“The decline of America began in Colorado in 1967 when it became the first state in the nation to legalize abortion…” So begins the hyper-dramatized video advertisement (below) for Colorado’s “personhood” amendment–an extreme anti-choice ballot measure that would ban all abortion and restrict necessary health care for pregnant women for whom it may not be […]
Health
The 24-Hour Treatment for Anorexia
For years now, eating disorders patients and their families been watching and waiting for clinical trials to verify what treatment experts have been observing in practice: that the family-based Maudsley method really is the most effective treatment for many young anorexia patients. Last week The New York Times reported a new study by Maudsley pioneer […]
Surviving Breast Cancer: 24 Years Later
“The good news is, you’re a candidate for a lumpectomy!” With those ten words, my surgeon told me I had breast cancer. I didn’t understand the “good news” part. But he cheerfully handed me a brochure filled with pictures of lumpectomies, mastectomies and reconstructed breasts. Then he told me to go home and come back […]
The Bible-Belt Miseducation of Pregnant Teens
Contrary to the preachings of anti-abortion zealots, a teenage girl’s chances of getting pregnant before she’s ready may have more to do with her race, region and economic status than with her values or “self control.” According to new statistics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), many teen pregnancies are clustered around the Bible […]
WANTED: Safety for Abortion Doctors
Though Scott Roeder, the convicted murderer of abortion provider Dr. Tiller, will be behind bars for 50 years to life, the final chapter of the story may not yet have been written. The Kansas City Star and the Associated Press report that a federal grand jury in Kansas City is looking into whether “a broader […]
Estrogen May Boost Post-Trauma Recovery
A study from Johns Hopkins University in the September issue of The Journal of Trauma found that women are 14 percent more likely to survive severe physical trauma than men on account of higher estrogen levels. According to the study, estrogen may actually help the body repair itself more quickly and effectively following extreme injury. […]
Conservatives Pledge MORE Abortion Restrictions
Remember the Stupak-Pitts anti-choice amendment during last fall’s health-care reform debate? Now, it turns out that the “Nelson compromise” in the final Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act–which allows patients to pay separately for abortion coverage from private plans in state insurance exchanges, but allows states to opt out of providing plans with abortion coverage […]
Concluding Thoughts on Love Your Body Week
Today marks the last day of “Love Your Body Week,” and the blogosphere has been actively posting useful tips on how to love one’s own body even if it does not live up to the marketed ideal. Of course many women find it hard to love their bodies when they’re “overweight,” even though the fashion-model […]
(Self)Love is a Battlefield
My body is a battleground. I have spent most of my life waging a war on it. I have vivid girlhood memories of my worth being measured by my waist size and numbers on a scale. I was taught that I must “suffer to be beautiful.” This irreconcilable relationship with body and self continued into middle school, as […]
Living Lopsided in a Symmetrical World
When I first saw the silicon breast shells that I had bought at My Secret mastectomy boutique on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for sale at Lord and Taylor, I was stunned. One of those shells—called in medical parlance a prosthesis—had been a secret part of my life for years, from the time I surrendered half of my […]