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EVERYTHING
JD Vance Championed Report to ‘Restrict Sexual and Reproductive Freedoms’
What: Before Project 2025, there was a 2017 report from the Heritage Foundation that “proposed a sweeping conservative agenda to restrict sexual and reproductive freedoms and remake American families.” The person who wrote the introduction for the report and called it “admirable”? Republican VP nominee JD Vance.
Why it matters: “Taken together, the pieces in the report amount to an effort to instruct Americans on what their families should be, when to grow them and the best way to raise their children. Authors argued in the 2017 report that women should become pregnant at younger ages and that a two-parent, heterosexual household was the “ideal” environment for children. …One of the essays takes a deeply skeptical view of in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments, arguing that they cause women to be ‘lured into the belief that they can have children whenever they are finally ready.’ The piece casts women as turning to fertility treatments as ‘magic pills’ to delay motherhood for professional advancement rather than as expensive last resorts for couples desperate to have a child. It also refers to egg-freezing, the medical procedure through which eggs are harvested, frozen and stored for later use, as a ‘scheme.’”
Source: New York Times
Extreme Heat Affects Older Women Faster
What: A study at Penn State had participants swallow a pill with a thermometer that measured their core temperature, and then had them get in a chamber and turned up the heat. They found that men and women tolerate heat similarly under age 30, but “found that older women are physiologically more vulnerable to high heat and humidity than older men, and that women between the ages of 40 and 64 are as vulnerable as men 65 years of age or older.”
Why it matters: “In addition to demonstrating that middle-aged and older women are at greater risk from extreme heat, we also identified what levels of heat and humidity are safe for women as they age,” Leach said. “This information is presented as a temperature/humidity curve based on a person’s age, and it can be useful for setting policies designed to keep people safe during a heat wave.”
Source: Penn State
PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM
The Programs Working to Reduce Maternal Mortality
What: The AP has a deep dive on federal, state, and local programs that aim to reduce maternal mortality, especially among women of color, in the United States. Laura Ungar reports on a Healthy Start program in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and California’s statewide “maternal quality care collaborative.”
Why it matters: “Across the nation, programs at all levels of government — federal, state and local — have the same goals to reduce maternal mortality and erase the race gap. None has all the answers, but many are making headway in their communities and paving the way for other places.”
Source: AP
ABORTION ACCESS
States with Strictest Abortion Bans Also Have Fewest Programs to Help Families
What: A study from Northwestern University found that the states with the most restrictive abortion bans also had the fewest public programs and policies, like paid family leave and childcare assistance, for lower-income families: “Based on these factors, Idaho was the least supportive of low-income families. Abortion is illegal in Idaho, except if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest that was reported to the police. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Missouri also provided the weakest aid to families, the study found.”
Why it matters: “’It’s not one thing, it’s across an array of programs they are falling short,’ said Diana Greene Foster, professor in the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved with the research. … Of the states with the strictest abortion bans, none had laws requiring employers to offer paid parental leave after a baby was born.”
Source: NBC
ONCOLOGY
Missing Details on Elle Macpherson’s ‘Holistic’ Recovery
What: Actress Elle Macpherson said she treated breast cancer several years ago with surgery followed by “holistic” remedies instead of chemotherapy, but experts warn that her story is missing crucial information. For example, reports “lack detail about the size of the precancer or the grade of the cells, or other risk factors Macpherson may or may not have had.”
Why it matters: “Vicki Durston, the director of policy, advocacy and support services at Breast Cancer Network Australia, said providing the correct, full context to Macpherson’s treatment and her decisions ‘are so important to get the messaging right to alleviate fears and cut through the noise’. She said media reports ‘are confusing for people that are currently in treatment’ and some were now starting to question their own choices and approach. ‘It’s important that when high-profile figures like Elle Macpherson share their story, they need to understand that their story has enormous impact and reach,’ she said.”
Source: The Guardian
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