children; such programs help attract farmers’ markets to urban neighborhoods where access to fresh produce is often nonexistent. (We should also offer tax incentives to grocery chains willing to build supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods.)
Federal food assistance for the elderly should build on a successful program pioneered by the state of Maine that buys low-income seniors a membership in a community-supported farm. All these initiatives have the virtue of advancing two objectives at once: supporting the health of at-risk Americans and the revival of local food economies.
The adventurous agenda includes suggestions for changing our relationship with food. For children, that means starting early: Plant gardens at every primary school, overhaul school menus and increase “school-lunch spending per pupil by $1 a day — the minimum amount food-service experts believe it will take to underwrite a shift from fast food in the cafeteria to real food freshly prepared.”
We also need to cease negotiating health messages with the food industry. Pollan calls for the surgeon general to take over the job of communicating with Americans about their diet. Currently it falls to the Department of Agriculture, which you might say has a conflict of interest.
But why not start at the top? In addition to encouraging the White House to go meatless one day a week, Pollan calls for the ultimate suburban sacrifice: tear out a portion of the White House lawn and plant an organic fruit and vegetable garden.
OK, insert your favorite arugula-loving-liberal joke here. But at another crucial point in history, White House support was influential:
When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the U.S.D.A., which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking “victory” over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population.
Eating from this, the shortest food chain of all, offers anyone with a patch of land a way to reduce their fossil-fuel consumption and help fight climate change. (We should offer grants to cities to build allotment gardens for people without access to land.) Just as important, Victory Gardens offer a way to enlist Americans, in body as well as mind, in the work of feeding themselves and changing the food system — something more ennobling, surely, than merely asking them to shop a little differently.
Read the whole piece (it’s well worth it!). Readers have posed interesting questions and suggestions in the comments, and the Times breaks out Pollan’s responses. Finally, here’s more good stuff from the “food issue.”
Double Dose: Gay Marriage Legal in CT; Ad Council Introduces First Campaign on Gay/Lesbian Issues; CCR Sues Over Required Ultrasound in Oklahoma; South Dakota Abortion Ban 2.0; One-Year Update on Gardasil
Gay Marriage Legal in California, Massachusetts and now Connecticut: The Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday struck down the state’s civil union law with a 4-3 ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. From The New York Times:
The ruling, which cannot be appealed and is to take effect on Oct. 28, held that a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, and a civil union law intended to provide all the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples, violated the constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law.
Striking at the heart of discriminatory traditions in America, the court — in language that often rose above the legal landscape into realms of social justice for a new century — recalled that laws in the not-so-distant past barred interracial marriages, excluded women from occupations and official duties, and relegated blacks to separate but supposedly equal public facilities.
View the full ruling here (PDF). Opponents spoke of steps to enact a constitional ban on same-sex marriage, but on Friday night the plaintiffs in the original court case filed four years ago and their supporters were jubilant.
Garret Stack, 59, introduced his partner, John Anderson, 63, and said: “For 28 years we have been engaged. We can now register at Home Depot and prepare for marriage.”
Group Sues Over Required Ultrasound: The Center for Reproductive Rights has filed a challenge to an Oklahoma law that mandates a woman must have an ultrasound and listen to the doctor describe what her fetus looks like before she have an abortion. And that’s not all:
At the same time, the law prevents a woman from suing her doctor if he or she intentionally withholds other information about the fetus, such as a severe developmental defect. The statute also requires doctors to use a specific regimen for administering the medical abortion pill, despite that regimen being less effective and more costly than the one strongly recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Oklahoma County District Court, says the requirement intrudes on a woman’s privacy, endangers her health and assaults her dignity.
Set to go into effect on Nov. 1, the law would make Oklahoma the fourth state to require the viewing of ultrasounds before an abortion. The other states are Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
South Dakota Abortion Ban 2.0: Lynn Harris of Broadsheeet offers a full, and funny, assessment:
The ban’s primary liability, according to polls, was that it contained virtually no exceptions. But as ringleader Leslee Unruh of Vote Yes for Life said at the time, like Jason popping up out of Crystal Lake, “We started something here in South Dakota.” And now, as you may have heard, abortion opponents there are aiming to get the job done. Which means: The ban is back (PDF), in sheep’s clothing. It now makes convoluted exceptions for rape, incest and, when there is a full moon and Mount Rushmore spouts Strawberry Quik, the health or life of the woman.
Unruh (who says that over 90 percent of women seeking abortion are using it as “birth control”) calls Abortion Ban 2.0 “more moderate, more reasonable, more of a middle ground.” Yeah … no.
Birth Control Watch: While some voters think access to birth control is not a political issue, those of us who follow the activities of the Bush administration and legislatures around the country know better. Birth Control Watch has a great section on federal and state proposals that will limit our individual decision making and access — it’s called extreme schemes.
An excellent resource to pass along, it includes information on Colorado Proposition 48, a constitutional amendment that seeks to establish legal personhood from the moment of fertilization (which even self-described “pro-life” Catholic Gov. Bill Ritter opposes), and the proposed HHS regulations that would limit patients’ access to information and services.
The two-minute activist gives a concise run-down of actions you can take, and the press room tracks related stories.
Speaking of the HHS regulations, more than 150 Congressional Democrats stated their opposition in letters to HHS. The Senate letter concludes that the proposed rule is “damaging to the health care needs of women, their families and all Americans and will only serve to cause havoc, not clarity, among employers and employees in the health care field.”
Courts Failing Domestic Violence Victims: “For every man convicted in a Cook County court of beating his wife or girlfriend, five men brought in on similar charges walk away legally unscathed. And despite official promises to help women pursue abuse complaints, that conviction rate is only getting worse,” reports the Chicago Tribune.
The Trib also looks at a specialized unit of the Cook County state’s attorney office with a much higher conviction rate. The unit, Target Abuser Call, employs a more intensive investigatory approach for the most serious cases.
Plus: Programs for batterers are underfunded but should be supported to break the habit of abuse, say domestic violence experts. “No matter how many women you take in, it isn’t going to cure the problem,” said Toby Myers, vice chair of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Plus: A judge in Canada tells a woman not to bother calling police if she goes back to her partner. via Feministing
Nobel Prize Winners: The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Harald zur Hausen of Germany, who discovered the human papilloma viruses that causes cervical cancer, and Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, French researchers who discovered HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi later told President Nicolas Sarkozy that they fear the world financial crisis will affect funding to fight AIDS.
One-Year Distribution Update On Gardasil: “About a quarter of the nation’s teenage girls received the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil last year in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday,” reports the L.A. Times.
The Realities of Addiction: Writing in the Washington Post, Jacqueline M. Duda shares the painful story of her daughter’s drug addiction and death — including the difficulty the family had finding adequate medical treatment for addiction.
“Surely, we thought, college-educated suburbanites like us could locate professional help: drug counselors, doctors, therapists specializing in addiction. Surely detoxification centers would treat desperate addicts and work out a payment plan. Surely we could check her into some kind of residential treatment program with a minimum of delay,” writes Duda. “We were wrong.”
PSA to Raise Awareness Around “That’s So Gay”: “For the first time since the Advertising Council was founded in 1942, the organization — which directs and coordinates public service campaigns on behalf of Madison Avenue and the media industry — is introducing ads meant to tackle a social issue of concern to gays and lesbians,” writes Stuart Elliot in The New York Times.
The campaign, created pro bono by the New York office of Arnold Worldwide, urges an end to using derogatory language, particularly labeling anything deemed negative or unpleasant as “so gay.” That is underlined by the theme of the campaign: “When you say, ‘That’s so gay,’ do you realize what you say? Knock it off.”
There will be television and radio commercials, print and outdoor ads and a special Web site devoted to the campaign (thinkb4youspeak.com). Some spots feature celebrities, the young actress Hilary Duff and the comedian Wanda Sykes, delivering the message.
Kaiser Family Foundation is sponsoring live webcasts with advisers to presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama on the subject of the candidates’ health reform proposals. From Kaiser:
Sen. Obama has proposed a plan that builds on the existing employer-based system, while expanding public programs, putting in place new insurance regulations and providing new coverage options. Sen. McCain’s plan would replace the existing tax preference for employer-based coverage with a refundable tax credit for the purchase of private insurance, and allow people to buy health insurance across state lines. During these live webcasts, details of each candidate’s proposals and the rationale behind them will be discussed
