40 Days: An Anti-Abortion Recipe
Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation have seen anti-choice protesters in high volumes due to the 40 Days for Life campaign. This organization sees abortion as “evil,” and their mission is to use protest, prayer and fasting, and constant vigil to put an end to abortions.
The campaign uses the number 40 as symbolism for the 40 days of rain God brought to Noah and Moses’ 40 days on the mountain. The group wants to rid the world of abortion in 40 days, which is promoted in this campaign video.
The message of closing Planned Parenthood facilities is even more promoted on their website that applauds the closing of a Montana clinic, as an answer to their prayers from God.
They have caused quite a stir and Planned Parenthood has created a blog, I am Emily X, in response. Planned Parenthood workers and activists report the experiences of patients who have seen protesters at clinics across America.
One blog post discusses the vulnerability of a patient at an Idaho clinic, who called Planned Parenthood very upset by yelling protesters. As a patient, you are going to Planned Parenthood to receive care that you that you might already feel worried about and to have someone harassing you outside of a facility would make you even more uncomfortable.
In a post from Washington, a patient told a Planned Parenthood staffer, “I would never protest at their church, never.” The staffer said she didn’t identify Planned Parenthood as a “church,” but what the patient had said really struck her. Planned Parenthood is an organization that has the faith and value of providing reproductive rights to women.
Everyone has the right to free speech, but when a woman is labeled as “good” or “evil” for going to Planned Parenthood that is not justified. That is only speculation. A female patient could be going to Planned Parenthood to get a pregnancy test, find out her options, and not to get an abortion.
Women’s Health Groups in Amherst
Amherst is a community full of college students. In this environment, I think it is crucial for young women to be educated on health care issues.
I have learned a lot about the importance of female health by attending some of the events organized at UMass by Vox: Students for Choice. This student government organization promotes reproductive health and rights on campus. In the spring of 2008, I attended a “pharmacy sting” where we went to Walmart to see if they carried emergency contraception, which they did.
In Massachusetts, pharmacies are required to carry emergency contraception, an anomaly in states like Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Dakota that have laws or regulations that deny patients emergency contraception based on the pharmacists’ personal beliefs.
If you are interested in learning more about the importance of female rights, please attend Vox’s meetings on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Union room 407.
Another group at UMass involved in providing women’s health education and bringing awareness to other issues including race, ethnicity, and oppression is the Everywoman’s Center. There will be a talk on “Women and Cancer in Our Communities: How to Save Your Own Life,” on Tuesday Oct. 20 at 4 p.m. in the Campus Center room 905. Female panelists with professions in health care will discuss the importance of attaining early prevention of cancer and how families should deal with a loved one getting cancer.
The UMass School of Public Health and Health Sciences has a Center for Research and Education in Women’s Health (CREWH). The CREWH seeks to improve the health of women by doing scientific research and informing other colleges and communities on women’s health issues.
In addition to groups affiliated with UMass, the town of Amherst provides Tapestry Health, a health clinic that provides completely confidential and affordable health care to women. This is a good option for female students, who do not want to go to University Health Services.
Does Republican Senator Snowe’s Vote Count?
Senator of Maine Olympia Snowe has recently received frantic press attention because she is the only Republican in the house that voted for Obama’s health care reform bill. According to Reuters, the vote on Tuesday in the Senate Finance Committee was 14-9 in favor of Obama’s plan.
Snowe is a moderate Republican, who has been known to go against the party majority. She also voted for Obama’s economic stimulus bill. This reputation has led some Republicans to question her allegiance to the party, but her views reflect more on local politics and what will benefit the residents of Maine, where there are not many large companies that provide health insurance to employees.
The New York Times gives a variety of opinions on the importance of Snowe’s vote. Some say that Democrats would be able to pass the bill without Republican support and that the vote right now is not final because health reform will be adjusted in the future. Senator and chairmen of the Senate health committee, Tom Harkin, was not too concerned in getting Snowe’s vote, but more concerned about “getting it done right.”
Snowe has been a frequent blog topic across all political views in the blogosphere.
But what are her views on abortion?
Reuters reported that Snowe is disliked by conservative Republicans for her support of legalizing abortion. Recently The New York Times reported that Snowe rejected abortion restrictions, but in the Baucus Bill there will be no use of federal money towards reproductive services. Private insurance companies that choose to cover abortion can continue to do so.
“We want to preserve the status quo on abortion,” said Snowe. So Snowe supports women’s legal right to abortion, but she also does not support a government plan that provides abortion coverage. What about women who cannot afford private insurance for reproductive services?
There is a fear among women’s pro-choice advocates that private insurance companies will drop abortion coverage altogether to save costs in the competitive market that will have a less expensive government plan.
Women Speak Out on Health Reform
This past Thursday there was a female dominated talk on health care in the Senate. While Democrats and President Obama insist that health reform will benefit women and are trying to campaign to get women more involved, most women do not feel included in the health care debate. In an Associated Press-GfK poll, one-third of women under the age of 55 reported that they were ambivalent about health care reform and did not support either side.
This means that Congress needs to target women as a group even more. Women have to be part of the debate before decisions like reducing reproductive rights and maternity benefits are not included in a government insurance plan. Strong advocates for getting female voices heard are Michelle Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the latter of which led a rally on the steps of the Capitol.
In my opinion, women need health reform more than men. Not only are women in need of more health care service, but they are usually the individuals in the household that are responsible for managing the well-being and health of others. Also, since working women get paid less and some cannot be full time employees due to household duties, they qualify for insurance coverage less often than men.
Women would greatly benefit from health care reform, especially in the need for more federal funding of breast cancer research. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women. “This year in the United States, over 192,370 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and approximately 40,170 women will die from the disease.”
These are some frightening statistics. Breast cancer runs in my family; I lost my maternal grandmother to it, and my mother has had a cancerous cyst removed. In a hearing last Wednesday to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, Otis Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer of the ACS, spoke about the importance of improving the health care service for breast cancer patients and having more early detection services such as mammograms. The latter is a problem that I have noticed, most women do not get tested for cancer early on in their lives to reduce medical costs, something that I have experienced.
The good news is that this upcoming Tuesday the Senate Finance Committee is voting on getting health care reform initiatives passed and improving existing ones. According to Obama, health care reform will “not add one dime to the deficit,” but reduce costs. Republicans do not fully agree. Pelosi said there will be a public option. Regardless of all the controversy circulating around health care reform, I am optimistic that once passed the health care bill will be positive for everyone. I just want the needs of women to be further addressed before it passes.
Oil? Natural Gas? Electric? Regardless, Get Ready to Pay for Heat!
Weather Feature Audio Slide Show
By: Sara Afzal, Kirsten Swenson, and Brendan Anthony
Should I turn the heat on?
This is a concern for many UMass students who live off-campus. According to the Boston Globe, although oil prices have declined since the summer of 2008, from $4.71 per gallon to an average of $2.73 per gallon, college students are still struggling to afford heating costs.
Most students find keeping the heat off and bundling up in layers a favorable alternative to turning on the heat for the first time this season.
“We dress inside as if we live outside,” said Bruce Danek, a sophomore forestry major from Northampton, Mass. “Our apartment’s really cold; we don’t really use the heat much.”
“We haven’t turned the heat on yet because I’m poor and I can’t afford it,” said Zoe Shanor, a junior plant, soil and insect sciences major. “When we take showers, we leave the door open so the steam will heat up the house. We do a lot of soup cooking to heat up the house.”
It’s clear that both Shanor and Danek are worried about affording heating costs this winter. Although most tenants cannot choose their preferred type of heating system, the cost of electric heat could increase, with Congress developing a solution designed to reduce carbon emissions.
Congress is proposing a “cap and trade” tax policy, which would regulate the amount of carbon dioxide that companies release each year. Companies who exceed their limits will then be allowed to “trade” this excess with a company whose carbon emissions fell short of the allocated amount. Power plants that burn coal, thus producing more carbon dioxide emissions, would be forced to increase costs.
This would, in turn, raise the cost of heat for the 12 percent of households in Massachusetts that use electric heat, and reduce the cost for the 44 percent of households who use natural gas.
Ryan Burke, a junior sociology major, explains that he uses electric heat in his off-campus home, and because him and his roommates just moved in this year, they have no idea what to expect.
“Right now, we pay about $20 a month for electric. We are hoping that once the heat goes on, that amount won’t double. The last tenants caulked all the windows shut, so we’re kind of worried about living in a drafty house,” said Burke.
Danek has similar concerns about the rising costs of heat.
“We have gas. Right now, we pay about $20 a month for gas. Last winter, when it [the house] was at 65 degrees, it’d be upwards of $150 to $200 a month,” said Danek.
Regardless of the policy that Congress adopts to reduce carbon emissions, the University of Massachusetts is taking steps towards being recognized as a leader in “green” initiatives. The University recently opened up the new Central Heating Plant, which cost about $130 million and took almost 10 years to build. The new facility generates UMass’ energy from natural gas.
According to UMass Magazine, with the new facility up and running, UMass hopes to reduce emissions by 18 percent from 2007’s emissions levels.
Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
The LA Times’ audio slide show Afghanistan’s Women Yearn for More is well a constructed piece on the increase of social freedoms for Afghani women, who are more able to attain education, laugh in public, and wear less traditional coverings like burkas. Reporter and photographer Carolyn Cole narrates the slide show, which features numerous portraits of Afghanis. The photographs are mostly candid shots of citizens in daily life. This allows the viewer to feel like they are getting a natural sense of life as an Afghani woman.
Cole starts the slide show with a shot of two modern Afghani women crossing the street. There is natural sound in the background of the narration including city street noise in Kabul like cars zooming and the chiming bells of a bicycle. This furthers the audience’s experience of getting a vibe of the real Afghanistan through sight and sound.
Under each photograph there are captions that coincide with the narration, but at times the captions give more specific information like quotes and ages. In my opinion, this is distracting because if the viewer looks at the caption below the photograph than they will miss the narration and therefore have to pause the slide show. Cole’s narration flows well and is not worth missing. A text piece including the specific information in the captions would have been more appropriate.
The parts that I found the most interesting were when the narration synchronized flawlessly with the subject of the photograph. For instance, there is one shot of a man looking displeased in the direction of his wife, when the narration says some men are not happy with the change in freedoms for women and even threaten their wives’ lives.
Afghanistan has a male dominated society, where if a man believes that his wife has not followed expectations or been adulterous than extreme repercussions take place. In the worst case, women can be killed or burned with acid, in an “honor killing.” Also, women can feel so guilt ridden that they give themselves self-afflicted wounds or even burn themselves. Cole shows gruesome shots of women at the National Burn Unit. Although these shots are hard for the viewer to see, I understand the impact that Cole wanted to bring the audience. As a viewer, I thought, “these women really burned themselves?”
The photos that were the most intriguing to me were women eating ice cream while wearing a burka, a woman getting married, and the many shots of children. What also struck me was Afghanistan having one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world and 90% of burn victims not surviving. This is related to the lack of sufficient medical care in Afghanistan. Access to health care for Afghani women is probably more difficult to attain. Overall, Cole’s angle on the piece is ‘yes the women of Afghanistan have experienced some social freedom, but they still experience oppression and inferiority to men.’ The piece tactfully ends with an Afghani woman saying she hopes for freedom.
(This is a multimedia class assignment)
Women Need Health Care…More!
UMass economics professor, Nancy Folbre, wrote the column “Health Care Reform is a Woman’s Issue” in The New York Times; she argues that women need more health coverage than men because of pregnancy care and managing health care for their families.
The cost of health care for young women is higher than for men. Women need maternity care that requires intense medical care that obviously does not apply to men. In the long run, most women in households take responsibility for their children’s health. Personally, it was always my mother fretting over a minor cold I had and insisting to take me to the doctor.
Folbre gives a good account of the financial structure of health care in a typical household. She references the report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, stating that 64 million women do not have proper health insurance, and 1.7 million women have lost health insurance due to job losses—71% of which were due a husband’s job loss.
This vulnerability puts women in a very tough place. They are charged more for coverage, and yet they can’t help that they need to go to the doctor more often than men. Some women are reliant on their husband’s financial stability to receive health insurance; imagine getting divorced and losing health insurance—two blows. Many women will continue to lose coverage and care if the health care system does not improve.
One woman that is getting her voice heard on the importance of female health care is First Lady Michelle Obama. Reader’s Digest reporter Neil Merlino describes her recent speech at the White House, which focused on the need for the current health care system to be reformed of “gender bias” so that there can be “true equality.” Michelle has a background in health since she worked in the University of Chicago Medical Center. I really respect Michelle Obama and her effort to stress the need for female health reform.
No Federal Dollars for Abortion Coverage
The New York Times has reported that a considerable amount of moderate Democrats and Republicans are in favor of restricting the use of federal money to pay for abortions. Although President Obama initially gave the impression that he was a supporter of female health rights, but the “abortion fight” has strongly divided up the House, causing him to take the side of restricting the use of subsidies for abortion. Currently, Obama has not clearly addressed his stance on these new restrictive proposals. It seems he is waiting for a middle ground that does not exist.
According to New York Times reporter David D. Kirkpatrick, the abortion opponents are “requiring insurers to segregate their public subsidies into separate accounts from individual premiums and co-payments. Insurers could use money only from private sources to pay for abortions.” So both insurers and consumers would have to pay from private funds to receive abortion services. This could have the consequence of private insurers not wanting to provide abortion to cut costs, resulting in women losing existing abortion coverage.
In the October newsletter from Planned Parenthood, this New York Times article was mentioned. Pro-choice supporters are worried that women are going have to give up the abortion coverage that they already have from private insurance plans.
The president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards is profiled and interviewed on her views on the health care debate. According to Richards, Planned Parenthood’s goals are to “just to make sure that reproductive healthcare is part of the healthcare package – and the second is that women’s healthcare providers are part of whatever exchange is developed.” Richards wants the government insurance plan to be supported by a diverse variety of health care providers and clinics, so that getting contraception is not an issue.
In modern society, women should not have to “fight” to receive the coverage they need, but then again who is fighting in the House and Senate right now? The majority of the House and Senate are made up of males. Female health coverage is not just a heavily debated issue, but an issue to be controlled.
If you are interested in supporting women’s rights to reproductive health please attend the Massachusetts Coalition for Choice Lobby Day 2009 on Oct. 6 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the State House in Boston.
Dude, What’s that Health Care Problem Anyway?
FAQ on Obama’s Health Care Reform
1. Why do we need to reform the health care system?
Obama writes in The New York Times that Americans must reform “a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.” Obama wants to provide coverage to the 46 million uninsured Americans, improve the quality of care, reduce costs by providing a government insurance plan as an alternative, and regulate the insurance market. Also, from a global perspective America is behind in developing an affordable health care system, while 27 other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development already provide universal health care.
2. How will the economy benefit from health care reform?
In 2007, the health care system cost Americans $2 trillion or $7, 471 per person. Families are being hit hard by escalating insurance costs, and Obama’s incentive is to stimulate the economy by reforming the health care system. Without changes, the government estimates that by 2025, “one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system.” In the global health care market, America is competing against other countries, who do not have such high health care costs.
3. Would everyone receive health care coverage under Obama’s plan?
Yes, Obama’s goal is for everyone to receive coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, allow the uninsured to get affordable insurance and compare prices in the Exchange program, and stop insurance companies from eliminating coverage in cases of extreme sickness and need. These are further explained on The White House Website. Obama’s plan would require every American to have health insurance and give coverage to the 46 million uninsured Americans, who sometimes “voluntarily go without coverage” due to the high cost of getting medical insurance.
4. What is the public option? What do the public option advocates and opponents believe?
In Tim Foley’s blog that focuses on Obama’s health care policies, he explains that the public option is a government insurance plan that would establish lowering insurance premiums, therefore competing in the insurance market with private companies, who are afraid of losing consumers to the public option. No one would be forced to sign up for the public option if they were satisfied with their current private insurance. According to Robert Schroeder of MarketWatch, Obama believes it would increase competitiveness in the insurance market, while Republicans do not want a “government takeover of health-care.”
5. What are the views of the opponents of Obama’s plan?
One of the biggest misconceptions embraced by the Republicans is that with a government insurance plan those who are insured would be required to drop their private insurance plans. On Obama’s Setting the Record Straight, it states that the 120 million insured Americans would be able to keep their existing insurance coverage. Republicans are the strongest opponents of Obama’s health care policy. Alternative Republican health care proposals include enhancing the existing Medicare or Medicaid system, making insurance companies provide affordable basic health insurance, and tax exemptions on insurance.
The Baucus Health Care Plan’s Stance on Abortion
With the release of the Baucus Reform Plan on Wednesday, Sept. 23, the abortion issue has been further addressed. The plan’s leader is Montana Senator Max Baucus, who is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
According to News-Medical.net, “The Baucus bill goes even farther by mandating that there be at least one health plan in each region across the country which covers elective abortions. Such a government mandate of abortion-covered plans in each state exchange and subsidizing such plans does little to prevent ‘federal funding of abortion’ as President Obama said last week.”
‘Elective abortion’ is used to describe a medication-induced abortion, so coverage of an elective abortion is more acceptable than a surgical abortion? If this passes, than Obama’s claim to not funding abortion will be false, and states like South Dakota with abortion bans would be horrified.
Time Magazine correspondent Michael Scherer discusses the Baucus plan in detail and describes ‘Co-Ops’ or “private non-profit companies” that would be funded by federal loans and grants. These Co-Ops could provide abortion services.
Another key component of the Baucus plan is that it does not support the public option, which provides abortion coverage under a government health care plan. Huffington Post columnist Steven Waldman writes that under Baucus lower income families who cannot afford to pay for abortion services could apply for ‘tax credits’ that would give them relief on taxes and could be used towards insurance costs. This is a new approach since the House bill would provide direct government subsidies, and this leads to the highly contested issue of providing federal money for abortion.
Baucus does not outwardly say that there will not be government funding of abortion, but leaves exceptions. In my opinion, Baucus has created a middle ground where the issue has been further addressed, but the subsidizing of abortion coverage is vague. And this is on purpose. According to Waldman, Baucus is trying to gain the endorsement of the pro-life Catholic Bishops, who would only approve health reform without abortion coverage.
Medi-Gal 