Below the Belt: A Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

We live in a society obsessed with sex. Our relationship with sex, however, is conflicted and more than a little dysfunctional. Mixed messages abound. Popular culture and various institutions both glorify and demonize sex. And much of this is played out via the female body.

As young women attempt to navigate the sexual minefield laid out by the patriarchy, they need information that won’t steer them wrong. The stakes are high — unplanned pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, a life forever altered, a future interrupted. So how do they get good information?

Enter the Internet — perhaps the most awesome research tool ever. With all that information at our fingertips and theirs, some of it’s bound to be wrong, right? Right. In fact, new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital demonstrates that health websites often provide teens with factually-challenged and incomplete information about sex and sexuality.

Heading up the study was Dr. Sophia Yen, a specialist in adolescent medicine at Packard Children’s Hospital, a clinical instructor of pediatrics at Stanford, and a longtime NOW supporter and advocate (not entirely relevant, but I have to brag).

Yen warns: “Teens should be cautious about finding sexual health answers on the Web. . . . Even widely trusted sites like WebMD are not that accurate when it comes to adolescent reproductive health.”

In a review of 35 popular health websites, Yen and her team identified the top six sexual health myths lurking online. These myths are the result of websites leaving out key pieces of information altogether, or simply failing to update their sites to reflect changes in knowledge or clinical recommendations.

Two of the myths involve emergency contraception (EC). A number of websites had not been updated to indicate that, as of August 2006, women 18 and older could purchase EC without a prescription in the U.S., and additionally that minors can buy EC directly from authorized pharmacists in nine states (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state). Within weeks of the release of Yen’s study, the FDA lowered the EC non-prescription age to 17, further underscoring the need for health websites to stay on top of such developments.

In addition, 29 percent of the sites neglected to note that EC does not cause an abortion if the woman is already pregnant when she takes it, and is not the same thing as RU-486, the early abortion pill. This is a common misconception that reproductive health sites would be wise to correct.

Sixty percent of the sites incorrectly stated that birth control pills can cause weight gain, even though recent research has shown that this is not true with modern oral contraceptives. And how many people know that IUDs are a safe form of birth control for adolescents? Not nearly enough, I’m sure, since only a fraction of websites providing information about IUDs even mention their use by adolescents, and several wrongly state that only women who have given birth should use IUDs.

While online information about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was relatively accurate, less than half delivered the news that some STIs, such as Herpes, can be contracted through skin-to-skin contact or kissing. Finally, the study found that many sites had not updated guidelines for age and circumstances of first recommended pap test.

The prevalence of inaccurate information on trusted health websites is particularly alarming given other recent reports. Last year I wrote about a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study estimating that one out of every four teenage girls — 3.2 million young women — “has at least one of the most common sexually transmitted infections.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, after a decade of declining teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates, the birth rate for teens has risen for the past two years.

Surely misinformation is to blame, at least in part, for this troubling reversal. After all, we’ve just come out of eight years of aggressive funding for abstinence-only education programs (thanks, George W. Bush), which proved to be ineffective and riddled with falsehoods. President Obama has removed much of this funding from his 2010 budget, but abstinence-only proponents are working hard to maintain their funding in Congress.

And don’t get me started on crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which present a “compassionate” front to women who think they may be pregnant, but really exist to prevent women from obtaining or even considering abortion. Deception, misinformation, propaganda and shame are the tools of their trade. According to Legal Momentum, “CPCs are increasingly receiving federal and state funding for these activities — with dangerous consequences for women’s health and wellbeing. . . . the largest source of government funding for CPCs is federal abstinence-only program grants. This funding has brought inexperienced CPC employees and volunteers into schools to teach abstinence-only programs, replacing trained sexual health educators who had provided comprehensive sexual education.” Not to mention all of those “Choose Life” license plates that funnel money to these same groups.

Let’s face it, teens are curious about sex — sexual imagery is everywhere, and their hormones are surging. They want to know about sex, and many of them will engage in sex, whether or not their parents or some representative on Capitol Hill thinks they’re ready for it. To those who prefer that teens be unprepared to protect their reproductive health, who think that girls who dare to have sex should be punished with STIs or unplanned pregnancies, your reign will soon be over.

Let’s give girls and women full authority over their reproductive lives and the information to make sound choices about their sexual health. The iconic 1989 art piece by Barbara Kruger declared: “Your body is a battleground.” How satisfying it would be to see that come to an end at last.

From The State, May 27, 2009

Panel: Bring in wireless firms

By GINA SMITH

Just after 4am this morning, the Connecticut Senate voted 19 to 17 to repeal that state’s death penalty.  This follows the unexpectedly overwhelming 90-56 vote in the House last week. The bill is now on its way to the desk of Gov. Jodi Rell, who in media reports is saying that she still supports the death penalty and is suggesting that she may veto the bill.

There is no time to lose! If you live in Connecticut, please call Gov. Rell at 860-566-4840.

If you live elsewhere, please think about who you know who lives in Connecticut and forward this action request to them.  Then call them to alert them to your e-mail and ask them to both call 860-566-4840.

Letters, blog posts and comments expressing a similar sentiment on the web pages of Connecticut newspapers would be useful as well.

The public is invited to join legislators and social justice organizations at a press conference to speak against the discriminatory amendment that was added to H-3543. The event will be held tomorrow, May 19, at 11:45am in the upstairs lobby of the State House.

The original bill, which addressed violence between “dating partners” in grades 6-12, was amended on second reading to limit its application to “heterosexual dating relationship(s).”

“This well-intentioned bill has been subverted by legislators more concerned with scoring points in the culture war than in protecting the well being of this state’s children,” said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter.

Rep. Cobb-Hunter and Rep. Ken Kennedy will be joined by Harriet Hancock of Columbia’s chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and representatives of other Midlands social justice organizations to speak against the amendment.

The event is being organized by the SC Progressive Network. For details, call 803-808-3384.

Enough already!

By John Patrick Dawkins

Midlands Coordinator, SC Progressive Network

We get the message: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-gendered and Queer citizens of South Carolina deserve no protections in the state, no rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — or, apparently, a safe learning environment in one of the worst-performing public education systems in the country.

In 2006, the citizens of South Carolina passed Amendment 1 and changed the state constitution to codify bigotry directed towards the LGBTQ community. We cannot get married and, more pressingly, have no domestic partnership rights to protect our families. No joint health care. Hospital visitation denied in all but a few cities. Double taxation on our households, lack of spousal benefits. The list goes on.

In 2008, the LGBTQ youth were targeted. Something as simple as starting a Gay/Straight Alliance in a local high school (a space free of homophobia, where youth of any sexual orientation can be themselves in an otherwise hostile climate) was labeled an attack on “traditional family values and parents rights.” The LGBTQ community and its leaders, heterosexual supporters and other organizations fought for three months to overcome bigotry and create LGBTQ safe spaces in our public schools — a small yet significant victory.

Now they’re at it again.

H 3543 started out as a simple, common sense bill to protect all students from relationship violence. Our governing body found “…when a student is a victim of dating violence, his or her academic life suffers and his or her safety at school is jeopardized.” H 3543 has since become a platform for some of our elected officials to promote yet more religious bigotry and discrimination.

On Wednesday, Rep. Greg Delleney, (R-Chester) introduced an amendment to the bill that defined a dating partner as exclusively heterosexual, thereby limiting the protections afforded to LGBTQ youth and, furthermore, legislating the way all Queer relationships are defined. We cannot marry or join together in domestic partnerships, and now our casual relationships are no longer seen as dating.

The amendment passed with little opposition.

Bill sponsor Rep. Joan Brady (R-Richland) told one reporter, “Traditional domestic violence occurs in a man-woman, boy-girl situation.” She claims that, statistically, the majority of abuse happens in heterosexual relationships. Now, open LGBTQ folks make up roughly 10-15 percent of the population, so statistically you will see more abuse in heterosexual-defined relationships. This does not mean the percentage of abusive relationships are not the same between either group, nor that any one group of people should be denied the protections that are offered another.

Using Rep. Brady’s logic, we should rewrite the bill to exclude protections to our straight male youth who are faced with dating violence because, statistically, female-on-male violence is much less prevalent. As much as I would like to say violence does not happen in the LGBTQ community, as happy as it would make me to think that we, as a community, have overcome relationship abuse, the truth is that same-sex relationship violence is every bit as much a day-to-day reality to LGBTQ youth as it is to heterosexual youth.

If we truly want to curb violence in schools — and in society as a whole — we cannot allow elected officials to use legislation whose original intent is to protect, as a soapbox for their personal sense of morality. To do not only puts our youth at risk, it reinforces the systemic problem of homophobia in our state, granting justification to the hatred already aimed at LGBTQ citizens of South Carolina.

The third and final reading of the bill is on Tuesday, May 19.

By Brett Bursey

Director, SC Progressive Network

Bills for early voting took torturous turns in both the House and Senate in the last two weeks.

Rep. David Mack’s bill (H 3608), which was written by the Progressive Network, passed out of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Election Law but stripped of the provision that allowed citizens to register during the two-week early voting period.

What looked like a partial victory suffered further defeat when the full House Judiciary Committee amended Mack’s bill to a three-day early voting period and limited all absentee voting to mail-in ballots.

The bill that has gone to the House floor is more restrictive than the present law that allows 30 days of in-person absentee voting at the county election commission office, which caused long lines during the 2008 election. The current version, championed by Rep. Alan Clemmons, would not allow in-person voting at county offices by the elderly and infirm except during the three-day period when everyone else is trying to vote.

To add insult to injury, House rules prohibit Rep. Mack from removing his name from his  own bill that now restricts voting rather than making it easier.

In the Senate, early voting had four hearings in a subcommittee chaired by Sen. Chip Campsen that allowed much more debate. The Network’s bill (S 369 — a companion bill to Rep. Mack’s), sponsored by Sen. Phil Leventis, was supported by testimony from the director of Mecklenburg County’s Board of Elections, who told the committee that One Stop Vote Centers in the Charlotte area had bipartisan support and saved money.

The Network’s early voting bill, introduced in 2007, has been modeled after the NC practice that allows early voting at multiple locations and also allows citizens to register. Mecklenburg County is a good example for South Carolina, as it uses the exact same voting machines as we do.

In subcommittee, Campsen pushed for three days of early voting, restricted to the county office. When the vote was called, we were gratified by the vote of Sen. Ray Clearey, who voted with Sen. John Scott for 15 days of early voting at multiple locations.

This victory was tempered by the majority vote that photo IDs would be required of voters. This recommendation was passed out of the full Senate Judiciary Committee on May 14, over the objection of Democrat senators.

While debate on both the House and Senate versions of the bill are scheduled for May 19, legislation on early voting is not expected to pass this year.

As long as photo ID is tied to the early voting bill, Democrat senators are promising to kill the bill. While photo IDs would only prevent someone from impersonating another voter at the polls — a crime punishable by 10 years in prison and that has never happened in South Carolina — it has become the holy grail for Republicans.

The practical outcome of the early voting debate is going to be a trade-off for how many days of early voting we get for accepting photo IDs provision.

Democrats see voter suppression as the issue; Republicans see fraud as the issue. Sadly, partisan concerns are inhibiting reforms. The loser is, as usual, the citizens of South Carolina.

For more information on the Network’s voting reform initiatives, click here.