Weekly News Round-Up, New Blog Template Edition

Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health hasThe Abortion Provider's Declaration of Rights, and is

asking for sign-ons. It declares the rights of providers to be free from harassment and violence, to give patients complete and accurate information about the procedure (and not give medically inaccurate politically-motivated information), to perform the procedure after obtaining the patient's consent without proscribed waiting periods, to choose the best techniques for the specific patient, and to learn the procedure as medical students and residents.

I just finished reading Willing and Unable: Doctors' Constraints in Abortion Care. It was really interesting to me and covered some aspects of abortion access that I don't usually think very much about, but I want to let this one simmer a bit before reviewing.

Birthing Beautiful Babies has two posts on the Kingsdale Gynecologic Associates in Ohio and its "birth plan" and apparent ban on doulas. One example from the "birth plan," in the section on episiotomies, that I think is telling:

"We promise to use our medical expertise and experience to make the best and safest decision for you and your baby."

Right, because episiotomy is a decision that should be made for a woman. *headdesk* By the way, there is a proposed rule that all hospitals accepting Medicare/Medicaid allow patients to designate their own visitors, not allowing the hospital to make any distinction between immediate blood/marriage relatives and others preferred/selected by the patient. This is being praised as a way to allow better LGBT visitation rights, but I wonder if it might interact with doula bans like this as well? See my recent post at Our Bodies Our Blog for details and info on the public comment period.

AIDS.gov has a new widget for locating HIV prevention and service providers – horizontal and vertical versions are available for embedding into websites. I don't think it will work right in free WordPress accounts because it's javascript.

We got iPads for the rounding librarians at work, and I promptly downloaded all of the apps from the National Library of Medicine. I ended up keeping REMM (radiation emergency reference) andWISER(emergency response). Not that I'll ever need them, but they're a cool "just in case" reference. I deleted the Health Hotlines one as it seemed rather incomplete, as well as ReUnite (for post-disaster people connection) – it's a test app, but it kept prompting me for updates. Aside from the NLM apps, I've downloaded Molecules – this is cool but would be more useful for teaching if I could actually label the atoms – and ePocrates (nice drug reference, works pretty well). I also got the Evernote app, but am undecided about how well this one works for me, although it does have an easy audio recording feature for note taking.

Via Siobhan, resources on Asian American health disparities.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women has recent news from a court decision in Kentucky centered on whether a woman who used illegal drugs during pregnancy could be charged with wanton abandonment of her child. They note that:

By refusing to accept the prosecution's argument that the "unborn" should be legally disconnected from the pregnant women who carry them and treated as if they were separate legal persons, this decision protects the civil and reproductive rights and health of all women in Kentucky.

The Court also noted what a "slippery slope" allowing such a charge could lead to, potentially regulating all aspects of the behavior of pregnant women.