BlogHer '07 closing keynote speaker Elizabeth Edwards talked about the power of stories in the blogosphere and in public discourse. There are some powerful stories on the BlogHer media rolls that not only demonstrate the need for health-care reform, but also the need to question the way in which health-care stories are framed in public policy and the media.

Spyderkyl at Big Brass Blog has some friends facing dire health conditions without adequate health insurance:

"Allison Keech Sanka of Super Crafty has a baby son who has a benign brain tumor. He experiences seizures every 15 minutes or so, 24 hours a day. If allowed to go on, it will cause brain damage. The family is having an extremely difficult time getting their medical insurance to pay for his treatment; he will require surgery, and soon. Like so many other artists and artisans, she relies on her spouse's medical insurance, and they're fighting having to pay.

"As a lot of her fellow knitters know, Annie Modesitt's husband is very ill. Ms. Modesitt is a knitting designer and teacher; her family recently relocated to Minnesota from New Jersey so that, among other things, she could pursue her designing full-time and her husband could be a houseguy. He has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which can be treated - sort of - with a stem-cell transplant. His is scheduled for August. The prognosis afterward doesn't look too good, either. Ms. Modesitt has drastically cut back on her teaching schedule, and they have very little savings left....

You can help the family out by buying one of Anne's patterns. And the Stitch Diva is holding a pattern sale to raise money for both families that ends Wednesday, August 1, at 12:00 AM PST.

Barbara Ehrenreich, noting Pres. Bush's threatened veto of a bill that would increase funding for children's health care, makes the modest proposal that we let the nation's veterinarians pick up the slack for poor children's health care:

"On the hopeful side, let me cite the case, reported in June by Bob Herbert of the New York Times, of Diamonte Driver, a 12-year old boy who died recently from an abscessed tooth because he had no insurance and his mother could not afford $80 to have the tooth pulled. Could a vet have handled this problem? Yes, absolutely.

"Or there’s the case of 14-year old Devante Johnson, also reported by Herbert, who died when his health insurance ran out in the middle of treatment for kidney cancer. I don’t know exactly what kind of treatment he was getting, but I suspect that the $1.25 million linear accelerator for radiation therapy available at one of New York’s leading pet hospitals might have helped. The Times article also mentions a mixed breed named Bullwinkle who consumed $7000 worth of chemotherapy before passing on to his reward. Surely Devante could have benefited from the same kind of high quality pet care, delivered at a local upscale animal hospital."

On the legislative front, Broadsheet notes that a long-awaited bill to support expanded treatment for post-partum depression includes a amendment funding research on post-abortion depression.

Lyndsay Beyerstein sees anti-choice politics in the framing of the extremely troubling story of the 37-year-old woman who sought emergency treatment after an apparent attempt at self-abortion that led to the discovery of three more dead fetuses in her home.

This case is going to be sensationalized for all the wrong reasons. I think they're throwing the book at this woman because of the "ick" factor. The real outrage is that a woman is being charged with murder for a stillbirth.

Obviously, Beyerstein is as disturbed by the charges as anyone would be, but she's worried that media manipulation will thwart the proper workings of due process:

The press has stopped questioning why this is a murder investigation at all. It's only because of a gross misapplication a unworkable anti-choice law that there's a murder investigation underway in the first place. See Bean's post at LGM for more legal details. There is simply no legal basis to charge Freeman with first degree murder for delivering a dead fetus after trying to abort herself. Maryland law exempts women from criminal penalties for self-abortions.

Obviously, there should be an investigation if four fetuses are discovered in a private home after a bloody stillbirth. I would suggest starting with social services and then maybe thinking about a criminal investigation after the medical examiner's report. Whereas, according to the Guardian, these prosecutors laid charges before the ME had drawn final conclusions about the recent stillbirth, let alone assessed the gestational age or cause of death of the other remains found.

Moving fast to press first degree murder charges was a smart PR move by prosecutors because it guaranteed that the press would shift to spectacular-murder mode. ..

Hoarding self-aborted fetuses is creepy as all hell, but it's not a crime in Maryland. I'm not dismissing the possibility that other crimes will be discovered in the course of the investigation, but the authorities haven't got nearly the evidence they need to support a charge of first degree murder.