Jackson Women's Health Organization will open this morning despite the fact that H.B. 1390, a Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law crafted to close the clinic by creating unnecessary and cumbersome regulations, was scheduled to go into effect today. Late yesterday, a federal judge issued an injunction declaring that the state cannot enforce its TRAP law until after a full court hearing is held.

What the Medicaid decision means for women is right now unclear because legal analysts are still reviewing the opinion. But what states decide to do will have critical implications for women's health. One in ten women between the ages of 18 and 64 rely on Medicaid for their health coverage, and women over the age of 14 account for over 70 percent of Medicaid participants, so in effect, states that opt out of Medicaid expansion are making a de facto decision to deny millions of women access to care.

"The U.S. Supreme Court just upheld the Affordable Care Act, saying that the individual mandate is constitutional as a tax. This is fantastic news for the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans," writes Bryce Covert at Forbes. "Women in particular should pop the champagne and celebrate. Of those millions of uninsured, 19 million are women. Up to 10.3 million of the low-income among them will now be covered by Medicaid by 2014 when the law goes into full effect."

Outbreaks of pimples, blackheads and cysts are a cause of enormous anxiety and embarrassment among teens and young adults. If you’re part of the 20% of Australians who have experienced severe acne, you’ve probably tried a raft of treatments and preventive measures. But does giving up chocolate help? It’s unclear where or how this myth arose, but researchers tested the link three times from 1965 to 1971, suggesting it must have been a commonly held belief at least 40 years ago. All three studies came up with the answer: chocolate doesn’t exacerbate acne.

Today, many in the public health community will admit that we collectively took our eyes off the ball because Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a very clever bug that has developed the ability to resist nearly all of the antibiotics that have been thrown in its path. In February the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sounded the alarm about this growing threat and suggested that we need to change the way we screen for and treat gonorrhea in this country in order to respond to this wily germ.

In the first comprehensive experiments with a mercury thermometer in 1851, Carl Wunderlich demonstrated in studies of more than 25,000 individuals that the normal body temperature was around 37°C. He also noted that “grown up women may be a trifle warmer than men of an equal age”. Subsequent studies have suggested that if this difference exists at all, it’s imperceptibly small. However, there are a few situations, such as pregnancy and hormonal contraception use, where women’s core temperature are more clearly a little higher than men’s.

Hair removal is a modern obsession. Despite the economic downturn, the beauty industry is booming, and it seems that a big part of looking good is getting rid of unwanted hair. Men as well as women are increasingly forking out big dollars for “permanent” hair removal treatments, preferring to shun the traditional character-building cold steel of a safety razor. Maybe it’s the risk of cuts, but undoubtedly part of the attraction of longer-term hair-removal treatments is the conventional wisdom that shaved hair grows back faster and thicker than it was before.

This month, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force released a new report which is informing their updated recommendations on hormone therapy for chronic disease prevention in menopausal women. Bone fractures, dementia, stroke, and urinary incontinence were among the chronic conditions they examined. The new research looked at 9 newer studies – mostly from the Women’s Health Initiative – in order to review and update those recommendations.

In Los Angeles, "a unique collaboration between Planned Parenthood and the Los Angeles Unified School District" is "designed to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies among teenagers at the Boyle Heights high school," the LA Times reports. "Although nonprofit groups frequently offer reproductive healthcare on school campuses around the nation, the partnership involving Planned Parenthood — long a target of antiabortion lawmakers in Washington — is the only one of its kind."

"Being pregnant with twins is riskier than a singleton birth, no question. There are many more complications for both mother and babies. However, many couples undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) want to transfer more embryos in order to ensure they have a pregnancy and birth," reports Leigh Ann Woodruff for Fertility Authority, noting that a new study has found a way to "reliably predict an individual IVF patient's chance of conceiving multiples before the embryo transfer." A game changer for IVF patients?

In the more abortion-focused circles of the pro-choice movement, birthing rights often go unaddressed. My mentions of home birth rights specifically have brought varying responses, from supportive to ambivalent to outright hostile ("Well that is not safe!"). But let's be clear about something. Reproductive justice means that everyone has complete control over if, when, where, how, and with whom they bring a child into the world. How can the right to give birth at home -- safely and legally -- not be on a reproductive justice advocate's radar?

Since 2010, ProPublica reporters Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber have been investigating the influence of pharmaceutical companies on medicine. Their reporting exposed the financial ties between medical societies and drug and device makers, led to the tightening of conflict-of-interest policies at universities and ignited debate over these relationships. We asked them to share some of their findings with our recently started Patient Harm Facebook community, and we are sharing it here as well.

"The intrauterine device, or IUD, is the most effective form of reversible birth control available to women," reports GOOD's Amanda Hess. "IUDs could be instrumental in improving one of America's most dismal reproductive stats: 50 percent of pregnancies in the United States—3 million a year—are unplanned. Half are a result of contraceptive failure. So why aren't women using the best and most desirable pregnancy prevention tool on the market?" Click through for the answers.

Although Dr. Willie J. Parker did not always perform abortions, "Now, he’s one of those rare doctors who is willing to push the limits and provide abortions at 24 weeks of pregnancy. That places him among only about 11 percent of all abortion providers who will do the procedure that late in the second trimester," reportes the Star-Ledger. In an interview, Parker says he initially "wrestled with the morality of" abortion, but changed his mind because he "could no longer weigh the life of a pre-viable or lethally flawed fetus equally with the life of the woman sitting before me."

"There are 6 billion cell phones worldwide but what do we really know about the effects of this revolutionary technology?" asks the makers of a new documentary film, Disconnect, which looks at the potential health risks of cell phones. The filmmakers released a short YouTube video about a woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer after years of carrying her cell phone in her bra strap. It's anecdotal, to be sure, but potentially worrying. Watch the video after the jump.