Via KELO:

Every year 25 women in South Dakota are diagnosed with cervical cancer and sadly each year nine lose their battle.  Just two years ago, the state began vaccinating girls between the ages of 11 and 18 for free. Last year, the state modified it so that only 12-year old girls could get it free of charge.
…
Out of pocket, the vaccine costs about $130 per dose and it takes three for it to be effective.

“Most insurance plans cover childhood immunizations, but they don’t cover this. Or if they do cover it, it’s applied to their deductible,” (Dr. Maria)Bell said.
…

Eliminating the funding would have freed up nearly $300,000 for the state’s budget. But  Bell says it’s hard to put a price on preventing cancer, one that’s tied to the sexually transmitted disease HPV.

UGH.  So tired of girls’/women’s health taking the brunt.  Only 12 year olds?  What if they miss the memo (or lack thereof)?! This vaccine is something that can literally save womens’ lives, and its access was cut to 1/8 of its initial impact.

I do give Rounds props for passing legislation back in 2007 to provide it to girls 11-18 for free.  But as far as KELO suggesting that Rounds did girls some big favor by giving up a $300k, please.   That’s whopping 0.4% of the whole 2010 SD Health Budget.

Thank goodness Dr. Bell’s was included in this story.  As always, she reminds the world that womens’ health is important and we should treat it as such.

Over spring break, some of us ventured down to Omaha for UNO’s Regional “No Limits” Conference. This year’s topic was “Feminisms, Environments and New Media.” We heard presentations on everything from women in science fiction tv to mentorship programs designed for young girls to why america is not ready to be pro-life.
Alisha presented her research (top 1st picture) on women in Student Government (bottom 1st picture)

We also had the chance to incorporate some creativity in a collage workshop. (top 2nd)  Melissa shows hers off (bottom 2nd)

Alisha made a friend at Ahmad’s Persian Cuisine (top 3rd). 

All in all a great time.  We’ll be back next year!

Via PP:

This week saw the passage of legislation to make birth control affordable again for millions of women who obtain contraceptives at community health centers and college clinics. The provision was included in the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill that passed the U.S. Senate late yesterday and the House of Representatives two weeks ago.

In 2005, Congress passed the Deficit Reduction Act, which tightened eligibility for nominally priced drugs. In doing so, Congress inadvertently cut off safety-net providers and every college and university health center from obtaining contraception at a low cost, and passing on those savings to their patients. As a result, women have been paying up to 10 times more each month for basic contraception.

“We applaud Congress for righting a wrong that has restricted access to basic but critical preventive health care services, and left millions of women at risk of unintended pregnancy,” said Sarah Stoesz, PPMNS President and CEO. “The passing of this legislation is a victory for women’s health and especially for women who have struggled to afford the rising costs of basic contraception in these tough economic times,” said Stoesz.

“These difficult economic times have particularly affected women struggling to pay for basic health care. With 14,000 Americans losing health coverage every day, access to basic health care — including affordable birth control — is more important than ever,” Stoesz said.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, women of childbearing age spend 68 percent more in out-of-pocket health care costs than men, in part because of reproductive health-related supplies and services.

President Barack Obama has been a strong supporter of this commonsense fix; as a senator, he sponsored legislation to restore access to affordable birth control.

Please take just a few moments to thank Senator Tim Johnson and Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin for their support of making birth control affordable once again.

CLICK HERE to say thanks!

Want a unique opportunity to look into the mind of a young conservative who still buys all that bullsh*t they are selling? I’ve mentioned in this blog before the outspoken young conservative who leads the Campus Republicans. Today he decided to post on facebook his next insightful column to be submitted to our campus paper. I’m hoping that my relationship with the editor can stop it from being printed or at least let us print a response.

This is the excerpt he posted on facebook:

Life is not fair. As much as we would like all aspects of the world to be fair in every sense, the reality is that the world is not fair, nor will it ever be. People in all walks of life have been blessed with various levels of skill, intelligence, talents, personalities and so on. We have a President and Congress now that feel everything in life needs to be distributed equally to create a government mandated, quasi-fairness. The reality is that no action of government can make everyone equal, because, by nature, none of us are the same. Everyone has strengths, and everyone has weaknesses, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, status, or any other “category” someone can be thrown under.

Splitting people into different categories and defining their issues for them does not work to better the country; it ignores the fact that everyone within these groups each has their own individual issues and strengths. Putting people into these groups (African-American, Latin-American, women, men, gay, straight, etc.) creates a culture of divisiveness, allowing an environment where one can claim they are victimized. Assumptions are made about a person’s beliefs and their issues based on the category they fit into, telling individuals they are victims based on their category’s particular injustices, rather than raising up these individuals as talented human beings, not just a target voting bloc.

Many of you will say I’m being insensitive to the plights of these certain groups of people. That I just don’t get it. Let me put it this way: we have all been screwed over in some way or another. We have all been discriminated against, to various extents. How many of you were cut from the basketball team because of small-town politics, because you didn’t have the right last name? How does it feel being left-handed in a right-hand dominated world? How did it feel when your friend got off with a warning but you were stuck with a $100 speeding ticket? Life’s not fair. Rather than feel sorry for ourselves and complain, capitalize on your individual strengths as a human being and be the best you can be, moving past the injustices of life.

We live in a more diverse world than is implied with all the labels we put on groups of people. Diversity should not be defined by the amount of people you hang around that are of different “classifications” than you. Diversity should be defined as interacting and relying upon people with different strengths than yourself, which in turn helps you cover for your weaknesses as well.

The best thing we can do is recognize each individual’s strengths and weaknesses and capitalize on those strengths, avoiding victimizing of particular groups of people. Categorizing people only divides us, rather than uniting us as Americans. We are each unique, which can be seen as unfair…but what are you going to do about it? Complain that you were given the genes you have and be an unhappy, despondent person…or will you take life by the horns and be the best person you can be with the talents you were endowed with? The choice is yours.

Once we move past classifying people and capitalize on our individual talents, that is the point where we will become a truly tolerant, colorblind, genderless society that sees people for who they are, not for what they aren’t.

Wait, there’s more!

Response from his first moronic friend:
Ward Connerly inspired?

The stupidty continues:
I agree. Everyone makes a big deal that we now have a black president. Why does we have to categorize him as black? Why can’t we say we elected the person America (myself not included) thought was best for the job? Yes, he is black. But why is that an issue at all? The democrats want to say, “look, we elected a black man to office!” Saying this makes them sound like the racists that they paint Republicans as.

Seriously you can’t make this shit up:

Ward Connerly inspired indeed, love it!

Yes, I know…that last comment admits to loving anything inspired by Ward Connerly.

There are about 6 or 7 more comments that are just as infuriating and also lack any useful insight into the endless number of problems with this article. I’m planning a full response, but I couldn’t let this stay up on facebook without a liberal comment injecting some reality.

My Response:

Wow,I think you missed your calling in life; the job of leading the KKK has already been taken…. o.k. that’s a little strong but seriously history called it wants its ideology back

Unfortunately your realists stance has failed to include the true reality of the world. These groups cannot pick themselves up by their bootstraps because society is systematically holding them back…that is why they need a little more help than your white male holiness needs in finding success…just saying.

The battle for reproductive rights is a never ending in one in South Dakota just like in the rest of America. The difference is that it happens at a whole different level here.  Although the South Dakota voters gave reproductive rights a huge boost in 2008 by defeating that dreaded draconian abortion ban, we have a lot of progress left to be made. 

 

The battle, for now, has moved to the pharmacy.  South Dakota law makers attempted to give us greater access to contraception with a law that would have required insurance companies to cover FDA approved contraception methods, thus ending the double standard where insurance companies cover Viagra but not hormonal birth control.  Of course, this bill was simply too progressive for our state. Despite a valiant effort by several progressive state senators, Senate Bill 132 died a slow painful death. 

 

So, low-income women will once again get no help affording the tools to help prevent unwanted pregnancies.  But wait, affording contraceptives is just one of the barriers the women of South Dakota face.   South Dakota also has one of those unfortunate conscious clauses that allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for hormonal birth control or emergency contraception.  

 

South Dakota Codified Law   36-11-70 reads: 

 

Refusal to dispense medication. No pharmacist may be required to dispense medication if there is reason to believe that the medication would be used to:

 

            (1)      Cause an abortion; or

 

            (2)      Destroy an unborn child as defined in subdivision 22-1-2(50A); or

 

            (3)      Cause the death of any person by means of an assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.

 

    (50A)      “Unborn child,” an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth;

 

If these pharmacists understood that their own actions might actual cause those abortions they are trying to prevent, perhaps they would rethink.  Nevertheless, this is of course not how they think, because abortion is such a dirty word in South Dakota that contraceptives don’t prevent abortion they are themselves ABORTION.  

 

Well, I think it is time to battle this type of thought with a new strategy.  If I were a pharmacist my “conscience” and religion (which I would refer to as feminism just to make a point) would not permit me to fill prescriptions for Viagra while anyone still has the right to refuse to provide contraceptives.    I mean it really isn’t that much of an inconvenience to drive to the nearest pharmacy and get it from another pharmacist, right?

 

Reality Check:  Yeah, I realize that the language of the law is too specific to allow my new moral objection to certain libido enhancing prescriptions, that doesn’t mean I can’t hope for a new type of backlash. 

The Democratic National Committee is giving us a wonderful opportunity to let Rush Limbaugh know that his outright sexism (or any one of his other ideas) is wrong. How? They’re paying for a billboard near Rush Limbaugh’s house and they’re asking for people to submit slogans addressed to him. Happy slogan writing!

A recent Guttmacher report shows that

Between 1990 and 2006, the abortion rate in Mexico climbed by a third, from 533,000 to 875,000. Abortion is so restricted in Mexico that it is virtually illegal. Compared to the United States, where abortion is mostly legal, Mexico’s abortion rate was more than 40 percent higher in 2006 than the U.S. rate.

Surprise surprise. Making abortion illegal does not make it go away.

P.S. DID YOU HEAR THAT NORTH DAKOTA?