WOMEN

SHEALTH DES Update

(HerSay)-Researchers are issuing new health warnings about DES, the hormone-containing drug once prescribed for preventing miscarriages. Already suspected of causing cancer in daughters of women who took the drug, DES is now thought to increase the chances of these daughters having problem pregnancies.

A recent study shows that the rate of ectopic pregnancy, in which the fetus develops outside the uterus and usually miscarries, is five times greater among "DES daughters". Another study shows stillbirths, miscarriages and premature births to be one and a half times more common for "DES daughters" than for other women.

The Food and Drug Administration outlawed the prescription of DES-diethylstilbestrol-to pregnant women in 1971. However, the drug can still legally be prescribed as a "morning after" birth control pill, as a treatment for menopausal women and as a method

of suppressing the flow of milk in women choosing not to breastfeed.

In a related event, a committee of California's State Senate has approved a bill which would overturn an earlier state Supreme Court decision which allowed damage suits against all makers of DES. In March, the California Supreme Court ruled that two "DES daughters" who were unable to determine which company made the drug their mothers took, could sue all of the companies which once manufactured DES. The new California bill, however, would permit damage suits only if the manufacturer is specifically identified.

Pat Cody, spokesperson for DES Action, a Berkeley-based group, says the new bill would take away all legal remedies for DES victims. Cody says it is impossible for daughters to determine which company made a drug their mothers took twenty to thirty years ago.

C-Sections on the Increase

(HerSay)-Mother Jones Magazine is charging that doctors are performing ever-increasing numbers of unnecessary Caesarean-section deliveries. Between 1952 and 1962, C-sections accounted for only 3.7 percent of U.S. births. In 1978, the magazine says, that figure rose to 13.9 percent.

Mother Jones charged that the C-section delivery is no longer being used as an emergency method to save the life of the mother or child. Rather, "the demands of birth technology and the medical technocracy are now taking precedence over the best interests of mother and infant." The magazine suggests that one reason for the increasing rate of C-sections is simple greed. The cost of a Caesarean delivery is about three times that of a normal delivery: While the U.S. birth rate has fallen dramatically over the past 20 years,

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the income of obstetricians has risen in an equally dramatic fashion, establishing the field as the highest. paid medical specialty.-

Mother Jones speculates that another factor in the C-section increase appears to be convenience. A 1978 study of five New York City hospitals indicated that 62 percent of the Caesarean deliveries occurred dur-

ing normal working hours, between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. If C-sections were done based on need, they would likely be occurring at all hours of the day or night.

Mother Jones warns that a Caesarean-section is a major surgical operation, and it poses a serious threat to the mother and child.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Director of the Health Research Group in Washington, D.C., suggests that women question their doctors about what percentage of his or her deliveries are done by Caesarean. Says Wolfe, "If it's over 10 percent, then he or she is one of the doctors who is keeping the average up. Watch out."

Navy Psyches Dykes

(HerSay)-An attorney for sixteen women sailors aboard the U.S.S. Norton says she will ask the Federal Court in Los Angeles for a temporary restraining order to prevent the U.S. Navy from discharging the women for alleged "lesbian activities.'

Sixteen of the 61 women crew aboard the Norton have been ordered to submit to "psychological testing" for lesbianism, and attorney Susan McGreivy reports that the Navy has already begun the process of administratively discharging the women from the service.

McGreivy, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, says that the Navy is ignoring a recent Federal Court ruling which says a person cannot be discharged on grounds on homosexuality unless it affects the ability to do his or her job or affects security.

BITS & PIECES

Victim of Msjustice

(HerSay)-High school students in California's Mount Diablo School District may be allowed after all to read Ms. Magazine in their school libraries. The feminist magazine was banned from the library of the San Ygnacio High School in March

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after a parent objected to the alleged sexual nature of some of its articles and advertisements. That ban was later lifted, and the magazine reinstated in the library's shelves.

After the reinstatment, however, members of the Mormon Church circulated a petition among parents calling for the banning of Ms. in all eight of the district's high schools. A committee of 10 parents, administrators and teachers, however, has now voted unanimously to recommend to the Board of Education that that petition be denied.

Gloria Steinem, who edits Ms., has stated she will sue the school district if the feminist publication is banned.

Older Women Lose

(HerSay)-Middle-aged women are often pushed out of their jobs. simply because they are getting -older. The Los Angeles Times reports that the San Francisco-based Women Organized for Employment will give testimony on August 5 about increasing reports from older women that they are being forced out of their jobs, demoted or moved to back offices to make room for young women, allegedly because many offices want "young and pretty faces behind the typewriters."

The Times quotes W.O.E. spokesperson Linda Luehs as saying that some older women report receiving poor performance reviews once they reach the age of 45, even though they may have received "excellent" ratings until then. This, she says, is a way of logically pushing older women out of their jobs.

According to the newspaper, national statistics gathered by Working Women, the national organization of women office workers, show that more than one-third of all working women are aged 45 or older. However, after the age of 40, unemployment is onethird higher for women than for men, and women aged 45 to 54 earn an average of 54 percent of what men in that age group earn.

Commentary: Women and the Draft

What She Wants heartily approves the recent decision by a federal court in Philadelphia that the proposed draft registration is unconstitutional because it excludes women. Even though Supreme Court Justice Brennan subsequently blocked the order, the lower court's ruling does show some indication that equal rights are being taken seriously.

However, we cannot help but note the irony of a situation where the courts will not protect poor women by requiring that the government fund their abortions but may require them to register for the draft. The same Supreme Court which recently upheld the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment will now decide the question of registering women.

The logical parallel of the convoluted thinking which prevailed in McRae v Harris is that only some women, those who can afford it, will be required to register and exercise their right to defend their country. As would probably be the case, however, the burden would fall once again on poor women who, like the poor in general, have less access to the legal ins and outs of avoiding the draft.

The ACLU, incidentally, is filing a Petition of Rehearing with the Supreme Court in the Hyde Amendment case, with amicus, briefs being filed on behalf of many women's rights organizations throughout the country, including, we are proud to say, WSW.

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یال رکھتے ہی الرمد الله دیکھیے

August, 1980/What,She Wants/Pag