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The attacks continue on women’s rights in the U.S., through massive cuts and restrictions in health programs.

Texas has been forging ahead on this front, but many other states are also seeking ways to restrict women’s access to health care. Meanwhile, a pro-choice Federal Republican Representative is trying to reverse some of that damage with a new proposed bill in Congress.

Read more:

In Planned Parenthood vs. Texas, Judicial Whiplash Ensues

Proposal to Help Women’s Health

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Some food for thought from Our Bodies, Our Blog, on what mothers really want for Mother's Day...

"My favorite Mother’s day gifts from my sons were their original stories, songs and poems. But what I needed when they were infants and toddlers was something children can’t deliver: affordable time off when they were born and when they were sick...."

Read What Mothers Really Want: Right to Care for Family Members and Selves

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In the Bioethics Forum May 1^st, Canadian bioethicist Françoise Baylis writes:

“Despite the clear legal prohibitions and the serious legal penalties, the business of buying and selling reproductive tissues and services in Canada is robust, with thousands of dollars changing hands per transaction and no arrests being made. For example, it is reported that the price for eggs ranges from 3,000 to 7,000 Canadian dollars, while the total bill for contract pregnancy can be as much as 100,000 Canadian dollars.”

Read her whole piece in Bioethics Forum.

Read more commentary by Baylis about the demise of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada in A mixed-bag budget.

And there is more on this issue in the Winnipeg Free Press, Fertile ground for controversy: Agency closure highlights murky world of assisted human reproduction in Canada.

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A piece in this week’s Maclean’s magazine by Anne Kingston talks about how women have been largely excluded from medical research, and why women should be “outraged” about this.

CWHN has been working to close this “gender gap” for almost two decades.

The article quotes Abby Lippman, the former longtime chair of CWHN’s board, as well as Barbara Mintzes, a researcher who was integral to the work of Women and Health Protection whose work we have often promoted.

Read Medicine’s Deadly Gender Gap.

This week CWHN’s Executive Director Anne Rochon Ford sent a submission to Health Canada about the inclusion of women in clinical trials. This submission is a response to Health Canada’s Draft Guidance Document on the Inclusion of Women in Clinical Trials that was discussed in the Maclean’s article.

Read her submission below.

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Much overage is being given recently to Motion 312, which is being introduced by Federal Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth. Motion-312 asks Parliament to examine the current definition of “human being” in the Criminal Code to decide whether it should include fetuses. The goal of the motion is to give legal protection to fetuses.

Read about this motion, and the coverage being given to it in the past few weeks. The motion is mobilizing pro-choice supporters across the country.

And here’s a more recent story in the Winnipeg Free Press.

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The recent Health Canada cuts to funding for women’s health in our country have received attention not only throughout Canada but also south of the border.

Today’s Our Bodies, Our Blog gives a good overview of the funding cuts to CWHN, le Réseau québécois d’action pour la santé des femmes, and four centres of excellence in women’s health across Canada that were announced in April.

Read Canadian Funding of Women’s Health Research Cut.

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Another Aboriginal women’s organization in Canada has lost its health funding as part of the recent federal budget cuts. Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada learned in April that its Health Canada funding will no longer be.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada also lost its health funding.

Read the April 16 press release from Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada.

Read the press release from the National Aboriginal Council of Midwives.

Read the story about these cuts on CBC.

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*Federal government to eliminate funding for the National Centre for First Nations Governance, the only organization in Canada dedicated solely to addressing First Nations governance. *

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

Ottawa, April 16, 2012 - Federal funding for the National Centre for First Nations Governance (NCFNG) has been cut by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. The Centre will no longer offer its popular nation rebuilding services and will close it doors by March 31, 2013.
 
"I am shocked and truly saddened by this decision. This government is making a grave mistake in eliminating the only institution that works directly with First Nations leaders, managers, youth, elders and citizens, supporting them as they rebuild their own systems of self-determining governance. We are here to help our communities move beyond the Indian Act, restore economic prosperity and close the gap in living conditions between First Nations people and other Canadians. Demand for our work has been
incredible." said Satsan, (Herb George), President, NCFNG.
 
The NCFNG offers innovative nation rebuilding services and has engaged over 300 First Nations across Canada in its short six year time frame. The Centre provides First Nations leaders and administrators with hands-on tools for fully engaging their citizens and taking responsibility for their future. With help from NCFNG, First Nations begin developing their own self-determining governance that moves them beyond the confines of the Indian Act to make real and lasting change for themselves.
 
At the January 24, 2012 First Nation/Crown Gathering, Prime Minister Harper compared the Indian Act to a tree with deep roots and identified that he has no plans to repeal or re-write the Indian Act.
 
Satsan stated, "This government's policy is to perpetuate the Indian Act and protect the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Neither instrument is capable of governing First Nations. Canadians are far too familiar with the many examples of how the Act and the Department perpetually fails First Nations. This government's decision is to maintain the Indian Act in an attempt to keep First Nations people on Crown reserves and separated from their lands, so that they can move ahead with resource extraction,
development and exportation. "
 
The National Centre for First Nations Governance has provided its work to thousands of First Nations citizens across Canada; work that is supported by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, Canada's Constitution, many Supreme Court decisions and the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
 
"For six years, the Centre has delivered services that inspire hope," commented Satsan, "services that inspire our people to restore their nations, create their own laws, raise their own revenues, take their
rightful place on their lands and build a positive new relationship that benefits all Canadians. Hope is a powerful force and hundreds of First Nations now recognize that they have the inherent and very human right to govern themselves and build real, self-determining communities."
 
The National Centre for First Nations Governance is a non-profit organization staffed and governed by experienced Aboriginal professionals. In existence for six years, the Centre operates independently of the
federal government and First Nation political organizations. Visit www.fngovernance.org to learn more about the Centre and it work with First Nations.
 
For more information, contact Brenna Latimer, Communications Officer at
778.835.0703, blatimer@fngovernance.org

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The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) has responded with strong words to the news this week that their health funding has been cut off by Health Canada.

They issued this press release yesterday:

Native Women’s Association of Canada Responds to Cuts to Health Projects

Ottawa, ON (April 13, 2012)--The Health Department of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) is extremely distressed and concerned over Health Canada’s decision to cut all funding for projects aimed at improving the health of Aboriginal women in Canada.  Few people in the world are in greater need of human rights protection than Indigenous peoples.  Although governments have a duty and responsibility to ensure the welfare and safety of all their citizens, Indigenous peoples are often the target of policies designed to erode or suppress their rights and distinct cultural identities.  Canada is no exception!

NWAC has worked tirelessly for more than 30 years to address shameful inequities that continue to plague Aboriginal women’s health in Canada.  Aboriginal women are the least healthy and suffer the greatest chronic health conditions than any other segment of Canadian society.   The burden of ill health affects them as individuals, their families, communities and the health system as a whole.  However, Aboriginal women lag far behind the rest of the Canadian population in both of these areas.

Health Canada has advised NWAC today that it will not support its national innovative health programs or policy work, some of which have been held up as “best practices” in health, in order to preserve direct services to First Nations living on reserve only. Currently the vast majority of Aboriginal women (more than 70%) do not live on reserves, rather in rural and urban centers. This budget shows that for the most part, Aboriginal women’s health is not a priority for this Government.

Aboriginal women raise their families most often single handedly and in poverty situations (over 40% of Aboriginal women live in poverty). Further, it is well known that Aboriginal women carry the burden of ill health and have the highest rates of chronic disease. They experience unacceptably high levels of violence and abuse, Aboriginal women are newly diagnosed with HIV at over three times the rate of their non-Aboriginal counterparts, have atrocious disparities in suicide rates, and live on average almost six years less that non Aboriginal women. 

Yes, more is needed to help local communities struggling with health disparities, but cutting the head off the national voice for Aboriginal women’s health shows a lack of commitment to address the issues that affect the most marginalized population in this country -- a country that is envied by many other nations across the globe for its ‘great’ health care system and quality of life.

“NWAC is calling on the public to demand that the Federal Government of Canada re-think its choices and give Canadians the information they need to understand the impacts of this budget and re-think this devastating decision. Today’s cuts to Aboriginal health and well-being will be tomorrow’s burden.” says Native Women’s Association of Canada’s President, Jeannette Corbiere Lavell.

-30-

For more information contact:
Claudette Dumont Smith
Executive Director
Native Women’s Association of Canada
Tel: (613) 722-3033 ext. 223 Toll Free: 1-800-461-4043

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Health Canada announced last week that it is eliminating funding to NAHO, which has existed for the past 12 years.

Read NAHO’s press release.

Read André Picard’s commentary of April 9 on the elimination of NAHO and implications for Aboriginal health in Canada, in the Globe and Mail.

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The Medical Reform Group in Ontario, a group of  group of licensed Canadian medical doctors, has launched a campaign called Doctors for Fair Taxation. They believe that government revenues should be increased through taxes in “a fair fashion to protect needed public services and reduce government deficits and debt.”

They are calling for four new Federal and Ontario income tax brackets at $100,000, $170,000, $640,000 and $1,850,000 corresponding to the top 10%, 1%, one tenth of one percent, and one hundredth of one percent of taxpayers. They estimate that these new tax brackets would raise approximately $3.5 billion in new revenue for the federal government and $1.7 billion for the Ontario government.

Read their press release here.

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CBC reported recently on a research project being carried out by Jim Brophy and Margaret Keith through a project of the National Network on Environments and Women's Health (NNEWH).

Brophy and Keith are trying to find out how breast cancer may be caused by exposure to carcinogens in the workplace, part of their ongoing effort to raise concern about on-the-job exposures to toxic substances. They are trying to learn more about why more breast cancers are occurring now in industrialized countries.

This article is the second in a three-part series, Exposed: On the Job, about cancer-causing agents in the workplace

Read Work-related carcinogens need more scrutiny.

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Women in Ontario will soon have the oppportunity to give birth in a midwifery-led birth centre. The Ontario government announced a pilot project of two new birth centres this week, a development that was celebrated by the Association of Ontario Midwives, which represents 550 registered midwives.

The announcement came after more than 10,000 supporters sent the Liberal government messages advocating for midwifery-led birth centres, and hundreds of others used Facebook and Twitter to promote the benefits of birth centres on the AOM's Social Media Day of Action, February 29.

Read more about in the AOM press release.

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A new study is making waves in environmental health. Hormones and Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: Low-Dose Effects and Nonmonotonic Dose Responses, published this month in Endocrine Reviews, supports what many scientists have been saying for several years: that even very low doses of chemicals can have an impact on human health by disrupting our endocrine systems.

Read about the report and its implications: Scientists Warn of Low-Dose Risks of Chemical Exposure (Environment 360).

To learn about how endocrine-disrupting chemicals can particularly affect women, see the recent report by the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health (NNEWH): Sex, Gender and Chemicals: Factoring Women into Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan.

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This month the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released its Alternative Federal Budget 2012: A Budget for the Rest of Us.

This year’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) talks about investment in public programs, job creation, and infrastructure that would  benefit all Canadians and still balance the books.

The CCPA’s budget has a significant portion focussing on health and the health care system and the effects of poverty on health, noting that, “Greater investment in the determinants of health can also produce healthier citizens, more able to contribute to their maximum potential.”

The AFB also talks about how women are still lagging behind men economically, and how gender-based violence has significant negative impacts on the economy.

Here are some of the comments on how women and girls fare in Canada: 

“The Canadian gender pay gap is now the fifth-largest among twenty-two OECD countries. In Canada, women with full-time jobs earn 23% less than men.”

“The World Health Organization and other national health agencies, including Health Canada and the Centers for Disease Control have demonstrated that gender-based violence has a significant negative impact on the economy.” 

“Canada cannot afford to leave women out of its recovery strategy. Nor can the budget fail to address the shameful levels of violence and poverty experienced by women and girls in Canada because they are women and girls.”

The complete budget document and two-page summary are available on CCPA’s website in both English and French.

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This week saw freedom of speech censored across America over the issue of abortion rights. Gary Trudeau’s comic strip Doonesbury deals this week with the Texas’ new legislation that forces women seeking an abortion to first undergo a transvaginal ultrasound. The column also refers to the fact that Rush Limbaugh last week called a law student at Georgetown University who testified before the congressional committee on birth control a “slut”. 

Not to have dealt with these issues would have amounted to “comedy malpractice”, Trudeau has said. 

Several newspapers have pulled the column.

Read about this censorship, and about the issue of enforced transvaginal ultrasound and other attacks on reproductive freedom, in this week’s Our Bodies, Our Blog: Doonesbury Starts Week-Long Abortion Storyline.

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Every year in Canada, thousands of idealistic young women volunteer for a medical procedure that will stimulate their ovaries to produce eggs. Their eggs are then surgically harvested for use by infertile couples desperate for a baby. Although it is illegal in Canada to pay for human eggs, there is a thriving black market. Also, there are no regulations governing the care these young women receive during this procedure. Sometimes, things go terribly wrong. Freelance science journalist Alison Motluk follows the stories of several young women who became egg donors.

This documentary was partly funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). It first aired Feb 19/12, The Sunday Edition, CBC Radio.

Listen to it online on CBC.

Alison is still interviewing women who have donated in Canada. Any donors who would like to share their stories can contact her directly at alison@motluk.com or at egg.donor.story@gmail.com

Alison has written & broadcast previously about donor conception, including:
* The  Human Egg Trade (April/10. The Walrus)
* The anonymous donor dilemma: To google or not to google? (Apr 18/10. Globe
& Mail)
* Canadian court bans anonymous sperm and egg donation (May 27/11, Nature)
* Brave New Family (2 hour documentary re sperm donation. Oct/07, CBC Radio)
* From Here to Maternity (2 hour documentary re egg donation. Jun/09, CBC
Radio )

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Nisha Lewis, Marketing & Media Relations Supervisor at Girl Guides of Canada shares her thoughts on this year's theme on the Nataional Easting Disorders Information Centre (NEDIC) blog.

See her post at: www.nedic.ca/blog

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The UNCSW is in session from February 27^thto March 9^th,, in New York City.

The session has gathered representatives from Member States, UN entities, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from around the world.  The priority theme under consideration for 2012 is: “The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges.”

More details on the 56th session can be found on their website.

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February 6 was International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a UN-sponsored day dedicated to raising awareness of the thousands year-old practice whereby a girl or woman’s genitals are cut.

Read about how community organizing is working to end the practice in Senegal, and also how widespread media attention on the issue is helping those efforts around the world, in Reproductive Health Reality Check.

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This has been a wild - and eye-opening - few days in the women's health movement in America, and for those of us watching from afar.

First, Susan G. Komen for the Cure (premier organizer in the US of pink ribbon campaigns for breast cancer) withdrew its funding for Planned Parenthood (which offers breast cancer services) without fully explaining why, although anti-abortion forces that support Komen are strongly suspected, as are other political motivations. A blog post on Our Bodies Ourselves yesterday (Feb. 2) saw the roots of Komen's decision in "pressure from anti-abortion activists who refuse to acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s delivery of vital health care services."

When news of Komen's decision got out, there was a massive outcry via social media.

Today, Komen reversed its decision, still not fully explaining why an organization supposedly devoted to women's health would defund another organization devoted to women's health.

One thing that's clear in this chain of events is the incredible power of social media in mobilizing for change, and how the women's movement should well be paying attention to and remembering how these days have just played out.

Read some of the commentary so far:

6 Things You Need To Know About the Komen Foundation/Planned Parenthood Controversy (Alternet) 

Now, About Planned Parenthood and the Bishops … (Our Bodies, Ourselves)

Healthy Barbs (Barbara Brenner's blog)

Komen executive Karen Handel, who drove the decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, has resigned (Huffingont Post).

The War on Women’s Health Care: Judy Norsigian Joins Discussion on Influence of Conservative Groups

Susan G. Komen is also in the spotlight in Canada this week, as the riveting documentary Pink Ribbons Inc. has just been released today in major cites across the country.

Pink Ribbons, Inc. looks at how the breast cancer movement has moved from activism to consumerism and challenges viewers to rethink their assumptions about the meaning of breast cancer in our society.

View the trailer at www.nfb.ca/pink

"Pink Ribbons, Inc. resoundingly pops the shiny pink balloon of the breast cancer movement." Variety
"...a powerful film... fascinating and thoughtful." - Montreal Gazette

Directed by Léa Pool
Produced by Ravida Din
Written by Patricia Kearns & Nancy Guerin and Léa Pool
Inspired by the book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the
Politics of Philanthropy by Samantha King

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Last week a Boston court set a major precedent in the US, ruling in favour of of 53 women who said their breast cancers were caused by the anti-miscarriage drug diethylstilbestrol (DES).

Between 1940 and 1971 DES was prescribed to millions of women in Canada, France, The Netherlands, United States and Great Britain.  In Canada between 200,000 and 400,000 women were given DES.

Read about in this recent court decision in DES Action’s (US) press release below.

To learn about what is known to date of the medical problems for DES Daughters, see the article below from the US National Institutes of Health in October 2011.

Read about this case in the Boston Globe: Judge rules DES-breast cancer case can move forward

For more information about the effects of DES, see DES Action (US)

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An editorial in this week’s Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) has opened the debate on selective abortion of female fetuses, and how much this is happening in Canada.

Rajendra Kale, interim editor of the CMAJ, called for a ban on disclosing the sex of a fetus until 30 weeks, a point at which abortions are difficult to obtain. His editorial cited research that suggests some Asian immigrants are aborting unwanted females.

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, on the other hand, has countered that “Dr. Kale’s proposal is inconsistent with the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada’s policy statement which states that “a patient’s request for disclosure should be respected, either directly or in a report to the referring health professional”.”

Read more about it here:

“It’s a girl!”— could be a death sentence (CMAJ)

Sex selection migrates to Canada (CMAJ)

Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (see 17 January Media update on their home page)

Bid to curb female feticide pushes hot buttons of abortion and culture (Globe and Mail)

Selective abortions prompt call for ultrasound rules (CBC)

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“We used to march in the streets: now you’re supposed to run for a cure, or walk for a cure, or jump for a cure, or whatever it is . . . the effect of the whole pink ribbon culture was to drain and deflect the kind of militancy we had as women who were appalled to have a disease that is epidemic and yet that we don’t even know the cause of.” – Barbara Ehrenreich.

Pink Ribbons, Inc., a feature documentary directed by Léa Pool and produced and executive produced by Ravida Din, looks at how the breast cancer movement has moved from activism to consumerism and challenges viewers to rethink their assumptions about the meaning of breast cancer in our society.

The National Film Board of Canada with the cooperation of the Windsor International Film Festival will present Pink Ribbons Inc. at:

Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 7pm
Capitol Theatre, 121 University Ave, Windsor, ON
Film screening at 7pm - Discussion and reception to follow

Invited respondents:
Patricia Noonan - Lori Dupont Inquest Action Group
Natalie Gierman - Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation - Ontario Region
Patricia Kearns - Breast Cancer Action Montreal

Read more about the event here: Link between work and breast cancer focus of Windsor conference (Windsor Star).

For additional information on the event, please contact National Network on Environments and Women’s Health (NNEWH) at nnewh1@yorku.ca or Margaret Keith and Jim Brophy at 519-735-2944.

For more information on the film, visit Windsor Film Festival.

View the trailer at www.nfb.ca/pink

"Pink Ribbons, Inc. resoundingly pops the shiny pink balloon of the breast cancer movement." Variety
"...a powerful film... fascinating and thoughtful." - Montreal Gazette

Directed by Léa Pool
Produced by Ravida Din
Written by Patricia Kearns & Nancy Guerin and Léa Pool
Inspired by the book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the
Politics of Philanthropy by Samantha King

PINK RIBBONS INC. will be opening at other theatres in Canada starting February 3.

CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATRES NEAR YOU

Barrie / Calgary / Concord / Edmonton / Halifax / Kamloops / Kelowna /
Kingston / Laval

Medicine Hat / Montreal / Nanaimo / Oakville / Orleans / Ottawa - Feb
17 / Québec City

Saskatoon / Scarborough / Sherbrooke / Sudbury / Toronto / Vancouver /
Victoria / Waterloo / Winnipeg / with more to come...

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Two new reports on the future of Canada`s health care system lack a gender-analysis, which is concerning since these reports have the potential to have a powerful impact on policy-making. Both reports were released in time to coincide with the Council of the Federation, the meeting January 16-17 in British Columbia at which Canada’s premiers are discussing the future of health and health care in our country.

Last week the Health Action Lobby (HEAL) released Functional Federalism and the Future of Medicare in Canada - A Report to the Health Action Lobby (pdf). This report is a response to concerns about quality, access and the sustainability of Canada’s health and health care systems, an attempt to spark the public discussions needed as the 2003 First Ministers’ Accord on Health Care Renewal, and 2004 First Ministers’ 10-­year Plan to Strengthen Health Care come to an end in the Spring 2014. The HEAL report has scant sex- or gender analysis, looking only at the differences in body-weight index (BMI) and at couple of differences between Aboriginal women and men.

And while the new report by the Canadian Pediatrics Society, Are We Doing Enough? A status report on Canadian public policy and child and youth health (pdf) talks about action on child poverty as an important issue in child health, the lack of mention of women is odd, considering that the poverty of single parent households headed by women is a major reason for child poverty.

The omission of a sex-and gender analysis in these reports speaks to the need for greater awareness of SGBA and why it is necessary. For more information and excellent resources on why sex and gender matter in health research, policy-making and practice, see our primer Sex and Gender-Based Analysis (SGBA).