Meet Our Candidates: Athena Salman for State Representative, LD 26

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Anna C.

The time to fight back — and fight forward — for reproductive justice is fast approaching. The stakes are high in this year’s state election, with candidates for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and other races on the ballot. The Arizona general election will be held November 6, 2018, and with early voting beginning on October 10. Voters need to be registered by October 9 to cast their ballots. Reproductive health has been under attack, both nationally and statewide, but Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who put our health and our rights first. Get to know them now in our series of “Meet Our Candidates” interviews, and make your voice heard in 2018!

[L]egislative District 26 is a magnet for people who care about Arizona’s most pressing issues: reproductive justice, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ equality, and strong public education. Given the deep pool of talent from which this district draws, it has a history of exciting legislators who fight for these values at the Capitol. Athena Salman is no exception. After a successful first term, she is running for reelection in order to continue representing her district, which includes Tempe, Mesa, Phoenix, and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

“If we don’t remain diligent in protecting our rights, then the discrimination we see now will pale in comparison to what’s down the pipeline.”

When Salman began her first term in 2017, she soon joined women from both parties in accusing Rep. Don Shooter (R-Yuma) of sexual harassment. The story ended in February, when the House voted 56 to 3 to expel Rep. Shooter, an event that marked the first time a state lawmaker was ousted from office in the #MeToo era. Around the same time, Salman was making headlines for spearheading the #LetItFlow campaign, bringing awareness to female prisoners’ lack of adequate access to menstrual hygiene products. In both instances, Salman centered her actions on protecting the dignity of women everywhere in the state.

Thanks to her passionate advocacy for these and other issues during her first two years in office, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona is pleased to endorse Rep. Salman for a second term. She took the time to respond to our questions on September 18, 2018.

Since we last spoke, how has your commitment to serving Arizona grown? What has happened during that time to give you hope, and what has happened to strengthen your convictions?

My entire life, my mother’s entire life, even my grandmother’s entire life, for as long as we can remember, women have been harassed and shamed for exercising our constitutional right to reproductive health care and self-determination.

However, from #MeToo to #TimesUp we are seeing women from all backgrounds uniting and saying “Enough is enough!” With Roe v. Wade hanging in the balance, women are raising our voices in the one place where we are truly equal, the ballot, and making sure we are being heard loud and clear. Need proof? This primary election alone saw women in Maricopa County outnumber men in early voting by 65,000. As several have already stated, the future is female. Continue reading →

One Simple Kit

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Amanda

A community health worker teaches how to make cloth pads. Photo: Nyaya Health

Last week, I texted a friend of mine and told her: I have a hard choice before me. When she asked what that was, I smiled as I replied: I must choose between replenishing the MAC mascara that I just ran out of and buying the new Harry Potter book. We both laughed. But really, even as a single mom who falls beneath the poverty level, this was my choice of the day.

I have known hard times. I have lived in my car with my two dogs and I have had to volunteer my time cleaning my son’s school to ensure that he gets an education because I couldn’t afford the monthly tuition. I have taken hits by the ones I love, both physical and metaphorical, and I have had my innocence stolen from me by a boy I hardly knew.

One simple kit is combating poverty, hunger, and gender inequality.

Yet somewhere across a sea, a young girl sits in her room, blood gushing from her for reasons unbeknownst to her. Fear brings tears to her eyes as she struggles to understand why God has cursed her. That is what her mother has taught her. That if such a thing occurs, it is a curse from her creator for being a filthy creature. A girl her age tells her that she has contracted a disease, something she couldn’t remember the three letters to reference, but she knew was deadly.

In a rural region in southern Malawi, a girl who has had her first period may be expected to undergo a “sexual cleansing” ritual, in which she is made to have unprotected sex with a man called a hyena — a risky proposition in a country in which nearly 1 in 10 adults has HIV. Her choice to deny such an offer could result in her entire family being stricken ill or even dead — at least that is what she is told. Continue reading →

Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 25: Lost Tampons

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Anna C.

Welcome to the latest installment of “Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does,” a series on Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s blog that highlights Planned Parenthood’s diverse array of services — the ones Jon Kyl never knew about.

Planned Parenthood Arizona offers a wide variety of services, and someday we hope to cover every last one of them in this series. But today, I’d like to talk about one of the odder services: helping you with a lost tampon.

OK, so “lost” might be a weird word. I mean, you probably know the general area where that tricky tampon is lurking … But it happens even to the best of us: Sometimes, when you go to retrieve a tampon, you just … can’t find it. Maybe it was forgotten about, and then pushed farther up the vaginal canal by a subsequent tampon, or smooshed against the cervix during intercourse, and now you can’t find the string to remove it.

The presence of a certain strain of bacteria in one’s vagina can increase risk for toxic shock syndrome, especially when absorbent tampons are used.

The vagina can be a hiding place for all kinds of things — not just tampons, but sex toys, the remnants of broken condoms, and other foreign objects. And vaginas aren’t the only cavity with magical, or possibly just embarrassing, powers of concealment. When I worked at a medical journal, I came across ample (and very, very detailed!) documentation of all sorts of things getting “lost” in people’s rectums, urethras, ears, and throats. Believe me, a seasoned health care provider has probably seen it all, so if you can’t for the life of you remove something from your vagina on your own, don’t be afraid to ask Planned Parenthood for help. (You might ask about making an emergency, same-day appointment.)

Tampons aren’t designed to be used in a vagina for more than a few hours, and leaving them in for too long might increase risk for certain infections. For example, you might have heard of toxic shock syndrome (TSS), which is probably the No. 1 condition that comes to people’s minds when they think of tampons being left in for way too long. While it’s true that TSS is associated with tampons, tampons aren’t the only cause — they play just one role in the infection process. Continue reading →