recent posts
- Channeling Collective Fury into Fat Justice Is the Transformational Power We Need: Part 2
- Channeling Collective Fury into Fat Justice Is the Transformational Power We Need: Part 1
- Our Dizzying, Repeating Cycles of Cultural Amnesia Around Sex Ed: Part 2
- Our Dizzying, Repeating Cycles of Cultural Amnesia Around Sex Ed: Part 1
- We’ll Be Hiding from the Rainfall for These Beacon Beach Reads
about
Category: Public Health, Medicine, and Science
-
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a pregnant woman from averting her eyes from the ultrasound images required to be provided to and reviewed with her.” This is the “good news” of an egregious law recently passed in Oklahoma making ultrasounds mandatory for abortion patients. But though I read the law carefully…
-
I am standing in the exam room, in the Women’s Health Center, listening to the rapid heartbeat of a four-month-old fetus on a Doppler. The patient, Carey McDonald, 17, a slim blond cheerleader, is alone today. Sometimes her mother, a single waitress, comes with her. The father of the baby, a star football player on…
-
I’m reminded of that now in the weeks since the Palin nomination–weeks when apparently even so-called liberal women with “special” children have to remind themselves of their political affiliation because of what I see as their weird identification with Ms. Palin, and Trig, her now-famous Down’s syndrome son, displayed like a new brooch at the…
-
In the run-up to tonight’s Vice Presidential debate, which will be hosted by Gwen Ifill, we’re seeing an slight uptick in traffic from conservative blogs linking to her cousin Sherrilyn Ifill’s post on The Relevance of Nooses and Lynching in the Age of Obama. For those of you who clicked through to read the entire…
-
Next Thursday, September 25th, is the cut-off date for public comments on the Department of Health and Human Services’ proposed regulations concerning the expansion of the so-called “conscience clause” of the 2004 Weldon Amendment, which would ban federal funds from medical establishments that “discriminate” against health care providers or institutions by requiring them to participate…
-
As the mother of young adult with mental retardation, nothing should make me happier than a candidate for vice president vowing that my daughter would at last have a “friend and advocate in the White House.” Instead, I find myself more concerned than ever about the fate of children and adults with disabilities.
-
Michael Phelps didn’t need drugs to ‘fly into Olympic history. And at the tender age of 11 he decided he didn’t need them to negotiate his way through school. Growing up in what by several accounts was an authoritarian household—his father was a state trooper and in an interview in the New York Times his…
-
East German shot putter Heidi Krieger thought she was taking vitamins, but later discovered, as her body began to masculinize, that she was being given the anabolic steroid Oral-Turinabol, a drug that, according to the article, “changed a woman into a man.” As Krieger continued on the steroids, she noted changes not only in her…
-
Fans of Jewish folklore are familiar with tales from the town of Chelm, the legendary center of foolishness. Chelm’s citizens unfailingly choose actions guaranteed to achieve the opposite of what was desired. The children need more milk? Buy a billy goat! The synagogue needs a new roof? Build a new floor! There has been much…
-
Trans people aren’t broken. We aren’t looking to be “fixed,” and we have no need of a repairman. We have spent decades trying to convince the Western world of this, and forgive us if some in our ranks were starting to feel a little optimistic about our progress – until, maybe, now.
Beacon Broadside 