Women News, Feb 2, 2009

Jane:  Over 30 U.S. women's advocacy groups are urging television broadcaster CBS not to air an ad sponsored by the  conservative Christian group  Focus on the Family, during the Super Bowl football championship final because they say it has a strident anti-abortion rights message. This 30-second spot features Florida college football star Tim Tebow and his mother Pam. It costs about $3 million and reportedly has been paid for by "very generous and committed friends" of Focus on the Family and not by the ministry's general fund.

Women's Media Center's objection was written in a letter to CBS. It said, the ad "uses one family's story to dictate morality to the American public, and encourages young women to disregard medical advice, putting their lives at risk."

Joan: Of course, this ad is anti-abortion and not necessarily anti-choice, but it might as well be anti-choice because that is what people are likely to hear. Sarah Palin Defends the Anti-abortion Ad. On Facebook  she urges CBS to " just do the right thing. Don’t cave. Have the backbone to run the ad." She berated women’s groups who were "inexplicably offended" by the ad for their "double standard" and noting that groups like NOW are getting themselves into "a ridiculous situation."

Jane, Palin seems to forget that her daughter and Ms Tebow were allowed to make the choices they did. She fails to value other women’s judgment about their reproductive welfare as much as her own. And that choice is essential.

Jane: While President Obama focused mainly on job creation during his State of the Union Address on Wednesday, he insisted that he would not give up on passing health reform legislation. He told Congress, "Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close," adding, "Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people"

Joan: Abortion-rights advocates fear that the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling that declared unconstitutional a law barring corporations from involvement in federal elections shows a willingness by conservative justices to overturn longstanding precedents. They fear this might signal openness for upending the 37-year-old Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights said that the court "exhibited a stunning disregard for settled law of decades' standing" and that the decision is "terrifying to those of us who care deeply about the constitutional protections the court put in place for women's access to abortion." She added, "We are deeply concerned [that their] decision shows the court will reach out to take an opportunity to wholesale reverse a precedent the hard right has never liked." But there was an optimistic note in a recent article by Linda Greenhouse, the long time Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times. She wrote about the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned. She stated that while she is certain four of the justices wouldn't hesitate to do it, to get that fifth vote for a majority, Justice Kennedy would have to renounce his own statements in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision which reaffirmed the right to abortion and she says there are few things a justice dislikes more than repudiating his own prior vote. But certainly it is a serious worry.

Jane: NARAL Co-founder Ruth Proskauer Smith died Friday at age 102. Smith began her work in the reproductive rights field as a field worker for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts in the 1940s. In her career she held high positions with several national reproductive rights organizations, including being a founding member of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws in 1969. The group changed its name to the National Abortion Rights Action League after the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade in 1973 and adopted its current name in 2003.

Joan: A study by the University at Albany-SUNY's Center for Women in Government and Civil Society found that women currently make up 22% of all federal judges and 26% of state-level judges. Women’s share of the federal bench is at 10% or less in eight states – and nearly non-existent in Montana and New Hampshire. As for state judges, eight states have hit the one-third women mark, but 13 are below 20%. Two states - New Jersey and Connecticut - have achieved a "critical mass" of 33% women among the state's federal judgeships. The 33% threshold says center director Dina Refki is “important because it is the point where women become a critical mass and where their number is large enough to induce change in the normative conception of leadership.”

The report says that the disparity cannot be attributed to a lack of qualified women. According to the American Bar Association, women comprise 48% of law school graduates and 45% of law firm associates. Instead, the report blames a lack of opportunity and access.

Jane: Last Thursday at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Sandra Day O'Connor, the first US female Supreme Court justice and Elena Kagan, its first female U.S. solicitor general discussed "Women Advocates of the Supreme Court Bar." Justice O'Connor said women are still underrepresented as Supreme Court law clerks -- 11 out of 38 this term. Kagan said that when women are being confirmed for office, there are a set of questions that are different from those asked males. When asked how to deal with the "boy's club" in some legal circles, O'Connor shrugged and said, "Put on the best show." Kagan's answer: "Women's clubs."

Joan: The Gynecologic Cancer Foundation stated Friday that a significant number of young women do not understand the importance of cervical cancer screening. 85 percent of survey respondents said they did not believe they are currently at risk for cervical cancer. Two-thirds of the women did not think they were at risk for the HPV infection, even though 60 to 80 percent of women in this age group are infected with HPV.

"The sheer magnitude of the lack of knowledge was surprising," said Linda Miller, the foundation's cervical cancer campaign specialist. "Lately there has been a lot of discussion about HPV among young women in this age group. We were amazed by the inadequate amount of information out there."

The consequences of not undergoing regular checkups can be serious. Of the women diagnosed with cervical cancer, 50 to 60 percent of them never had a Pap test, according to the Atlanta-based American Cancer Society. About 10 percent had not had a Pap test within the past five years.

Jane: In a recent speech before the staff of the U.S. Department of Labor, First Lady Michelle Obama emphasized the administration’s support for the Healthy Families Act and other work/family policies. The First Lady referred to her own challenges as a working mother and reiterated that workers “shouldn’t have to choose” between taking care of their families and keeping their jobs.

Joan: The proposed Senate health reform bill, in the name of “workplace wellness” creates a loophole that would allow employers and insurance companies to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. How? First, according to an article in the National Partnership for Women and Families, employers though these loopholes "could raise everyone’s insurance premium and then give a “reduction” to those who meet certain health targets and call it a reward. Those who can’t meet the health targets — for whatever reason — get charged more than their healthier co-workers.

Second, current law says a reward or penalty to an employee under these programs cannot exceed 20 percent of the cost of their health plan.  The Senate bill ups the ante and could eventually allow employers to charge an employee up to 50 percent of their health plan. With the cost of insurance soaring – an average family policy could cost $20,000 by 2016. This means people could be charged as much as $10,000 more for their insurance than their co-workers, simply because they have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or weigh more than they should.   If this sounds like discrimination based on health status, that’s because it is!"

Jane: In a study published last Tuesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives a common flame-retardant chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDE, appear to be linked to reduced fertility in women. The study found that for each tenfold increase in the blood concentration of PDBEs, there was a 30% drop in the likelihood of becoming pregnant each month.

Earlier studies suggest that 97% of U.S. residents have detectable levels of PBDEs in their blood. In 2008, a  study linked PBDEs with disrupted thyroid levels in men, and a study published this month linked exposure during pregnancy to neurodevelopmental delays in children. Hugh Taylor, an expert on endocrine-disrupting chemicals at Yale University, noted that the studies are association studies and do not prove cause and effect. "But we have cause-and-effect studies in animals, and we have association studies in humans," he said, adding, "I think that is fairly convincing."

These chemicals, which have been used for more than four decades, are found in foam furniture, electronics, fabrics, carpets and plastics. Although use of PBDEs is being phased out in the U.S, the chemicals are still found in household products manufactured before 2004, according to the Times.

Kim Harley, lead author of the new study and associate director of the Center for Children's Environmental Health Research at the UC-Berkeley School of Public Health, said more research is needed to determine how PBDEs relate to fertility. "One of the strongest associations of PBDEs is with thyroid hormone," which appears to play a role in fertility, she said, adding that "PBDEs also seem to mimic estrogen" (Roan, Los Angeles Times, 1/27).

Joan: According to a systematic review published last week by the Cochrane Collaboration there is no evidence to support the widespread practice of not allowing women in labor to eat or drink. The practice came about to prevent Mendelson's syndrome that can occur if the contents of the woman's stomach are drawn into the lungs while she is under general anesthesia, which can be fatal. Joan Tranmer, associate professor of nursing at Queen's University in Ontario and author of the review, said, "With improved anesthetic techniques, we don't do general anesthesia a lot anymore," adding that even when anesthesia is necessary, the techniques have improved, making the risk for Mendelson's "very, very low."