Sex & Health in Brief

by ALICE BUTTRICK

Decem­ber 2009

Pro-choice lead­ers across cam­pus are protest­ing the Stu­pak amend­ment included in the health care bill which recently passed through the House. The amend­ment threat­ens to end abor­tion access for low-income women included in the pro­posed pub­lic option. Mem­bers of Yale Coali­tion for Repro­duc­tive Jus­tice have begun draft­ing a state­ment of protest to be co-signed by the pro-choice community.

Sev­eral groups are host­ing lobby days at the Capi­tol. The National Latina Insti­tute for Repro­duc­tive Health is putting together a bus to DC on Decem­ber 2 to rally and meet with rep­re­sen­ta­tives and has invited any and all inter­ested activists to join them. To sign up for this trip, please con­tact Liza@latinainstitute.org. Planned Par­ent­hood of South­ern New Eng­land will also be headed to DC for a National Lobby Day on Decem­ber 2nd in Wash­ing­ton, DC.  One bus–will be leav­ing New Haven early Decem­ber 2nd and return­ing late that night.  For more infor­ma­tion or to reserve your spot con­tact Gretchen Raffa at organizing@ppsne.org.

Decem­ber 1^st is World AIDS Day. The Con­necti­cut AIDS Resource Coali­tion is cel­e­brat­ing a recent leg­isla­tive vic­tory: Pres­i­dent Obama has approved the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treat­ment Exten­sion Act of 2009, which will con­tinue to pro­vide cru­cial fund­ing for low-income suf­fer­ers of AIDS across the coun­try. On Yale’s cam­pus, World AIDS Day will be com­mem­o­rated at sev­eral dif­fer­ent events: the Global Devel­op­ment Alliance, Amnesty Inter­na­tional, and Dav­en­port Col­lege will host a Master’s Tea with Aziza Ahmen on the plight of women liv­ing with HIV/AIDS inter­na­tion­ally; Cather­ine Nichols will visit cam­pus to dis­cuss the inter­sec­tion of fam­ily plan­ning and HIV clin­ics; and the Yale Uni­ver­sity Cen­ter for Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Research on AIDS will host a lec­ture on HIV aware­ness at Yale as well as a memo­r­ial ser­vice at United Church on the Green. Event details are avail­able at gdayale.wordpress.com/calendar and cira.med.yale.edu.

The Women Fac­ulty Forum released yet another report on sex­ual mis­con­duct at Yale. The report comes as part of an increas­ing push from fac­ulty and stu­dent groups to reform uni­ver­sity pol­icy and edu­ca­tion sur­round­ing this issue. The WFF report rec­om­mended, among other things, increased trans­parency, con­sol­i­dated loca­tions for sex­ual assault resources, and anony­mous and third-party report­ing mech­a­nisms. The full 75-page report can be found at www.yale.edu/wff/documents/WFFReportonSexualMisconductatYale.pdf.

In an effort to con­tinue dis­cus­sions about sex­ual cul­ture on cam­pus, the Women’s Cen­ter will host a talk at Toad’s Place, of all places. The unusual loca­tion was pro­posed at the Center’s forum on Yale’s sex­ual cul­ture held ear­lier this semes­ter in response to the ‘Pre-Season Scout­ing Report.’ The Cen­ter has stated the belief that the sex­ual hub of Toad’s should be han­dled on-site. In an effort to present a diver­sity of per­spec­tives, mem­bers of the Greek and ath­letic com­mu­ni­ties, groups often por­trayed in oppo­si­tion to the Cen­ter, have been invited to co-plan and run the event. The Women’s Cen­ter Board is also solic­it­ing “Toad’s Tes­ti­mo­ni­als” to facil­i­tate explo­ration of the sub­ject. Fol­low­ing the event, the Women’s Cen­ter will spon­sor the Wednes­day night dance-party. For more infor­ma­tion on this event, please con­tact dounia.bredes@yale.edu.

Alice But­trick is a senior in Yale Col­lege. She is the Sex & Health Edi­tor for Broad Recognition.