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House Approves Spending Bill Allowing D.C. To Use Locally Raised Funds For Abortion Services
The House on Thursday voted 219-208 to approve a fiscal year 2010 Financial Services spending bill (HR 3170), which includes a provision reversing a long-standing congressional ban on allowing Washington, D.C., to use locally derived revenue to fund or subsidize abortion services, the AP/Washington Post reports (AP/Washington Post, 7/17). The measure maintains a ban on using federal funds for abortion services in the district.According to CQ Today, Thursday"s vote followed a "lengthy and sometimes heated debate" marked by Republicans and some moderate Democrats" dissatisfaction with a rule restricting amendments. The House voted 216-213 to approve the rule, which allowed 17 amendments but excluded any on the D.C. abortion funding provision (Clarke, CQ Today, 7/16).
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New Target In Fight Against Osteoporosis, Periodontitis Identified By Dental Researchers
Osteoporosis and periodontitis are common diseases whose sufferers must cope with weakness, injury and reduced function as they lose bone more quickly than it is formed. While the mechanism of bone destruction in these diseases is understood, scientists have had less information about how bone formation is impaired.
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Shanghai To Relax One-Child Policy As China Faces Aging Population, Shrinking Work Force
Nearly three decades after China implemented its one-child policy, the city of Shanghai is planning to encourage young couples to have a second child in an effort to address the country"s aging population and shrinking work force, the New York Times reports. The city"s plan is the most public effort made by the government to counteract a program that is "considered both a tremendous success and a terrible failure," the Times reports. The policy has managed to keep population growth under control but also has led to forced abortions, according to the Times.The country is not abandoning the one-child policy, which applies mostly to residents in urban areas. Rather, the government is allowing more exceptions to the rule, with Shanghai -- where about 22% of its 20 million residents are older than age 60 -- leading the effort. China as a whole faces a similar problem seen in Shanghai, the Times reports. About 8% of the country"s population was older than age 65 in 2006. That figure is expected to increase threefold by 2050 to about 322 million people, or nearly 25% of the population, according to the United Nations.In Friday"s issue of China Daily, Xie Lingli, director of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission, was quoted as saying, "We advocate eligible couples to have two kids because it can help reduce the proportion of the aging people and alleviate a work force shortage in the future." City officials plan to visit homes, pass out leaflets, and offer counseling and financial incentives, the Times reports. Current exceptions to the one-child policy are in place for ethnic minorities and rural residents, who can have a second child if the first child is a girl. Couples made up of two parents who have no siblings have always been allowed to have a second child and are now being encouraged to do so (Barboza, New York Times, 7/24).
Public Health

Supreme Court Should Be 'Reined In' To Return Power To Legislative Branch, NYT Columnist Writes

Although Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor"s confirmation hearings are more than a month away, "it"s easy to predict how they will go," New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes. Douthat predicts that Senate Judiciary Committee members "will attempt to divine Sotomayor"s position on a variety of controversial topics," such as abortion rights, and in "a series of polite, evasive answers, the nominee will feign a studious neutrality on almost every issue that could come before her during what"s likely to be decades as one of the most powerful women in the world." According to Douthat, the "deeper stakes" that likely will be ignored are that "Sotomayor will be joining a high court that"s gradually become a kind of extra legislative body." He cites research from Harvard Law School professor Jed Shugerman showing that the court over roughly the past 50 years has invalidated both state and federal statutes at an unprecedented rate. Douthat also points to data from Evan Caminker of the University of Michigan showing that in one eight-year period, the court invalidated 16 federal laws in 5-4 votes, something that occurred only 25 times in the previous two centuries. Douthat writes that "settling so many vexing controversies with 5-to-4 votes -- effectively making Anthony Kennedy the nation"s philosopher king -- is an awfully poor way to run a republic."Douthat continues that the "modern court"s most enduringly controversial power grabs -- with Roe v. Wade leading the way -- were usually the work of liberal justices" but that "in practice, the main divide between liberal and conservative judges tends to be over the responsibilities of the federal government, not judicial activism per se." He writes, "There are bipartisan ways that the Court could be reined in, and the legislative branch reinvigorated," including the idea of a supermajority rule that would require a 6-3 vote to overturn federal legislation. This idea "might spur the court toward greater consensus, and perhaps greater modesty as well," according to Douthat. Another possibility would be to implement 12-year term limits, he says. Douthat concludes that these suggestions would not "reduce the Supreme Court"s power directly, but it would help us see the court for what it has become -- a deeply political institution, as fallible as any other, and answerable, when all is said and done, to us" (Douthat, New York Times, 6/2). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women"s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women"s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company. © 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.


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