Reproductive Health

AS THE HEALTH care landscape changes, increasing numbers of hospitals are seeking mergers and alliances to weather the economic storms that are shrinking revenues and profits. The results can produce uncomfortable partnerships, particularly in cases where church-related institutions demand that their partners adhere to religious guidelines.A case in point is the proposed merger of Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC), which prides itself on its reproductive health services, especially its Women's Resource Center, and St. Joseph Medical Center, a Catholic institution also in Towson.

Forty years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in every state in its historic Roe v. Wade decision. It affirmed that the constitutionally protected right to privacy includes every woman's ability to make her own personal medical decisions without the interference of politicians. Four decades later, a majority of Americans still agree with the high court that personal health care decisions should be left up to a woman. In poll after poll, the majority of Americans support access to safe and legal abortion in some or most cases.

" The truth? I'd like it to be a boy. " -- Owen Slater On the degree of difficulty scale, "A Man, A Plan ... " is about a nine out of ten. It wasn't the best "Boardwalk Empire" in the series' history, but it was certainly one of the most jarring. We lost a genuinely likable soul in Owen Slater, and simultaneously found out Margaret is carrying his child. He wasn't a perfect man, though nobody (especially in this show) is. Owen did his part to fill a void of ambition that left with Jimmy Darmody.

To me, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s column on why conservatives should be proud in defeat indicates he just doesn't get what the majority of Americans want, including Marylanders ("Conservatives lost but can still be proud," Nov. 18). He listed a dozen points on why conservatives can still be proud, some of which are not in touch with reality, or "cheap shots" which the voters have seen through and in my book are nothing to be proud of. Some examples of what he believes conservatives should feel good about: 1. "Conservatives respect religious liberty as applied to faith-based institutions.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is pressing its opposition to abortion rights overseas by trying to strip references to reproductive health care from a 1994 international population-control agreement, according to activists on both sides of the issue. State Department officials attending a United Nations conference yesterday in Bangkok, Thailand, urged delegates of more than 30 nations to remove the terms "reproductive rights" and "reproductive health services" from the agreement, which established reproductive health care as a means to stem population growth, observers said.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is awarding $40 million to the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health to expand a program to improve reproductive health around the globe. The 10-year-grant - which officials called the sixth largest in Hopkins' history - will go to the school's Institute for Population and Reproductive Health. The institute trains leaders of reproductive health programs in the developing world, where complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a major cause of disease and death.

Twenty-five years into the AIDS epidemic and halfway through the initial phase of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, there is increasing international consensus about the need to target women and girls. One area where the U.S. could make a real difference in women's lives has until recently been largely overlooked: integrating HIV/AIDS and reproductive health services. This presents important new opportunities for the U.S. AIDS program to become more effective and sustainable.

Sensing, perhaps, that they are losing the public relations battle after Senate candidate Todd Akin's forehead-slapping views on "legitimate rape" and the female body's magical ability to guard against pregnancy, Republicans are trying now to focus on the "real" issues of the economy and jobs, which play to businessman Mitt Romney's strengths, rather than the "side issue" of reproductive rights. Birth control and abortion were non-topics at the recent Republican convention. The GOP argument, in the words of Florida attorney general Pat Bondi, is that women don't care about a party's stance on women's reproductive health: "What women care about are jobs, the economy, the unemployment rate.

Catholic leaders launched a nationwide campaign challenging the Obama administration's health policies with a Mass at Baltimore's Basilica of the Assumption on Thursday evening, filling the 200-year-old stone structure with supporters. The standing-room-only crowd stood and applauded when Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, leader of the Roman Catholic bishops' "Fortnight for Freedom" initiative, entered. A separate crowd of people outside, most of them Catholic, held signs protesting the event, one of which read, "Bishops!

WHEN THE board of directors of Greater Baltimore Medical Center last week failed to agree to a partnership with nearby St. Joseph Medical Center, St. Joseph settled the issue by walking away from further discussions. That move is in the best interests of both institutions.As a Roman Catholic hospital, St. Joseph has forged a distinct identity reflecting the values and beliefs that have shaped its heritage. That includes adherence to Catholic principles and practices.Patients have come to expect good medical care at St. Joseph, but no one would expect that institution to provide abortion services or seek it out for sterilization or fertility treatments.

" The truth? I'd like it to be a boy. " -- Owen Slater On the degree of difficulty scale, "A Man, A Plan ... " is about a nine out of ten. It wasn't the best "Boardwalk Empire" in the series' history, but it was certainly one of the most jarring. We lost a genuinely likable soul in Owen Slater, and simultaneously found out Margaret is carrying his child. He wasn't a perfect man, though nobody (especially in this show) is. Owen did his part to fill a void of ambition that left with Jimmy Darmody.

Sensing, perhaps, that they are losing the public relations battle after Senate candidate Todd Akin's forehead-slapping views on "legitimate rape" and the female body's magical ability to guard against pregnancy, Republicans are trying now to focus on the "real" issues of the economy and jobs, which play to businessman Mitt Romney's strengths, rather than the "side issue" of reproductive rights. Birth control and abortion were non-topics at the recent Republican convention. The GOP argument, in the words of Florida attorney general Pat Bondi, is that women don't care about a party's stance on women's reproductive health: "What women care about are jobs, the economy, the unemployment rate.

Catholic leaders launched a nationwide campaign challenging the Obama administration's health policies with a Mass at Baltimore's Basilica of the Assumption on Thursday evening, filling the 200-year-old stone structure with supporters. The standing-room-only crowd stood and applauded when Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, leader of the Roman Catholic bishops' "Fortnight for Freedom" initiative, entered. A separate crowd of people outside, most of them Catholic, held signs protesting the event, one of which read, "Bishops!

In a recent op-ed, columnist Marta H. Mossburg tried to make a paradox out of liberals labeling the conservative effort to restrict reproductive health care for women as a "war on women" while at the same time condemning stay-at-home mothers ("Biology really is destiny," April 25). She is referring, of course, to a single comment by Hilary Rosen about Ann Romney, who happens to be extremely wealthy and, consequently, most likely to have had as much paid help raising her children as she wanted.

Today, on its 37th anniversary, Roe v. Wade is still an unfulfilled promise for the women in our military. Women soldiers serving their country overseas and in the United States face impediments to accessing reproductive health care that most civilians take for granted. While military personnel must give up some rights enjoyed by civilians, there is no compelling reason for the current policies and practices that circumscribe their reproductive rights. In November, Major Gen. Anthony Cuculo III, the commander of U.S. forces in Northern Iraq, put in place a policy that made pregnancy or impregnation an offense subject to a court-martial or jail time, citing military readiness as his justification.

The federal Food and Drug Administration's decision Wednesday to widen access to Plan B, a morning-after contraceptive that can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse, was a long-overdue triumph of science over politics. For years, the Bush administration resisted FDA approval of over-the-counter sale of the drug because of opposition from religious conservatives. Even after the over-the-counter ban was lifted in 2006, sales were limited to women 18 or older. That made little sense at a time when teen pregnancy rates were rising fastest among 15- to 17-year-olds.

Dr. Michael A. Koenig, an international expert in partner violence and child abuse in developing countries, died of cancer Jan. 27 at his Roland Park home. He was 56. Born and raised in Ishpeming, Mich., he earned a bachelor's degree from Colgate University in 1974. In 1976, he earned a master's degree in sociology from the University of Michigan, and he earned a doctorate in population planning in 1981, also from the University of Michigan School of Graduate Studies. From 1981 to 1983, he was a postdoctoral fellow in population dynamics at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where he completed a series of studies on adolescent pregnancy and contraceptive use in the United States.

ACCESS TO reproductive health care is secretly being negotiated away by hospital and HMO executives.Overnight, consumers are finding that reproductive health services have disappeared from their hospitals and health systems. This dismantling of services eliminates access to birth control devices, voluntary sterilization for men and women, distribution of condoms to combat the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, emergency contraception for rape victims, most fertility treatments and abortion.