Be Our Pro-Choice Valentine!

Donate to FAPPA between now and February 14th, and receive a special pro-choice E-valentine to send to your special someone, or a friend or family member. We will use your contribution to advance commonsense policies increasing access to birth control and medically-accurate sex education. Donate Today!

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February 7th is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

February 7, 2010 marks the tenth annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD). This is a national community mobilization, HIV testing, and treatment initiative, which promotes awareness of, and access to, services for African Americans. Blacks are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. Educate yourself, friends, and family about HIV/AIDS and what you can do to protect yourself.

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About Us

The Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates (FAPPA) is the state public policy office representing Florida’s five Planned Parenthood affiliates. FAPPA works to advance public policy in areas of reproductive health care, family planning and medically-accurate sex education in order to make comprehensive reproductive health care available to all.

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Editorial: A Troubling Uptick

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January 30, 2010, The New York Times

One of President Obama’s worthier first-year achievements was to redirect federal sex-education financing from an abstinence-only approach to broader, more-effective programs that provide information to young people about contraceptives, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

A new study from the Guttmacher Institute examining the latest federal data on teenage sex, births and abortion — along with the group’s own abortion statistics — suggests the wisdom of that shift.

Letter: Abortion in Congress

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January 27, 2010, Naples Daily News

Editor, Daily News:

The current national debate about health care and health insurance is being used as a weapon to assail and undercut women’s reproductive health care.

As the debate continues, it is essential that women’s access to the full range of reproductive health services not be compromised. Under present law, some insurance plans cover abortion services. Under the reforms being considered in Congress, the coverage of abortion services will be either severely restricted or nonexistent.

Rise in teenage pregnancy rate spurs new debate on arresting it

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January 26, 2010, Washington Post

The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.

The pregnancy rate among 15-to-19-year-olds increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 -- the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and the nation's leading reproductive-health think tank.

Teen pregnancy has long been one of the most pressing social issues and has triggered intense political debate over sex education, particularly whether the federal government should fund programs that encourage abstinence until marriage or focus on birth control.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD PRESIDENT CECILE RICHARDS’ STATEMENT ON GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE REPORT ON TEENAGE PREGNANCY RATES

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“This new study makes it crystal clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work, and it should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who still believes that teenagers aren’t sexually active or that abstinence-only programs curb the rate of teen pregnancy. Now more than ever, we must ensure that our teenagers receive medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education that gives them the tools to make responsible decisions about their health.

A rise in teenage pregnancy also raises concerns

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Manatee County officials reconsider abstinence-only approach to sex education

January 25, 2010, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Almost 500 babies were born to Manatee County teenagers in 2008, one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Florida.

Staff at the school district's day care look after almost 90 babies while their teenage moms take classes. Another 43 students are pregnant.

Teachers report that some students no longer feel there is any stigma attached to pregnancy among students.

Opposing sides mark 37 years of Roe v. Wade

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January 23, 2010, Bradenton Herald

SARASOTA — The 37th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion brought activists on both sides of the issue to the streets Friday.

Mark Hohmeister: 'Personhood' takes debate to dangerous extremes

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January 23, 2010, Tallahassee Democrat

There's a move to amend Florida's Constitution, adding this sentence: "The words 'person' and 'natural person' apply to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, health, function, condition of physical and/or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of reproduction, from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."

It's called the Personhood Amendment for short, and you can boil down its 42 words to this: "After conception, it's sacred."

Thoughts On Roe at 37

by Stephanie Kunkel, Legislative Director
Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates


This morning, as I updated my Facebook status to celebrate the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with a message about how thankful I was that I have the right to make personal decisions about my body, I would never have guessed how many anti-choice comments I would receive -  and from my friends and family no less! 

Letter: Congress should remove anti-abortion amendment

January 22, 2010, St. Petersburg Times

On Jan. 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the constitutional right to privacy protects the right of women to make private decisions about the most intimate of matters — including the decision to terminate pregnancies that threaten their health and well-being. Abortion has existed as long as childbirth. There will always be a need for some women to terminate their pregnancies. Today, one in every three women will have an abortion at some time in her life. Although so many of us are working hard to reduce the number of terminations, abortion is not going away.

Letter: Congress still threatening a woman's right to choose

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January 22, 2010, Tallahassee Democrat

In January, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution protects the right of a woman to choose whether to continue a pregnancy to term or to have an abortion.

Yet, 37 years later we face the remarkable possibility that the United States Congress will enact health care reform legislation that singles out abortion from all other medical procedures, with unprecedented and unnecessary restrictions.

Indeed, these restrictions threaten not only to prevent women who will gain access to health insurance from obtaining abortion coverage, but could also result in women losing coverage they currently have. In effect these restrictions chip away at the rights that women and men have fought for and essentially move women backward rather than forward.

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