Utah announced yesterday that they are considering a new law that would criminalize an “intentional, knowing or reckless act” that led to an abortion without doctor supervision. The bill stems from the case of a woman who had her stomach beaten in order to abort a fetus. Utah wants to prosecute. The law is on its way to the Governor’s desk and the uproar, quite rightfully, around the country is growing.

Forget for a moment that this law applies to the entire duration of a pregnancy, meaning that a miscarriage at any moment opens up a woman for investigation and prosecution. Forget for a moment that “reckless” behavior can mean any behavior where a woman consciously disregards a substantial risk that the pregnancy would result in miscarriage because of her actions (that’s the penal code definition).  Even forget that this new law changes the target of the anti-abortion movement from the abortion providers to the women themselves – making women victims twice over.

What I want to know is, how can a state that can’t afford to keep twelfth grade afford to launch all these complicated criminal investigations into the pregnancy status and reckless actions of Utah’s women?

You might remember that, just last week, Utah’s State Senate was seriously considering a proposal to eliminate twelfth grade or make it optional in order to save the State as much as $102 million. They are cash strapped and desperate, so desperate that their children’s education is no longer a priority.

But if your friend gets pregnant, fails to put on her seatbelt, gets into a car accident that is not her fault and then loses the fetus. Well, she is most certainly going to be a spending priority for Utah.

They’ll have to investigate whether she knew about the pregnancy, whether she complied with the seatbelt law, and whether she knew of a substantial risk to the fetus. They’ll have to prosecute and pay for her public defender and then they will have to pay for her incarceration.

Think how many kids could have completed their high school education (an education that means Utah students won’t always be the dumb ones in the nation’s freshman university classes) with all that money spent on prosecuting your friend.

Utah has its priorities seriously turned around. It also is about to take a great step backwards in terms of women’s rights and privacy rights in this country. It may be up to the court’s to correct this travesty of law-making. I hope the Constitution is up for the challenge.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Friday that the director of the Duke Catholic Center has lodged a complaint with researchers. The Rev. Joe Vetter says the study doesn’t promote relationships.

The study asks female students over age 18 to attend the events that are similar to Tupperware parties but with erotic toys, lingerie and games. The women complete surveys about their sexual attitudes before and after the parties and get product discounts.

A spokesman for Duke said the sex-toy party project went through the peer review process. Vetter says he plans to discuss the topic at Sunday mass.

He says he sees no major hurdles from the Obama administration implementing the policy change.

Mabus gave no timeline for when the change would take effect. He says officials first must figure out how to do it and notify Congress about the plan. Then women must complete training to serve.

Mabus says women should be able to serve throughout the Navy and the proposed change would be in keeping with that. His comments came Thursday during a visit to Northrop Grumman Corp.’s shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula.

Every military branch dismissed a disproportionate number of women in 2008 under the policy banning openly gay servicemembers. But the discrepancy was particularly marked in the Air Force, where women were a majority of those let go under the policy, even though they made up only 20 percent of personnel.

Across the military, women represented about one-third of the 619 people discharged based on sexual orientation. They account for just 15 percent of servicemembers.

The data was released Thursday by the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Pentagon statistics obtained by University of California researchers show that lesbians were discharged under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy at a much higher rate than gay men.

Every military branch dismissed a disproportionate number of women in 2008 under the policy banning openly gay servicemembers. But the discrepancy was particularly marked in the Air Force, where women were a majority of those let go under the policy, even though they made up only 20 percent of personnel.

Across the military, women represented about one-third of the 619 people discharged based on sexual orientation. They account for just 15 percent of servicemembers.

The data was released Thursday by the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

One big switch? Sex is no longer a big deal on the front lines:

“Opponents of integrating women in combat zones long feared that sex would mean the end of American military prowess. But now birth control is available — the PX at Warhorse even sold out of condoms one day recently — reflecting a widely accepted reality that soldiers have sex at outposts across Iraq.”

Also:

“[Women] have changed the way the United States military goes to war. They have reshaped life on bases across Iraq and Afghanistan. They have cultivated a new generation of women with a warrior’s ethos — and combat experience — that for millennia was almost exclusively the preserve of men. And they have done so without the disruption of discipline and unit cohesion that some feared would unfold at places like Warhorse.”

All of this is interesting for gays and lesbians who are seeking to be out while serving in the military, because many of these same concerns – that open gays will lead to rampant sex on bases, that unit cohesion will be frayed, that soldiers will leave the Army in droves – have not come to pass.

Indeed, commanders have found women to be excellent soldiers, and have found male soldiers to eventually accept them without comment.

Our soldiers are more resilent than politicians make them out to be. We don’t have to protect them from open gay and lesbian soldiers any more than we needed to protect them from women.

Some critics worry that the rabbinate and its charismatic chief, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, are infusing a militant mix of Judaism and nationalism into a traditionally secular institution that embodies the Israeli consensus.

On the Palestinian side, Islamic hard-liners already see their war with Israel through an uncompromising religious lens, and the rabbinate’s critics warn that the Jewish state must not follow suit and risk pushing the conflict closer to a zero-sum holy war.

When Israeli soldiers massed on the Gaza border for the country’s offensive against Hamas militants six months ago, uniformed rabbis stood amid the tents and tanks, reciting prayers with the men as they prepared for battle. When the troops went into Gaza, Rontzki went in with them.

That might not have seemed unusual, but some rabbis went further, distributing pamphlets that put the conflict firmly in religious terms. One suggested a parallel between today’s Palestinians and the Philistines, the biblical foes of the Israelites.

After criticism arose, the army condemned the pamphlet and Rontzki said it was distributed without his knowledge.

But the critics say it was in line with a pattern that goes against the heterogeneous nature of Israel’s conscript army.

Although mostly Jewish, the Israel Defense Forces’ estimated 175,000 regular troops include some Muslim Arabs and immigrants from the former Soviet Union who identify as Christians. The military’s advocate-general is an Orthodox Jew, and the editor of its official magazine is openly gay. All soldiers have access to their own clergy and observe their religions’ holidays, though only Jewish chaplains wear uniforms and serve in the military rabbinate.

The army chose Rontzki “instead of a more moderate personality with the hope of avoiding the kind of problems discussed around the withdrawal from Gaza,” said Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli historian who has studied the settler movement.

“In the process, it has given a very prominent pulpit to someone whose views on other issues are extremely controversial,” he said.

Rontzki pioneered a new arm of the rabbinate dedicated to Jewish education, dubbed the Jewish Consciousness division. During the Gaza war his staff distributed colorful pamphlets exhorting soldiers to victory, accompanied by prayers, photographs of uniformed men in prayer shawls, and a number to call with questions of religious law.

“Under Rontzki’s command, the rabbinate is giving the conflict a religious overtone, and they are also using their free access to soldiers to work toward political goals,” said Michael Sfard, an attorney for Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. Those goals, critics like Sfard say, include making sure the West Bank, claimed by the Palestinians as part of their future state, remains in Jewish hands for good.

Rontzki has been accused of speaking out against military service for women – he denies it – and after Bamahane, the army magazine, profiled a homosexual major, Rontzki wrote to several senior officers to protest.

Israel’s army is proud of the opportunities it provides to women and openly gay soldiers. “A senior IDF officer who believes that it would be better for women not to be drafted and that homosexual soldiers should be erased from official army publications … does not deserve to serve in his position,” the Association for Civil Rights in Israel wrote to the military chief of staff.

The military responded that Rontzki was expressing his personal opinions. It declined to let Rontzki be interviewed, but Maj. Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman, said his actions were in line with military orders.

“The jobs of the rabbinate have not changed,” Leibovich said. “The rabbinate is not supposed to be a substitute for the commander on the ground, but to give a spiritual boost to a religious soldier who might need it.”

The rabbinate’s new approach comes at a time of rising Orthodox influence in the military’s combat units. Elite troops once came predominantly from the socialist kibbutz movement; today they are more likely to be people like Rontzki – skullcapped, seminary-educated and steeped in an ethos of national service, sacrifice and building settlements.

The military does not keep statistics on religious affiliation, but it is clear that more religious Jews are making their way up the ranks. Some estimates say a quarter of the troops now completing combat officers’ training are religious. However, skullcaps like the one worn by 57-year-old Ronzki are still rare among the top brass, which remains overwhelmingly secular.

Some Orthodox leaders and educators voice concern that serving alongside secular conscripts weakens religious conviction. One of Rontzki’s goals has been to counter that tendency.

Most in the army think Rontzki’s activist Judaism is good for morale, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired general who is Orthodox himself.

Rontzki “has pushed himself into areas the military rabbinate never went before,” Amidror said. Referring to the Gaza operation, he said, “His approach was that the spiritual guide needs to be with the flock – it can’t be that soldiers are in there and rabbis are not.”

“How many generations of women have been told to avoid lifting heavy objects?” Dr. Eric Winer, breast cancer chief at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston, lamented after seeing the surprising results of the new study. “Women who were doing the lifting actually had fewer arm problems because they had better muscle tone.”

The study was led by Kathryn Schmitz, an exercise scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, and funded by the federal government. Results are in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

More than 2.4 million Americans are breast cancer survivors, and the study could mean a big difference in their quality of life. Cancer treatment-related arm swelling now appears to be one of many ailments made better by exercise – not worse, Schmitz said.

“Fifty years ago we told people who had a heart attack not to exercise anymore,” and people with sore backs to heal with bed rest, Schmitz said. “It was well-meaning advice but it was polar opposite of the truth.”

Women who have had radiation to the armpit, or lymph nodes removed to check for cancer, can suffer lymphedema – a buildup of fluids that causes painful and unsightly swelling of the arms or hands.

To avoid it, doctors have advised women to avoid using the affected arm to lift toddlers, carry a heavy purse or scrub floors. Even activities like golf and tennis raised concern.

Women think, “Oh, my God, I need to baby the arm,” Schmitz said.

Lifting weights – which boosts mood, muscle mass, bone strength and weight control – was thought to be a bad idea for women prone to lymphedema.

Schmitz challenged that notion with a small study several years ago, finding that weight training did not make lymphedema worse. Her new study is the first one large and long enough to give clear proof that this is so, and even suggests that weightlifting can help.

It involved 141 breast cancer survivors who had suffered lymphedema. Half were told not to change their exercise habits. The rest were given 90-minute weightlifting classes twice a week for 13 weeks at community gyms, mostly YMCAs.

They wore a custom-fitted compression garment on the affected arm and gradually worked up to more challenging weights and repetitions. For the next 39 weeks, they continued these exercises on their own.

The women’s arms were measured monthly. After one year, fewer weightlifters had suffered lymphedema flare-ups – 14 percent versus 29 percent of the others. Weightlifters reported fewer symptoms and greater strength. Rates of change in arm size due to swelling were similar in both groups.

“I found it was really very effective. It not only gave me strength and mobility but it improved my balance and coordination,” said one participant, Clare Faber, 66, of suburban Philadelphia. “It really does offer women hope.”

Another participant, Gay McArthur, 56, of Smithfield, N.J., has continued weightlifting on her own since the study ended.

“When I first got diagnosed with lymphedema, they said I couldn’t lift more than five pounds,” she said. But weight training caused no problems and has made her feel better, she said.

It also should save money, though the study did not measure this, Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, wrote in an editorial in the medical journal. In the study, the group of weightlifters made only 77 visits to doctors or physical therapists for lymphedema flare-ups versus 195 visits for the others, she noted.

Another part of the study is evaluating whether weight training can prevent a first case of lymphedema in breast cancer survivors; results are expected soon, Schmitz said.

Breast cancer survivors should not rush into weight training – that could trigger problems. Schmitz suggests:

-Have a certified fitness professional teach you how to do the exercises properly.

-Start slow, with a program that gradually progresses.

-Wear a well-fitting compression garment during workouts.

The report produced by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS, and its partner organizations said the HIV epidemics in Asia vary between countries but are fueled by unprotected paid sex, the sharing of contaminated needles by drug users, and unprotected sex among men who have sex with men.

Men who buy sex constitute the largest infected population group and the report said most of them are either married or will get married.

“This puts a significant number of women, often perceived as ‘low-risk’ because they only have sex with their husbands or long-term partners, at risk of HIV infection,” UNAIDS said in a news release.

According to a report last year on the global AIDS epidemic, an estimated 5 million people in Asia, and 74,000 in the Pacific, were living with HIV in 2007.

The new report, released Tuesday at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Bali, Indonesia, and at U.N. headquarters in New York, said that by 2008, women accounted for 35 percent of all adult HIV infections in Asia, up from 17 percent in 1990.

UNAIDS estimated that more than 90 per cent of the 1.7 million women living with HIV in Asia became infected from their husbands or partners while in long-term relationships. In Cambodia, India and Thailand, the largest number of new HIV infections occur among married women, it said.

According to the report, at least 75 million men regularly buy sex from sex workers in Asia, and a further 20 million men have sex with other men or are injecting drug users.

UNAIDS said many of these men are in steady relationships and it is estimated that 50 million women in the region are at risk of acquiring HIV from their partners.

“HIV prevention programs focused on the female partners of men with high-risk behaviors still have not found a place in national HIV plans and priorities in Asian countries,” Dr. Prasada Rao, director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team Asia and the Pacific said at the launch of the report, according to a U.N. release.

The report notes that the strong patriarchal culture in Asian countries severely limits a woman’s ability to control her sex life.

While society tolerates extramarital sex and multiple partners for men, women are generally expected to refrain from sex until marriage and remain monogamous afterward, it said.

“Discrimination and violence against women and girls, endemic to our social fabric, are both the cause and consequence of AIDS,” Jean D’Cunha, South Asia regional director for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, said in a statement. “Striking at the root of gender inequalities and striving to transform male behaviors are key to effectively addressing the pandemic.”

The report calls for stepped up efforts to prevent HIV infections for men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and clients of female sex workers. It said that programs should emphasize the importance of protecting their regular female partners.

More than 60,000 inmates are sexually abused every year, according to a report being made public Tuesday by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission. The eight-member panel was formed under the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Based on a 2007 survey of tens of thousands of incarcerated people, 4.5 percent of those surveyed reported being sexually abused in the previous 12 months – and more prisoners claimed abuse by staff than by other inmates.

Among the key findings of the report aimed at reducing the amount of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse behind bars, the panel found:

- Who gets abused depends a great deal on where they are incarcerated. Ten facilities studied had high rates, between 9 percent and almost 16 percent, whereas six facilities reported no abuse at all for the past year. The commission said prison management must show leadership in stopping such abuse.

- Inmates in jails reported fewer instances of rape than in prisons.

- Inmates who were short, young, gay or female were more likely to be victimized than other inmates.

To fight the problem, the commission says prison authorities should adopt more internal monitoring and external oversight. They also say prison officials need to improve investigation of claims of sexual assault and rape, because currently many victims cannot safely and easily come forward.

After the prison rape report is sent to Congress, the attorney general is to create new national standards for detecting and preventing rape and sexual assault in prisons, jails and detention facilities.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Tarrant County district court. Defendants include Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker, who led the theologically conservative diocese to split from the national church over issues including gay clergy and women in the priesthood.

The Iker-led group voted last year to join a more conservative province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Episcopal Church maintains that its rules prohibit dioceses from breaking away and that church properties are held in trust for the denomination.

Iker told The Dallas Morning News by e-mail that the lawsuit was expected.