By Ann • 16 years ago

How safe is the HPV vaccine?

After successfully triggering a backlash against the movement for universal HPV vaccination, right wingers are working hard on the health-scare angle. The conservative group Judicial Watch has made public the FDA’s records on adverse reactions to the HPV vaccine:

Three deaths were related to the vaccine. One physician’s assistant reported that a female patient “died of a blood clot three hours after getting the Gardasil vaccine.” Two other reports, on girls 12 and 19, reported deaths relating to heart problems and/or blood clotting.
As of May 11, 2007, the 1,637 adverse vaccination reactions reported to the FDA via the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) included 371 serious reactions. Of the 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 ...

After successfully triggering a backlash against the movement for universal HPV vaccination, right wingers are working hard on the health-scare angle. The conservative group Judicial Watch has made public the FDA’s records on adverse reactions to ...
By Jessica • 16 years ago

Hello from SisterSong!

Contributed by Kate Harding
I just attended an amazing panel called Prisons as Agents of Reproductive Oppression. I had a hell of a time deciding which of the 13 awesome-sounding workshops to go to (a problem that’s only going to get worse as the conference goes on), so I went with the subject I felt I knew least about.

Contributed by Kate Harding
I just attended an amazing panel called Prisons as Agents of Reproductive Oppression. I had a hell of a time deciding which of the 13 awesome-sounding workshops to go to (a problem that’s ...
By Jessica • 16 years ago

Bad-ass woman of the day: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg


Check out this NY Times piece on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how she’s using her current Supreme Court term to speak up. Literally.
In both the recent federal abortion ban case and this week’s discrimination ruling, Justice Ginsburg read dissents from the bench:

But the words were clearly her own, and they were both passionate and pointed. In the abortion case, in which the court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act seven years after having struck down a similar state law, she noted that the court was now “differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation.� In the latest case, she summoned Congress to overturn what she called the ...


Check out this NY Times piece on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how she’s using her current Supreme Court term to speak up. Literally.
In both the recent federal abortion ban case and ...
By Jessica • 16 years ago

More from the Causes in Common meeting!

NOTE: I was supposed to post this for Kate last night, so pretend you’re reading it in the wee hours.
All right, I’m truly exhausted now, and writing up some odds and ends a couple hours after beer-thirty is not so much “liveblogging,” but here are a few final notes on the Causes in Common Meeting.
Regarding Assisted Reproductive Genetic Technologies, Miriam Yeung says at this point, we’re still figuring out the questions more than the answers. Three key ones for both LGBT and reproductive freedom activists are:
1) Just because we can, should we?
2) Is it fair?
3) Who makes the decisions?
The crucial thing right now, she suggested, is for “smart people to get thinking about it.” ...

NOTE: I was supposed to post this for Kate last night, so pretend you’re reading it in the wee hours.
All right, I’m truly exhausted now, and writing up some odds and ends a couple hours after ...
By jen • 16 years ago

Weekly Hungover Feminist Report – You don’t have to think you’re racist to say racist things Edition


Samhita’s post about gentrification and “ghetto fabulousness” has, not shockingly, turned into quite a conversation about race and privilege. I think it’s an important conversation to have, so let’s do it. The whole thing is really getting to me for four reasons.
First, my back hurts.
Second, just last week a bunch of us were sitting at a ceremony celebrating the future of reproductive rights and justice – a diverse group of young women I am proud to be counted among. And now this. Good thing all of those women were young and tough. There’s a lot that needs doing.
Third, instead of sitting here I’m supposed to be in Chicago rocking out at


Samhita’s post about gentrification and “ghetto fabulousness” has, not shockingly, turned into quite a conversation about race and privilege. I think it’s an important conversation to have, so let’s do it. The whole thing ...

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