As Valentine’s Day nears, Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa is trying to raise the sexual awareness of Iowans through National Condom Week. Penny Dickey is a registered nurse and is vice president of health services for the Des Moines-based chapter.While some religions oppose the use of condoms, Dickey says they are the best way besides abstinence to prevent sexually transmitted infections. She adds, condoms protect fertility by preventing disease.Dickey says condoms have been used to protect against sexually transmitted infections since the 16th century and to prevent pregnancy since the 18th century. She says condoms will be given away this week in several locations across the Hawkeye State.Planned Parenthood has 17 clinics in Iowa — most of them will be offering free condoms this week. Dickey says only three of one hundred women whose partners use condoms correctly will become pregnant in the first year of use.
Planned Parenthood to offer H-I-V testing in Iowa
Planned Parenthood plans to add H-I-V testing as a service at all of its 17 Iowa locations. Vice-President for health services Penny Dickey says they’ve been able to expand their training to increase the availability of the testing.Up to now, such testing was only offered at two clinics, one in Des Moines, and the other in Iowa City. The test for the virus that causes AIDS is a “non-invasive” test. They take a swab from your mouth using a swab.The “oral-fluids” test is pretty accurate, Dickey says, and results are back within a couple weeks. The clinics also will counsel all clients who come in for the H-I-V testing.Counselors talk with a client about their risk and anything they can do to cut their risk of getting the disease. Dickey says the Planned Parenthood clinics will safeguard results of the H-I-V tests and won’t give results over the phone or release data to anyone without the patient’s written consent. The tests will cost 30 dollars.
No Iowans sign up for abortion pill yet
The so-called abortion pill has arrived in Iowa, but as yet, there are no takers. Clinics in Des Moines, Iowa City and Bettendorf now have supplies of R-U-486. Women who want it will be charged about 900 dollars for the prescription drug and will be required to undergo counseling.
Anti-abortion leader blasts FDA approval of RU-486
The leader of an Iowa anti-abortion group is blasting the Food and Drug Administration’s approval Thursday of the controversial “abortion pill” R-U-four-86.Kim Gordon, the Executive Director of Iowa Right to Life, says it’s the first time the FDA has approved a drug that will kill instead of help people. The drug went through five years of U-S tests and Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa participated in those trials. Gordon says claims that the drug is safe are simply wrong. She says one in 100 women who take the drug will end up in the hospital and two percent will have severe bleeding that will need surgery.Gordon says R-U-four-86 will have a chilling effect on women. She says the woman could see the dead baby slip out her body in her own home.Gordon says supporters try to make a differentiation between surgical abortions and the abortion pill. She says there isn’t any difference, she says they’re talking about a human being in the womb being killed. Gordon says society has been to desensitize to abortion.Gordon says she’ll pressure Iowa legislators to keep the drug away from women under age 18.
Iowa had key role in FDA approval of abortion pill
The Food and Drug Administration today approved the controversial “abortion pill” R-U-four-86 for use in the United States. The drug went through five years of U-S tests, and Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa participated in those trials. Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, says her clinics were the first and largest site to test R-U-four-86. Two-hundred-38 women received R-U-four-86 from a Des Moines clinic during that trial five years ago.The drug can only be used in the first seven weeks of a pregnancy. June says it’s an important new option for women and she’s proud to have been part of the process.Opponents of abortion pledge to continue their fight against R-U-four-86, which has been used in Europe for the past 12 years.
Republicans want to limit lawyer’s take in state suits
Republican legislators are miffed that a few Iowa attornies are getting 44-milion dollars for working on the state’s successful case against tobacco companies. House Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Larson, a republican from Cedar Rapids, sponsoring a bill which would limit compensation to one-thousand dollars an hour for lawyers who work on cases for the state.Republicans charge democrat Attorney General Tom Miller picked his friends in the Iowa legal community for the tobacco case, while Miller contends it was a challenge to get ANY attorney to sign on as before this case, no one had ever beaten the tobacco industry in court. The G-O-P bill would require “open bidding” for lawyers who wish to work on state lawsuits.Larson, by the way, is an attorney. Governor Vilsack, a trial lawyer by trade, didn’t immediately reject the republican proposal, but raised some concerns about how it might work.Vilsack wonders if the state will get the best lawyers under an open bidding process, and whether a lawyer’s win/loss ratio will be considered.
World population hits 6-billion
The world’s population is expected to hit six-billion today, a milestone called “startling” by an official at Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. Judy Rutledge, vice president of governmental affairs, says family planning works in Iowa and globally to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Rutledge says it took from the dawn of history to the year 1804 for the world to reach one-billion people. She says the global population reached the landmark of three-billion by the year 1960. The world population increases every 12 days by nearly three-million, about the same as the population of Iowa. Rutledge says today’s birth of the world’s six-Billionth human being should make people focus on the planet’s ability to support the rapidly-growing population. Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa is hosting a luncheon today in Des Moines that features a keynote speaker who is a family planning advocate from India, where the population recently reached one-billion.
