- Have you seen Mary Lambert’s new video, Body Love? Earlier this month, Jes Baker (The Militant Baker) and numerous partners and co-sponsors hosted the Body Love Conference at University of Arizona. This week, Lindsey Averill wrote about how she has been stalked, threatened, and terrorized as result of the Kickstarter campaign for her exciting new film-in-production, Fattitude. I’m inspired by all of this activism around body love, and starting to think about how and whether discourses of the menstrual cycle could be part of it.
- A new discovery of how proteins on egg and sperm bind in conception may lead to non-hormonal birth control.
- A Chicago couple was awarded $14 million in a lawsuit claiming she was inappropriately prescribed Yasmin, which directly resulted in a debilitating stroke. However, the claim was against her physician, not Bayer.
- What to reject when you’re expecting: The National Women’s Health Network explains what’s wrong with ten overused procedures in childbirth.
- A new study in Obstetrics and Gynecology finds that mandatory vaginal ultrasound before pregnancy termination – required by law in 10 U.S. states – has no effect on women’s decisions about their pregnancies. Researchers analyzed the decisions of 15,575 women who sought abortion care, received an ultrasound, and were offered the chance to look at it. Of the 42% of the women who looked at the ultrasound, 98.4% terminated the pregnancy; among women who did not look at the ultrasound, 99% terminated the pregnancy. Only about 17 women changed their minds after viewing the ultrasound and the researchers noted that these women were among those who reported they were unsure about getting an abortion before having the ultrasound.
