Blogging to end the wage gap

This isn’t directly related to birth control, but I think gender equality is important in talking and making decisions about birth control, so pushing for it in a more public arena can only help bring it about privately. Women in America earn less than 80% of what men earn, and for African-Americans and Hispanics, the numbers are 63% and 52%, respectively. The issue of race and poverty (and the issue of gender and poverty) is also relevant to sex education and access to information about birth control. When the structures that should be providing this information fail–and they do–the people with the most outside resources come out the best.

You can show your support for fair pay for women by contacting your Senators and telling them how you feel about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would better enable workers who are victims of discrimination to seek compensation from their employers through the law. If you’re fortunate enough to live in Texas, you can join me in writing to John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, or you can use the form provided by the National Women’s Law Center. I wouldn’t feel bad about doing that since you’re lucky to even get a form letter back from either of those two.

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Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pill

Word up to my local VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood chapter and their work to get our own Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison to support and co-sponsor the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act, which would allow students to have their birth control prescriptions filled at a discounted rate again. The article goes into greater detail about what happened to discounted birth control, but it’s all due to a federal law signed in 2005 and enacted last year.

Hopefully today’s event goes as well as our recent phone drives and hopefully it’s taken more seriously too. I don’t know if there are plans in the works to throw the phone at Senator Hutchison’s office again, but I’d be glad to do it. I’ve never really factored cost into decisions about protection before, but this serves to remind that there are a lot of people who have to and do.

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Boo to Bush’s 2009 budget

The best thing about President Bush’s proposed budget for next year is that it’s the last one we’ll see from him. Things don’t look good for safe sex next year. The proposed budget would cut family planning for Medicaid by $3.3 billion over five years, flat-fund Title X, and increase funding for abstinence-only sex education programs by 24%. The budget would also cut international family planning funds, among other cuts that spell bad news for people trying to avoid unwanted pregnancies and STDs.
This isn’t exactly in keeping with the Department of Health and Human Services’ mission to “assist individuals in determining the number and spacing of their children through the provision of education, counseling, and medical services.” Abstinence-only sex education is, however, in keeping with the mission statement on Adolescent Family Life (despite the fact that we know that abstinence-only is ineffective), but the proposed budget cuts for Medicaid and international aid have as much or more to do with married or older couples as sexually active teens. While the overall HHS budget is increasing, this part of their mission statement is being ignored, and so are the low-income and disenfranchised people who need these health care and education programs.

So where is the increase for abstinence-only coming from? Maybe from the nearly $200 billion Bush wants to cut from Medicare and Medicaid over the next 5 years (including the $3.3 billion already mentioned). Or maybe from the $8 million he wants to cut from programs that serve metropolitan areas hit hardest by HIV/AIDS. Or the $5 million he wants to take away from AIDS Education Training Centers. Incidentally, of the money that does get spent on HIV/AIDS prevention, one third of it must go to fund abstinence-only programs. Democrats sound like they’re ready to fight, but I expect we’ll have to wait for someone a little more progressive in the White House to see real change in the country’s sex education and family planning policy.

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