reproductive health & rights:

Rates of unplanned pregnancy, abortion increasing for
low-income women

Other notable news & commentary on reproductive health & rights

Of wealthy nations,
United States is the worst place to be a mother

A comparison of maternal and infant health indicators in 125 countries ranks the United States the worst place to be a mother of all industrialized countries. The new report from Save the Children, a U.S.-based humanitarian organization, ranked Scandinavian countries at the top of the best places to be a mother, while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominate the bottom tier. The U.S. and UK tied for tenth place. The State of the World’s Mothers 2006 evaluates the status of mothers and based on ten indicators relating to health, education and women's representation in government. According to a press release highlighting findings from the study,

The Mothers’ Index illustrates the direct line between the status of mothers and the status of their children," said Charles MacCormack, President and CEO of Save the Children. “In countries where mothers do well, children do well; in countries where mothers fare poorly, children fare poorly. If we are to improve the quality of life for children, we must start by investing in the health and well-being of their mothers.

According to the report, the United States ranked next to last for rates of infant mortality among 33 industrialized countries (infant mortality rates in the U.S. are similar to those in Hungary, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia; only Latvia scored lower). Infant mortality rates in the U.S. were 3 to 2.5 times higher than found in nations with the lowest rates of infant mortality.

Canada, Australia and all the Western and Northern European countries in the study have lower rates of maternal mortality than the U.S. The report also found the U.S. lagging in the political status of women: Only 15 percent of seats in the national government in the U.S. are held by women, compared to 45 percent in Sweden and 37 percent in Denmark and Finland.

The full 58-page report is available for download from the Save the Children web site.

Save the Children
www.savethechildren.org

The Best - And Worst - Countries to Be a Mother
Investing in Mothers Key to Child Survival and Well-Being
News release, 9.may.06

State of the World's Mothers 2006
58 pages, in .pdf

Related articles:

U.S. Scores Poorly on Infant Mortality:
Shortcomings in basic health care, obesity cited for low rank among modern nations
Lindsey Tanner, Associate Press/Common Dreams, 10.may.06
"Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000."

Why are American women last to take the lead?
Rosalind Chait Barnett and Caryl Rivers, Newsday, 2.may.06
"Michelle Bachelet is elected president of Chile. Patricia Russo becomes head of the newly merged telecom giant (a merger of Alcatel and Lucent, based in France) that will be one of the largest companies in the world. Angela Merkel serves as chancellor of Germany. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia. …Meanwhile, in the United States, we're still arguing over whether women have 'the right stuff' to be leaders."

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Parents' higher education, full-time employment has less effect on the economic security of African American, Latino children

Although education is one of the most effective ways that parents can raise their families’ incomes, a new summary from the National Center for Children in Poverty finds that black and Latino children benefit less from higher levels of parental education than do white and Asian children. Latino children are the least likely to have a parent who attended college. Both black and Latino children are more likely to be low income, even when their parents have some college education and are employed
full-time.

A related analysis found that when parents have a high school degree or less, full-time work does not protect their families from financial insecurity. Three-quarters of children whose full-time working parents have less than a high school degree live in low-income households. Children with full-time working parents who graduated high school but did not attend college were more than twice as likely to live in low-income families as those whose parents had at least some post-secondary education (45 compared to 17 percent).

In 2005, three-quarters of white and Asian children in the U.S. lived with parents with at least some college education; half of all Black children, and one-third of all Latino children had parents with some post-secondary education. Overall, 40 percent -- 29.2 million -- of U.S. children live in low-income or poor families, and 55 percent -- 15.9 million -- have at least one parent who works full-time, year-round.

National Center for Children in Poverty
www.nccp.org

The Racial Gap in Parental Education
NCCP Fact Sheet, May 2006

Parents' Low Education Leads to Low Income, Despite Full-Time Employment
NCCP Fact Sheet, May 2006

Also from NCCP:

Basic Facts about Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 18
NCCP Fact Sheet, Jan 2006

Related article:

Study: Welfare Clock Should Stop for College Moms
Juliette Terzieff, Women's eNews, 20.apr.06
A 1996 welfare law has driven many single mothers out of colleges. A new study proposes a few tweaks to the system to help single mothers in college beat the welfare clock and find their way out of poverty.

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National Partnership: State leaders families can count on

The National Partnership for Women & Families is honoring state legislators who are doing the most to promote and secure family-friendly workplace policies, and support the work/family balance that Americans urgently need. State Leaders Families Can Count On highlights the work of 14 state legislators who "are stepping up and leading the way by advancing family leave policies to meet the needs of today’s working families. These leaders are providing real choices to their state’s families upon the arrival of a new child, when illness strikes, or when a parent needs to attend a child’s school conference."

National Partnership for Women & Families
www.nationalpartnership.org

State Leaders Families Can Count On
National Partnership, May 2006. 18 pages in .pdf

Also from the National Partnership:

Where Families Matter:
State Progress Toward Valuing America’s Families
February 2006. 80 pages in .pdf
A valuable tool for activists and organizers, this report offers a state-by-state summary of progress on paid leave legislation.

Expecting Better:
A State-by-State Analysis of Parental Leave Programs
May 2005. 52 pages in .pdf

Related resources:

Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health by Reducing the Spread of Disease
Institute for Women's Policy Research, Feb 2006. Issue Brief, 2 pages in .pdf

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New reports call for routine assessment of
family caregivers' needs

According to data from the Family Caregivers Alliance National Center on Caregiving, family caregiving -- also called "informal" caregiving -- is the most important source of assistance for nearly 10 million adults with chronic or disabling conditions who require long-term care. Among adults who need long-term care services and supports, 80 percent live at home or in community settings, and more than three-quarters of adults who receive long term care at home get all their care exclusively from unpaid family and friends -- mostly wives and adult daughters. Another 14 percent receive some combination of family care and paid assistance; only eight percent rely on formal care alone. An estimated 44 million Americans age 18 and over provide unpaid assistance and support to older people and adults with disabilities who live in the community.

In 2005, FCA's National Center on Caregiving organized a conference to develop a consensus on best practices for assessing the health, mental health and resource needs of family caregivers as a routine service of agencies involved in the delivery of long term care. Two reports based on the findings of the conference, including a report with a section on public policy recommendations, are now available from the FCA web site.

The primary focus of the reports is on mechanisms for providing and regulating caregiver assessments, but overview content highlights the specific concerns of family caregivers compared to other adults who devote substantial time to unpaid family work in households with young children, including the following definitions:

Family Caregiver is broadly defined and refers to any relative, partner, friend or neighbor who has a significant personal relationship with, and provides a broad range of assistance for, an older person or an adult with a chronic or disabling condition. These individuals may be primary or secondary caregivers and live with, or separately from, the person receiving care.

Care Recipient refers to an adult with a chronic illness or disabling condition or an older person who needs ongoing assistance with everyday tasks to function on a daily basis. These tasks may include managing medications, transportation, bathing, dressing and using the toilet. The person needing assistance may also require primary and acute medical care or rehabilitation services (occupational, speech and physical therapies).

Caregiver Assessment refers to a systematic process of gathering information that describes a caregiving situation and identifies the particular problems, needs, resources and strengths of the family caregiver. It approaches issues from the caregiver’s perspective and culture, focuses on what assistance the caregiver may need and the outcomes the family member wants for support, and seeks to maintain the caregiver’s own health and well-being.

The FCA estimates that in the year 2000, informal (i.e., unpaid) caregiving by family and friends had an estimated national economic value of $257 billion, greatly exceeding the combined costs of nursing home care ($92 billion) and home health care ($32 billion).

Family Caregiver Alliance
caregiver.org

FCA Releases Groundbreaking Report on Assessment of Family Caregivers
Press release, 8.may.06

Family Caregiving and Long Term Care:
A Crucial Issue for American Families
Policy brief, Lynn Friss Feinberg, MSW and Sandra Newman, MPH, June 2004
8 pages in PDF

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Mamas make their own media, what to do about the "Mommy Wars," and other news and commentary of note

E-Mamas rewrite parenting niche
Amy DePaul, USC Annenburg Online Journalism Review, 1.may.06
Goodbye to recipes and nursery decor: Alternative motherhood publications flourish on the Web. "Working online, women are redefining parenting publications, shifting the emphasis to personal, political and less commonly depicted motherhood experiences and rejecting the model of consumer information and child-rearing tips found in glossy magazines such as Parenting and Child."

It's hip to be pregnant
CNN Health, 28.apr.06
Celebrity pregnancies seem to fuel fascination. "Pregnancy, in short, has become hipper, more glamorous -- sexy even. It sure feels odd to think that way about something as basic as, well, the propagation of the human race. And yet, fueled by an ever-spiraling interest in the lives of our celebrities (one word: Brangelina) and a consumer culture always coming up with new luxuries, the very act of reproduction appears to have reinvented itself."

Mothers Make a Beautiful Mark on Public Life
Peggy Drexler, Women's eNews, 3.may.06
With Mother's Day fast approaching, Peggy Drexler looks at the positive influence that mothers are having over public life. As they make their mark on laws and culture, women with children reshape society in the image of one big family.

The Care Crisis
Ruth Rosen, AlterNet, 11.may.06
"Joan Blades, co-founder of the online activist web movement, Moveon.org, has launched a grassroots virtual campaign dedicated to making working mothers' private choices and dilemmas a central part of our national conversation and political agenda… She and her co-author Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner have just published The Motherhood Manifesto (Nation Books), a book filled with elegantly accessible stories that reveal the problems faced by working mothers in the early 21st century. Without using the F word, they also prescribe such essential changes as paid parental leave, flexible working conditions, after-school programs, universal health care, excellent, affordable and accessible child care and realistic living wages."

The Motherhood Manifesto
Joan Blades & Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, The Nation, 2.may.06
"Despite all the media chatter about the so-called Opt-Out Revolution -- and all the hand-wringing about whether working moms are good for kids--women, and mothers, are in the workplace to stay. Yet public policy and workplace structures have yet to catch up."

The Mommy Wars: Stay-at-home versus working mothers
Ellen Goodman, Working for Change, 12.may.06
"I should be over this. We all should be over this. But it's 37 years since I first became a mother and what passes for public discussion about that role still resembles a food fight more than breakfast in bed. …[The] new Web site, MomsRising.org, has an agenda that's been around as long as my stretch marks."

End the mommy wars
Debra Bruno, Christian Science Monitor, 12.may.06
Let's stop putting ourselves into a hierarchy based on where our kids get into college.

Deciphering the 'mommy wars'
Manav Tanneeru, CNN, 24.apr.06
"The media have examined the so-called mommy wars over the past few years, pitting stay-at-home moms against working moms, the upper class against the working class and conservative values against liberal values." Interviews with Joanne Brundage of Mothers & More, Caitlin Flanagan, and Carol Evans, CEO and president of Working Mother magazine.

We're Here, We're Square, Get Used to It:
Why the Democratic Party is losing the housewife vote
Caitlin Flanagan, Time, 30.apr.06
"There is apparently no room for me in the Democratic Party. In fact, I have spent much of the past week on a forced march to the G.O.P. And the bayonet at my back isn't in the hands of the Republicans; the Democrats are the bullyboys. Such lions of the left as Barbara Ehrenreich, the writers at Salon and much of the Upper West Side of Manhattan have made it abundantly clear to me that I ought to start packing my bags. …Here's why they're after me: I have made a lifestyle choice that they can't stand."

Feminist Mystique
Kirsten A. Powers, The American Prospect, 4.may.06
Author Caitlan Flanagan proves Betty Friedan’s point: Motherhood can make you crazy. "Barrels of ink have been expended to make unequivocal cases for the “right” way to be a mother, when any reasonable person knows there are no simple answers, and there is no panacea for raising emotionally healthy, productive children. So, why can’t we all just get along? …If Caitlan Flanagan, New Yorker writer and author of To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife, has her way, it’s not going to happen any time soon."

Happy Housewife vs. Mad Mommy
Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet, 9.may.06
A new book says that if middle-class mothers are sleep-deprived, angry, exhausted and unhappy, it's a consequence of their foolish demand for self-fulfillment. (Review of Caitlin Flanagan's To Hell With All That.)

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News roundup

Women Still Underrepresented Among Highest Earners
Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2006
A new summary from the BLS examines trends in women's earnings. More women than men were in the lowest earnings category, and women were under-represented among the highest earners (just 30 percent of female workers are in the highest earning category). Both men and women with lowest earnings worked in industries typically thought of as low wage -- for example, wholesale and retail trade, and leisure and hospitality. Education and health services accounted for large concentrations of both highest and lowest earning women. The highest earners were concentrated in industries including financial activities and professional and business services.

Study: U.S. mothers deserve $134,121 in salary
Ellen Wulfhorst, ABC News, 3.may.06
"A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday. A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com."

What Is Mom's Job Worth?
Working Mom vs. Stay at Home Mom Salaries for 2006
Salary.com, may.06
"The job titles that best matched a mom’s definition of her work to be (in order of hours spent per week): housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO, and psychologist. New job titles that made the list in 2006 include psychologist, laundry machine operator, computer operator, and facilities manager. The job title of nurse fell out of the top 10 this year."

Practice Makes 'Sequencing' Look Less Perfect
Jeanine Plant, Women's eNews, 4.may.06
Arlene Rossen Cardozo generated buzz in the late 1980s when she wrote "Sequencing," a book proposing that women can have it all, just not all at once. Twenty years later she and other researchers have probed the limits of that advice.

Diffusing the workplace's small wrongs
Maggie Jackson, Boston Globe/BostonWorks, 7.may.06
"What if your boss makes a racist joke at the company picnic? What do you do if you're copied in on an e-mail from a colleague who questions a fellow worker's abilities because she's a mom? Chances are, you are shocked and upset -- and do nothing… It takes courage and awareness to react constructively to people who bring their private intolerances into their public lives at work. Fearing lawsuits, companies are doing more to combat harassment and discrimination, yet often ignore micro-inequalities -- from stereotyping to off-color jokes -- that can make a workplace toxic."

Only the Fertile Need Apply
Charlotte Fishman, Inside Higher Education, April 2006
Stanford University's new childbirth policy for graduate students has been touted as a breakthrough, but doesn't cover adoptive parents, and it doesn't cover fathers of newborns.

Tipping in America
Talia Berman, AlterNet, 17.apr.06
They are young, transient and a dime a dozen -- a look at the ways 2 million food servers survive and don't survive in the restaurant industry. Editors note: Although the author of this article focuses on younger workers, adult women make up a significant proportion of low-wage workers in the restaurant and food service industry.

Flex and the Office
Suzy Welsh, O Magazine, May 2005
Welsh offers "a four-point list of tacit truths about flextime -- from the boss's point of view," including: "Bosses have hearts and consciences, but not at the expense of the company's success. Flextime makes profitability harder;" "Your boss sees flextime as an old-fashioned chit system in which the more you deliver, the more freedom you earn. To be blunt -- no matter what the official company policy, bosses see flextime as a reward for outstanding performance;" "Bosses wish that employees knew that flextime programs described in the company brochure are mainly for recruiting purposes. Real flextime arrangements are negotiated one-on-one." Plus other fascinating insights from the co-author (with husband Jack Welsh) of "Winning.

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Highlights from Herman Miller Jugglezine

The tagline for high-tech office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller's Jugglezine is "an unassuming e-zine about balancing work and life." Jugglezine periodically publishes short, well-written articles on a single work-life topic. Email subscriptions are free; past features are archived on the Jugglezine web site. The May 10, 2006 issue covers the link between too much multi-tasking and low productivity.

Herman Miller Jugglezine
www.jugglezine.com

I Frazz, Therefore I Am?: The importance of the grey zone
Lois Maassen, 10.may.06
"Our technology and the expectations created by its use have encouraged us to think that every moment needs to be filled to overflowing. We measure productivity by the number of messages sent, phone calls fielded, simultaneous tasks--anything but the quality of thought. This is in spite of growing evidence that we're mistaking activity for productivity."

From the Jugglezine archives:

Stealth Parenting: Why good dads sneak out
Kent Steinriede, 10.aug.06

Never Mix, Never Worry: The beauty of separating work and life
Lois Maassen, 11.feb.06

Time Will Tell:
What the American work week reveals about our cultural values
Debra Wierenga, 14.Mar.03

Housework or your Life:
Why hiring help is good for your relationships and your health
Melanie Bowden, 25.may.01

Bridging the Distance
Millions of Americans are caring for their parents from afar. Here's how.
John F. Lauerman, 27.apr.01

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Rates of unplanned pregnancy, abortion increasing for
low-income women

A new report from the Guttmacher Institute shows that from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, women of all income groups became more likely to use contraceptives and less likely to experience unintended pregnancies. But since 1994, unplanned pregnancy rates among poor women have increased by 29 percent, while rates among higher-income women have decreased by 20 percent. Today, a poor woman is four times as likely to experience an unplanned pregnancy as a higher-income woman.

The Institute's report calls on state and federal policymakers to facilitate access to abortions for women who need them, so that procedures can occur as early in pregnancy as possible, and simultaneously to jump-start the country's stalled progress in reducing the need for abortion by strengthening women’s access to family planning. Specifically, the report recommends that policymakers:

• Restore public funding for abortion for low-income women.

• Repeal restrictions that serve to delay abortions and increase the
  health risk to women.

• Protect women’s right to give informed consent to abortion based on unbiased, medically accurate information.

• Guarantee comprehensive sex education for young people that teaches both the benefits of delaying intercourse and the importance of using contraceptives.

• Ensure public and private insurance coverage of contraceptives.

• Ensure convenient access to contraceptive services and supplies.

The Guttmacher Institute
www.guttmacher.org

A Tale of Two Americas for Women:
Low-Income Women's Unplanned Pregnancy and Abortion Rates are Increasing As Better-Off Women Continue Three Decades of Progress
Press Release, with links to full report, 4.may.06

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Notable news & commentary on
reproductive health & rights:

Don't Blame Mothers for C-Section Vogue
Gene Declercq and Judy Norsigian, Women's eNews, 19.apr.06
One factor regularly cited as contributing to record high C-Section rates are moms who are "too posh to push." Two women's health experts say that "focusing on maternal request obscures a more complex story concerning changes in obstetrical practice."

Vaccine Holds Special Promise for Women of Color
Juhie Bhatia, Women's eNews, 21.apr.06
Cervical cancer afflicts women of color and low-income women to a disproportionate degree. That's why health advocates say a vaccine pending FDA approval in June must be targeted at the populations who need it most.

Kansas gives breast-feeding mothers card to carry with them
Associated Press, 5.may.06
A new state law that protects a woman's right to breast-feed her baby in public. Now state health officials and breast-feeding advocates are distributing 40,000 laminated cards saying that for breast-feeding mothers to carry with them.

Pharmacist Pawns
Lynne K. Varner, TomPaine.com, 1.may.06
"With two-thirds of Americans supporting a woman's right to choose, focusing on emergency contraceptives is one way the anti-abortion movement has morphed in order to survive and fight another day."

Exposing Anti-Choice Abortion Clinics
Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet, 1.may.06
Misleading 'crisis pregnancy centers' are appearing across America, aiming to limit or even prevent women from exploring all of their legal health care options.

Pushing Back On Roe
Froma Harrop, TomPaine.com, 10.may.06
"Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for 23 years. Polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans like it that way. This is a significant majority. But because it is a quiet group, as opposed to the anti-abortion faction, many politicians underestimate it. Republicans are now paying the price, and so will Democrats if they fall for the fiction that anti-abortion sentiment is growing and unstoppable. …What most Americans want is what Roe gives—open access to abortion in the first trimester, with increasing restrictions later on."

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Other news and commentary of note:

The Child Care Squeeze
Nancy Duff Campbell, TomPaine.com, 3.may.06
"Since 2000, child care costs have increased and the number of children in low-income families has increased, but Congress has frozen federal funding for direct child care assistance. As a result, 250,000 fewer children are receiving child care assistance than in 2000. If Congress accepts the Bush administration’s fiscal year 2007 budget recommendation on child care, in the next five years 400,000 more children will lose child care assistance."

Babysitters Flex Their Muscle
Amy DePaul, AlterNet, 15.may.06
Unions are encouraging America's huge (and hugely underpaid) child-care work force to fight for a living wage.

Warning: No-Groping Zone
Suzy Khimm, AlterNet, 3.may.06
The pink-striped cars on Brazil's trains and subways are reserved for women only, but is it protection or segregation?

Black and White
LaNitra Walker, The American Prospect, 5.may.06
In her new book, The Trouble Between Us, sociologist Winifred Breines looks at the rift between feminists of two different races.

Greed, Envy and the Estate Tax
Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet, 25.apr.06
Aspiring aristocrats think that taxing the wealthy is punishment -- but individual wealth is impossible without the labor and ideas of others.

The children they gave away
Sarah Karnasiewicz, Salon, 11.may.06
In the decades between World War II and Roe v. Wade, 1.5 million young women were secretly sent to homes for unwed mothers and coerced into giving their babies up for adoption. Now their stories are finally being told.

Letter to My Daughter
Jere E. Martin, AlterNet, 12.may.06
"I love the beat of your feminism, your generation's spunk and confidence, but I don't always understand the message. It seems vague and undefined. It trickles out in bits and pieces instead of bursting out in decisive shouts like ours did. Sometimes I wonder if you get the bigger picture of how the power structure in this country (mostly older, white and male) is still gridlocked, letting only the few token women actually come to the table no matter what their education or experience."

Letter to My Mother
Courtney E. Martin, AlterNet, 12.may.06
You were right about many things, but feminism doesn't have to be either sappy or serious. "But for all our laughing, we know that the still-unsolved problem of work-family-gender balance is grave. I am scared of compromising my cherished independence, deathly afraid that I will wake up at 40 with an indistinguishable fire of bitterness in my guts. Sometimes I find myself standing over the sink washing my boyfriend's dishes even though I made dinner, and it scares the shit out of me."

Learning to Love America
Nina Burleigh, AlterNet, 24.apr.06
"If you knew nothing else of the world, if you were just five or six or ten years old, and this place was your only America, you wouldn't have any reason at all to question the Narrowsburg School's Morning Program routine. Hand over heart, my son belted out the Pledge with gusto every morning, and memorized and sang the Star Spangled Banner. I never stopped resisting the urge to sit down in silent protest during the Pledge. But I also never failed to get choked up when they sang "America the Beautiful.'" A thoughtful essay on parenting and progressive politics.

Feeding frenzy
Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon, 26.apr,06
I know I should only feed my kids organics and deny them fructose. But shouldn't they learn the value of a good hot fudge sundae? Excerpted from "The Imperfect Mom: Candid Confessions of Mothers Living in the Real World," edited by
Therese J. Borchard.

Mother inferior
Dani Shapiro, Salon, 15.may.06
My relationship with my mother was always cloaked in barbed wire. When my young son became gravely ill, I had to cut her off. Then she began to die, and we were forced together for the last time -- and the first.

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