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Daily Women's Health Policy Report
Planned Parenthood Files Suit Against Missouri Law That Would Require Abortion Clinics To Upgrade Facilities
Public Health & Education
Women Who Have Precancerous Lesions Removed Have Increased Risk of Developing Cervical, Vaginal Cancer for at Least 25 Years, Study Says
Giuliani's 'Implied' Link Between Increase in Adoptions, Decrease in Abortions 'Unsupportable,' Opinion Piece Says
Political Candidates' Views on Abortion 'Not Especially Important,' Opinion Piece Says
National Politics & Policy
Egypt, Morocco, Palestinian Territories To Join U.S.-Middle East Breast Cancer Partnership, First Lady Bush Says
[Oct 29, 2007]
First lady Laura Bush on Thursday at the King Hussein Cancer Center in Amman, Jordan, announced that Egypt, Morocco and the Palestinian territories will join the U.S.-Middle East Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research, AFP/Yahoo! News reports (AFP/Yahoo! News, 10/25). Bush on Friday completed a six-day tour of the Middle East in an effort to promote breast cancer awareness and treatment. Jordan was the last stop on her tour. She visited Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia during the tour.
The U.S.-Middle East Partnership was organized by the State Department and includes the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The partnership, which Bush announced in June 2006, supports research, training and community outreach efforts, as well as educating women on how to take control of their own health (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 10/25). Jordan also joined the partnership in 2006, according to AFP/Yahoo! News.
Egypt, Morocco and the Palestinian territories will join the partnership next year with $1.5 million in funding from USAID, Bush said. "Women in these countries will benefit from community screening and awareness activities ... leading to early detection," Bush added.
Bush on Thursday while touring the King Hussein Cancer Center also unveiled a model of a breast cancer-screening center, which will be built in western Amman. USAID and the Jordanian Ministry of Health contributed $255,000 to build the center, which is expected to be operational by February 2008, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. The center is the first of its kind in Jordan and will provide comprehensive breast health services, according to a statement (AFP/Yahoo! News, 10/25).
 Fox News Channel's "Fox News Sunday" included a discussion with Bush about the trip (Wallace, "Fox News Sunday," Fox News Channel, 10/28). Video of the segment is available online.
In addition, Fox News' "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" on Monday is scheduled to include a discussion with Bush about the trip ("On the Record with Greta van Susteren" Web site, 10/29). A broadcast schedule is available online. A transcript of the segment will be available online Tuesday.
In The Courts
Planned Parenthood Files Suit Against Missouri Law That Would Require Abortion Clinics To Upgrade Facilities
[Oct 29, 2007]
Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri last week filed a second lawsuit in Jackson County, Mo., asking the court to exclude clinics that offer only medical abortions from a state law (SB 370) designating facilities providing some abortions as "ambulatory surgical centers" to exclude clinics that offer only medical abortions, the AP/Hays Daily News reports. The lawsuit -- which would involve PPKM's Kansas City, Mo., clinic -- argues that it is unreasonable to impose the regulations on facilities that provide women with medications to induce abortions after they have left the facility (Lieb, AP/Hays Daily News, 10/25). Law, Federal Case
The Missouri law, which was scheduled to take effect Aug. 28, would designate facilities performing second- or third-trimester abortions or more than five first-trimester abortions each month as ambulatory surgical centers. Ambulatory surgical centers are subject to increased regulation from the state Department of Health and Senior Services. The law would require hallways at the facilities to be at least six feet wide and doors at least 44 inches wide. The clinics also must have separate male and female changing rooms for staff and a recovery room with space for a minimum of four beds with three feet of clearance around each bed. The health department has said the law requires that three clinics in the state be licensed.
PPKM in August filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the new regulations are unnecessary and are not meant to improve safety, but rather to interfere with a woman's constitutional right to abortion. U.S. District Judge Ortrie Smith in August issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the law. Smith said the law could violate PPKM's constitutional rights if the health department adopts regulations so severe that they posed an undue burden on PPKM. Smith in September issued an order that temporarily blocks enforcement of the law so both sides could negotiate some of the law's provisions (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 9/26). Reaction
"We think that the statute is problematic from both a state and federal perspective, and so we're covering all bases," Peter Brownlie, president and CEO of PPKM, said. Jane Drummond, director of the state health department, said the latest lawsuit likely is an effort to delay legal proceedings and further stall enforcement of the law. Brownlie said that is not the intent of the second lawsuit (AP/Hays Daily News, 10/25).
Public Health & Education
Women Who Have Precancerous Lesions Removed Have Increased Risk of Developing Cervical, Vaginal Cancer for at Least 25 Years, Study Says
[Oct 29, 2007]
Women who have precancerous lesions removed from their cervix are at an increased risk of developing cervical or vaginal cancer during the 25 years after the procedure, according to a study published on Friday in BMJ, Reuters reports.
For the study, Bjorn Strander of Sahlgren's Academy at the University of Gothenburg and colleagues examined records from the National Swedish Cancer Register of more than 132,000 women diagnosed with precancerous lesions from 1958 to 2002. The researchers found 881 women had developed cervical cancer and 111 women had developed vaginal cancer more than one year following their diagnosis, even after they had the lesions removed (Kahn, Reuters, 10/25). According to the researchers, women with cervical lesions were more than twice as likely to develop invasive cancer of the cervix, compared with the general female population. A woman's risk of cancer increased if she was older at the time of diagnosis, particularly among women ages 50 or older, the study found. Women with severe lesions were almost seven times as likely to develop cancer, compared with the general population; however, the risk decreased threefold 25 years after treatment, the study found (AFP/Yahoo! News, 10/25).
The findings underscore the need for follow-up tests to continue for at least 25 years after treatment, Strander said, adding, "This is a warning to the health care system to keep track of these women." The reason the risk remains high has not been investigated, "but there are indications it could be because a lack of surveillance," Strander said, adding, "The risk is quite steady. It does not decrease." In a related BMJ editorial, researchers wrote that the findings show current testing guidelines are not sufficient and that further study is necessary. "One clear indication is that women treated for (severe precancerous lesions) should continue surveillance beyond the age limit of regular screening," the editorial says (Reuters, 10/25).
 The study is available online.
The related editorial also is available online.
Opinion
Giuliani's 'Implied' Link Between Increase in Adoptions, Decrease in Abortions 'Unsupportable,' Opinion Piece Says
[Oct 29, 2007]
The link "implied" by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, between an increase in the number of adoptions and a decrease in abortions in the city is "unsupportable," Cory Richards, senior vice president and vice president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, writes in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece.
According to Richards, Giuliani in a speech last week to social conservatives stated that when he was mayor, New York City "increased adoption by 133% over the eight years before [he] came into office." Guiliani added that the city "found that abortions went down by 18% during that period of time" and that he believes such figures can be achieved nationwide, according to Richards (Richards, Los Angeles Times, 10/29).
Giuliani has also said that adoption rates rose during his eight years as mayor because of tax credits and programs such as adoption fairs and "Adoption Saturdays," which recruited judges to help finalize adoptions on weekends (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 8/7).
The increase in adoptions Giuliani refers to is children in the city's foster care system and "not in the rate at which women were continuing unwanted pregnancies and placing their infants for adoption rather than having abortions," Richards writes. Efforts to facilitate adoptions deserve "strong support," but they do "nothing to affect the abortion rate," Richards writes, adding, "To assert that it does is either ill-informed or simply cynical, and it should stop."
According to Richards, increasing the "rate of completed adoptions ... is irrelevant to the abortion rate," because even if voluntary infant "relinquishments doubled, and each of them represented an averted abortion, it would make hardly a dent in the abortion rate" in the U.S. "Behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy," Richards writes, concluding, "The sooner politicians accept that the only way to meaningfully achieve fewer abortions is to do better in helping women and their partners prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place, the better" (Los Angeles Times, 10/29).
Political Candidates' Views on Abortion 'Not Especially Important,' Opinion Piece Says
[Oct 29, 2007]
Although some voters might "care deeply" about how a candidate views abortion "because that stance is accurately considered an important signifier of the candidate's sensibilities and sympathies, and of his or her notion of sound constitutional reasoning," those views are "not especially important" when it comes to abortion policy Washington Post columnist George Will writes in a Post opinion piece.
According to Will, abortion policy is not determined by political candidates but is "almost entirely in the custody of the U.S. Supreme Court and will remain so unless or until the court" overturns Roe v. Wade -- the 1973 decision that effectively barred state abortion bans. In addition, a "Republican president's alteration of the court's balance" might not result in the overturning of Roe, Will writes.
Will adds that "many, perhaps most, Americans ... think that overturning Roe would make abortion ... illegal everywhere," but "all it actually would do is restore abortion as a practice subject to state regulation." Therefore, if Roe were overturned, states, such as California, whose residents "strongly" support abortion rights likely "would adopt" laws that guarantee access to abortion, according to Will (Will, Washington Post, 10/28).
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