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GUARDIAN Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:34:00 GMT
The breast cancer charity's withdrawal of support for Planned Parenthood will sacrifice women's health to anti-choice dogma
I was sitting on my friend Maggie's couch last January, watching, slack-jawed, as the first order of business in the new Republican-controlled Congress was not to create jobs, restructure the tax code or reform a corrupt banking system that crippled our nation.
No, the first order of business was trying to defund Planned Parenthood, an American institution that for 90 years has tirelessly provided affordable healthcare services to women, children and men. One in five women in America have used the services of Planned Parenthood.
I am one of those women. And 97% of what Planned Parenthood provides is low-cost, preventative healthcare and treatment like pap smears, birth control dispensing, HIV/Aids testing and breast cancer screenings.
Three percent of what they do is provide abortion services. Abortions that are 100% paid for by the woman who elects to have the procedure. A procedure that is legal in this country as of the publication date of this article.
The defunding legislation failed, but lit a fire in the belly of zealots in statehouses across America, resulting in a record number of states attempting to or actually imposing draconian laws leaving low-income women at risk of having no access to affordable healthcare.
It was personal for me. At 17, I found myself pregnant and alone; and after going to anti-choice zealots for guidance, I found only scorn and shame. It was Planned Parenthood that listened to me, which allowed me to make the choice I needed to make, which was to have an abortion.
I wanted to give back, so together with my friend Maggie, we formed a two-woman fundraising machine, reached out to Planned Parenthood and organized a tour to raise money and awareness for local affiliates. I piled my two dogs in a van. My pal Matt took 10 days off of work to protect me from hate-mongers like this, and do some filming, and the wonderful photographer Mindy Tucker volunteered her time to do a photo essay of the trip.
I did 16 fundraisers between April and December, bringing my comedy act into towns doing shows to raise money and share my story with hundreds of people each night who also wanted to preserve the quality care Planned Parenthood provides.
A lot of people shared their stories with me. People who had similar experience to mine and kept it a secret. Wonderful stories of appreciation for quality prenatal care they received, and equally appreciative stories of being able to have a safe haven where they could make that very personal decision to terminate a pregnancy.
I heard stories, too, from women and men whose lives were saved because they were able to get all kinds of cancer screenings; from cervical to testicular to thyroid. And many stories of breast cancer detection.
There were women who were able to get annual mammograms, catching it early so they could get treated and go on to live healthy lives. Heartbreaking and triumphant stories from women who had lost their jobs and the healthcare that went along with it, women working three part-time jobs that didn't provide healthcare, students who relied on Planned Parenthood because every extra penny went to books and tuition. Single moms who didn't have to choose between a mammogram and buying baby formula.
My dear friend Shannyn Moore lights up my life everyday because Planned Parenthood detected her breast cancer and helped her with the costs of her treatment.
For years, the Susan G Komen Foundation helped Planned Parenthood by providing funding to help them continue their efforts to provide breast cancer screening to women in need. Until this week.
The foundation has chosen to defunded Planned Parenthood because it claims it cannot fund an organization that is under congressional investigation. An unwarranted investigation led by Representative Cliff Sterns, a zealous Florida congressman who is more concerned.......
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GUARDIAN Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:40:01 GMT
Menswear shows, haute couture and Joy Division meets Mickey Mouse. What a week in fashion it's been, says Simon ChilversCouture watch
A fake airport terminal complete with a fake plane interior featuring a logo double C carpet was the scene for the Chanel couture show. Givenchy was inspired by Metropolis and staged on a basketball court. Jean Paul Gaultier referenced Any Winehouse, and Dior still hasn't replaced John Galliano. Yes, it was haute couture week in Paris. Jess Cartner-Morley had the front-row perspective.Men, it's time to leather up
Paris menswear cemented the trends started in Milan for blockbuster coats, leather and man-power. Simon Chilvers and Helen Seamons broke down all the trends from both capitals, from Dior's baseball cap army to Lanvin's Michelin man silhouette via Thom Browne's American football shoulders and Jil Sander's dinosaur jumper.Wardrobe malfunction strategy
This week the Invisible Woman announced: "Now I am over 50 ... I am a cautious dresser. My aim is to get through life with as little embarrassment as possible." She recommended a well-placed safety pin and a cardigan on permanent standby, and lamented twisty tights. Readers shared her fears, and swapped tales of clothing catastrophes.Maternity wear
As a pregnancy bumps develop in size, what on earth are women supposed to wear to work? Amy Fleming draws on her own first pregnancy experiences, looks at the maternity wardrobe of Carla Bruni, and points out some shopping ideas items that may well plug such wardrobe gaps.And the rest of the week's fashion news ...
Jo-ann Fortune wonders if the thrill has gone out of vintage shopping.
Hadley Freeman gets frank about jeans – she thinks they suck.
Simon Chilvers explains why David Hockney is his all-time fashion hero.
Paula Cocozza ponders Disney's Joy Division-inspired Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
Pastel heels are having a fashion moment this season - we pick the best.
Artist Andrew Salomone explains how - and why - he hacked a knitting machine.
Simon Chilvers
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GUARDIAN Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:12:39 GMT
With a fact-free campaign, Tory MPs are attempting to bring the worst of the US abortion debate to British politics
Just when you thought it was safe to go out, the right wing of the Conservative party have resurrected their fact-free campaign about abortion counselling.
It is important to stress that there are already full guidelines on abortion counselling from the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The Royal College guidelines state: "Women should have access to objective information and, if required, counselling and decision-making support about their pregnancy options". Such counselling may include:
•Implications counselling: aims to enable the person concerned to understand the implications of the proposed course of action for themselves and for their family.
• Support counselling: aims to give emotional support in times of particular stress)
• Therapeutic counselling: aims to help people with the consequences of their decision and to help them resolve problems which may arise as a result)
Furthermore the Department of Health inspects and regulates abortion clinics, and their inspections have never thrown up breaches of the guidelines.
But, undeterred by the absence of evidence, the anti-abortion lobby has thrown itself into a campaign to promote the need for more abortion counselling. They spew out non-facts in support of a non-problem. But their campaign provides a handy vehicle to attack the motives of the doctors, nurses and clinics involved in providing abortions and to revisit what is fundamentally an anti-abortion case.
Nadine Dorries brought this issue to the floor of the House of Commons last year. Unsurprisingly, she was voted down. Opinion polls shows that the majority of the public are against her.
So, most people imagined that the issue had gone away. But the public health minister Anne Milton has been working behind the scenes to achieve a political "fix"that would enable the government to bring in the changes that the anti-abortionists desire without any more inconvenient parliamentary debate. The government had already made it clear that it believed it could bring in the changes without legislation, by simply changing the regulations. And Milton thought she could get cover for this by setting up an all-party consultation group on abortion counselling and promoting a phony "consultation". The "consultation" would, in theory, offer a range of options. But there was no doubt which option the Tory anti-abortionists preferred and which option they would ensure that the "consultation" was flooded with support for.
I originally agreed to attend the group in good faith. Although I knew abortion counselling already existed, I was interested in seeing if it could be improved. In particular, I was concerned about a range of faith-based counselling services. I also thought it might be possible to look at offering better counselling over a range of issues like still-birth and infertility.
But after a couple of meetings it became clear where the group was going and I have now withdrawn. Last night I had to debate the issue on television with Nadine Dorries. Nadine is parliament's leading anti-abortion campaigner and she has made no secret of the fact that she sees the abortion counselling issue as a way of driving down the number of abortions.
True to form, Nadine was ready with a barrage of untrue assertions. She claimed that the abortion clinics are just in it for the money; that the majority of people who attended the MP "consultation" meetings were pro-choice; that I had played no part in the meetings, even that I had slept through one. As she walked off the television set Nadine's high heels clacked triumphantly.
The trouble is that Nadine's performance is everything that is wrong with the social conservatives that are resurgent in the Conservative party. They rely on a smokescreen of emotion and personal attacks rather than evidence. And they..
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GUARDIAN Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:14:29 GMT
Vitamin D deficiency is being linked with sudden infant deaths and fractures in children. Is it time to start taking supplements?
Vitamin D is in the news again, and while the experts squabble over it, I'm off to buy myself some supplements. The chief medical officer for England has told GPs like me to advise those at risk to take supplements. And since half the adult population of the UK is lacking vitamin D in the winter months and deficiency is being linked to a growing list of health problems, I can't see a good reason not to take a small multivitamin a day – at least until the sun comes out. I'll stick to the recommended daily amount as you can have too much of a good thing, even vitamins.
Vitamin D is essential for bone growth and health, and deficiency can cause rickets in the young and a condition called chondromalacia in adults. You wouldn't think rickets still existed in the UK but it probably never went away and is increasingly recognised as a cause of fractures in susceptible children.
Recently two parents, Rohan Wray and Chana al-Alas, were accused of murdering their four-month-old baby who died two years ago from sudden infant death syndrome (Sids, also known as cot death). The baby, Jayden, was found to have multiple injuries and the parents were accused of shaking the baby to death. But pathologist Dr Irene Scheimberg, based at Royal London Hospital, found evidence of rickets in Jayden at postmortem and the judge directed the jury to acquit.
Since that tragic case, Scheimberg says she has discovered vitamin D deficiency in eight further cases of Sids and in 30 cases of children who have died of various causes and had postmortems. A colleague of hers, Dr Marta Cohen, working in Yorkshire has also found vitamin D deficiency in 18 out of 24 cases of Sids and in 45 babies under the age of one, who died of other causes. Both doctors are calling for further investigation into the implications of vitamin D deficiency and highlighting the need to be aware of rickets in cases of Sids, which can be mistaken for non-accidental injury.
This adds weight to those calling for widespread vitamin D supplementation in the UK. Advice from the chief medical officer for England, Sally Davies, was for at-risk groups – which includes pregnant and breastfeeding women, children aged six months to five years old, people aged 65 or over, people who are not exposed to much sun (the housebound, those who cover up their skin for cultural reasons and people who have darker skin, whose bodies are unable to produce vitamin D as easily) – to take vitamin D. But there have been calls to introduce supplements for all the population in Scotland, because of high levels of multiple sclerosis which may be linked to vitamin D deficiency. Ryan McLaughlin, 13, launched a campaign, Shine on Scotland, in response to his mother's diagnosis of MS, while Professor George Ebers of the Nuffield department of clinical neurosciences at Oxford University believes the evidence is now good enough to justify dosing the entire population with vitamin D. Professor George Ebers of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford University is quoted, saying that he believes the evidence is now good enough to justify dosing the entire population with vitamin D. Last month, his team published evidence of a link between MS and an inherited tendency that leads to vitamin D deficiency.
Scotland's chief medical officer, however, Sir Harry Burns, says in the same article he thinks there needs to be "broader scientific consensus" before change is considered. He warns that dietary supplements can cause harm and that we need to wait for good randomised studies in large populations. He wants to wait for the conclusions of a review of the evidence by the UK government's scientific advisory committee on nutrition in 2014.
But Ebers says that is too long. He reflects that there was evidence to support recommending folic acid supplementation for all pregnant.....
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GUARDIAN Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:00:01 GMT
The results of the latest study on global abortion are no surprise – the shock is policy-makers have ignored such data for decades
The astounding thing about the global abortion debate is not that some people have deeply held views about what a pregnancy is and when a human existence begins. After all, both of these questions are closely related to that most ubiquitous of philosophical questions: what is the meaning of life? The astounding thing is that policy-makers continue to ignore carefully amassed information about the actual outcome of programmes and laws related to sexuality and reproduction.
In that context, one could only wish that the latest figures on induced abortion rates and unsafe abortion came as more of a surprise. The analysis, carried out by the US-based Guttmacher Institute and published in the Lancet, has two main conclusions: first, when governments fail to provide contraception for those who want it, abortion figures stay the same; and second, where abortion is illegal the procedure is predominantly unsafe. The foreseeable consequence – continued high levels of maternal mortality – also plays out in the data.
None of this is new or surprising, and we have, as one health advocate pointedly noted, known it for decades. The aggregate data, however, hides additional details the discerning policy-maker should take into account.
First, overall abortion and fertility rates present the consolidated result of millions of very personal decisions.
It is not an accident that abortion rates are higher and procedures more unsafe in poorer countries generally, and for poorer women everywhere. Because even though decisions about abortion are personal, the context in which they are made is not. In this sense, the frequency with which women and girls need abortions and the conditions in which they feel compelled to access the procedure is in many cases an expression of exclusion, stigma and discrimination.
This is most clearly illustrated by the seeming anomalies in the Guttmacher study. Take a country like India. Abortion is generally legal, and modern contraceptive methods are, in theory, available. Even so, the study found that two thirds of the 6.5m induced abortions that occurred annually in India were unsafe. The reason for this is the combination of available health infrastructure, poverty, moral condemnation of sex outside marriage and severe gender inequities in the labour market. This is the context in which the women and girls make their decisions. Those who are most likely to need an abortion – young or unmarried women, those pursuing education or those engaged in subsistence farming – either cannot afford a legal procedure or fear the stigma attached to going to a recognised clinic for care. As a result, they end up having unsafe abortions, not because the government doesn't allow legal care, but because it does not enable women to effectively access it.
Second, the 70,000 women who die annually as a result of unsafe abortion didn't just die because abortion was illegal in the country they live in. They died because their lives were seen as dispensable by those in charge. Maternal mortality caused by unsafe abortion is, in fact, entirely resource-specific. This is the very reason policy-makers can and do continue to ignore facts: the only women who die as a result of restrictive abortion laws are poor. Case in point: Mississippi, the US state with the highest poverty rate, also has incredibly restrictive abortion access and – not surprisingly – soaring levels of maternal mortality.
Finally, the study hides massive levels of complacency (or resignation), even among those of us who care. How is it that we don't ask for more informed positions from our policy-makers? Regardless of whether we identify as pro-choice or pro-life, or neither, we should all require some sort of plausible explanation for why the suggested solutions actually would generate the change we want. In this sense, if a.....
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GUARDIAN Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:00:01 GMT
Bush theatre, London
After giving us one of those rare plays about a happy family, The Kitchen Sink, the Bush now returns to the more traditional dysfunctional kind. We even get, in this new play by Irish playwright Nancy Harris, that modish motif of modern drama, a disturbed child. But if the ingredients look familiar, Harris gives them a new spin in an unsettling, engrossing psychological drama.
Things bode ill from the moment Annie, an Irish nanny, turns up unexpectedly in the smart London home of the heavily pregnant Hazel. It turns out Annie has been covertly hired by Hazel's absent husband, Richard, to help out his hard-pressed wife. Given that Hazel, a former high-flying lawyer, is trying to cope with a troubled eight-year-old son and a house filled with olive oil impetuously ordered during a Sicilian holiday, the husband's action doesn't seem unreasonable. But when Richard, a plastic surgeon who has been on a charitable mission to Haiti, finally turns up, his presence only fuels the tensions already simmering in this deeply unhappy household.
What Harris writes about vividly are the problems of parenting. Hazel is a rich, multi-layered creation who sees motherhood as a strange forest she can't get out of, and whose idea of indulgence is to buy a pet tarantula for her son. But her boy, Daniel, also has a demonic side, while the young nanny arrives from Sligo toting all the baggage of a traumatic childhood as well as a jealous envy of the affluent English middle classes. Having created three such credible characters and raised so many fascinating questions about the fallibility of the maternal instinct, Harris's touch only deserts her with the figure of the husband. I can accept that his charitable work demonstrates what Conrad called "the latent egoism of tenderness to suffering" but not that, domestically, he would be quite such an emotionally obtuse berk.
Charlotte Gwinner's production, however, keeps you on tenterhooks, and is acted with great finesse. The witchy, high-cheekboned beauty that made Kate Fleetwood an unforgettable Lady Macbeth serves her equally well as the tensely intelligent Hazel, whom you believe in from start to finish. Denise Gough as the Sligo nanny also perfectly combines an air of professional competence with a sense of bottled resentment, and Mark Bazeley invests Richard with a patina of charm that disguises his patronage. As one of the two boys sharing the role of the son, Jonathan Teale is almost unnervingly good. Not for the first time, however, I wonder how child actors learn to cope with exposure to a world of such fierce adult passion; maybe they just mature more quickly.
Rating: 4/5
Theatre
Parents and parenting
Michael Billington
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