Christmas comes early for women

SEATTLE — Christmas is days away, but women got a couple of early presents — one from local medical researchers and the other from the highest court in the land.

I would say, “You shouldn’t have,” but here’s my truth: “What took you so long?”

The first gift is a contraceptive gel for men being tested by the University of Washington. When applied daily on the upper arms or shoulders, it can effectively reduce sperm production within eight to 16 weeks — taking some of the birth-control burden off women’s shoulders in the process.

And let’s be clear: It’s a burden. Pills, implants, shots, patches and rings. And men? Condoms.

“We are neglecting 50 percent of the population with our current methods,” Dr. Stephanie Page, a UW School of Medicine endocrinologist and the study’s principal investigator, told my colleague Paige Cornwell. “There’s every reason for men to be more engaged.”

Dr. William Bremner, a UW professor of medicine who is directing the trial, said in the same story that there has long been a social bias against birth control for males: “Among other things,” he told Cornwell, “there’s been a perception that pregnancy is ‘the women’s problem’ in some people’s view.”

I’d like to point out that Bremner referred to pregnancy as a “problem.” But he can do that because he’s a man. Women say that and they’re heartless trollops.

As for the “some people” he refers to? They’re the politicians who consistently stand in the way of women getting affordable reproductive health care.

Which brings me to the U.S. Supreme Court. It, too, showed some goodwill toward women last week when it declined to hear a case brought by two Republican-led states seeking to end Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide women’s reproductive health services.

Jennifer Allen, CEO of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii, called the court’s decision to pass on the case “absolutely a major victory.”

“And not just for Planned Parenthood,” she added, “but for the patients who rely on Medicaid. It’s a major victory against a draconian attempt to end the care of some of the patients who need it the most.”

While three conservative justices dissented, and were willing to hear the case, it was two other conservatives who went along with the court’s liberal justices and gave Planned Parenthood this unexpected pass: Roberts and none other than Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

I have no idea why Kavanaugh didn’t push to hear the case.

Neither did Allen: “We don’t know what Kavanaugh was doing or thinking,” she said. “But a vote to avoid a case is a long way from an opinion.”

National Public Radio’s longtime Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg said the decision “strongly suggests that a majority of justices, led by (Chief Justice John) Roberts, would like to keep a low profile this term,” especially after the turmoil of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, more people are seeing the good in Planned Parenthood’s work. That while a portion of its services are abortions, it also provides cancer screenings, prenatal services, birth control and ultrasounds. Better to fund it and keep millions of low-income women healthy than put them — and therefore, their families — in physical and financial straits.