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MENSTRUATION
Menstrual Blood: A Potential Biological Gold Mine?
What: Maddie Oatman has a deep dive for Mother Jones into the world of companies looking to both understand and profit from period blood. Or as she put it, the “small but growing wave of companies and research initiatives doing something that science and medicine have neglected for thousands of years: treating menstrual blood not as a waste product, but as an important trove of information about the bodies it comes from.”
Why it matters: “But one response from an anonymous peer reviewer at a prominent international science journal stopped Marinaro in her tracks: The reviewer rejected the article based on the ‘severe undesirable and toxic effects of menstrual blood and all its constituents on the human body,’ they wrote. ‘Even in all religions, it is well known that menstrual blood and its stem cells are extremely toxic and of very low quality,’ the reviewer continued, going on to suggest that women in some cultures use drops of menstrual blood to kill their husbands.”
Source: Mother Jones
BIRTH CONTROL
Birth Control Drops in Abortion Ban States
What: A study found a more than 5% drop in birth control prescriptions in states with the strictest abortion bans, likely because “the bans led abortion clinics in those states — facilities where many women accessed birth control prescriptions — to close.”
Why it matters: Birth control is now available over the counter from some pharmacy chains, but reducing access to birth control while also restricting abortion is a recipe for more unwanted children.
Source: NBC
Some Planned Parenthoods Start Offering IUD Sedation
What: The Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts became one of the first providers in the country to offer sedation for IUD implementation procedures. Patients will have “the option of IV sedation at its health centers throughout the state. PPLM previously offered a local anesthetic for the procedure.”
Why it matters: “’It’s a really important advance,’ said Kathy Simmonds, a reproductive health expert and clinical professor of nursing at Northeastern University. ‘The analogy you can think of is childbirth and having people being able to choose what type of birth they want. There are people who want a birth with no medications and there are people who want an epidural. It’s about people having control over their own bodies. They know themselves best. That’s the ethos that we need to approach this with.’”
Source: Northeastern University
ABORTION ACCESS
Trump: Abortion Bans Have ‘Been a Great Thing’
What: President Joe Biden and Donald Trump had their first (and possibly only) presidential debate tonight, and abortion was an early topic. Nothing new came out of the questions – Trump offered nonsensical lines about the Supreme Court “approving” the abortion pill, and how he agreed with that. (The Supreme Court actually just said the people who sued over the abortion pill didn’t have standing.) The former president said he wouldn’t ban mifepristone, but didn’t explain why the Heritage Foundation, who is backing Trump and staffed with people likely to work in his administration, calls for that in its Project 2025 manifesto.
Why it matters: Here’s how Trump concluded about abortion: “What happened is we brought it back to the states, and the country is now coming together on this issue. It’s been a great thing.” And in one of his few good lines of the night, Biden said in response: “It’s been a terrible thing.”
Source: Axios
Supreme Court Says They’ll Figure Out Emergency Abortions Maybe Next Year
What: The Supreme Court made it official today—they allowed emergency abortions to resume in Idaho, but “had not ruled to broadly affirm EMTALA protections for abortion care, leaving patients who face pregnancy complications in limbo, unsure what kind of care to expect at hospitals in states with strict antiabortion laws.”
Why it matters: More women will suffer unnecessarily and could die with emergency pregnancy complications in abortion ban states.
Source: Washington Post
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