Indian Health Service slow to stock Plan B

Sunny Clifford of Kyle in the Oglala Lakota Nation initiated a petition to urge the director of Indian Health Service to stop blocking access to care.

This morning, KUNM, New Mexico's Community Powered Public Radio, reminded listeners that health care resources entitled to American Indian women are inadequate.

Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton, Native Times:

A September survey of 63 IHS pharmacies in the Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Aberdeen, S.D., and Bemidiji, Minn., service areas by the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center showed that almost half carried Plan B, but did not have it available over-the-counter, despite the Food and Drug Administration eliminating the prescription requirement in 2006 for women younger than 18. 

Citing the rates of sexual assault, teen pregnancy and health insurance coverage in Indian Country, the National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution at its mid-year conference in June, calling on IHS to provide over-the-counter access to Plan B for women who are 17 years old or older at all of its service units.

The responsibility of the United States to the needs of tribes was established in 1787, is based on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, and has been given form and substance by numerous treaties, laws, Supreme Court decisions, and Executive Orders.

The canonization of an American Indian saint by the Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers is intended to assuage litigants seeking recompense for centuries of rape, sexual and psychological abuse.






Bill McKibben just tweeted the following video describing a response to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). Greenpeace is very concerned about the negative impacts on efforts to reverse climate change, too: