ABOUT US
Press room
For more information, contact our Communications & Media Specialist at 714.633.6373 or marketing@pposbc.org.
SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
ON THE RISE AMONG O.C. TEENS
Some high school students say it's not surprising because 'everyone is sleeping around.'
By JENNIFER MUIR
The Orange County Register
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sexually transmitted diseases are rising among Orange County's youth, fueled by steadily increasing cases of chlamydia over the past 10 years, according to a county report illustrating the condition of children here.
The rate has increased 30.5 percent in STD cases among children ages 10 to 17 over 10 years — from 1998 to 2007, according to the report. In 2007, the latest year data was available, 573.3 of every 100,000 youths reported an STD, up from 430.9 in 1998.
The trend didn't surprise students walking to Newport Harbor High School on Wednesday morning.
"I know there's STDs at our school because everyone is sleeping around with each other," said senior Haley Giwoff, 17. "So, if one person gets it, it will spread quickly."
Students say the majority of their peers are having sex, and it's a common topic of discussion at school, where a couple of young girls are pregnant, and it's common knowledge that others have had abortions. Nobody talks about STDs, they say, because it would lead to being ostracized.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
DOCTOR SAW SUFFERING OF ILLEGAL ABORTIONS
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a retired physician describes what happened following botched abortions.
Monday, January 19, 2009
My generation never witnessed the horrors of women dying from botched illegal abortions performed with the crudest of instruments.
We were spared because 36 years ago, Jan. 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that all women had the constitutional right to an abortion.
Now we have generations of women born post-1973 who have never known a time when abortion was illegal in the United States, who have always seen this choice as an unquestionable right.
But as the national debate on abortion has shown us, the matter is far from settled. The shortage of abortion clinics in some states, the protests and intimidation campaigns against doctors and clinics who offer abortion services, and the endless propositions that attempt to chip away at Roe v Wade, leave me feeling that some people have forgotten our painful history.
Richard Squire Jonas, a retired obstetrician/gynecologist who lives in Laguna Beach, not only witnessed what women went through to get an abortion before Roe v Wade, it was a chapter in our history he made sure others didn't forget.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jonas worked at Los Angeles County General Hospital, first as a medical intern then as a physician resident. The hospital's 10th floor was home to the Infected Obstetrics ward, dedicated to treating women who were suffering the ill-effects of botched back alley abortions.
There, in four small operating rooms, Jonas remembers he and his fellow doctors working from 8 a.m. to 2. a.m. treating women for septic shock, kidney and liver failure, or gas gangrene.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
RELIGIOUS LEADERS SPEAK OUT FOR CHOICE
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Yvette Cabrera
February 15, 2007
We're faced with dozens of choices every day: From what to eat for breakfast to what we want to do with our lives. But there is one choice that, since 1973, has inflamed emotions, stoked controversy and created divisions across America.
Of course, I'm talking about a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.
The landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision affirming a woman's right to choose marked its 34th anniversary last month, and yet it seems the decision is no less controversial today than it was in 1973.
Typically the media focuses on those who shout the loudest – the ones who hoist grotesque photos of mutilated fetuses at protests and quote biblical passages to condemn abortion. These news stories, however, give us only a skewed picture of where the faith community stands on this issue.
So when I received an invitation to attend an interfaith discussion titled "God, Women, Faith & Choice" I was intrigued. How often are we given the opportunity to hear the personal perspectives of rabbis and reverends on such a heated topic?
The discussion was sponsored by Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties; Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Orange County; Progressive Christians Uniting, Orange County; and the National Council of Jewish Women, Orange County Affinity Group.
I wasn't surprised to see a group of protesters waving banners and placards with phrases like "Abortion – America's Holocaust" as I drove into the parking lot of Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach last Thursday. Given the topic, I would have been more surprised if they hadn't shown up.
Yet, their tactics – shouting at guests as they drove into the parking lot – reminded me of how easy it is to drive a wedge between people who disagree with one another.
That's why I was struck by the words of one of the panelists, the Rev. Karen Stoyanoff, a minister at the Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church. Unitarian Universalists tend to form a strong community, whether or not members of the community agree with one another, she told the audience that night.
For this reason those who might not choose the option of abortion for themselves are strongly supportive of that option being open to others, she said.
So often I hear Roe v. Wade foes disparage abortion as a form of birth control, as if the decision to have an abortion were as easy as taking a pill. I've often wondered if these "pro-life" groups have ever talked to anyone who has made this decision to have an abortion.
Stoyanoff has.
"I don't think I've ever talked to someone who chose to have an abortion who felt that this was an easy decision to make," she said. "The world is not full of easy, obvious choices and part of our journey is to make the difficult choices, to make the ones that aren't so wonderful when they come around."
Another panelist, Rabbi Julie Pelc, saw firsthand how present religion was in the lives of the women she met while volunteering as a patient advocate for Planned Parenthood in the summer of 2002. The experience shattered all the stereotypes she said she had about abortions.
For one, she says the women came from all backgrounds. They were as young as 14 and as old as 50. They came from all religions, ethnicities and socio-economic classes.
"I was there just as a random hand to hold, and I can't tell you how much I heard about God; How many women as they held my hand, would say 'God is never going to forgive me, God hates me, I'm making God so angry,'" Pelc told the audience. "More than anything I wanted to say: If we believe that God understands and sees everything that we are doing, then we have to believe that God understands how hard this decision was for you."
After each procedure, Pelc told me she would meditate and say a prayer for each woman. It bothered her that these women didn't feel that God could be there to comfort them, that he was there to judge their actions.
"I wish the protesters could open their hearts to a different reality, to see that people are really in pain and that what they are creating is more guilt and internal conflict and pain," said Pelc.
One patient, a medical student, told Pelc she had a serious boyfriend and used birth control, but still got pregnant. She knew she couldn't have the baby while in school, but the idea of the abortion overwhelmed her with guilt, said Pelc, who teaches at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.
"The experience complicated everything because it's easier to talk about something in the vague sense of pro-choice versus pro-life, but actually being in the room was so profound," she said. "It's hard to be for or against something that is so complicated or difficult. It made me much more aware of the subtleties of the issue. It's not just pro- and con- life and choice. It's about pain and privilege and relationships and God."
