Articles!

Hi out there, everybody! I volunteered to be Media Watchdog at the beginning of the year, but I haven't gotten much (or, um, anything) done in that role since then...until now! Here are a few items of note.

First, you may have seen this on the front page of today's New York Times, but in case you didn't, here's a look at how abortion factors into the health care debate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/policy/29abortion.html

Texans finding a better use for government money:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/28/texas-contraception/

I also wanted to share a couple links about mandatory waiting period laws. I feel like it's an issue that sort of slips through the cracks in a lot of discussions about reproductive rights. You don't hear a whole lot about it, but it's actually very important. Think about a woman in a rural location, having to travel hours to get to an abortion clinic- and then having to either make ANOTHER trip 24-48 hours later, or else get a hotel and incur those expenses. And of course, she might be missing work, or she might need to find someone to watch her kids, or she may not have reliable transportation...these laws create so many needless obstacles. Here's a wikipedia map showing which states have these laws (Virginia is one of them):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_US_mandatory_waiting_period_laws.svg

A report from the Guttmacher Institute about this issue (as well as the related issue of mandatory counseling):

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/MandatoryCounseling.pdf

And a nice piece about one of these laws in South Carolina:

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20090503/NEWS/905019935?Title=Abortion-waiting-period-Bill-hits-women-below-the-belt

That's all for now! Hope your week's going well!

-Matthew

VOX Meeting Minutes: September 3!

Hi, Voxers!  As part of the exciting position of Secretary, I'm going to be posting meeting minutes to the blog so everyone can stay connected and up to date on what we're doing!

Here's what happened last week, September 3!

-Check out the Midwest Teen Sex Show, if you haven't already!  It's got lots of humorous episodes discussing issues that traditional Sex Ed probably won't cover...

-Tatiana gave us a brief history of Planned Parenthood;

Did you know that 1 in 4 women has gone to Planned Parenthood at least once?  That there are 850 in the U.S.?  Or that 90% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are preventative?  

-Sarah shared some great info about strategies for positive tabling for Planned Parenthood

-Keiana is planing to create some cool, informative flyers to put around Grounds to educate people about Planned Parenthood and what it's really all about.

-Lots of Voxers volunteered to help sell drinks at Fridays after Five... awesome!

-Also, Sexual Arts and Crafts will be October 29, so mark your calendars!

Next meeting -- Thursday, September 10, 7:10 pm in Cabell 119 (hey, that's only two hours from now!)

See you there!

-- Margaret, your new Vox Secretary!