Beatriz’s life is threatened by her health conditions and a high-risk pregnancy. However, the deeper threats come from an intractable and misogynistic political and religious system which criminalizes women for being young, poor, rural women. Right now the eyes and voices of the world constitute Beatriz’ hope for life. She wants to live.
The Planned Parenthood movement began in 1916.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, our advocacy arm, is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. Our mission is to protect and enhance the ability of the affiliates to deliver reproductive health care services by affecting policy makers through electoral and non-electoral activities.
We also have a Political Action Committee (PAC), which focuses strictly on fundraising to endorse pro-choice political candidates and electoral work.
A recent New York Times article detailed the health effects of immigration on the Latino community, but it neglected to note one of the likely causes of those health outcomes: racism.
We often forget about social factors. Considering these factors helps to bring us together, finding common ground along the way.
Every social-justice movement has to uproot the power of internalized oppression and colonized minds. That’s especially hard for women because we live in the same house as the so-called superior group and don’t have a neighborhood of our own, much less a country.
—Gloria Steinem in Time magazine talking about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and erasing women of color. (via afunnyfeminist)
We love you
We asked you in our survey how you describe your sexual orientation. One of our favorite responses:
If sexualities were music notes, where the low ones indicated you like guys and the high ones indicated you like girls, my sexuality would be a slayer guitar solo.
Rock on, tumblr fans. Rock on.
A 22-year-old Salvadoran woman with severe chronic medical conditions is pregnant with a fetus without a brain. But a 1998 law in El Salvador prohibits all abortions, without exception.Within the past few days Amnesty International has initiated a petition asking for life-saving medical care, including an abortion; the United Nations has spoken; and the Salvadoran Minister of Health, Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, has requested that the Supreme Court approve the request. Dr. Rodriguez emphasized that Beatriz’s kidney function continues to deteriorateas the pregnancy advances, and that the public health system is ready to perform an abortion. The Salvadoran Attorney General for Human Rights also supports the request.
This is what happens when abortion is illegal. Feel good about this, pro-lifers?
Hell hath no fury like a white heterosexual cisgender man with their feelings hurt.
In a dismaying move, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has proposed changes to the guidelines for family medicine residency programs removing the requirement that residents learn to provide contraception.In one of the clinics where we work, a 16-year-old girl came in with a sprained ankle. She left with a prescription for birth control.
This turn of events is not as surprising as it seems: As family physicians, we treat the whole person. A quick update revealed that our 16-year-old patient had recently begun to have unprotected sex—and had no plan to get birth control. One of the reasons we love practicing family medicine is that we get to know our patients over time and provide the preventive care they need at every possible opportunity.
A majority of U.S. women get their basic health care from a family physician or other primary care provider, and often that includes reproductive health care. Especially in rural and low-income areas, family physicians do it all! They not only provide birth control but also provide prenatal care, deliver babies, manage miscarriages, counsel patients about unintended pregnancies, and, increasingly, offer pregnancy termination so that their patients do not have to travel long distances and see unfamiliar doctors for these services.
This is unbelievable and dangerous. 99% of women* have used birth control at some point - every family doctor should be trained to provide these services.
These changes will go into effect in 2014 unless we convince the ACGME to change their minds by April 25 (tomorrow). You can sign the Reproductive Health Access Project’s online petition, or tell the ACGME in your own words what you think of this decision by downloading this comment form and emailing it to familymedicine@acgme.org.
“When I was a little girl I cut my hair short like Mulan. When I was done, it looked a mess; but I felt like a princess!”
a different way of looking at being a princess
(Source: disneyheroineconfessions)
