● The world population has (possibly) reached 7 billion this week!
● Salon considers how the passage of a Personhood amendment would affect the legality of birth control. Mississippi votes next week on its so-called “personhood” amendment, and personhood supporters are working to get such an amendment put forward in every state.
● Personhood amendment supporter finally admits that if passed, some – if not all – birth control may become illegal. An interesting admission, considering the vast majority of personhood amendment advertisements insist that contraception will not be outlawed.
● Ron Paul comes out against President Obama’s health care plan that insists birth control be covered as preventive care under health insurance, stating that it “violates the conscience of millions of pro-life Americans,” and that furthermore he will “veto any bill with funding for Planned Parenthood or any other international family planning regimes.” Yet another candidate falling in line with the anti-birth control, anti-health care talk.
● The FDA is concerned about an increased risk of blood clots on birth control pills containing the hormone drospirenone. They won’t make any official statement until Dec. 8th of this year, but it looks like it may be bad news for women who love their Yasmin, Yaz, or their generics. Their concern does not extend to other birth control pills that don’t contain that hormone, but if you’re concerned about the risk of blood clots, you can update yourself on the symptoms to look out for here.
● And finally for some good news! The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is sponsoring the Future of Contraception Initiative and they are focusing on male birth control. Some researchers “have found they are able to turn off sperm production in most, but not all, men” and they are also looking at “non-hormonal contraceptives that directly interfere with sperm production.” This sounds like great news, but haven’t there been stories about male birth control coming onto the market for years now? I’ll believe it when I see it.