 "Photo: Mueller")
In a lengthy debate on April 18, the Supreme Court ruled that the abortion procedure termed "partial birth" would continue to be banned. The decision upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act passed by Congress in 2003. It raised a trove of questions examining the progression and future of women's sexual health in the wake of decades of change.
"I think what's changed is that we now have a choice," said English Honors freshman Muneezeh Kabir. "We have a choice to abstain from sex, to have sex, to have an abortion."
But the latter wasn't permitted in Mexico City until Tuesday. The world's second-largest Roman Catholic country passed legislation on Tuesday that lifted the abortion ban hitherto upheld. After months of conflict in the capital, the legislature ruled that abortions can legally be carried out within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
It was only another example of the way in which female sexual health has been increasingly thrust under a political lens.
Last Wednesday's Supreme Court decision serves as a flag of changing social and political attitudes, with regards not only to abortion, but also to women's sexual health in general.
"We've definitely seen more men coming in who are worried about erectile dysfunction and sexual issues," said UHS sexual health student assistant Nikki Trevino. "Those things aren't really an issue, men just think they are because women are more aggressive than before, more demanding."
"It's been a definite trend in the last few years," she added. "Guys are coming in thinking they're not normal, when really they can't be expected to have sex any time and place. They're perceiving things are a problem now because of the change in roles."
Some students, too, are noticing and studying the gradual progression.
"Female empowerment comes in different forms now," said Plan II and pre-med junior Travis Cosban. "Women no longer abstain only because their purity is their sole source of power; they know, just like everyone else knows, that they can contribute far more. So there's no longer the pressure to keep that [in their] arsenal."
Dreamers, an adult novelty shop on Guadalupe Street, has seen "an increasing number of female customers over the last couple of years," according to employee Clint Bryan.
Bryan said that women come in groups and pairs looking primarily for novelties, three rows of which span the length of the store.
"So it makes sense that politicians are passing more and more legislation on issues of female sexual health," said Kabir. "It's obviously a hot issue with conservatives and liberals alike."
Indeed, both abortion rights and anti-abortion activists agree that the recent Supreme Court ruling is a first step in what will be a slew of abortion decisions made by the courts. And as the debate carries on, both factions agree on the importance of decreasing abortions, of easing the economic and social conditions that lead women to consider abortion, and of making the adoption process friendlier.
Outside the realm of abortion, other political decisions include Governor Perry's recent HPV mandate and the rising cost of birth control to college women.
"Women's health is a political issue," said Sarah Wheat, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood in the Texas Capital Region. "It should be a private issue. There's nothing about women's health that requires politicians to be involved, and yet it's always used in the political arena."
Wheat concedes that if the mandate for the HPV vaccine is upheld, the vaccine will become far more affordable for uninsured girls and women.
"We've been tracking the HPV issue very closely, because the vaccine is expensive," said Wheat. "It's $360 for the series. If the mandate is upheld, the vaccine will be kept on the list of vaccines covered by state and federal funds. We'll be able to make it available to the indigent population that needs it," said Wheat.
However, Planned Parenthood and other organizations express concern about the future of women's sexual health, as their funding remains stagnant.
"Our family planning program only serves 17 percent of the eligible population," said Wheat. "That's because of the stagnant state and federal funding. Lawmakers aren't accounting for all of the increases in population and in unplanned pregnancies. We're being given the same funding we were given two years ago, which is insufficient now."
In March 2005, Republican Senator Tommy Williams of The Woodlands added a rider to a Health and Human Services Appropriation Bill being passed. The Williams rider planned to redirect, over the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years, $5 million from the $54 million Family Planning budget to a new program titled Alternatives to Abortion.
The redirection of funds has been a persistent source of conflict in the last year. Complaints are shot back and forth: Anti-abortion activists argue that clinics offering abortions are growing in prevalence and influence, whereas abortion rights activists claim that federal funding is being cut from their clinics merely because they offer abortion services.
The crisis pregnancy center created in the wake of this program is the Texas Pregnancy Care Network.
"We're administrators, so we don't provide any services ourselves," said the network's Executive Director Vincent Friedewald. "We subcontract with service providers and then reimburse them for some of what they do."
Friedewald explained that crisis pregnancy centers like his own, established with the appropriated money, "provide support to organizations whose services emphasize alternatives to abortion. This money was set aside in particular for clinics that would provide just pregnancy and parenting support services."
The network, like most crisis pregnancy centers, is entirely free of charge to pregnant women. Unlike other pregnancy centers, however, its period of eligibility extends up to a year after birth.
"The reason for that is that it's important that you don't provide support until the child is born and then say 'Good Luck,'" said Friedewald. "The program wants to work with them - not just through the pregnancy, but also through the first stage of parenting."
Wheat argues that the money cut from the family planning budget was cut from centers like Planned Parenthood, which provide services not offered by crisis pregnancy centers.
"Texas has one of the highest rates of uninsured women in the country," said Wheat. "For those women, family planning clinics are their only source of health care."
According to Wheat, Planned Parenthood has 27,000 clients alone in the Austin area.
"These women come in for pap smears, for hypertension screenings, for cervical and breast cancer exams, for STD tests, for birth control options," she said. "The crisis pregnancy centers that are getting this money do not provide this kind of medical care."
Senator Williams did not return phone calls regarding the effects or projected benefits of the rider.
"Presumably, our funding was cut because we provide abortions - though with private money," said Wheat. "But abortions are really such a small part of what we do." Friedewald maintains that as the crisis pregnancy network picks up speed, it also picks up clients who value its services.
"This program is still relatively new by state program standards," he said. "But we started with one site in August and as of now we're at 14 sites. We started with 11 clients, and as of last week we've had 1,400 unique clients that have been served. We're growing steadily, and that $5 million is being used to reimburse providers who add new services for women every day."
The results of this and other political decisions involving women's sexual health remain to be seen.
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