Women’s Health Information

South Dakota lawmakers passed a bill on Friday that will ban almost all abortions in the state. The only grounds now for a legal abortion is if the ongoing pregnancy threatens the health of the mother.

Under the new law abortions are not even permitted in the case of pregnancies arising out of rape or incest. The House passed the bill 50-18 and is now preparing for a lengthy legal fight to have the law upheld by the US Supreme Court.

South Dakota is even prepared to accept donations to support the legal battle to uphold the law and they already have a pledge of $1 million dollars

For further details and some very good reasons why pregnancies arising from rape and incest should not be covered by this law see the report here

It’s interesting how sometimes people forget how important the recovery process is when women have a mastectomy. What happened to the bed side care, the time when support came around at a time when women needed it?

I remember being in a hospital bed next to a woman who had just had a mastectomy and the support she received was incredible. Support people were by her bedside offering her the support that she needed at a time when the removal of a breast or breasts is a sudden change in lifestyle. A woman’s life can be turned upside down, not just because she has cancer but because suddenly she doesn’t look like the person she once was…

The bedside support, the after care and not having to rush through a process when the after surgery care should be there. Women shouldn’t be shoved through the door like a machine, going in one side and out the other just to keep those hospital beds free.

The healing process should be allowed to happen without a woman having to go home with tubes still attached and while they are still groggy from the anesthetic. This is a very dangerous practice because anything could happen…

Why put the woman’s health further at risk when she could have a minimum of 48 hours to start the recovery process…

A friend sent me this in an email and asked me to send it out to as many people as I could. But instead I have chosen to put it up on Women’s Health Information because I believe that all women should have a say in how they want to be treated if they were in the same situation…

Mastectomy Bill in Congress

It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important…please take the time and do it really quick!

Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill - Important legislation for all women.

If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times. If you are reading this it’s because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go and vote on this issue and send the link on to others you know who will do the same.

There’s a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It’s about eliminating the “drive-through mastectomy” where women are forced to go home hours after surgery against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE!

Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

http://www.lifetimetv.com/health/breast_mastectomy_pledge.html

This takes about 2 seconds. Please pass this link on to your friends and family.

Thanks

Sheryl Crow undergoes breast cancer surgery

Grammy winner Sheryl Crow has announced she has had surgery for breast cancer and has postponed a North American tour scheduled to start next month.

The singer’s website says she underwent successful surgery on Wednesday and described the procedure as “minimally invasive”.

Doctors said her prognosis was excellent and she would have radiation treatments as a precaution.

“I am joining the more than 200,000 women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year,” Crow said.

“We are a testament to the importance of early detection and new treatments … I am inspired by the brave women who have faced this battle before me and grateful for the support of family and friends.”

Last month, Crow, 44, and Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France cycling race and a survivor of testicular, brain and lung cancer, announced they were breaking up, after a two-year relationship.

Crow is calling off her March-April tour but intends to reschedule as much of it as possible.

The Missouri native was a school teacher before starting a singing career that led to a job as a backup singer to Michael Jackson and later to nine Grammy Awards.

Her hits include All I Wanna Do, Everyday Is a Winding Road, If It Makes You Happy and Soak Up the Sun.

- Reuters

RU486 available ‘within a year’

One of the co-sponsors of the private members’ bill on RU486 has predicted the abortion drug will be available in Australia within a year.

The new legislation will strip Health Minister Tony Abbott of his right to ban RU486 and give control of the drug to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

The Parliament has passed the bill and it will soon become law.

Supporters of the bill now think pharmaceutical companies will apply to the TGA to supply the abortion drug in Australia.

Democrats leader and co-sponsor Lyn Allison thinks it will be available to women within 12 months.

“I would think that women in this country can expect to join their colleagues in 35 countries around the world certainly within a year,” she said.

The bill was sponsored by a cross-party group of female senators, including Liberal MP Judith Troeth, who says she is elated at the result.

“That we have actually managed, against quite considerable odds, to get this through and with such a good working relationship,” she said.

“For me it’s been a first and I would like to think that it hasn’t stopped here.”

Family First Senator Steve Fielding says it is a sad day for Australia.

“All you’re doing is adding another method to abortion,” he said.

The Health Minister has had the veto power since 1996.

Thursday February 16th ABC Radio

US feminist pioneer Betty Friedan dies

Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique helped inspire the modern feminist movement and who co-founded the National Organisation for Women (NOW), has died on her 85th birthday, a relative says.

Friedan died at her home in Washington of congestive heart failure, just before 3pm local time, her cousin Emily Bazelon told Reuters.

“For Betty, feminism was an aspect of humanism. And one of her sons said this morning that she demonstrated that sheer intelligence could trump lack of intelligence,” Ms Bazelon said.

Friedan was born Bettye Naomi Goldstein in Peoria in Illinois and attended Smith College, a leading women’s college in Massachusetts, where she edited a campus paper and graduated with honours in 1942.

She attended the University of California in Berkeley for a year before working as a journalist.

In 1947, she married Carl Friedan, a marriage that lasted 20 years and produced three children.

The Feminine Mystique emerged from an article about a survey she conducted of fellow graduates at Smith and focused on the restrictions on women of the role of full-time homemaker.

It became a bestseller and helped invigorate the women’s movement and US feminism.

Friedan co-founded NOW with Pauli Murray, the first African-American female Episcopal priest and served as its first president from 1966 to 1970.

She also helped found NARAL, originally the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws.

Her other books included The Second Stage, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women’s Movement, and The Fountain of Age.

She is survived by two sons and a daughter, nine grandchildren, a brother and a sister.

- Reuters

The Feminine Mystique