Favorites from this week

First week into the new year - how did it go for y'all? Busy in both personal and professional ways? Lots of news already going on in 2013 - here's what I've been fav'ing....There is No Such Thing as a Pro-Life Feminist - Tracie Egan Morrissey at JezebelI find this article fascinating. I do not endorse or completely agree with all said, but there are excellent points about how legislating what some individuals may or may not do with their bodies that takes away the "ist" of believing in women, as "femin-ist" means as a term. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion, pro-life does not necessarily mean anti-choice. Using words to exclude individuals can is just another way of ostracizing people. Jezebel has had very little that I find credible and respectable lately, but this article did make me think about this issue a bit more...."This week's cover story of Time magazine is a summation of all the little battles that abortion-rights activists have lost since winning the war with Roe v. Wade 40 years ago. That "92 abortion-regulating provisions—a record number—passed in 24 states after Republicans gained new and larger majorities in 2010 in many legislatures across the country," isn't surprising to us, as we grapple with that depressing news regularly. So perhaps what was more intriguing—for feminists who are up-to-date on the endless fight for reproductive rights—about the the Timestory was the publication's inclusion of a companion piece titled "Pro-Life and Feminism Aren't Mutually Exclusive," written by Emily Buchanan, the executive director of the Susan B. Anthony List, "an organization that works to elect pro-life candidates to office." Because although people like Buchanan insist that "pro-life feminism" actually exists, the logic behind it remains fuzzy at best.So here was Buchanan's chance, with her bold headline, to explain in the "lame-stream" media just how legislating the female reproductive system, hindering her bodily autonomy, and restricting her access to affordable contraception and gynecological healthcare, could ever be considered pro-woman. And she couldn't. Not convincingly, anyway.The biggest card that groups like the Susan B. Anthony list play is invoking the names and quotes of 19th and 20th century suffragists to prove their point..."...Nursing in Captivity: On Bethenny, Gorillas, and Why it Really Does Take a Village - Dou-la-laA great summation on the history and present. Support women, those who are trying, those who can, those who teach, and those who seek to normalize. Yes...."Now, all my pontificating might very well feel like an awful lot of pressure for those individual mothers, and let's be realistic, for all my talk of the collective, we still experience our lives as individuals. A young mother who's just learning to breastfeed and doesn't feel comfortable breastfeeding in public (perhaps the word "yet" can be applied, perhaps not) shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to nurse in more privacy, whether that means using a nursing cover or going to a more secluded spot. But the more common it becomes, the less likely it is she will feel uncomfortable in the first place, and moreover, the more likely it is that she will be able to troubleshoot some basic breastfeeding difficulties should she encounter them. We NEED to see breastfeeding....If we are ever able to restore breastfeeding as the norm, what of the mothers who, as we often repeat but sometimes are not heard, truly cannot breastfeed? I know it's a sensitive matter, and feel strongly about two points on that: First, if breastfeeding is the norm, then obtaining donor milk or a wet nurse would not be prohibitively difficult or expensive, at least not more so than formula feeding. And second, whether using donor milk or formula (because as rare as galactosemia is, it does exist), it would be understood that if a mother was not nursing, she had a good reason for it, and that mother would be treated with respect and compassion.O fanciful utopia, I know. But let's keep reaching for it. Continuing with the uncanny timing, another article came out last week, a characteristically great piece from the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. Most of the content focuses on workplace support specifically, rather than public nursing, but the title could just as well apply here, too: It takes a society to breastfeed a child."......The Battle for Reproductive Justice: Denying Indian Women Plan B Affects All Women - Chloe Haimson at Indian Country Today Media NetworkThe title says it all. Yes...."Remember the beginning of this post, when I told you I wanted to talk about the effect reproductive rights policies are having on REAL women. Well, here’s an example: Asetoyer explains that often mothers will walk into her office, wanting to know when Plan B will be widely accessible. “They want more information about Plan B so they can talk to their daughters so that when they are sexually assaulted, they’ll know about it and be able to request it.”It’s frightening to consider how something so horrific becomes the norm. There is no question; rather, it’s an expectation for these women that one day their daughter may be sexually assaulted. Asetoyer adds, “That’s shocking when a mother says when my daughter is sexually assaulted. And that is absolutely unacceptable in every other community and the government is doing little of anything to help address this.”It is an outrage that not only may it be difficult to physically access Plan B but also the lack of information regarding emergency contraceptives can serve as an obstacle for young women who have been sexually assaulted."......iO Must-Reads: Our Top 10 Posts of 2012 - Trevor Dewitt at Bell & Melinda Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists BlogA great listing of the best blog posts on the iO website in 2012, including this video below which I had not seen, but really like. Where's the Controversy in Saving Lives?...Mexico Training Midwives in Hope of Preventing Maternal Deaths - Monica Ortiz Uribe at KPBSSuch a travesty that traditional midwives have been pushed to the side in favor of westernization of birth internationally. Fascinating that Mexico and other countries recognize the importance of midwives, and interesting that the focus is on nurse-midwives. In low-resource settings, clinical background can be incredibly important, as I have experienced first-hand. An interesting start to this story for Mexico...."Many are descendants of an aging practice -- they're the daughters, granddaughters or nieces of traditional midwives. This is the first government-funded public school in Mexico and these women are the freshman class.America Madrid Simon is a slightly shy 21-year-old who sits near the back of the class. "When I first told people I was studying midwifery, they laughed at me," she said. "They said that's for grandmothers!'"As Mexico's public health system has pushed more and more women to give birth in hospitals, it’s created a stigma that midwifery is old fashioned and has no place in modern medicine. As a result, traditional midwives are attending fewer and fewer births. But that strategy hasn’t necessarily worked out for the best...This is where the midwifery school could help. The students' curriculum marries traditional midwifery with modern medicine. They learn the old arts like massaging bellies with long shawls while also studying gynecology, obstetrics and basic nursing. When they graduate in four years, they'll have a license and be able to work in urban hospitals and rural clinics."......Most countries offer the Pill over-the-counter - Kerry Grens at ReutersReally, there is no thought as to why this pattern emerged? High-income countries, where provider-visits and insurance cost out the wazoo, also charge for contraception? Truly mind-boggling. And an interesting quote about how this makes some form of healthcare more accessible to those in areas where healthcare may not be as accessible - there is many a place in the US where this is the case. Rallying cry...."In a survey of government health officials, pharmaceutical companies, family planning groups, medical providers and other experts in 147 countries Dr. Daniel Grossman, of Ibis Reproductive Health in Oakland, California, and his colleagues found that women in the U.S. and 44 other countries need a prescription to get birth control pills.The group reported in the medical journal Contraception that while another 56 countries had laws requiring prescriptions, in practice women could access the contraception over-the-counter.Thirty-five countries legally allowed access to oral contraceptives over-the-counter, and 11 countries allowed over-the-counter access as long as the woman is screened to ensure that she is a good candidate."The patterns we saw were interesting," said Grossman. "Higher income countries - western Europe, Australia, Japan and North America - generally require a prescription."Grossman told Reuters Health he couldn't explain why these patterns have emerged."......From Facebook's The World of Hillary Clinton