Free contraception has prophylactic effect against abortions

I’m shocked. Are you shocked? I’m definitely shocked. Shocked is what I am. Find the crayon that most resembles “shocked”, and color me with it.

MotherJones posts about a new study that shows that when women have free access to contraceptives, there are fewer abortions. Meaning, people who don’t want or can’t have kids, for whatever reason, don’t have to use abortion as their last resort as often.

That’s according to a new study published on Thursday by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. The project gave free birth control to more than 9,000 local women and girls, many of whom were poor or uninsured, and tracked them for two years. There were 6.3 births per 1,000 teenagers in the study group, compared to the 2010 national rate of 34 per 1,000. As for abortions, there were fewer than eight per 1,000 women in the study, compared with the almost 20 per 1,000 nationally.

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Free contraception has prophylactic effect against abortions
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Beef recall expands… again

The ground beef recall I mentioned recently has apparently increased significantly — including more meat products for the sixth time since the original recall.

In all, the recall involves millions of pounds of beef produced from late August to early September and shipped to stores in Canada and the United States. Beef from the plant has been linked to five illnesses and the recall led to one call for Canada’s agriculture minister to resign.
[…]
To improve safety, XL said it will use video cameras to audit plant processes, will expand washing the sides of beef with high-pressure hot water to eliminate E. coli contamination, and add staff to each shift to monitor sanitary procedures.
[…]
The recall of beef from the plant began September 16, almost two weeks after the CFIA learned of the contamination and began an investigation. CFIA has said it did not recall meat earlier because the products originally flagged had not made it onto store shelves.

Remember, cook your meat thoroughly. E.coli can be killed by thoroughly cooking beef and beef products.

Beef recall expands… again

Reparative therapist David Pickup: NARTH is suing California

Via Mediaite, Brooke Baldwin won’t brook any nonsense from “Ex-Gay” reparative therapist David Pickup (a-heh). She forces his hand and makes him admit that NARTH is planning on suing California for their ban on reparative therapy on minors.

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Reparative therapist David Pickup: NARTH is suing California

Obamacare causes unemployment

What an absolute horrorshow the coverage of the Supreme Court announcement was.

To be absolutely clear, as a Canadian, I cannot fathom how people are seriously shouting to the rafters that the health care system in the States amounts to “socialism”, considering the Individual Mandate is a demand that people buy into an insurance policy from a capitalist oligopoly on penalty of governmental fines.

Providing medicare-for-everyone, or implementing single payer, would have been significantly better moves. And those would have been rightly considered socialist moves, because they undercut a marketplace where capitalism values money over lives. Even still, the middle class will pay significantly less overall as a result of the tax credits the bill provides. This isn’t a bad incremental improvement, but doesn’t go nearly far enough to rectify your health care system’s problems. (Hint: they all have to do with making money off of human misery.)

What a shame that one guy lost his job though. Obama’s ruining your economy! ZOMG!

Obamacare causes unemployment

RCimT: The Ongoing War on Women

I have a few links in my tabs about the ongoing war on women that need highlighting, but I honestly don’t have a lot of time to give each of them the thorough treatment they deserve, so I figure I’ll do up a link roundup instead and revisit later. Or possibly in comments, if this post sparks conversation.
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RCimT: The Ongoing War on Women

Cell phones annoying, says science

Cellular phone technology has come under scrutiny in recent years — meaning, since it has come into popular use — by technophobes and technostress victims alike. Despite being evidently harmless, innumerable claims of it causing cancer, tinnitus, headaches, and any number of non-specific symptoms have emerged such that many scientific studies have been undertaken to show that they could actually cause issues in human beings. Aside from heating water and thus living tissue, until now, no definitive study has actually stated outright that the cranks postulating cancers are full of it. At least, if you’re willing to discount this meta-analysis I reported on a while back, anyway. Said meta-analysis, while it says every study up til now has shown absolutely no link between cancer and cell phone use, it doesn’t actually call the cranks positing the link over and over again “full of it”, so I guess it gets a pass.

So imagine my surprise when The Atlantic ran a post stating, “Cell phones are more annoying than they are dangerous“. Pretty much exactly what I thought.
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Cell phones annoying, says science

Canadian acupuncturist: “Cervical cancer is for prostitutes”

Our allies at Skeptic North cover a Canadian acupuncturist who claims that cervical cancer is a disease for prostitutes and promiscuous women.

My research about cervical cancer at the time told me it was very rare and that it occurred most often in women who had multiple sexual partners, who also had multiple sexual partners. In other words, the nurse said, it’s mainly a disease of prostitutes.
Well, I said, “That’s not me!”

Although my gut instinct was horror that she would imply that women with cervical cancer are prostitutes or they deserve their illness, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was simply recounting what this extraordinarily judgmental nurse had told her. Maybe she wasn’t actually implying that only whores** get cervical cancer as some sort of retribution for their immoral behaviour. (Though in my head I couldn’t help wonder if she also feels that AIDS is a “gay disease.”)

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Canadian acupuncturist: “Cervical cancer is for prostitutes”

Israeli gynaecological conference: no women speakers allowed

Orthodox Jewish leaders in Israel have been quietly handed a victory by Benjamin Netanyahu, where they exclude woman doctors from a conference about a topic that decidedly should not be male domain except by virtue of patriarchy: gynaecology. The conference will discuss the care and medical treatment of issues pertaining to women’s reproductive organs but not a single woman will be presenting.

The conference on “Innovations in Gynecology/Obstetrics and Halacha [Jewish law]” is being held by the Puah Institute this Wednesday in Jerusalem. It will include such topics as “ovary implants,” “how to choose a suitable contraceptive pill” and “intimacy during rocket attacks,” in which there are many qualified female professionals, but none will be permitted to speak, at least not from the podium.

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Israeli gynaecological conference: no women speakers allowed

Whooping cough outbreak in Hope, BC

Twenty new cases of pertussis have been reported in the Hope area since August. While previous outbreaks have been due to children going unvaccinated, in this case, it seems the outbreak is resultant of people not getting their boosters.

The health authority is asking healthcare professionals and members of the public in the Hope area to be alert for the signs and symptoms of Pertussis, or whooping cough.

“It has been many years since British Columbia has had an outbreak of Pertussis so there is very little natural immunity,” said Dr. Paul Van Buynder, the Fraser Health Authority’s chief medical health officer, in the statement.

Buynder is advising residents to ensure all the vaccines of all family members are up to date.

“The best protection against Pertussis is to get vaccinated. Pertussis in very young children can lead to hospitalization and even death,” he said.

“The vaccine that most people get when they are infants only offers protection for four to 10 years, so there are many people without adequate coverage.”

My own pertussis vaccination status is well out of date. I need to remedy that.

Whooping cough outbreak in Hope, BC