In this week’s sexual health roundup, we take a close look at New York City: a new app for teens, a little-known regulation that prevents schools from teaching sex ed in buildings owned by the Catholic Church, and a new report that finds huge reproductive health disparities across the five boroughs.
Numerous questions have arisen in the wake of Savita’s case. Why did this happen? Doesn’t Ireland, a country with otherwise draconian abortion laws, allow abortion to save the life of the mother? Was there any doubt an abortion was necessary to save Savita’s life? Can this happen in the United States? And here are my answers.
Last week the UN released its latest estimates on global maternal deaths, just two years after the last figure. From 1990 to 2010, they found, the number of women dying from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes worldwide dropped from 543,000 to 287,000, a near-fifty percent reduction in fatalities.
Weekly global roundup: a revised family code in Mali oppresses women further; Fawzia Koofi makes waves in Afghanistan and worldwide; Venezuela wrestles with a stubborn maternal mortality rate; and a call for more midwives in Zambia.
![Joyce Banda. [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2012-04-24-mack-187x125.jpg)
With all due respect to the late President Bingu, his death opened a rare window for reform Malawi, and golden opportunity – especially for Malawi’s women. Joyce Banda is a widely respected and heralded champion for women’s rights and health, and has never been shy to speak her mind about it.
Last March, a landmark maternal health petition was filed in Uganda, aimed at holding the government accountable for the deaths of two women in childbirth. It garnered global media attention at the time, yet five months into the process momentum has stalled. When will it be time to women to take the front seat?
This year marked the first time in history that the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women did not produced Agreed Conclusions. The most contentious issues, not surprisingly, were related to women’s access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care.
An article in yesterday’s New York Times suggesting that injectable contraceptive use might double the risk of HIV transmission among women in Africa sent waves of anxiety through the global public health community, leading some to ask whether we should halt delivery of injectables. But experts say: “Not so fast.”
Despite a landmark ruling five years ago – when Colombia’s Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion in cases of rape, fetal abnormality or to save the mother’s life – less than 0.5 percent of procedures are carried out legally each year.
In 2002, Alyne da Silva Pimentel, a 28-year-old Afro-Brazilian woman, died after being denied basic medical care to address complications in her pregnancy. Her death might be like any one of the other hundreds of thousands of women who die of complications of pregnancy or unsafe abortion each year worldwide, but for one thing: It was taken to court.
