Redefine Abortion? Put Your Foot Down Via Online Petition

It's an epic bummer to realize that this new era of Obama led change that we've all been so looking forward to will be wrapped up with undoing the last 8 years of Bush era legislation – particularly around sex education and abortion rights.

Bush being the sneaky sneaky lame duck he is has tried to pass "a regulation establishing a 'right of conscience' allowing medical staff to refuse to participate in any practice they object to on moral grounds, including abortion but possibly birth control and other health care". Surprised? We're not.

Needless to say passing such legislation would be problematic for many, because who wants their doctor to have the ability to refuse an individual medical care based on their personal rather than professional objections? Let's fight back with the peeps over at Planned Parenthood Action Center by digitally signing and circulating this petition that aims to "Tell the Bush Administration to Keep its Word: Stop Efforts to Redefine "Abortion" to Include Birth Control".

Mobile Gaming For Change

Everyone and their mom has a mobile device in their pocket with a variety of games on it (even if they don’t know it). Now imagine if those games were used to increase awareness around important social issues, like, say, HIV/AIDS.

Freedom HIV/AIDS is maximizing the ubiquitous nature of mobile devices by creating the first ever initiative on HIV/AIDS awareness using mobile phones games.

Believe it or not, games are an effective way of spreading messages and generating awareness by the “play and learn” method, which makes absorbing new information fun and engaging, while also helping retention.

Freedom HIV/AIDS has four mobile games targeting different mindsets and psychology of mobile users on an array of devices with high end and low end displays for accessibility to consumers at every price point.

You can read about the games and their mechanics in detail here. So far there have been 10.3 million downloads since the initiatives’ launch in December 2005. This is one of the largest ever social initiatives on mobile devices and is an amazing, fun, convenient and semi private way to learn about HIV/AIDS issues from the palm of one’s had.

We can only hope that other health initiatives expand their education outreach into the realm of mobile games in an effort to reach a larger demographic.