The Quickie: Planned Parenthood St. Louis to Offer Sedation for IUD Insertion

Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.

In today’s Quickie: PPSLR offers sedation for IUD insertion, Uganda’s Constitutional Court upholds anti-LGBTQI+ measure, and a spotlight from PP Votes.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD ST. LOUIS TO OFFER SEDATION FOR IUD INSERTION: Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri’s Fairview Heights health center now offers sedation for IUD insertion and removal. The IUD is a reliable, effective form of birth control and many patients prefer it over a daily pill or changing a patch every week — some IUDs last 10 years. While there is some discomfort associated with the insertion and removal, some patients have reported intolerable pain. 

Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of PPSLR, knows it's important for patients to have options when it comes to birth control, including options for pain or discomfort. 

“Folks really want this super-effective, great form of birth control but also are having such negative experiences with its insertion. … At the end of the day, we want people to feel empowered to choose the method that's going to work the best for them. But we also feel like they don't need to be traumatized in the process of getting that method. … So rather than making patients come and endure the process and then decide they can't tolerate it, we were sort of flipping the script and saying, ‘You know your body best.’” 

Read more in STLPR. 

 

UGANDA CONSTITUTIONAL COURT REJECTS REPEAL OF ANTI-LGBTQI+ MEASURE, CITING DOBBS DECISION FOR JUSTIFICATION: On Wednesday, Uganda’s constitutional court rejected an appeal to nullify the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which criminalizes LGBTQI+ Ugandans.

In a stunning decision, the five judges on the bench cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a recent model “where the Court considered the nation’s history and traditions, as well as the dictates of democracy and rule of law, to over-rule the broader right to individual autonomy.” This underscores the far-reaching grip and influence of the Dobbs decision. 

“Planned Parenthood stands in solidarity with the LGBTQI+ community in Uganda and human rights for all in the face of this devastating ruling,” said Caitlin Horrigan, senior director of global advocacy for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Seeing Dobbs cited by a Ugandan court in upholding most of the draconian anti-LGBTQI+ law is disturbing and another example of the global reverberations of the erosion of abortion rights in the U.S. It is also reminder that the struggle for reproductive and LGBTQI+ rights are deeply connected and underscores why our work must be global to combat the anti-gender movement, which is coming for all of us.”

Planned Parenthood Global has a presence in Uganda to support regional organizations’ work around sexual and reproductive health, and continues to stand in full support of the LGBTQI+ community. Prior to the bill being enshrined into law, Planned Parenthood Global joined in the worldwide outrage and was also one of the signatories of a letter urging the World Bank to suspend funds to Uganda.

 

GOP CANDIDATES TRY TO REWRITE THEIR ANTI-ABORTION RECORDS: With abortion poised to be a major issue this election cycle, anti-abortion candidates are already trying to rewrite their records and scrub their websites of their out-of-touch, anti-abortion positions. 

A new memo from Planned Parenthood Votes pulls out key facts from a Huffington Post article detailing ongoing efforts to backtrack from GOP Senate candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada. 

Notably, Huffington Post asked four swing state Senate candidates — Sam Brown in Nevada, Kari Lake in Arizona, Mike Rogers in Michigan and Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania — about their stance on abortion. According to HuffPo, “All four were silent on the Supreme Court case heard last week aiming to ban mifepristone, a pill now used in over 60% of American abortions. All would be expected to back the same type of conservative judges who overturned Roe v. Wade in the first place.” 

Voters didn’t fall for these tactics in 2022 and 2023, and they won’t be fooled by these candidates’ blatant lies and deceptions in November. 

Read more from Planned Parenthood Votes.

Paid for by Planned Parenthood Votes, 123 William St, NY NY 10038. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.