by Sinead Cook People who attend Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) have a variety of acute and longer-term sexual health and contraceptive needs. In Cardiff, we introduced a local policy in 2017 that aimed to ensure high-quality immediate care within the SARC and onwards referral to the local integrated sexual health clinic. A year later, […]
Category: Public Health
Rare but there: exploring utilization of second-trimester abortion in Mexico
By Blair Darney and Lily Alexander Women in Mexico City have had access to free and legal first-trimester abortion since 2007. During this time the Interrupcion Legal de Embarazo (ILE) program has provided abortion services to over 214,000 women. [PARA LEER EN ESPANOL] However, Mexico City is an exception. In the other 31 states of […]
Survey of swingers finds more women use recreational drugs during sex than men
Swingers are couples who have sex with others and singles who have sex with them. Although they identify as straight, they also engage in same sex behaviour. New research published in BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections examined the use of recreational drugs to intensify sex among people who used swinger websites. 1005 swingers completed a […]
Who is using emergency contraception in Wales and why? Reflections on 5-years of the service
By Efi Mantzourani, Andrew Evans, and Cheryl Way The bigger picture in the Welsh strategy Access to Emergency Contraception (EC) has been a core component of attempts to address high teenage pregnancy rates in Wales. In 2011, the Welsh Government directed local health boards to commission a national EC service from community pharmacies (CPs) […]
Medical devices and the legacy of the Dalkon Shield: The struggle for evidence-based contraception
Evidence from Natsal-3 published in BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health showed that women need contraception from doctors, but men largely get it from the shops. For many of us, this kind of disparity tends to set off our sexism alarms. In some ways the results are a natural consequence of biological differences. Men tend to […]
Sexuality, Reproduction, and The Etymology of Abuse
By an Anonymous Historian I love looking up archaic uses of words and uncovering their etymologies. Researching the origins of the word ‘abuse’, I was struck by how the meaning of abuse has journeyed alongside sexuality and reproduction for centuries. ab – uti The Vulgar Latin abuti meant use up or consume as well as […]
Coercive and Controlling Behaviour in The Taming of the Shrew
The RSC’s new gender-flipped production of The Taming of the Shrew highlights the often overlooked coercive and controlling behaviour in the script. Gender Rewriting male characters as female can be done without changing much at all, as in the production of Timon of Athens at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) earlier this year, where the […]
#DecolonisingContraception – The Importance of Preventing Unethical Practice in SRH and Learning from History
By Annabel Sowemimo Many times a week when I grab hold of a ‘Sims’ speculum (used in gynecology theatres across the world) I feel a shudder as I think of the legacy of J.Marion Sims, often nicknamed “the father of Gynaecology”. We can thank the many nameless Black American and poor women that Sims operated […]
Reproductive Health is a Public Health Issue
By Dr Sue Mann. Re-published with permission of FSRH. Dr Sue Mann and colleagues Monica Davison and Alison Hadley provide some background to the new suite of documents on reproductive health to be published by Public Health England (PHE). The documents will define the scope of reproductive health, provide a national overview of the current status […]
Women Suffer Most from Cuts to 17 NHS Operations
By Katherine Ripullone and Kate Womersley From 2019, the NHS will refuse hundreds of thousands of operations, as part of cost-cutting measures. What’s been less well publicized than the ‘17 blacklisted ops’, is how restriction and discontinuation of these procedures by NHS England will disproportionately affect women. This gender bias is not a new trend. […]