Search

Just another WordPress site

Reproductive rights definition

The repeal of abortion rights sparked an online run on contraception. Bay Area telehealth companies are trying to keep up

by www.sfchronicle.com Leave a Comment

Bay Area-based telemedicine companies that provide reproductive health services are experiencing a spike in demand for contraception since the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last Friday.

In its 5-4 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, the court said its reasoning only applied to abortion. But in a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas signaled that other constitutional rights, including the right to contraception, may be legally vulnerable. The potential threat has led to reports of women stockpiling emergency contraception pills . In response, pharmacies, such as Amazon and Rite Aid, have placed caps on the number of packs that customers can buy at one time.

Favor, a San Mateo-based telemedicine company that provides birth control pills, vaginal rings and emergency contraception to an estimated 240,000 users across the country, saw emergency contraception purchases soar more than 5,000% last Friday, said Stephanie Swartz, senior director of policy and public affairs. Demand for emergency contraception remains higher than usual, she added, as are requests for birth control pills.

“Friday’s ruling is already causing a seismic shift in the reproductive health-care landscape across a number of factors,” Swartz told The Chronicle. “While this ruling itself was shocking to us, it wasn’t a surprise,” she added, noting that the company has been preparing for this since late last year.

Nurx, another telemedicine company based in San Francisco, also saw “a big surge in demand for emergency contraception,” said Kelly Gardiner, a company spokesperson, in an email. Demand for prescription-only Ella, a type of emergency contraception, was 10 times higher than usual last Friday.

“Since then demand has leveled out a bit but remains a lot higher than normal,” Gardiner wrote.

Birth control requests are also reportedly two to three times higher than usual. And since Friday, Nurx has seen a 20% rise in birth control patients who have added emergency contraception to their orders, she added.

On Monday, Nurx tweeted that users may experience delays as a result of the sudden increase in requests.

In recent years, telemedicine companies have played an increasingly important role in extending access to a variety of contraceptive methods to people across the country. Favor and Nurx were founded in 2016 and 2015, respectively. These companies, along with others, service hundreds of thousands of women across the U.S.

A 2019 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that telemedicine is more convenient and accessible than in-person clinics, and reduces barriers to accessing contraception.

Telemedicine services may also benefit low-income and marginalized communities facing barriers to care, such as high costs or discrimination, according to the research group Brookings . These services are especially important for those in contraception deserts, or counties without access to comprehensive reproductive health-care, including vast parts of California .

“Unfortunately, long before the devastating Roe decision, we’ve really had a separate and unequal health-care system when it comes to sexual and reproductive health across the country,” said Amy Moy, the chief external affairs officer of the California nonprofit Essential Access Health.

While birth control and emergency contraception remain legal in all 50 states, not everyone has easy or equitable access. Moy noted that factors such as where someone lives or whether or not they have health insurance coverage can impact people’s access to contraception.

Last summer, a policy paper in the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal said California, which was the first state to regulate telemedicine services back in 1996 , could continue to be a national leader on reproductive rights by using the evolving technology to expand access to medical abortions, including for minors.

Earlier this year, Assembly Member Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, proposed a bill to pilot reproductive health clinics in five underserved counties, with telemedicine services listed as a way to increase equitable access to non-English speakers. While AB 2320 passed the Assembly, it is currently stuck in the Senate.

Megan Kavanaugh, a principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institue , a research and policy organization, said that the court’s decision may lead to an influx of abortion seekers traveling to states where the procedure remains legal, such as California . She said the combination of incoming and existing patients could impact the ability of brick-and-mortar clinics to provide timely services, including contraceptive care.

“I think that’s where telehealth will potentially fill a gap,” Kavanaugh said.

Kavanaugh also stressed that contraceptive access is not a substitute for abortion services and that she sees barriers to accessing contraception and abortion as two sides of the same coin.

“They are all efforts to restrict people’s reproductive autonomy and freedom,” she said.

Chasity Hale is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter @chas_hale

Abortion-rights protesters rally in US, spurred by draft Supreme Court opinion

by indianexpress.com Leave a Comment

Protesters rallied under the slogan “off our bodies” in cities across the United States on Tuesday, demanding abortion rights be protected after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Thousands of people turned out for an abortion-rights rally in New York City, one of the largest demonstrations as Americans awoke to political and social upheaval, months before voters go to the polls in congressional midterm elections.

“I hope it inspires people to show up in the midterms and vote, and that’s the one thing that I’m looking at as a positive,” Alaina Feehan, 41, a talent manager in New York City, told Reuters, calling the moment a “call to action.”

Protests were held, or planned, in US cities coast to coast, including Atlanta, Denver, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, as the national Women’s March organisation urged supporters to bring families and signs to “courthouses and federal buildings everywhere” promoting the social media hashtag #BansOffOurBodies.”

The Supreme Court itself became the epicenter for some of the earliest protests on both sides of the issue after the surprise publication of the 98-page draft ruling late on Monday by the news outlet Politico.

Demonstrators converged on the sidewalk just beyond the barricaded marble steps of the courthouse across from the US Capitol, boisterously but peacefully voicing support for and opposition to ending a constitutional right to abortion nationwide.

Several dozen anti-abortion activists dominated the protests early in the day, beating on drums and chanting through megaphones: “Pro-choice is a lie, babies never choose to die,” and “Abortion is violence, abortion is oppression.”

Some knelt in prayer.

One man wearing a pink sweatshirt in support of Roe v. Wade tried in vain to tamp down the chants of an anti-Roe protester by holding his hand over her megaphone.

‘We’re going backwards’

Abortion rights advocates shouted back, “Off our bodies” and “abortion saves lives.” Others held signs reading, “Abortion is healthcare” and “Abortion is not a dirty word.” One sign displayed by a group identifying as Roman Catholics supporting abortion access said: “Thou shalt not steal my civil rights.”

By late afternoon, a larger and growing assembly of well over 1,000 abortion-rights protesters held sway, with about two dozen anti-abortion activists relegated to the sidelines.

Pro-abortion demonstrators protest outside the US Supreme Court after the leak of a draft majority opinion to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion-rights decision later this year, in Washington, US May 3, 2022. (Reuters)

“I just feel that we’re going backwards,” Jane Moore, 64, said of the prospect that Roe, which legalised abortion nationally nearly 50 years ago, could be struck down. “It actually breaks my heart and makes me angry at the same time.”

“It makes me very afraid. I feel very sorry for … young women. You’re starting all over again,” Paula Termini, 70, a nurse who has worked in delivery rooms and Planned Parenthood clinics, told Reuters outside the court. “It’s going to take a long time to get those gains back again.”

The protests in Washington were a prelude to rallies planned by abortion-rights advocates in cities across the country.

About 300 people gathered in downtown Atlanta just outside the city’s Centennial Olympic Park on Tuesday evening, their chants in support of abortion rights drowned out periodically by the din of honking horns from passing motorists.

“We will fight in these streets, we will fight in every street in America if we need to,” said 19-year-old Wendy Nevarez-Sanchez, holding a “Hands off my uterus” sign.

In the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, some protesters carried coat hangers, a grim reference to “back-alley” abortions that experts could become common again in states where abortion is outlawed.

Perhaps the day’s largest rally emerged in New York City, where at least 2,000 abortion-rights protesters assembled in lower Manhattan’s Foley Square, waving signs with such slogans as “Bans Off Our Bodies” and “Abortion is Freedom.”

“I’m here standing up for my people. I’m here to say that reproductive justice is immigrant justice,” said Diana Moreno, 34, pointing to how low-income women and the undocumented would be disproportionately affected by the loss of abortion rights.

A handful of demonstrators around Foley Square waded into the street and briefly blocked traffic.

One of the more colourful acts of anti-abortion protest earlier in the day emerged in San Francisco, where a man calling himself the “Pro-Life Spiderman” scaled a downtown skyscraper while posting video footage of his climb on Instagram. Local news media reported that police took the man into custody.

UPSC KEY Have you seen our section dedicated to helping USPC aspirants decode daily news in the context of their exams?

‘The Princess’ can’t quite rescue itself from a violent, definitely not-Disney movie

by edition.cnn.com Leave a Comment

(CNN) For anyone wondering why “The Princess” is premiering on Hulu in the US, not sister service Disney+, the movie answers that in the first five minutes, when the title character brutally dispatches a pair of guards sent into the tower where she’s being held. While the timing seems right for a princess who rescues herself, there’s precious little substance to this violent fantasy, featuring Joey King figuratively letting down her hair.

Director Le-Van Kiet brings plenty of action and a degree of visual style to this slightly claustrophobic concept, which takes place almost entirely within the confines of that castle, as the princess fights her way through an assortment of obstacles and foes who are much, much bigger than she is.
How she’s able to do that is explained via flashbacks, but the film isn’t overly preoccupied with plot or details, other than the fact that the psychopathic suitor the princess jilted (played by Dominic Cooper) and his primary henchwoman (“Quantum of Solace’s” Olga Kurylenko) are utterly ruthless and willing to kill anyone who interferes with their plans, including the princess’ family.

The movie does possess a certain sense of humor, but it’s mostly expressed in a cartoonish manner, such as the overweight guard who spends an inordinate amount of time huffing and puffing his way up the tower stairs, or a swift kick to the groin that proves surprisingly ineffective.

The film does represent an unorthodox stretch for King, certainly compared to her last prominent work for Hulu in the limited series “The Act.” The only other significant part belongs to Veronica Ngo (“The Old Guard”) as her tutor in the fighting arts — lessons conducted without the knowledge of the King — which only modestly bolsters the story’s feminist sensibilities.
Read More

While the movie does race by at 90-some-odd minutes, it’s hard to discern precisely for whom this was intended, since the action — grisly as it occasionally is — feels relatively small in scale, while being too hardcore to play much beyond that audience base. In that sense, it has the look of another Fox release that corporate parent Disney (understandably, in this case) didn’t quite know how to handle marketing-wise.

Not that the world can’t use a butt-kicking princess right now, but it would have helped to deliver one armed with a wee bit more substance than this.

“The Princess” premieres July 1 on Hulu in the US, and as a Star Original on Disney+ internationally.

That Other Reason You Might Feel Terrible Right Now

by www.theatlantic.com Leave a Comment

One morning in March, I woke up feeling horrible. Head: pressurized. Limbs: leaden. Nose: runny. Oh no , I thought, as I lay in bed. I rubbed my eyes. They were … itchy! I got up and went to the bathroom mirror. Red, too! Thank God , I thought. Allergies!

I don’t usually get so excited about the onset of my seasonal allergies. Most years, it goes something like this: I wake up feeling sick. I assume it’s a cold. I slouch around self-pityingly and wait for the illness to pass, but a few days later nothing has changed. At which point I start to wonder: Could it be allergies? But no , I think. It’s still so cold out! The temperature has hardly broken 60! Then I remember that this is what happens every year, and I vow, for real this time, that I will not let pollen blindside me again, that next year, I’ll launch a preemptive strike and begin my allergy-pill regimen before the weather even breaks 50—no, 45! Which, of course, I don’t.

This year, the stakes are higher. Now the most likely first reaction to feeling under the weather is not It’s probably a cold but Uh-oh. In the United States, as many as 30 percent of adults and 40 percent of kids have seasonal allergies , and many of them will soon, if they have not already, ask themselves the same question I did: Is this COVID-19 or just allergies?

“This is obviously a tricky question,” says Aaron Pearlman, an otolaryngologist at Weill Cornell Medicine. Luckily, though, there are several ways to distinguish the two.

In the fall, public-health experts worried that the winter would bring a so-called twindemic , in which flu season and the coronavirus pandemic’s third wave would strike simultaneously and compound each other. They feared that emergency rooms, already filled almost to capacity with COVID-19 patients, would be overwhelmed by an onslaught of flu patients. They feared that if contracted together, the viruses could be doubly, or more than doubly, deadly. And they feared that the near indistinguishability of the symptoms would cause triage chaos for hospitals trying to separate the coronavirus patients from the flu patients. Both viruses tend to induce fever, muscle aches, and coughing. COVID-19 does have certain unique symptoms—patients sometimes lose their ability to taste and smell , for example—but in many cases, the illnesses are identical. Mercifully, flu season was virtually nonexistent . None of these dreaded scenarios came to pass.

Allergy season is not flu season, and none of the doctors I spoke with for this story predicted that the spring would bring anything like the ravages experts feared last fall. Influenza is a highly transmissible virus that, in an ordinary year, kills tens of thousands of Americans . Seasonal allergies, as uncomfortable as they make our lives for a few weeks each spring, kill almost no one. They will not strain emergency rooms the way flu season threatened to.

But they may cause a similar sort of confusion. Though not nearly so COVID-like as flu symptoms, allergy symptoms are alike enough to prompt a moment—or more than a moment—of panic. Thankfully, COVID-19 and seasonal allergies each have distinct symptoms that can help differentiate the one from the other. Most symptomatic COVID-19 patients develop a fever, and some have diarrhea or nausea, which allergy sufferers never do. Allergies, by contrast, can cause sneezing, a scratchy throat, and red, itchy eyes, which COVID-19 rarely does. (The Mayo Clinic and a number of other hospitals have put together helpful charts comparing the symptoms of COVID-19, allergies, a cold, and the flu.)

Maybe the most useful guide, Pearlman told me, is your own personal history. If this year’s symptoms align closely with last year’s, you’re probably in the clear. If you notice any irregularities, getting tested for COVID-19 can’t hurt. “Rather than being like, ‘Oh you have allergies; don’t worry about it,’” Pearlman explained, “I would say, ‘Listen, it’s likely allergies, but getting tested can only make you feel more confident in that diagnosis.’”

Subhadra Siegel, the director of the Allergy and Immunology Program at Boston Children’s Health Physicians, says that COVID-or-allergies confusion has already begun to affect her patients—though they’re not the ones who are confused. In recent weeks, a number of children with seasonal allergies have come to her after being sent home by schoolteachers worried their students had the coronavirus. The children’s parents didn’t seem particularly concerned; they knew that their child’s symptoms were the same ones they saw every spring. “The schools are just being hypervigilant in order to stay open, and trying to not let anyone in with any kind of a sniffle,” Siegel told me. “But that becomes more challenging as allergy season starts.”

Another concern is how allergies and the coronavirus might interact, says Casey Curtis, an allergy specialist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. It is generally understood that by suppressing proteins that limit viral reproduction, pollen exposure can weaken immunity to respiratory viruses—regardless of whether or not a person is allergic—and COVID-19 is no exception.

A study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that higher pollen concentrations led to higher COVID-19 infection rates, suggesting that allergy season might make people slightly more susceptible to the coronavirus. In light of those findings, the authors wrote, it is all the more important this spring that people wear masks, which block both viral particles and pollen. For people with allergies, Siegel and Pearlman said, masks will likely help ease allergy symptoms simply by reducing exposure.

On some level, we’re uniquely prepared for this allergy season. Our year of learning and worrying about an unfamiliar airborne pathogen has readied us for a familiar airborne allergen. We wear masks. We have a new appreciation for ventilation and filtration. We’re better attuned than ever to the air we breathe, and in allergy seasons to come, that can only serve us well.

Kiara Advani Breaks Silence on Dating Rumours With Sidharth Malhotra: ‘I Will Definitely Speak On This…’

by www.news18.com Leave a Comment

Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra have been a hot topic of discussion ever since they started shooting for Shershaah. The duo’s strong on-screen chemistry fuelled rumours of them dating and thoroughly enthralled their fans. The rumoured couple has been pictured together several times, which has only made fans speculate more about their rumoured relationship. However, the couple has neither confirmed nor denied any rumour in public.

Some days ago, it was reported by many media houses that the duo has ended their rumoured relationship. But at the screening of Kiara’s latest film Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, the actress and Sidharth stole the limelight with their adorable gestures, contrary to rumours of their break-up.

In a recent interview with the Navbharat Times, Kiara was asked about her rumoured breakup with her Shershaah co-star Sidharth Malhotra, to which the actress responded, “I don’t want to say anything about this. Even when I am not saying anything, people are writing. So, when I do say something, I do not know what all people will write. Whenever I feel I will definitely speak on this issue. Right now, I am very happy in both my personal and professional life.”

In a recent interview with ETimes, she also called Sidharth her favourite co-star and said he is “very handsome.” Besides Shershaah, Kiara was recently seen in Bhool Bhoolayaa 2 opposite Kartik Aaryan and Tabu. She also starred in Raj Mehta’s directorial JugJugg Jeeyo, in which she shared screen space with Varun Dhawan and Anil Kapoor.

Meanwhile, Sidharth Malhotra will be seen in Sagar Ambre and Pushkar Ojha’s directorial Yodha, which is set to release on November 11 this year. It is an action thriller in which the actor will be sharing screen space with Disha Patani and Rashi Khanna. He’ll also be appearing in Indra Kumar’s Thank you.

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.