A few days ago Women’s eNews did its usual Cheers and Jeers write-up– in which they highlighted recent current events concerning women’s lives, such as reproductive rights and gender equality.
Cheer:
A group of doctors is sharing first-hand memories of either performing or playing some role in providing illegal abortions back in the days before the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortions legal, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health said Friday in a press release. With the future of legal abortion uncertain, the group wants to stress the dangers of returning to a time when women are forced to undergo unsafe procedures.[…]Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich made an attempt on Thursday to curb the increasing neglect of women’s health caused by skyrocketing insurance prices, the Peoria Journal Star reported. Provisions of a law he signed require health insurance companies to provide coverage for all ovarian and breast cancer screenings for at-risk women.
Spain has signed a commitment to work toward gender equality and anti-discrimination in its attempts to reach the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations Development Fund for Women said Friday in a press release. The agreement will lead to stronger cooperation between the U.N. organization and the Spanish government.
The United Church of Christ will support and celebrate same-sex marriage, The New York Times reported Monday. The approval of the church’s members was backed by its president, Reverend John H. Thomas. The move signals the church’s opposition to recent calls for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.[…]
Afghanistan has extended an invitation to Yakin Erturk, a women’s rights specialist on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the U.N. News Center reported Thursday. During her visit, Erturk will gather information about the current status of women and then provide strategies for action. Violence against women is expected to be the primary subject of Erturk’s tour.[…]
Well there’s some good news. The future of the Supreme Court and the fate of Roe, and perhaps even Griswold, are very much topics and issues that directly impact women’s lives–hopefully in a positive manner. The U.N. promoting gender equality around the world, especially in countries where women and girls barely have all the rights typical of a citizen, is another plus. Now, let’s move onto the bad news…
Jeer:
More women are unable to afford proper health care, according to The Kaiser Family Foundation. Over 25 percent of non-elderly women–with or without insurance–either abstain from or wait for needed healthcare due to an inability to meet rising health care prices, the foundation said Thursday in a press release.The national study also concluded that 66 percent of the uninsured women delayed or went without care. Researchers found that many women had not, for many years, discussed major causes of poor health in women, such as smoking, low calcium, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, rates in mammogram, Pap tests for cervical cancer and colon cancer screenings have also fallen. The pap test rate, one of the most significant declines, has fallen from 81 to 76 percent since 2001.
Other news to jeer at this week:
In what appears to have been an act of violence, a fire erupted Monday at the only women’s health clinic to perform abortions in West Palm Beach, Fla., reported the Miami Herald. No physical injuries were suffered. There were extensive damages to the building, equipment and medical records. The presence of lighter fluid made it a suspected arson.[…]
Many of the nation’s top magazines covering academic and political issues feature bylines that are overwhelmingly male, this month’s Columbia Journalism Review reports. The Nation male writers outnumber females 3:1, at Harper’s Magazine the ratio is 7:1, at The New Republic it’s 8:1, at Foreign Affairs it’s 9:1. Bylines at The National Review were the most male-dominated, with a ratio of 13:1.[…]
Unsafe medical conditions in Mexican abortion clinics are causing Mexican women to travel north to obtain safer procedures in California, according to a study presented to a University of California Berkeley forum on Wednesday, the Contra Costa Times reported.[…]
Women feel more pain in their lifetimes and are more sensitive to it than men, according to Bath University psychologist Ed Keogh, a BBC News report said Monday. The pain experienced by women appears to be more severe in terms of frequency, duration, and intensity. Explanations for the disparity include hormonal differences as well as women’s likelihood to attend to the emotional aspects of the pain.
Darn.
Excuse me, I have to take advil for the emotional aspects of my headache.
I don’t consider the Blagojevich bill worthy of a cheer, for a simple reason: mandates for specific health insurance coverage make health insurance more expensive. The reason that many Americans are uninsured is that the cost of insurance is rising. Even many employers are finding that it’s too expensive to extend free or subsidized insurance to their employees. If insurance companies are required to cover specific procedures, no matter how important those procedures may be, they will raise prices to recoup the payments they make for those procedures, and some group of people on the margin who are just barely able to afford insurance now will be priced out of the market. I’m sure there are many uninsured people who would love to be able to buy cheap insurance that doesn’t cover breast cancer screenings if it meant they’d be insured against being hit by a bus, because that would be superior to the total non-coverage they have right now. Unfortunately, in a misguided effort to help people who are already insured, we’ve taken away that option.
…mandates for specific health insurance coverage make health insurance more expensive. The reason that many Americans are uninsured is that the cost of insurance is rising.
That reasoning is far too simplistic. Mandates for specific health insurance coverage may indeed contribute to increasing insurance costs, but it is far from a major cause for HI cost increases. Loss of investment income by HI companies due to the stagnating market is one of major reasons for rising insurance costs and dwarfs any increases caused by actual coverage of treatments/illnesses.