| If I Had a Little Less Self-Esteem, I’d Start Rioting Right Now | | Posted Wednesday, January 17, 2007 12:46:50 PM by Blog57 Team | | The sculpture in this image (of a pregnant woman nailed to a cross) is currently being displayed at the Lutheran Cathedral in Copenhagen. That would be Copenhagen, Denmark. That would be the same Denmark that was victimized by outraged Muslim mobs after the publication of the allegedly offensive Muhammed cartoons. That would be the same Denmark that, to my knowledge, hasn't been forced to deal with rioting, burning and pillaging Christian mobs outraged at the denigration of their Savior. Gee, I wonder why that is? Could it be that Christians of the 21st century are not thinking and acting as though they were in the 9th century? Do you apologists appreciate the freaking difference between these religious “cultures"? As an aside, the artist is hoping to fan a global debate about religious influence on the world's contraception and sexual policy.... | |
| |
| | | U.S. Catholic bishops to confront issues of faithful's sexuality | | Posted Monday, November 13, 2006 10:47:54 AM by Blog57 Team | | Persuading married Catholics to reject contraceptives, gay Catholics to refrain from sex and all Catholics to receive the Eucharist in a state of holiness are topics for the U.S. bishops as they meet this week in Baltimore. None of the documents breaks new ground, but they try to present difficult teaching in a positive, upbeat manner. "The bishops [are] applying the teachings of the church to a number of neuralgic issues within contemporary American society, in a pastorally sensitive way," said auxiliary Bishop Paul Bradley, who will represent the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh as its administrator. The bishops themselves report that just 4 percent of Catholic married couples of childbearing age use the church's approved methods of Natural Family Planning, or NFP -- abstaining when the wife is fertile.... | |
| |
| | | Women's health experts call for safe abortions | | Posted Monday, November 06, 2006 6:47:49 PM by Blog57 Team | | KUALA LUMPUR: Women worldwide need better health care, including access to contraception and safe abortions, to curb more than 500,000 pregnancy-related deaths each year, health experts said Monday. Maternal mortality primarily hits the poor in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, but studies show that nearly three-quarters of deaths could be avoided, said the London-based International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics in its report on women's health that comes out every three years. "The global record in preventing these deaths is a disaster,'' Dorothy Shaw, the federation's president elect, said at a conference of 8,000 maternal health experts from 130 countries. "One woman somewhere in the world dies every minute from a cause related to pregnancy and childbirth, mostly in developing countries,'' Shaw told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur. The most common cause of maternal deaths is excessive postpartum bleeding, which is believed to occur in up to 20 percent of all deliveries, but mainly kills malnourished, unhealthy women who cannot afford well-equipped hospitals, the federation's report said. Another leading cause is unsafe abortions, which kill nearly 70,000 women a year and injures numerous others, often because of hemorrhage, infections and poisoning from substances used to induce the procedure, according to statistics presented at the conference. About 46 million abortions are performed yearly, but the World Health Organization estimates nearly 20 million of them are unsafe. There are some 70 nations, mostly in the developing world, where abortion is banned or permitted only to save the woman's life. "It's an emotional debate that demands a global response from the medical community,'' said Barbara Crane, vice president of Ipas, a U.S.-based research group on women's sexual rights. Crane said safe abortion services have seen setbacks in Nicaragua, where Congress voted to ban all abortions last month, and Poland, where lawmakers have debated a proposed constitutional amendment that could open the way for tightening already restrictive abortion laws. The federation's report also called for curtailing unintended pregnancies by improving access to contraception, including the morning-after pill that helps prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours of sex but is not offered in public services and hospitals in many countries. Only 16 out of 38 African countries and 10 of 24 Asian countries are known to include emergency contraception in their national guidelines for family planning, the report noted, adding that conservative religious attitudes and legal opposition were among the obstacles.... | |
| |
| | | Potential Male Contraceptive Homes in on Testes | | Posted Monday, October 30, 2006 6:47:08 PM by Blog57 Team | | Unmooring sperm from their source of nourishment in the testis might become the basis for a form of male contraception. Researchers have designed a compound that homes in on the testis and prevents sperm from accessing a key tissue, halting their development. In mice that were fed the compound, fertility dropped to zero after a few weeks without causing the animals noticeable harm. The first generation of male contraceptives will likely employ hormones to block spermatic development. Such products are currently undergoing extensive clinical testing. But for men who don't want to alter their sex hormones over the long haul, researchers are exploring a variety of nonhormonal options based on sperm biology. One avenue involves protein-based adherens junctions, which allow sperm to attach to specialized cells in the testes.... | |
| |
| | | Union warns of dangers of teaching primary pupils about contraception | | Posted Tuesday, October 24, 2006 2:46:23 AM by Blog57 Team | | CHILDREN should be taught about contraception while they are still in primary school, according to a report out today. And the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) also believes schools and colleges should provide free or subsidised condoms to pupils in a bid to cut teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates. But a teachers' union has warned that educating primary school children about condoms and other forms of contraception could be "dangerous". The call comes as it emerged that British teenagers are the most sexually active and have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. They are also the third least likely to use a condom during underage sex. The IPPR report recommends children learn about contraception in their final primary school year, when aged 10 or 11.... | |
| |
| | | Group Objects To Abstinence Program At High School | | Posted Sunday, October 22, 2006 12:52:48 PM by Blog57 Team | | A Loudoun County High School assembly, during which Christian comedian Keith Deltano advocated the benefits of abstinence, has drawn criticism from one local group.Mainstream Loudoun, a local watchdog group that states its purpose as to preserve religious and personal freedom and pressed to maintain a separation between church and state, released its scorn in the form of an open letter to school board members and Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick. The group argued that Deltano's presentation to the entire Loudoun County High student body served as an argument against forms of contraception other than abstinence.Deltano conducted two assemblies at the school on Oct. 12. Mainstream Loudoun, in the letter from its President Katherine Hawes, argued that Deltano's claims that condoms fail 10 percent of the time and that contraception doesn't work are misleading and inaccurate.Hawes asks: "Is Mr.... | |
| |
| | | Birth control: the methods, the effects | | Posted Tuesday, October 17, 2006 6:46:25 AM by Blog57 Team | | Never before has one little pharmaceutical creation caused such an uproar. A proper name didnt even have to be used; it was simply known as The Pill. Whoever thought to confer the same status on these little tablets as the Great Pyramids was having quite the telepathic moment. Who but a great seer could have foreseen a time when most everyone who was anyone in high school and college was on some form of oral contraception? How many of us wake up every morning and pop a little colored pill? Like candy they come in all sorts of flavors and varieties so how about we take a trip into Candy Land. What is most important in choosing a method is deciding what works best for you. This means taking into account your health, frequency of sexual interaction, as well as several other factors, the most important being which method you are most comfortable with.... | |
| |
| | | Abortion rate continues to drop | | Posted Tuesday, October 10, 2006 2:46:06 PM by Blog57 Team | | The number of abortions dropped last year for only the second time since records started in 1980, the Abortion Supervisory Committee said in its annual report presented to Parliament today. There were 17,531 induced abortions last year compared with 18,211 in 2004. The 2004 figure was itself lower than the 18,511 in 2003, and the committee said it was the first time there had been a drop in successive years. The committee said it was very pleased with the trend, but did not expect it would continue and could not attribute it to any single cause. "Options range from the reduction in the numbers of overseas students, to the effects of school sex education programmes, to the increased availability of emergency contraception," it said in the report.... | |
| |
| | | Promoting contraception | | Posted Tuesday, October 03, 2006 10:46:29 PM by Blog57 Team | | Greg Crapanzano's column promoting abstinence instead of condom sales ("Abstaining from sound judgment," Oct. 2) fails to truthfully examine the contraceptive debate on several issues. First, he asserts that condoms have too high of an error rate to be useful. This is not true. Most condom failure is due to user mistakes. When used correctly, condoms have a very low rate of failure. We should be educating people about the proper way to use condoms, not preventing those who choose to be sexually active from access. Concerning people who take "virginity pledges,"according to a study released in the Journal of Adolescent Health, they are less likely to use protection when they do become sexually active, and in the meantime, more likely to engage in other forms of risky sexual activity instead of vaginal intercourse.... | |
| |
| | | Koalas sterilised to avoid cull | | Posted Wednesday, September 27, 2006 6:46:18 AM by Blog57 Team | | RESEARCHERS are implanting a contraceptive device between the shoulder blades of koalas on Kangaroo Island in a bid to stem a local population explosion by the nation's most loved marsupial. Koalas on the South Australian island are responsible for decimating thousands of eucalyptus trees and the State Government has been funding strategies to cut numbers for more than a decade. It is understood nearly 30,000 koalas live on the island. Culling has also been mooted as a way of controlling numbers in the past, but the Victorian, NSW and South Australian governments have agreed not to kill them. So sterilising the female population is considered the best method available. University of NSW researchers Cathy Herbert and Kris Carlyon are undertaking the first field trial of an implant designed to cause minimal distress to female koalas as part of a $1.5 million project.... | |
| |
| |
|
|
