Pharmacists And Doctors In Kansas Can Now Deny Women Access To Birth Control And Chemotherapy
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a bill yesterday that will allow pharmacists in the state to refuse to fill a prescription they think could be used to induce abortion. But since the “conscience” measure says they cannot be required to provide a drug or devise that they think “may result in the termination of a pregnancy” — but does not define which drug in particular — the law’s opponents say it could allow a pharmacist to interfere with a woman’s health care by refusing to distribute birth control or emergency contraception.
Women who already have difficulty obtaining contraception may face additional hurdles, according to Julie Burkhart, founder of an abortion-rights group in Wichita, Kansas:
Burkhart said the law could create a hardship for women in small towns with a sole pharmacist who may refuse to fill certain prescriptions. In larger cities, women will have to make sure they go to a cooperative pharmacist, she added.
“Women should not have to go armed with a lot of research when looking for a physician or pharmacist in the community,” Burkhart said.
No pharmacist could be fired for refusing to fill such prescriptions, and doctors can refuse to refer patients to pharmacists who would fill a birth control prescription.
Additionally, the Associated Press had reported that the law could “allow a doctor to refuse to provide chemotherapy to a pregnant cancer patient because it might end her pregnancy.”
Brownback’s office justified his signing by saying the bill “gives more legal protection to Kansas health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions” based on their conscience. Kansas already had a law that allowed medical professionals to refuse to assist in abortion procedures.
While Kansas lawmakers failed to pass a sweeping anti-abortion bill that would have required doctors to give false information to their patients, the expanded “conscience” law is just one of several laws recently approved in the state that undermine women’s health and well being.
(via fuckyeahsexeducation)
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The Hours | Beach House | Bloom
One of my favorite albums of this summer so far. Makes me want to snort Ketamine and lay in a park on a breezy afternoon…
Every three seconds 50,000 of your body’s cells die and are replaced. That’s 1 million cells in a minute, 60 million cells in an hour, 1.4 billion in a day, and 525 billion in a year. This means that by age 10 you’ve already lost 5.3 trillion cells, by age 25 13.14 trillion cells, and by age 70 you’ve lost 36.8 trillion cells; not counting, of course, cell loss caused by diseases, infections, and injuries.
"The odd thing about this life is always that you spend half your time trying to get people to listen to you and the rest of the time trying to get them to leave you the fuck alone."
— Tom Waits (via penseesduchoeur)
(Source: fromtheseatothelandbeyond, via thedame)
“Consumers may soon be able to test themselves for HIV and quickly learn the results in the privacy of their own homes following a unanimous approval recommendation from a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee on Tuesday.
The panel said the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test should be made available over-the-counter (OTC) saying the test is safe and effective and that the benefits far outweigh the potential risks.
If approved by the FDA, the test will be the first OTC test to be marketed for HIV or any infectious disease. FDA advisory committee recommendations are not binding, but they are generally followed.”
via CNN.com
Romance Ain’t Dead
I never know how to fucking explain myself. It’s a rare moment for me when a cliche actually applies but really it’s not ‘you’… it’s ‘me’.
Of course, no woman wants to believe this; fuck, I’m not sure anyone wants to believe this. But it’s the truth and I say that with as much sincerity as I can possibly muster. Relationships have never been a high priority of mine and at this juncture, it very well may be last on the list.
I know, I know… I say this now and then I’ll meet some magical person who will force me to immediately recant my previous statements. I have heard some version of this numerous times before and I’ll concede there’s been situations where this has been the case. But I find this notion problematic; I have for quite some time, only now do I possess the ability to articulate why.
Interesting way to look at how the culture surrounding marriage is shifting:
Marriage’s fall has been chronicled by a vast array of articles in major media outlets, based on a vast array of studies. (Along with the Pew Center study, two others are: “Marriage and Divorce: Changes and Their Driving Forces,” by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, and “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage,” by Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.)
But is it possible that the death of marriage is an exaggeration? Is the old institution simply going through some shape-shifting that is as much economic as cultural? Consider that the studies also show that marriage, while declining among the majority of Americans, remains the institution of choice for one particular subset: adults with a college education and a substantial income.
In a recent interview, Andrew Cherlin commented that “Marriage matters more now as the symbol of the good life than as a legal institution.” He added, “I don’t think the battle over same-sex marriage is about rights anymore. It’s about being allowed to have a first-class social status.”
Perhaps what we are witnessing is not so much the death of a tradition but a further widening of the class divide. The institution is dying — for the poor.
The obituary for marriage, then, really should be a conversation about social volatility, health, and children. In a study on the impact of marriage on kids, researchers from the Swedish Institute for Social Research found that, “even among children who live with both biological parents, cohabitation was associated with lower educational outcomes for children compared to marriage.” Research continues to show that a child’s education and emotional health are at risk when their world is more volatile. “It is not divorce in itself that can lead to problems in children. It is the divorce linked to inter-parental conflict, a lack of co-parenting, an unsuitable family climate, etc.,” says Priscila Comino, a researcher at the University of the Basque Country’s Faculty of Psychology.
