A Doula for Every Season

Earlier this month Caitlin Caven, Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity volunteer and Abortion Doula, joined me to talk about the resurgence of access to reproductive health doula care in the U.S.

Women's Health Global Checkup

Sera Bonds Executive Director and Founder of Circle of Health International (COHI) joined me to talk about current women's health crises including the Ebola epidemic and the most recent typhoon to hit the Philippines. 

COHI works to improve maternal health and birth outcomes around the world.

SCOTUS--Legal Brief Before Key Decisions

In this episode of Issues for Your Tissues, Jessica Mason Pieklo Senior Legal Analyst at RHRealityCheck.org joins me to talk buffer zones, non-science, Hobby Lobby, and other barriers to reproductive healthcare.

Katie Speak and Katies Speak

Katie Klabusich joined me to talk about buffer zones, clinic escorting, and her prominent, unauthorized placement on a prolife action league lent prayer campaign poster.

How the Prochoice Movement Saved America Again

Cristina Page joined me to talk about issues she brings up in her book, How the Prochoice Movement Saved America. We talk about the incremental antichoice efforts to remove access to safe, legal abortion. 

International Women's Day All Year Long

Sera Bonds, Founder and Executive Director of Circle of Health International, joined me for an extended episode of Issues for Your Tissues to talk about celebrating women, International Women's Day, and people in tough places.

100% of Nurses on this show love Issues for Your Tissues

Emily Osborn joins me during membership drive to talk about the importance of good health information and its availability. She supports KOOP Radio to promote both. You can too. Art Baker of Jamaican Gold fame joins me too. You can hear Jamican Gold at noon on KOOP 91.7 or stream www.koop.org

Making Pregnancy Safer with Science

Dr. Shanna Swan joins me to discuss chemical burden and its effect on pregnant women and their fetuses.

Tampongate Violence Yields Justice

Cindy Noland of Faith Action for Women in Need joins to recount the assault she faced on the last day of the special session that resulted in Tampongate. Her assaulter was convicted and was court-ordered to take anger management classes.

HR7, Knee-Jerk Response or Just Jerk Move?

Dyana Limon-Mercado Communications Director of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas (formerly Texas Capital Region) joins me to talk about federal legislation HR7, another attempt at undermining personal freedom while regulating privacy and industry.

Boo Starling Does The Undoing of Lily Welch

Boo Starling joins me on Issues for Your Tissues to discuss her latest novel, an erotic story called The Undoing of Lily Welch. This downloadable book could be changing your dreams tonight. It has interesting feminist and empowerment threads running though it.

Celebrating Roe Day by Day

In this January episode of Issues for Your Tissues Cindy Noland of Faith Action for Women in Need and Amanda Hernandez, prochoice activists and event organizers, joined me to discuss plans for the march to celebrate the anniversary of Roe v Wade.

Katie of katiespeak.com and Katie Speak

Katie Klabusich of katiespeak.com joins me to talk about men's rights "activists," violence against women, and gender expectations.

Choosing Your Contraception

Guli Fager, MPH joins me on Issues for Your Tissues to discuss contraception and the contraception workshop she holds at the Women's Center of Central Texas. 

Circle of Health International Celebrates Mother's Day

Sera Bonds Founder and Executive Director of Circle of Health International (COHI) joins me to talk about motherhood, mother's day and COHI's efforts to improve every day for mothers around the world.

Women's Community Center of Central Texas Continues Legacy of Empowerment

Carrie Tilton-Jones joins me for this episode of Issues for Your Tissues to talk about her role at and the services provided by the reinvigorated Women's Community Center of Central Texas where she works as Executive Director.

 

Tawking: Healthcare in the Margins

I had so much fun tonight talking about something depressing, the gap between Medicaid and ACA exchange subsidies. It was energizing to know that people are interested in learning more.

Religiosity

The War on Women has many facets. Of them the vilification of contraception and the refusal of actual science are the most insidious. 

On this episode of Issues for Your Tissues Amanda Marcotte, contributor to Slate.com, RHRealityCheck.org and more joins me to talk about religiously affiliated employers forcing their beliefs on employees with attempts to strike contraception coverage from mandated health insurance plans. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires coverage for contraception without copay in prescription plans. Some employers are refusing to comply citing "religious freedom."

The real problem with this is that it is gender based discrimination against the female employees of said companies. Furthermore, the cost of the contraception is NOT paid by the employer. Health insurance programs are compensation for work that employees do. This is tantamount to your employer preventing you from spending your money on something you want. It's even worse than that really. It's equivalent to your employer paying you, you buying a product and then your employer coming in and tampering with that product to make it perform worse for you—to your own detriment.

It's willful ignorance to call IUDs abortifacients.

Brave New Year

For the first Issues for Your Tissues of 2014, Merritt Tierce Executive Director of the Texas Equal Access Fund (TEA Fund) joined me to discuss the increased demand for the direct assistance that the TEA Fund has experienced since HB2 became law last year. 

The TEA Fund is a member of the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), and provides direct financial assistance to women of little means seeking abortion care.

Pelvic Floors Need Love Too

This Issues for Your Tissues episode features Suzanne Sloan, ACSW, Co-creator of the Gyneflex pelvic floor muscle exerciser, President of Naissance Holdings, manufacturer of the Gyneflex, and therapist. Gyneflex is approved by the FDA for the treatment of female incontinence, and it improves tone and awareness of muscles that contribute to orgasm. 

Suzanne has worked on multiple studies of the effects of pelvic floor exercise. It stands that when female orgasm is more understood and respected, the whole of female reproduction will be as well. Americans are subjected to countless advertisements for erectile dysfunction medications on a daily basis. Female sexual dysfunction deserves some attention.

Creating Monsters by Twisting Truths

In this episode Issues for Your Tissues Sharona Coutts, Director of Research and Investigations at RHRealityCheck.org speaking about the misuse of CDC data by anti-choice activists. The vilification of the doctors who provide this vital service is the first step in dehumanizing them. That sort of path leads nowhere good.

It's good to be back.

It was a pleasure to host Heather Busby, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas on the re-inaugural episode of Issues for Your Tissues. We talked about the effects of the recent legislative session including HB 2 which was signed into law in the fall.

Aside from the detriment to women's health this law provides, Gov. Perry adds insult to injury by declaring repeat special sessions, which are to be reserved for emergencies. It's pretty arrogant to think that controlling my healthcare is a state emergency.

Issues for Your Tissues is back.

The Issues for Your Tissues radio show and podcast is back. It seems lately I'm watching a historical dramatization of the effects of anti-woman legislation on American women. Except as soon as I do, I then realize that it's not fiction; it's not a dramatization. Today, in 2014, in the United States of America women are driving hundreds and hundreds of miles, using their rent money, their grocery money, pawning their wedding rings, staying with strangers, and having to make dire choices as they endure legislation that transforms what would be a simple doctor's office visit into a two or three day ordeal.

It's some kind of crazy carryover from days when women were overtly property. Now it's worse in that the objectification, the possession, the ownership, the patriarchy (what a loaded word) is insidiously internalized by men and women alike. It's given some men the idea that controlling women's major life decisions is a good practice. It's also given about as many women the pseudo-gift of complacency with or acceptance of this practice.

I am confident that in 100 years we will not be debating women's freedoms as a matter of course. Eventually, legislators won't be able to pass laws disguised as women's health imperatives that actually reduce access to healthcare and worsen health outcomes. 

Adults look me in the eye and say that a fetus should have more rights than me. Any and all fetal personhood efforts negate the personhood of women. I am ashamed that we still allow this cognitive dissonance in public debate.

I find myself comparing social conservative practices of today to those of social conservatives of 200 years ago. Those men thought they were exercising god-given rights. They thought people they owned were unable to make decisions for themselves [24 hour waiting period]. They thought those people were wholly ignorant of anatomy and medicine [forced ultrasounds]. Their rescission of human rights forced people to travel hundreds of miles for freedom [HB2]. They used the law of the land to disenfranchise those on which they capitalized [77 cents on the dollar].

If social conservatives targeted a specific race with this legislative malarkey, we would all condemn and put an end to it immediately. Unfortunately, when they target an entire gender there is no universal condemnation. Issues for Your Tissues is back to serve as the loyal opposition to misogyny, the champion of reproductive equity, and the definitive discourse on reproductive health and sexual well being.