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40 years later, Roe v. Wade is still under siege. The pro-abortion-rights Americans who fought to win the landmarkdecision might not recognize today’s bruised-and-battered version of the law.
(Source: theweek.com)
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800,000 women in the U.K. use a birth control called Implanon. It’s a match stick-sized device that is placed under the skin in a fat layer of the upper arm. It’s designed to release hormones that stop ovulation, preventing conception for up to five years. It’s a fairly simple procedure, and the implant can be taken out at any time. But it must be put in, and taken out, by a doctor.
But hundreds of British women who were using an implant nevertheless wound up pregnant last year and — after visiting doctors to have the implants removed — discovered that the implants were nowhere to be found.
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If undecided voters tune into the Democratic convention and hear all about abortion, and tune into the Republican convention and hear all about the economy, Romney will win in a landslide.
—John Hinderaker at Power Line.
Will Democrats regret making their convention an ‘anti-Akin affair’?
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Forget those grainy, black-and-white sonogram photos. A Japanese company will create a 3D-printed model of your unborn child in utero (about $1,275). The company uses CT and MRI scans to create a digital model of the mother’s torso, which is then 3D-printed to scale.
Result: The “Shape of an Angel,” an opaque white fetus encased in clear resin representing the mother’s “amniotic” fluid.
(Source: theweek.com)
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A resident of Lima, Peru, participates in a new dolphin therapy technique, designed to stimulate the brains of unborn babies with high-frequency dolphin sounds. More of the weirdest photos you’ll see all week, and a quiz!
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The most extreme abortion ban in America: A guide
Arizona’s severe new abortion law is set to go into effect this week, thanks to a federal judge who ruled it constitutional. The law, signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this year, forbids doctors from aborting fetuses with a gestational age of 20 weeks or older, which is before the 23- to 24-week milestone when a doctor can confirm that a pregnancy will likely not result in a miscarriage, a stillborn, or an infant who will die soon after being born. That means some women could have to give birth to stillborn babies.
The law has been assailed by abortion-rights advocates and civil-rights groups, who say it violates Supreme Court precedent and will cause wanton emotional damage to mothers.
Here, a guide to what has been described as the “most extreme” abortion ban in America
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Judge blocks closing of lone Mississippi abortion clinic
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Sunday that will block the enforcement of a Mississippi law that could close the state’s only abortion clinic. Under the law, an abortion provider must not only be an OB-GYN but also have privileges, which can be difficult to obtain, to admit patients to a local hospital. The state’s only abortion clinic, which often relies on doctors who travel in from other states, contends the law is designed to close it down. The judge has set a date for a hearing on July 11 to determine if the block should be more long term.
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The most astonishing birth video ever… captured by MRI: Well, “this is not your average birth video,” says Katie Moisse at ABC News. Using a technique called cinematic MRI — stringing together still images from a magnetic resonance imaging scanner to form a video — German researchers have created the first-ever film of a live birth from the inside.
The team at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital had a 24-year-old mother complete her labor in a specially designed open MRI machine, capturing a side view of the baby emerging from the birth canal as the mother has her final contractions. They stopped the loud MRI machine as the baby’s head emerged, so as not to harm the newborn’s ears. The labor was recorded in 2010, but the video was just released in tandem with the publication of their study in the June issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
(Source: theweek.com)
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It’s only fair that men share the responsibility of using a hormone-based birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Now, new research has brought that possibility just a littler bit closer to reality. A study by researchers at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center shows that a sperm-inhibiting gel has been shown to significantly reduce men’s reproductive abilities, thereby lowering the risk of impregnation.
The gel, which would likely be applied using a patch, uses two types of hormones: sperm-inhibiting testosterone and a synthetic chemical called progestin, which amplifies testosterone’s ability to turn off reproductive hormones. The two have been used together before in pill, implant, and shot form, but progestin was shown to have side effects like acne breakouts and fluctuations in cholesterol level, says Thomas H. Maugh II at the Los Angeles Times. In this study, researchers used a progestin synthetic called Nestorone, which supposedly doesn’t cause any such side effects.
But how effective is this potential birth control for men?
(Source: theweek.com)
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![According to a new Norwegian study that looked at 2,206 new mothers, those who were afraid of childbirth spent 1 hour and 32 minutes longer in labor than women who say they weren’t afraid.
GOOD DAY FOR:
Blue IvyA Croatian town grants honorary citizenship to Jay-Z and Beyonce’s world-famous daughter, who is supposedly named after a blue-ivy-covered tree that the power couple spotted while vacationing there. [TIME]
The kindness of strangersDid you hear about the New York City baby who was blown by a gust of wind onto the subway tracks? Turns out the baby’s savior is an unemployed man who missed his job interview by taking time to be heroic. [New York]
The coming of the singularityJapanese researchers create a robot that is undefeated at “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” [HyperVocal]
BAD DAY FOR:
Warding off vampiresCops in Austria nab Romanians who allegedly tried to leave the country with 9.5 tons of stolen garlic worth $37,500. [Newser]
VisualizationA new study finds that women who are afraid to give birth are more likely to experience longer labors. [Jezebel]
Taking the plungeAn entire wedding party falls into a Michigan lake when the dock they are standing on during a photo session collapses. [The Daily What]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6aq10iCah1qdjbb7o1_250.png)
According to a new Norwegian study that looked at 2,206 new mothers, those who were afraid of childbirth spent 1 hour and 32 minutes longer in labor than women who say they weren’t afraid.
GOOD DAY FOR:
Blue Ivy
A Croatian town grants honorary citizenship to Jay-Z and Beyonce’s world-famous daughter, who is supposedly named after a blue-ivy-covered tree that the power couple spotted while vacationing there. [TIME]The kindness of strangers
Did you hear about the New York City baby who was blown by a gust of wind onto the subway tracks? Turns out the baby’s savior is an unemployed man who missed his job interview by taking time to be heroic. [New York]The coming of the singularity
Japanese researchers create a robot that is undefeated at “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” [HyperVocal]BAD DAY FOR:
Warding off vampires
Cops in Austria nab Romanians who allegedly tried to leave the country with 9.5 tons of stolen garlic worth $37,500. [Newser]Visualization
A new study finds that women who are afraid to give birth are more likely to experience longer labors. [Jezebel]Taking the plunge
An entire wedding party falls into a Michigan lake when the dock they are standing on during a photo session collapses. [The Daily What](Source: theweek.com)
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Many women may be putting too much faith in birth control pills and condoms. Nearly half of the women questioned in a new study, published in theAmerican Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, thought these methods were better at preventing pregnancy than they really are. Just how far off were they? Here, a look at misconceptions about contraceptives, by the numbers:
9
Annual pregnancy rate for women who take birth control pills, but fail to take them every day as directedLess than 1
Annual pregnancy rate for women who take the pill as directed18 to 21
Annual pregnancy rate for women who use condoms
45
Percentage of women in the new study who overestimated the effectiveness of the pill and condoms
0.8
Percentage of women using an IUD who have an unplanned pregnancy in a given year
0.05
Percentage who have an unplanned pregnancy within a year despite the use of a contraceptive implant
6
High-end estimate, in percent, of women in the U.S. who use either an IUD or a contraceptive implant, the most effective birth-control methods
71
Percentage of the 4,144 St. Louis-area women in the study who said they would have chosen an IUD or implant if they had received adequate counseling on their options
50
Rough monthly maximum cost, in dollars, of birth control pills
800
Up-front cost, in dollars, of an IUD, which should remain effective for 10 years
400 to 800
Cost range, in dollars, for an Implanon contraceptive implant -
The burning birth-control controversies boil down to two seemingly simple questions: How much does contraception cost, and who should pay for it? As the hubbub over Rush Limbaugh and his advertisers rages on, here’s a look at some numbers that factor into the true cost of contraception:
$9 → Monthly cost of some brand-name versions of the pill ($108 a year)
6.7 million → Pregnancies in the U.S. each year
3.2 million → Unintended pregnancies in the U.S. each year
$11.1 billion → Public funds spent on the births of unintended babies in 2006
$7 billion → Amount Medicaid and other government programs saved in 2008 by investing $1.9 billion in family planning centers
99 → Percent of women age 15-44 who’ve had sex and used contraception at some point
