Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Dear Friends of Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma

There’s been a lot in the media lately about Planned Parenthood.  Both on the national and on the state level, you may have heard about initiatives attempting to defund Planned Parenthood.

Let me tell you some things you probably haven’t heard on the news.  For more than 90 years—74 here in central Oklahoma—building healthy communities has been our mission.  Our services include life-saving cancer screenings, birth control, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, breast health care, Pap tests, sexual health information and education, advocacy for rational public policies, and more. 

Every day, we help our patients get the tools they need—in a caring and compassionate way—to help them stay healthy and plan for families when they are ready.  We work every day to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies in Oklahoma and across the country.  Every day we supply women and men the most sophisticated instrument in medicine—accurate information—helping them make important decisions about their health.

We’re dedicated to protecting reproductive health and safety, as well as defending a woman’s reproductive freedom.  And every day we fight for health care funding and access for all.

At Planned Parenthood we treat health care as a basic human right, dispensed confidentially and without judgment—regardless of race, gender, class or age.  Right now, in your community, someone you know will turn to us for birth control, or a breast exam, an STD test, or because they want help talking with their teens about sexuality.  And we’ll be there for them. 

We are there for the one in five women who turn to us at some time in their lives for professional, nonjudgmental and confidential care.  We’re there for those moms and dads who might be uncertain about how to talk with their children about sex.  We’re there to protect teens and encourage them to talk with their parents.  We replace fear with facts, and misinformation with accurate, nonjudgmental information and health education. 

Our clients know they can come see us when they are healthy—just for a check-up.  They are welcome to come see us when they are curious, or scared, or want accurate information.  They can come see us when they are afraid or embarrassed or don’t know where in the world to turn for help.

We’re here, with an open mind, a caring touch and extraordinarily sophisticated tools and expertise.  They know they can rely on Planned Parenthood.

You have made it possible for us to be here for our clients.  Our work continues thanks to you, your support to Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma through good times and bad, in a political environment often deeply inimical to our mission. 

Supporting PPCO will never be more important than it is now.  Stand with us to protect, promote and provide reproductive health choices.

Please make a tax-deductible contribution to Planned Parenthood Central Oklahoma today, your support will help us make a difference for tens of thousands of Oklahoma women, men, teens and families.  Thank you!

Friday, September 23, 2011

The Right’s Latest Anti-Abortion Gimmick: Performing Ultrasounds On Capitol Hill

The Right’s Latest Anti-Abortion Gimmick: Performing Ultrasounds On Capitol Hill: pRadical anti-abortion groups including the Christian Defense Fund have come up with another over-the-top spectacle to try to shame pregnant women and make anti-choice legislators feel self-righteous. This time they’ve chosen Capitol Hill as the venue for the stunt, called “Voices from the Womb,” where the public and all 535 representatives are invited to the [...]/p

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Victory for Oklahoma!

After women and families throughout Oklahoma voiced their strong opposition to a targeted attack on Planned Parenthood that threatened the health of needy infants and children, state lawmakers have allowed the bill to die in committee. At risk were critical food vouchers and nutrition services for the prenatal and pediatric clients that Planned Parenthood serves in Tulsa County. Legislative session formally concludes tomorrow.

The amendment, attached to SB 709, would have defunded Planned Parenthood’s Women Infant and Children (WIC) program in Oklahoma. The amendment applied to 9 organizations, but it was clearly a targeted attack that would have solely excluded Planned Parenthood from being able to provide nutrition vouchers to families participating in its prenatal and pediatric programs.

In opposition to the amendment, the Tulsa World editorial board (May 14, 2011) wrote, Here's the crux of the matter: In kicking Planned Parenthood out of the WIC program, lawmakers won't be punishing Planned Parenthood. They'll be punishing poor women who chose to have their babies and are trying to take care of them.

“We are extremely pleased that legislators in the State Senate and House have decided to end their dangerous political assault on the health of Oklahoma families. It is clear that the people of Oklahoma had no appetite for a bill that would have taken away much-need food vouchers from infants and children,” said Nancy Kachel, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma. “This targeted political attack would have prevented Planned Parenthood from providing critical prenatal and pediatric care to women and children in Tulsa County. Allowing this bill to die has prevented what would have been a devastating impact on thousands of families.”

Earlier this month 150 Planned Parenthood supporters gathered at the Capital to express concern for Oklahoma women and families.

Planned Parenthood in Tulsa County has been committed to helping pregnant women have healthy babies for over 20 years with its prenatal program. They started full pediatrics 15 years ago when women and their families found it difficult to find a physician that had any openings.

Tulsa and surrounding counties’ patients rely on Planned Parenthood for prenatal services and later, full pediatric programs, which include immunizations, early screenings for hearing, vision, speech, physical and social development, and general health care. Planned Parenthood health centers in Tulsa County typically provide about 8,600 prenatal visits, and 5,600 pediatric visits a year.

Funding from the WIC program is critical to achieving healthy outcomes for Planned Parenthood’s prenatal care clients who badly need the nutrition and food vouchers provided by WIC to ensure healthy babies. After birth, WIC staff weighs, measures and tracks babies’ growth, and provide food vouchers to parents for their babies – and their babies’ siblings – to ensure healthy growth and development.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Revenge of the pink wave

Video of our pink wave event last week! Looking good, ladies! Thanks to everyone who showed up to support us!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

My own private Poland

I hope the conservatives here aren't paying attention to what's going on in Poland. It might give them ideas. After all, what's more American than the desire to privatize anything, even abortion? Regulation, safety and women's health just aren't as important as having the moral high ground (and a great opportunity to make money)!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Misery loves company! And we have plenty of both

This link sums up my feelings exactly about the onslaught of anti-choice, anti-woman legislation being brought up in Oklahoma and in other states. Guttmacher estimates there are about 570 proposed bills in 48 states that would restrict abortion. That is a mind-boggling amount. The article correctly notes that this anti-choice sentiment totally ignores the many issues facing the pregnant woman (and, as evidenced by Oklahoman legislation attempting to cut WIC funding, the newborn child). Makes you optimistic for the future, huh?

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Planned Parenthood targeted for defunding in Oklahoma

A recent amendment in the Oklahoma State Legislature was passed in the house which would cut funding for Women, Infants and Children’s (WIC) health programs at 9 Oklahoma Independent WIC Clinics including Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma, Inc. (PPAEO) in Tulsa.

During debate, the focus was STRICTLY FOCUSED ON DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD.

This effort represents an extreme political attack that would have a devastating impact on thousands of Oklahoma families. Our fear is the bill is going back to committee to be amended to zero in on WIC funding for PPAEO only!

WIC is a program that provides women, infants and children free nutrition education and vouchers which can be used to purchase WIC-approved foods. Of the 76,000 visits made in Tulsa County last year by WIC recipients to independent contractor sites, 42,000 of them were to Planned Parenthood sites. Over 9,300 Tulsa County individuals are served by the Planned Parenthood WIC program.

If SB 709 as amended is passed the women, babies and children now receiving nutritional support at the same convenient location they receive their healthcare services will be Oklahoma victims of a larger debate in which they are not involved. They did not have an abortion. They had their babies. They need help in feeding and caring for their babies or they would not qualify for the WIC program.

This sort of discriminatory legislation, striking at the wrong target, serves only to make the Oklahoma legislature, and the state it represents, look extremist, reckless and uncaring for women and children.

Please call your Representative and your Senator today and ask them to vote against SB 709!

Check out these articles from The Huffington Post, care2.com, and the Tulsa World.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Cecile Richards

We're so excited to share that TIME Magazine named Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards as one of the TIME 100, the mag's annual list of the world's 100 most influential people! check out the entry about Cecile, written by Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Friday, April 8, 2011

THIS IS WHO WE ARE!

Every year, Planned Parenthood doctors and nurses provide; nearly one million screenings for cervical cancer, 830,000 breast exams, affordable birth control to nearly 2.5 million patients, nearly four million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV testing.


These are the services that would be affected by the anti-Planned Parenthood rider.

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

It's an outrage to shut down the government over an extreme proposal that would deny millions of women Pap tests, breast cancer screenings and birth control. Attacking Planned Parenthood’s preventive health care hurts women, does not cut the deficit or fix the economy, and must be stopped.

Averting a Government Shutdown? GOP Says Over Your Dead Body. And They Mean It.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

HB 1888 passes the Oklahoma Senate

Sadly, HB 1888 has passed the Oklahoma Senate by a vote of 38 to 8.  Please contact Governor Fallin and ask her to veto this terrible bill.  Why?  See Phil's story below...

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A very personal story: Why the Oklahoma Senate should vote no on HB 1888

Dr. Phil Wood came to Oklahoma City at the last minute to testify against HB 1888.  Although the Senate Public Health Committee voted to pass the bill to a vote of the Senate, Dr. Wood did an outstanding job!

Here is their story:

Thank you for the opportunity to address you about my concerns about this proposed legislation. I have decided to speak to your committee today in hope that some of the experiences of my family would be informative to you as you consider the issue of pre-viability abortion and later termination of pregnancy. My wife and I were faced with the difficult experience of having to abort our much-wanted twin sons at 22 weeks gestation. While I can claim to special insights into the very complicated issue which faces the committee by virtue of these experiences, I do feel that our experiences may help shed light on the complex medical and personal issues involved in the termination of such pregnancies. Our experience especially highlights many considerations involved in determining risk to the health of the mother. To summarize major points I wish to emphasize in the proposed legislation, I would like to note:


A. That there is a difference between a fetus which is "nonviable" and one which is "dying." I am particularly disturbed by the language in the committee which defines viability as a "stage" implying that viability is a sole function of gestational age.

B. That the children involved in our last pregnancy were genetically healthy, but, nonetheless "nonviable."

C. That in some cases a pregnancy can cause a health risk to the mother which may prevent the possibility of future pregnancies. Further, decisions regarding whether to continue a pregnancy and the evaluation of the risk to the mother are complex. Our experiences provided us with no "clear bright line" test which may be applied across all pregnancies. Our decision was made on the best medical information we had from the several doctors we consulted during this time and, more importantly, changed in dramatic ways over the course of the pregnancy.

D. In many ways my family was "lucky" in that we were able to save up enough money to end this pregnancy in a way which did everything we could to preserve the health of my wife. Had we not made it a regular practice to save a substantial portion of my paycheck, or if I had made less money than I do, our situation would have been much more difficult.

That many of the hardships which we encountered were due to the fact that no medical facilities were available in the State of Missouri to perform the abortion which was necessary.

A short personal description

Before describing our experiences, it is perhaps helpful to tell you a bit about myself. I teach at the University of Missouri in the Psychology Department. My wife and I both enjoy being active in the community. I am an active member of St. Andrew's Lutheran Church in Columbia. My wife and I are fortunate in having an adorable daughter, Julie, who is now a senior in high school and a son, Justin, age 11, who we adopted from China. I could be like any of your neighbors or constituents.

Our Pregnancy

Let me begin by first telling you that this pregnancy was very, very much wanted. Three years earlier, my wife had an ectopic pregnancy. Although we do not know if the ectopic pregnancy was to blame, we were not successful in our attempts to become pregnant again after that. After that, we began to work with a fertility clinic. We decided to have a GIFT procedure done, a surgical procedure which involved harvesting eggs from my wife, mixing them with my sperm, and returning them to her fallopian tubes. It is worthwhile to note that our use of the fertility clinic was in no way related to the medical difficulties which followed.

My wife and I were overjoyed to learn that this last procedure had been successful and that she was now pregnant. We soon learned that she was pregnant with twins. Our twins were, however, diagnosed as having two amnions, but a shared placenta. We did not discover the implications of this facet of the pregnancy until the 16th week of her pregnancy.

Identical Twins

Identical twins are quite rare, relative to fraternal twins. It is estimated by the Twin Twin Transfusion Syndrome Foundation (http://www.ttsfoundation.org/index.html) that up to about 15% of all identical twin pregnancies involve some degree of twin-twin transfusion syndrome if two amnions and one placenta are present. In twin-twin transfusion syndrome of the blood vessels of the fetus fails to return to it and instead crosses over to the circulatory system of the other twin. This transfusion poses great problems for both twins: The donor twin does not get all of the nourishment it needs because it doesn't have enough blood. The recipient twin suffers as well, because fetal blood is thick and pumping it places a burden on the heart of the fetus, causing the walls of the heart to thicken. It is difficult to know how many identical twins actually have this, given that such transfusion goes undiagnosed. I hasten to add that the twins involved are genetically and, apart from the difficulties posed by the transfusion "healthy." Twin Twin transfusion syndrome is a disease of the placenta.

The Problems

We first because aware of the problems with my wife's condition at 16 weeks, when we went to have an amniocentesis. Twin-Twin transfusion syndrome was diagnosed. The degree of transfusion was pronounced: One twin being a "stuck twin" meaning that it had little or no amniotic fluid around it, while the other twin had a surplus of fluid. We learned at this time that this condition is a disease of the placenta and that this condition put one or both of our twins at significant risk for cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and/or serious heart problems. The "donor" twin, who is giving blood to the other, can have stunted development while the recipient twin, who received the blood from the other, can have heart strain due to the effort of pumping the thick neonatal blood from his twin.

What follows is an annotated chronology of what happened next, which I've reconstructed from medical records and our best recollection. I apologize that some of the medical details are rather graphic, but I believe you need to know what we knew and when we knew it, and how the available medical details we had informed our private health care decisions at the time. I believe you will also understand that we did not choose to terminate this pregnancy at the first hint of potential problems.

Week of Gestation Event

Week 16 - Twin-Twin Transfusion diagnosed. Serial amniodrainage was done. This involved taking a large needle and draining about a liter of amniotic fluid off. It wwas hoped that resolving this fluid imbalance would help the transfusion syndrome to spontaneously resolve.

Week 17 - We learned the donor twin was diagnosed with club foot- presumable due to the fact that he had little or no amniotic fluid. It appeared that fluid had not re-accumulated around the larger twin. a physician we consulted with advised an additional ultrasound with high resolution in order to determine if there were additional problems with the twins.

Week 18 - Standard ultrasound revealed that the second twin had two club feet.

Week 19 - High resolution ultrasound reveals that, in addition, the transfusion problem appears to have interfered with the generation of kidneys in the smaller twin (although this is not certain at this point). This baby has no kidneys, no renal artery, and no bladder. In addition, the amniodrainage which was done has resulted in free-floating amniotic bands between the twins. These bands, which can wrap around the head, fingers, arms, feet and hands of the fetus, can result in amputations. In addition, these bands, if swallowed, can result in cleft palate and/or throat. Banding is described as "severe." My wife is now on bed rest. I care for my wife and daughter as best I can and juggle my work week accordingly. Doctors conclude that one twin poses a present clear risk to the life of the other and recommend a procedure in which the umbilical cord of one twin is tied off, causing it to die, and thereby prevent excess blood going to the other twin. such surgery is unavailable in Columbia, and we are referred to a specialist in Florida for the procedure.

Week 20 - Amniotic fluid is increasing in my wife, but no further drainages can be done because these bands float toward the needle and prevent the withdrawal of further fluid. My wife now looks as if she is nine months pregnant.

Week 21 - It is not possible to fly to Florida- no airline will fly a high risk pregnancy. I borrow my parent's van and we drive to Tampa, with my wife in the back of the van on a cot. It takes us two and a half days. My wife is very uncomfortable. The doctor in Florida informs us based on his ultrasound that surgery is impossible because the larger twin is now in heart failure, the amniotic banding is too severe, and his instruments need intact membranes to push against in order to do the surgery. He tells us that both twins will die, with or without surgery. He tells us that we should get an abortion if we ever plan to have another pregnancy, because of the risk of rupture to the uterus. There is some risk of amniotic embolism for my wife as well. His hospital, a Catholic institution, cannot perform such a procedure and he tells us to go home and find an abortion clinic. No doctors at this hospital or in Missouri told us that the pregnancy posed a risk to my wife's life; I would like to point out. I drive back to Missouri with my wife in the back of the van on the cot.

Week 22 - We attempt to get an abortion in St. Louis. They refuse to do this after evaluation because they say that the head of the larger twin is too large. The give us a sheet of paper with the addresses of three clinics- one in Atlanta, one in Houston, and one in Wichita. After consulting with our physicians, we choose Wichita. We set up an appointment at the clinic at the next available time, which is three days later.

I hope that the above chronology gives you a flavor of the many changing considerations which faced us during this time.

The Abortions

I probably do not need to tell you all the details concerning our visit to the clinic. I would like to give a general flavor, though, in mentioning the abortion protesters, their uninformed, but impassioned emotional harassment outside the clinic, especially at the sight of my wife, which appeared to outward appearances as if she was nine months pregnant due to fluid buildup. Inside, the laws of the state of Kansas require us to fill out forms describing the developmental progression of our boys, focusing on their ability to feel pain, how human they look, and basic descriptions of brain development. Although I feel the document was clearly designed to put more of an emotional burden on us, I found myself wondering what quality of life my boys would have if we continued the pregnancy further. "Surely they cannot feel very good in utero being as sick as they are," I thought.

The doctor, George Tiller, M.D., was especially caring and helped us to go through this ordeal together. (This was obviously prior to Dr. Tiller's murder while serving as an usher in Reformation Lutheran church for performing abortions such as the one I describe.) I was also present when the lifeless bodies of my sons were delivered. The doctor took care to allow both of us to see our boys, and I participated in a baptism for them which, while very sad, meant very much to me. I was gratified when, weeks later, a package arrived in the mail containing photographs of our boys which someone at the clinic had taken.

My observations and conclusions

• Later termination of pregnancy is not as available as the general public believes.

At the clinic, we met and got to know other couples who were going through similar problems from New York City, Chicago, and Texas. Although they didn't have twins, they all had similar cases where a genetically healthy child had something bad happen in utero (e.g., a disruption of food supply to the fetus, viral infections in the uterus, heart failure).

• What if we had waited or if the situation had become even more serious?

I have no idea, of course, what medical course would have been indicated if my wife had presented to the clinic in great distress with little time to preserve her health In such situations, there is often no clear bright line which details exactly when the life and not only the health of the mother is at risk. If such would have been the case for us, I feel I can speak for both my wife and myself in saying we would not hesitate to have such a procedure done that would have preserved her life.I do not know if my daughter and son would have a mother if we had not had this procedure or, if she did, what our lives would now be like. I shudder to think what would have happened to us if we had not saved the resources necessary to pay for the medical care we required. Individuals without such means are in dire straits indeed.

• Was our experience typical?

You may think that the situation I describe must be quite rare. I cannot present, by virtue of experiencing our loss, that I can know anything about the incidence rates of other problems. As a scientist, I can only suggest that carefully controlled information be gathered if you feel it necessary to know this. Our experiences, however, represent the issues which parents face when the unexpected happens and the only ones genuinely qualified to make these health care decision are our physicians and ourselves.

• A final note of thanks.

I have much gratitude to the physicians who helped us during this time. I would like to argue that the most competent and intelligent decisions regarding the care of my wife and the children from this last pregnancy were made in consultation with the physicians who helped care for us. To our surprise, many of the physicians had not even heard of the conditions I have described. The experience of this pregnancy, which began with such promise was, I believe, at times difficult for the physicians who cared for us as well. Sometimes, however, the right decision is one which involves great difficulty.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

HB 1571...UH OH...

Today I attended the Public Health Committee of the House at our illustrious legislature to listen to debate on several anti-choice bills we’ve been following here at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma. I’ve been doing this for many years now, and I guess you start to think you’ve heard it all. But here’s what I learned this afternoon.


If Rep. Vaughn has his way, in Oklahoma, a fertilized egg is about to achieve legal personhood, with all the rights attending thereto. Not just one fertilized egg, actually. All fertilized eggs, at least those still enclosed in a woman’s body. If they’re nesting in a test tube at a fertility clinic, they’re exempted. (What does that have to do with anything?!?! It’s a person or not—depending on where it’s located?)

So HB 1571 would designate a fertilized egg as a person if it’s still residing in its mother’s uterus. In the committee meeting, Rep. Jeannie McDaniel asked for clarification as to what this might mean to a woman carrying an early pregnancy who inadvertently did something leading to a miscarriage. Might she be charged with manslaughter or some similar crime?

Rep. Vaughn, speaking for this insane bill, conceded that this could, indeed, be the case, though he carefully pointed out that it wasn’t he who would make that decision, but the courts.

Are you getting this? If you’re two weeks pregnant and don’t even know it yet, and you do something that leads to a miscarriage, you could be charged exactly as you might if you accidentally or negligently killed a “post-born” person.

The only two Representatives on the Public Health Committee who had the guts to vote to protect us, their fellow Oklahomans—the ones outside our mothers’ bodies—were Jeannie McDaniel and Al McCaffrey.

Let me say here a public thank you to these two for their direct and horrified reactions to this insanity. Thank you for questioning this nutty, dreadful bill, for debating against it and for voting against it.

Anita Fream

Friday, February 18, 2011

OKLAHOMA: STAND WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD!

The vote today in the House of Representatives reflects the pursuit of an extreme political agenda by the Republican House leadership. The outcome of this vote is not a surprise, but it is radically out of step with mainstream American values, and it is out of line with what voters want Congress to focus on.

In attacking Planned Parenthood, the House Republican leadership has launched an outrageous assault on the millions of Americans who rely on Planned Parenthood for primary and preventive health care, including lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, annual exams, birth control, HIV testing, and STI testing and treatment.

It now falls to senators from both parties to join together to reject this extreme approach, restore common sense, and guarantee that Planned Parenthood and the millions of Americans who count on us for health care are protected. Ensuring that Planned Parenthood serves millions of women each year is what mainstream Americans want and expect from the United States Senate.

We call on the United States Senate to defeat any bill that targets Planned Parenthood or women’s health care.

STAND WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD today!  Visit http://www.istandwithplannedparenthood.org/ and send YOUR MESSAGE!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Taking care of our patients is our priority...

Our focus today, Valentines Day, is taking care of our patients as we do every day.  If you support the right to receive high quality, low-cost healthcare, then you support Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma.  There is nothing more important to us than you!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Bullet dodged for now...just wait until next week!

The Oklahoma Legislative session ended early this week thanks to a whole bunch a snow!  This buys pro-choice Oklahomans a little time to gain momentum for grassroots organizing.  We know...there is little chance of stopping any legislation this year but hear us out. 

As terrible as many of the anti-choice bills are this year, we want you to know that Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma and many other pro-choice organizations (OCRJ, Sally's List, ORCRC, CRR and PPFA) are still going to put up a fight to protect our reproductive rights. 

One thing we've learned over the years, it takes many to stop any legislation!  More than ever, we need you!  Join our action network today by emailing ppco@ppfa.org to receive important legislative updates which you can forward to your friends and family. 

It will take MANY TO STOP ANY and we're counting on you!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Six AWESOME Prevention Bills to SUPPORT!

With out a doubt, the next two to four years are going to be difficult for reproductive rights in Oklahoma.  In an effort to get you slowly acclimated to the shock of what we are facing we wanted to ease into the good first.  There are six very positive prevention bills we want you to start spreading the good news about:

HB 1195 - Author Rep. Jeannie McDaniel
Requires the board of education to provide age-appropriate instruction in human growth and development, and ensure that all curricula and materials are age-appropriate and medically accurate.

HB 1272 - Author Rep. Jeannie McDaniel
Creates the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies (CARE) Act.  Requires the State Department of Health to make available information about emergency contraception; Requires the Department to monitor compliance of the CARE Act.

SB 37 - Author Sen. Jim Wilson
Mandates local school board to ensure sex education material is medically accurate; defines medical accuracy and provides guidelines.

SB 39 - Author Sen. Jim Wilson
Mandates that pharmacies must dispense contraceptive drugs and devises, clarifies the pharmacy's right to refusal, and allows notification of a customer's rights.

SB 491 - Author Sen. Connie Johnson
Establishes the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act; requires hospitals to provide victims of alleged rape incidents with information regarding emergency contraception.

SB 535 - Author Sen. Connie Johnson
Established the "Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Act"; requires schools to provide students with instruction regarding human sexuality and safety methods and concerns barring parental objection.

The legislative session starts February 7th.  Familiarize yourself with these bills and be prepared to contact your legislators to support all of these preventative bills which will make a real impact on unintended pregnancies in Oklahoma...click here to find your legislator...

Friday, January 21, 2011

One Last Firewall for Choice in Oklahoma? | RHRealityCheck.org

One Last Firewall for Choice in Oklahoma? RHRealityCheck.org

Yes, this is going to be a tough four years for reproductive rights in Oklahoma.  Grassroot support is going to more important than ever.  Get your legislators on speed dial, put their emails in your contact list, open the dialogue with your family and friends and be ready!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Question?

Why is it when disaster strikes, the violent crime of rape increases?