There are many things that are different about the experience of carrying a pregnancy to term versus choosing to terminate, but one place where you’ll often notice a stark difference is in language.
Does the decline in abortion rates indicate better reproductive health choices and outcomes for women? And if so, how do we continue to build on this success?
Hyperemesis is no stroll in the palace park. Kate may be a princess, but she is also human. Women of every race, class, and income level face risks in pregnancy and put their bodies on the line every time they get pregnant. The only differences between the princess and the pauper are that one has proper food, nutrition, and care and the other has none.
In the first eight days of fiscal cliff negotiations, both sides almost seem to have resigned themselves to stalemate. But a possible austerity crisis could cripple already feeble programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.
I just had the quite bizarre experience of getting pregnant. Bizarre because for the last two and a half years, I’ve had the Paraguard IUD – as effective as tying your tubes, they tell me. Then one day my period doesn’t come. My breasts are swollen, my back aches, and I have the crazy thought that this feels like pregnancy. And, it is.
Here in Central America, women are denied life-saving treatment every day. Women with life-threatening illnesses are denied treatment because to do so might harm their pregnancy—just the same explanation that Savita’s husband received from their doctors in Galway. [This article is published in both English and Spanish.]
Haunted by the harrowing details of Savita’s death we’re left to wonder how many more women in Ireland may have lost their lives as a result of being denied a life-saving abortion.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now supports birth control pills being sold over-the-counter. What could our health care system look like if doctors were less involved as gatekeepers to access to contraception?
What does it say about a society when it leaves a woman to die in the name of “life?” Where is the respect for women’s lives? This irony pervades the politics surrounding women’s health in my own country, the United States.
The plight of the Halappanavars indirectly highlights the narrowness of a “Catholic” law in an increasingly borderless world. The question now is whether the global valence of a woman’s death can inspire a national reckoning.
