Things on random bits of paper about which I've been meaning to blog:

Should the current anti-choice trend continue, further limiting access to abortion providers, especially in the south, it is a very real possibility that Maryland and New Mexico would become the closest states to Georgia with ready access to an abortion provider. At their weekly executive meeting at the Feminist Women's Health Center staffers discuss worst case scenarios like this and attempt to plan for the future.

87% of US counties do not have an abortion provider.

in 2003 only 12% of OB/Gyn programs required training for first trimester abortions.

abortion is a safer surgical procedure than an appendectomy (generally regarded as the safest surgical procedure), yet doctors who perform abortion pay among the highest rates of malpractice insurance.

abortion actually has a lower fatality rate than giving birth. not that that should in any way be a reason to have one, but crap about abortion being a dangerous procedure, and rhetoric claiming that poor underage girls have no idea about the risks they're taking are complete and total bullshit.

in 1927 the US Supreme Court upheld the sterilization of Carrie Bell, claiming she was feeble minded and promiscuous, due to an illegitimate child (it later turned out that her pregnancy was caused by the nephew of her adopted family raping her). way to go eugenics!

The United States sterilized 64,000 individuals against their will between 1900 and the 1970s. In fact, we thought of compulsory sterilization programs first, started them way before the Nazis, and continued throughout WWII.

Although google can't seem to locate any useful references, during a public health law seminar a few weeks ago a speaker said that the "Fit to Fight" campaign during World War I, aimed at reducing the incidence of venereal disease in soldiers, resulted in women being detained in federally funded centers, against their will.