Posts Tagged ‘contraceptives
Our Rights Also Matter
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Laura Bassett: Obama Moves To Protect Planned Parenthood Funding, Permanently
The Obama administration has proposed a new rule that would prevent states from defunding Planned Parenthood or any other family planning provider for political reasons. The new rule which the Department of Health and Human Services proposed last week, says that states cannot withhold Title X federal family planning money from certain recipients for any reason other than the “provider’s ability to deliver services to program beneficiaries in an effective manner.” That means states can no longer vote to defund Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics offer abortion services.
“This will make a real difference in so many people’s lives,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. “Thanks to the Obama administration, women will still be able to access the birth control they need to plan their families, and the cancer screenings they need to stay healthy.” The Title X program provides basic preventive health care and family planning services for 4 million low-income Americans. About 85 percent of patients who use Title X have incomes below $23,500. Planned Parenthood serves about a third of those patients, using the $70 million a year it receives in Title X grants to subsidize contraceptives and cancer and sexually transmitted infection screenings for people who can’t afford them.
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Tweets Of The Day
ObamaCare + Women = Progress
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Guttmacher Institute: Fewer U.S. Women Of Reproductive Age Were Uninsured In 2014
The percentage of women of reproductive age who were uninsured dropped sharply between 2013 and 2014, the first full year of implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The decrease among women aged 15–44, calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, mirrors broader national trends reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. This includes steeper drops in the uninsured rate in states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA compared with the rates in those states that did not. The proportion of reproductive-age women without health insurance declined by more than one-fifth between 2013 and 2014, from 17.9% to 13.9%. The change appears to have been driven primarily by gains in Medicaid coverage (from 17.2% to 20.2%). There was a small increase in the proportion of women with private health insurance, from 60.9% to 62.1%.
Gains in insurance coverage among reproductive-age women who live below the poverty line were substantial as well. The uninsured rate dropped by one-fifth, from 32.1% in 2013 to 25.6% in 2014. The gains in the proportion of women aged 15–44 who have insurance coverage has significant implications for access to health care in general, and to sexual and reproductive health care in particular. Medicaid has long offered a very robust package of sexual and reproductive health care services, including family planning services and supplies without out-of-pocket costs for enrollees. And the ACA has spurred significant improvements in private plans’ coverage; most notably, the contraceptive coverage guarantee ensures that privately insured women can access the full range of 18 Food and Drug Administration–approved contraceptive methods for women without out-of-pocket costs.
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A Tweet Or Two
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Bravo, bravo, bravo and Congratulations. It’s been a LONG time coming
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Thank you, Shonda Rhimes for reflecting the world as it should be. Also, the 3 women of color who have won Lead Actress at the SAG Awards have all come from Shonda Rhimes’ shows. She has forever changed the face of TV and if you aren’t watching any of her shows, you need to correct that mistake
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The LOVE that Taraji P. Henson showed the Black actresses who won last night is beautiful. She gave them standing ovations and led the cheers and made sure the audience recognized such huge accomplishments
https://twitter.com/JasmineSalters/status/645949725175349248
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A must watch speech
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This is the best ad Apple has put out for Apple Music. Social media was agog. Who created this masterpiece? AVA DUVERNAY! Plus, there’ll be more
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Historic
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BOOM
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Men? Don’t sleep
https://twitter.com/feministabulous/status/645354938294489088
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Greedy jerks
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Yo, Hillary? What’s good?
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BOOYAH
https://twitter.com/peterwsinger/status/645937526528544768
https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/645951778463289344
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So, ye olde PM Cameron allegedly stuck his penis into a dead pig’s mouth while in college and commenced with the “sexy time.” And you thought the GOP was the only gift that keeps on giving
A Tweet Or Two
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BOOM
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https://twitter.com/DavidAWeinberg/status/639920539822354432
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Missy Elliott = A+++++++. Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger = OH. HELL. YEAH
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WTF?!
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Even in liberal California, women’s rights can be denied. The fight never ends
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It’s 2015 and some refuse to get it into their DUMB brains that blackface is racist
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Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on Thursday that the United States would play a greater role in alleviating the increasingly high-profile Syrian refugee crisis, which the United Nations believes to be the worst refugee dilemma in 25 years. “We could do a lot more to protect those people,” Kerry told The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein. Speaking from the State Department, Kerry acknowledged that while America has donated over $4 billion in humanitarian assistance to help Syrians, the situation in their war-ravaged country and in neighboring states remains dire for millions. Kerry did not suggest that the U.S. should be taking in more refugees. Rather, he indicated that any increased American effort would focus on working with existing refugee camps in other countries.
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A Tweet Or Two
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https://twitter.com/Kelcie_W/status/635527652774776832
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https://twitter.com/willienelson/status/634896410597441536
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https://twitter.com/ajam/status/634707990143234048
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https://twitter.com/traceylross/status/633616629176340480
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https://twitter.com/Babylonian/status/631538180097880064
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https://twitter.com/TheTumblrPosts/status/635984849744990208
Tweets Of The Day
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https://twitter.com/tharealjazs/status/626937161032597504
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https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/627113387651133441
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https://twitter.com/tehawesomersace/status/627110538514862081
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https://twitter.com/PPBlackComm/status/626969636135923713
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https://twitter.com/allanbrauer/status/627137495075950592
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Rise And Shine
President Barack Obama samples fudge offered by Squirrel’s Den fudge shop owner LaDonna Secrist, left, during a stop in Mansfield, Ohio, Aug. 1, 2012. Photo by Pete Souza
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Jack Jenkins: More Than 180 Evangelical Leaders Endorse Obama’s Carbon Reduction Plan
More than 180 evangelical Christian leaders signed a letter this week backing President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, the latest effort in a growing faith-based environmental movement to curb the effects of climate change. On Thursday, theologically conservative faith leaders sent a letter to President Obama endorsing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP),
a sweeping, historic project unveiled in June and set to be officially released next week. Signers of the letter, which was posted on the Evangelical Environmental Network’s website, framed their support in explicitly moral terms. “We see overcoming the climate challenge as one of the great moral opportunities of our time, a chance to fulfill the Great Commandments to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves,” the letter read. “It is God’s love that calls all of us to take on this challenge. That is why we write to offer our support and encouragement for your efforts to overcome the climate challenge.”
More here
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Terry Wallace: Trooper In Sandra Bland Arrest Had Been Disciplined
The Texas trooper who arrested Sandra Bland after a confrontation that began with a traffic stop was once cautioned about “unprofessional conduct” in a 2014 incident while he was still a probationary trooper, according to documents released Friday. The Texas Department of Public Safety released Encinia’s personnel file in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press. Encinia had been with the department for a little over a year. For the most part, his file was unremarkable. He received “competent” ratings in all of the evaluations that were released.
However, in an evaluation that covered September and October 2014, his supervisor noted that Encinia “was given a written counseling for unprofessional conduct … for an incident occurring while at a school in Austin.” The documents provided no additional details and a Department of Public Safety official did not return a phone call seeking comment Friday night. The evaluation goes on to say, “In the future, Trooper Encinia should conduct himself at all times in a manner that will reflect well upon himself, the Department, and the State of Texas. This supervisor will ensure that this is done by meeting periodically with Trooper Encinia.”
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AP: Suspected Jewish Extremists Burn Palestinian Child To Death
Suspected Jewish assailants set fire to a West Bank home on Friday and burned a sleeping Palestinian toddler to death in an attack that drew Palestinian rage and widespread Israeli condemnation. The attack, which threatens to set off another violent escalation, shines a light on the growing lawlessness of extremist Jewish settlers that Israel is either unable or unwilling to contain. The extremists have for years staged attacks against Palestinian property, as well as mosques, churches, dovish Israeli groups and even Israeli military bases.
The attacks, known as “price tags” because they exact a price for Israeli steps seen as favorable to the Palestinians, have stirred fear in Palestinians and frustration among critics who say Israel has not done enough to quell the assaults. “This is a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism,” said Palestinian official Saeb Erekat. “This is the consequence of a culture of hate funded and incentivized by the Israeli government and the impunity granted by the international community.”
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Tara Culp-Ressler: Some Of The Videos Targeting Planned Parenthood May Be Illegal, Court Rules
An anti-abortion group that has so far released four inflammatory videos accusing Planned Parenthood of profiting from the sale of “aborted baby parts” will not be allowed to publish additional footage featuring a California company that facilitates fetal tissue donation, thanks to a temporary restraining order issued by the Los Angeles Superior Court. The court order issued this week blocks the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) from releasing video footage featuring employees who work at StemExpress, a biological company that partners with some Planned Parenthood clinics to help transfer fetal tissue donations to medical research facilities.
The unfolding controversy plaguing Planned Parenthood has been focused on this type of tissue donation, which CMP misleadingly characterizes as trafficking in baby parts. Planned Parenthood emphasizes that it’s simply helping patients who choose to donate fetal tissue, which can play a role in helping scientists develop treatments for degenerative diseases. The national women’s health organization has condemned CMP’s secret recordings for potentially violating the privacy of staff and patients at their clinics.
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President Barack Obama disembarks Air Force One upon his arrival at Mansfield Air National Guard Base in Mansfield, Ohio, Aug. 1, 2012. Photo by Pete Souza
The Obama Diary 
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