Blogs Comment On Levi Johnston, Obama's Budget Proposal, Other Topics

The following summarizes selected women's health-related blog entries.

~ "Why We Need Bristol (And Levi)," Cristina Page, Birth Control Watch: Bristol Palin and the Candie's Foundation's "shared message to teens is: you don't want to become a teen parent," something that "traditional pregnancy prevention messages have often missed" because they "assumed that teens don't need convincing on that issue," Page writes. The Candie's Foundation recently made Palin, the daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), an ambassador to promote teen pregnancy prevention. However, "there is one thing very important missing from the Candie's campaign," Page says. The national conversation on teen pregnancy "desperately needs" the involvement of teenage boys like Levi Johnston, the father of Palin's four-month-old son, Page writes. Johnston "brings with him a great chance to make boys the stakeholders they inevitably are" and "offers a unique perspective on the difficulties of being a teen father, one that will resonate with boys in a way [Palin's] point of view will not," she continues. In making Palin a teen pregnancy prevention ambassador, the Candie's Foundation is "taking a big risk," and it "would extend that risk further by giving [Johnston] an equal voice in the discussion," Page writes. She continues, "But with big risk comes the possibility for great gains, too." Palin and Johnston are "bravely offering their intensely personal misstep up for others to learn from. The may be at odds with each other, ... but they are united in their message about the not-so-glamorous life of teen parents," she says (Page, Birth Control Watch, 5/8).

~ "The Next Justice: What Obama Wants," Geoffrey Stone, Huffington Post blogs: Four factors "will be especially important" to President Obama when he is deciding on his Supreme Court nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter, according to Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago. Stone says that the factors include: high intellectual ability; moderately liberal stances on issues; a "strong voice" on the role of the Supreme Court; and the ability to "[b]uild a consensus within the Court." The "essence," for Obama, of the terms "moderate liberal" and "conservative" is "his continuing reference to 'empathy,'" Stone writes. He continues that Obama "wants to appoint a justice who understands that a unique role in our system of government is to be especially attentive to the interests of the unrepresented, the oppressed, political and religious dissenters, those accused of crime and minorities who have traditionally lost out in the political process." The U.S. and the Supreme Court "badly need a justice who can articulate a progressive view of constitutional interpretation, both to counter the conservatives on the Court and to change the terms of the national debate," he writes. Obama will also "want to appoint a justice who adds a measure of diversity of experience and perspective within the court," such as a woman or racial minority, Stone concludes (Stone, Huffington Post blogs, 5/11).














~ Blog Posts Examine Sex Education, Other Provisions in Obama's Budget Proposal, Jodi Jacobson/Sharon Camp/AmplifyYourVoice: Obama's fiscal 2010 budget proposal that was released last week "puts us on the road to evidence-based public health policy," Jacobson writes in a RH Reality Check blog entry. However, it "does not, unfortunately, really advance the journey towards comprehensive sex education, and is therefore a missed opportunity," she writes (Jacobson, RH Reality Check, 5/9). Camp writes in a Huffington Post blog entry that although the "most welcome development" of the budget proposal is "the abolition of 'abstinence-only-until-marriage' programs," it is important to remember that the proposal "is just a starting point" and that "Congress gets a crack at whether to accept, reject or modify the president's recommendations." Camp in the blog post assesses several areas of the budget related to women's health, including sex education, access to abortion, family planning and global health issues, among others (Camp, Huffington Post blogs, 5/8). AmplifyYourVoice writes in a Daily Kos blog entry that the Obama proposal "struck a blow to the abstinence-only community" but that "these people are not giving up." The blog post continues, "And considering that our fight to end funding for abstinence-only programs is long from over, considering that Congress must pass this budget without sneaking funding for ab-only back in, neither should we." The blog post includes links to videos of comments from abstinence-only supporters (AmplifyYourVoice, Daily Kos, 5/8).

~ "For the Culture War, a Hail Mary," Chris Korzen, Huffington Post blogs: Attempts by "culture warriors" on the right to "sabotage" President Obama's plan to give the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame later this month "is ostensibly an effort to reassert the Church's position on abortion," Korzen writes. "In reality, the Notre Dame 'scandal' is little more than a manufactured controversy, and a predictable product of the Republican coalition's current sorry state of affairs," he continues. Korzen writes that Obama's "genuine commitment to prevention has ruffled the feathers of absolutists on both sides of the aisle. But for abortion 'grays' -- those Americans who remain conflicted about abortion, many of them moderate swing voters -- the president's willingness to acknowledge the moral dimension of the issue is a breath of fresh air." He notes that the opposition to the Notre Dame speech isn't coming from the "pious masses" but from "Catholic Republican front groups" like Fidelis, the Catholic League and the Cardinal Newman Society. He concludes that even "if the party faithful can be convinced that the culture war's benefits outweigh its costs, the radical voice will continue to dominate the Republican agenda" (Korzen, Huffington Post blogs, 5/8).

~ "'Conscience Rules' Ignore Patient," Sally Steenland, Washington Post's On Faith: President Obama's proposed rescission of the Bush administration's HHS provider "conscience" rule "should set a fairer balance between the rights, needs and responsibilities of providers and patients," Steenland, a senior policy adviser at the Center for American Progress, writes. Steenland adds that the Obama administration's final version is expected to be released soon. The public debate surrounding the current rule "is usually framed as one of provider conscience vs. patient access," she says, adding, "The problem is that this frame ignores the conscience of the patient." For example, she writes, a woman might be taking birth control because of a decision from her conscience, and when a pharmacist refuses to fill that woman's prescription, the pharmacist is "defying the patient's conscience in favor of his or her own." Steenland continues, "One conscience should never trump all others." She writes that "we must find ways to negotiate conflicting consciences so that religious liberty is respected and health care is safeguarded" (Steenland, Washington Post's On Faith, 5/11).

~ "In Choosing Souter's Replacement, Obama Should Follow the Lead of ... George W. Bush?," Mitchell Bard, Huffington Post blogs: Bard writes that the "single most important thing" he learned in law school was that "U.S. Supreme Court justices are far more powerful in shaping American society than the average person realizes," adding that "the selection of a justice to the Court is one of the most important decisions a president will make during his time in office." He continues, "I have full confidence that President Obama understands the immense importance of selecting the right replacement for David Souter. My hope is that as he goes through the process, he uses as his guide" former President George W. Bush -- "the most unlikely of mentors" -- in three areas. Bard notes Obama should "influence the court for the next 20 years" as Bush did in selecting younger judges or "go Bush one better and appoint a justice in his or her early to middle 40s, giving the candidate the opportunity to shape American policy for 30 to 40 years." Obama also should put in place "progressives to balance out Bush's conservative picks," Bard says. Furthermore, "Obama needs to select someone with an unassailably qualified resume," as "a lack of qualification is the only lifeline to the Republicans in bringing the choice down." Bard concludes that if Obama follows Bush's lead when selecting a replacement for Souter -- "a young progressive with a traditionally impressive resume -- he will have done a good job in carrying out his responsibilities" (Bard, Huffington Post blogs, 5/11).

~ "Houston Pulls a Palin," Abigail Kramer, Salon's Broadsheet: Kramer criticizes the city of Houston's recent decision to bill a woman for forensic evidence collection at a local hospital after she was raped. "A big thank you to the criminal justice establishment of Houston for giving victims one more reason not to report rape," Kramer writes. According to Kramer, Texas has a Crime Victims' Compensation Fund that automatically pays up to $700 of the cost of an investigation of sexual assault, but state law requires that victims exhaust all other potential sources before the fund pays more. Kramer writes, "This isn't the first time we've seen such dangerous nonsense." She recalls when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), who at the time was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, allowed the city to charge victims for their own rape test kits, as well as other examples. Kramer concludes that it is difficult to know how common this practice is in other states because there is no federal law regulating who pays for what, which "would be treating rape like any other prosecutable, punishable violent crime" (Kramer, Salon's Broadsheet, 5/11).


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