Reproductive rights advocates scored a couple of victories last week while the Supreme Court considers the impact of allowing patents on human genetic material.
One bill would remove language connecting breast cancer to abortion in the state-issued pre-abortion booklet. The other would ban abortions performed after 20 weeks post-fertilization.
Pink ribbons do not help bring awareness to the socioeconomic inequities connected to breast cancer; they commodify the disease and make it “sexy” under the guise of raising awareness.
Religious opponents of birth control access and safe abortion have seemingly unlimited capacity to overlook the evidence.
A Reuters article now provides proof of what I have suspected for some time: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was involved in the whole Komen fiasco, on one hand forcing boycotts of Komen until it dropped Planned Parenthood and on the other taking millions of dollars in money from Komen.
This week, the Kansas House Federal and State Affairs Committee heard the largest, most expansive abortion restriction bill in the nation. HB 2598 is a 68-page piece of legislation, that manages to cobble together many of the most extreme restrictions from abortion legislation currently under litigation in three other states. And yet when I stood up to oppose it, far-right legislators claimed I “went too far.”
This past week’s debacle with the Susan G. Komen Foundation brought back ugly memories of the Global Gag Rule.
![Ari Fleischer. [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2012-02-06-jacobson-187x125.jpeg)
ThinkProgress reports that Ari Fleischman, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, was secretly involved as early as last fall in planning Komen’s break with Planned Parenthood.
I am a recent member of Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Young Women’s National Advisory Council, a previous director of Stony Brook University School of Medicine’s chapter of Medical Students for Choice, and a future family medicine physician. I was incredibly disappointed by Susan G. Komen’s recent decision to end its funding of breast health programs at Planned Parenthood affiliates across the United States.
The Komen Foundation’s statement says that it “will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.” But this is NOT a reversal of any kind.
