Anna Clark

RH Reality Check

Anna Clark’s writing has appeared in The American Prospect, Utne
Reader, AlterNet, Hobart, Writers’ Journal, Bitch Magazine, Religion
Dispatches, Common Dreams, The Women’s International Perspective,
Women’s eNews, ColorLines, Rewire, The Millions, make/shift,

and BloodLotus, among other publications. She is the editor of the
literary and social justice website, Isak (www.isak.typepad.com), and
she contributes video book reviews to The Collagist, a literary magazine.

Anna is a writing mentor through the Linkage program in the Prison
Creative Arts Project. She is also the Chief Developmental Editor with
The Imagine Company, a Kenyan organization that marries media and
social entrepreneurship. Anna is a graduate of the University of
Michigan’s Residential College and Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program
for Writers. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.

Acupuncture: An Alternative Approach to Infertility

While the notion of “infertility treatment” typically conjures images of invasive insemination procedures, acupuncture has been used for thousands of years to increase the chances of natural pregnancy. Indeed, many contemporary acupuncturists are pairing their personalized practice of needles with herbal treatments to enhance the fertility of their patients … and finding high rates of success.

Challenge to Florida VBAC Ban Intensifies

A coalition is challenging a VABC ban by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, charging among other things that it is intervening in the activities of licensed providers and overriding “informed consent” standards.

Sex Addiction: What the Tiger Woods Story Forces Us to Confront

The term “sex addiction” is used to describe a pattern of frequent, progressive, and often secret sexual behavior, even when the behavior jeopardizes a person’s time, employment, financial stability, relationships, and reputation. While often conflated with adultery, sex addiction does not necessarily mean cheating—or even intercourse. Rather, it can manifest as a dependency on pornography, masturbation, phone or Internet sex, and other related behavior.

Women Challenge Irish Abortion Ban

After three women were forced to travel abroad to receive their abortions, a legal case on their behalf before 17 judges in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg argues that Ireland's 148-year-old abortion ban is discriminatory.

The case presents an expansiveness of legal arguments about abortion that may influence nations around the world. It is being closely watched not only by other Catholic European nations (Poland, Spain, Malta), but alsoU.S. anti-abortion lobbyists that have been allowed to submit arguments to the court. As a group, the Family Research Council and the US Alliance Defence Fund filed a brief that contends "the stakes are high for all of Europe" and that Ireland's defence "of innocent life is under attack".

Illinois Hotline Offers Recourse to Teens Facing Parental Notification Laws

A hotline set up by the ACLU in Illinois is intended to help teens in need exercise their due process rights to a judicial bypass option in case they need an abortion but do not want to notify their parents. These and other efforts seek to protect the rights of pregnant young women who cannot inform their parents of their pregnancy and abortion, often because of concern for their physical safety or abandonment, or because their parents are inaccessible. In such cases, a young woman seeking an abortion can bring her case to a judge, who in turn can permit the medical procedure without the required notification or consent.