Science Agenda: Protect Women’s Health and other stories from Scientific American

Planned Parenthood is important for women’s health and welfare, but recently it has become a heated topic in Congress. The services it provides and its historical role in women’s rights should be remembered, the Editors write in this month’s Scientific American Science Agenda column.

This press release contains:

Summaries of newsworthy articles:

Science Agenda: Protect Women’s Health

Forum: Slinking toward the Bomb
------------------------

Science Agenda: Protect Women’s Health (p. 12)

Planned Parenthood is important for women’s health and welfare, but recently it has become a heated topic in Congress. The services it provides and its historical role in women’s rights should be remembered, the Editors write in this month’s Scientific American Science Agenda column.

One in five American women use Planned Parenthood’s services, and three out of four of its patients are considered to have low incomes. Yet despite providing exams to ensure women’s well-being—such as breast and cervical cancer tests—the nonprofit has come under attack by Republican presidential candidates and some members of Congress. They seek to revoke the group’s federal funding—almost half of its $1-billion budget comes from federal and state sources—largely due to its abortion services, which account for about 3 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.

Stripping Planned Parenthood of federal funding would drive women to unsafe procedures without necessarily decreasing the number of abortions and would sacrifice the 97 percent of its public health work that has nothing to do with abortion, from which many people benefit directly, the Editors write. In fact, in the U.S., the family planning services it provides, such as birth control, have “saved lives, opened new horizons for women and kept populations from soaring.”

Author contact:
Editors at Scientific American are available to comment on this topic; please contact the Press Office
E-mail: [email protected]

---

Forum: Slinking toward the Bomb (p.14)

Iran is close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, concludes Graham T. Allison in the Forum column published in this month’s Scientific American. Allison examines what can be done to stop this from happening, urging the U.S. to seriously consider the offer made by Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last fall with regards to ending all enrichment beyond low-enriched uranium in exchange for the purchase of fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor.

Since February 2010, Iran has enriched uranium to 20 percent and it has recently tripled the production rates of this material. Uranium enrichment at 90% would provide the core of four nuclear bombs. Iran has also experimented with centrifuges that are three to six times more efficient than the first-generation centrifuges it is currently operating. These acts can be viewed as significant steps toward making a bomb. “The best way to deter Iran from making the decision to build a bomb in the short term is to maximize the likelihood that such a decision will be discovered and met by a devastating attack,” Allison writes.

Author contact:
Editors at Scientific American are available to comment on this topic; please contact the Press Office
E-mail: [email protected]

---

PRESS CONTACTS:

From North America and Canada
Neda Afsarmanesh, Nature New York
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: [email protected]

From the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Ruth Francis, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4562; E-mail [email protected]

From Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Mika Nakano, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]

---

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.

Focusing on the needs of scientists, Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal. In addition, for this audience, NPG publishes a range of Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals, plus a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. Online, nature.com provides over 5 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services, including Nature News and NatureJobs plus access to Nature Network and Nature Education’s Scitable.com.

Scientific American is at the heart of NPG’s newly-formed consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 15 local language editions around the world it reaches over 3 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany.

Throughout all its businesses NPG is dedicated to serving the scientific and medical communities and the wider scientifically interested general public. Part of Macmillan Publishers Limited, NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo, and offices in cities worldwide including Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Heidelberg, Basingstoke, Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul and Washington DC. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.

Neda Afsarmanesh
Press Officer

Nature Publishing Group
75 Varick St, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10013, USA
t: (212) 726-9231
f: (646) 563-7117
e: [email protected]
w: www.nature.com

Published: 15 May 2012

Contact details:

The Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan Street
London
N1 9XW
United Kingdom

+44 20 7833 4000
Country: 
Journal:
News topics: 
Content type: 
Websites: