Download
Alyssa Rosenberg talks all things sex and pop culture. The right reacts poorly to Obama's support of gay marriage. An examination of the controversy over wrongful death lawsuits.

May 18, 12:04pm

Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responds to a journalist's question about how Eleanor Norton was not allowed speak at a Congressional hearing on an abortion law, introduced by a legislator from Arizona for her own (DC) district. 

May 18, 12:04pm

Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responds to a journalist's question about how Eleanor Norton was not allowed speak at a Congressional hearing on an abortion law, introduced by a legislator from Arizona for her own (DC) district. 

May 17, 11:34am

Contraception. The topic has become controversial in recent years. But should it be? Melinda Gates believes that many of the world's social change issues depend on ensuring that women are able to control their rate of having kids. In this significant talk, she makes the case for the world to re-examine an issue she intends to lend her voice to for the next decade.

Contraception is used by almost every woman at some point.  And it's not just for preventing pregnancy, but for protecting dreams.

Rather than have a fight now over whether a priest's anti-choice views should be considered when he's being appointed to a state board dealing with medical issues, the debate will be held off until 2013.

image

Anti-choice political groups begin lining up in an effort to support the candidate who could flip the senate majority.

image

Teachers "accidentally" showed an anti-choice film comparing abortion to the Holocaust and distributed free copies of the dvd without waiting for parents to give consent.

image

More anti-choice sneak attacks in the New Hampshire legislature, as House members tack unpopular bills onto popular legislation.

In a recall election that it likely to come down to who can better turn out voters, Wisconsin Right To Life plans to motivate "tens of thousands of right-to-life supporters" to vote for Walker.

A law maker proposes a bill to make sure what happens to "Laura Hope Smith" never happens to another woman.  The only problem?  The bill doesn't have anything to do with her.

After consulting with a deranged all-dude activist group, the GOP-controlled House finally agreed to pass the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, but not before totally stripping it of its merits like it was a Ferrari in a chop shop.

Don't trust the Journal of the American Medical Association or the Royal College of Obstetritians and Gyneacologists!  Trust the Pro-Life Action League!

The bills will now move to the senate for a vote.

Audio press conference on implications for pregnant women, and Roe v. Wade, of Indiana Supreme Court decision denying motion for transfer in the case of Bei Bei Shuai.

image

Oh hey!  Looks like the anti-choice folks found a new way to come up with their own set of "facts"!

image

Weekly global roundup: Nepali women learn about their right to divorce and increasingly do so; Argentina's new Gender Identity Law first in the world; Tanzania's President petitioned over contraception access; relativity in rape threats for women in South Sudan.

A New York Times article looks at how parents do (and should) react when their children inevitably see Internet pornography, an FDA advisory panel recommends approving a drug for HIV-prevention, and Massachusetts cuts over $1 million from its HIV-prevention and testing program in county jails. 

image

Weekly global roundup: a revised family code in Mali oppresses women further; Fawzia Koofi makes waves in Afghanistan and worldwide; Venezuela wrestles with a stubborn maternal mortality rate; and a call for more midwives in Zambia.

In this week's sexual health round up: new research finds that only 38 percent of girls who start the HPV vaccine get all three shots; a new study finds that while the specific gene therapy tried did not impact HIV, the concept still shows promise; and a six-year-old is suspended from a Colorado elementary school for sexual harassment. 

 

image

Weekly global roundup: Girls overtake boys in Bangladeshi primary schools; Philippines Lawmakers push to get the RH Bill passed; Women are in labor and still doing hard labor in Haiti; Training for sex workers in Rwanda provides options.

A part of keeping families safe and secure is making sure that in times of misfortune, children and their parents are able to communicate.

If you happen to be a woman of color, you simply don’t have any business that is your own, as far as society is concerned. The Jezebel and Welfare Queen stereotypes shape the responses you receive from others when you have a belly full of baby. So, the next time someone asks me how many more babies I’m going to have, I will have to respond with a “Girllllll, stay out my bedroom.”

If Christy Zink had carried her pregnancy to term and the baby lived through it, which wasn’t guaranteed, it would have suffered a short life of seizures and near-constant pain. If H.R. 3803 were in effect in 2009, she and the doctors who advised her on her options and performed the procedure would have been subject to criminal prosecution.

If not for the intervention of my own doctor, I could have been Christine Taylor or, even more frightening, Bei Bei Shuai.

A Mississippi politican would rather let women die than have access to abortions in his state.

While the stigma surrounding abortion within medicine may have lessened since 1973, in society as a whole it has worsened.

The current sexual and reproductive health landscape in Mexico is one of both progress and challenges. It is one of divisions between rich and poor, between urban and rural populations, and between younger and older generations.

Last week the UN released its latest estimates on global maternal deaths, just  two years after the last figure. From 1990 to 2010, they found, the number of women dying from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes worldwide dropped from 543,000 to 287,000, a near-fifty percent reduction in fatalities.

Prejudice is prejudice, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes. Respect dictates we treat it as such. 

This has been a good year so far for an international community of mothers seeking redress for millions of forced adoptions that took place in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. 

We are appalled at the immigration provisions that the judiciary committee in the House of Representatives passed in HR4970. This bill erodes protections available to immigrant victims who are the victims of domestic abuse.

All this burning of fossil fuels ends up in our lungs, or in the sky warming our planet. I growl at the statistics. My blood boils at seeing mostly kids of color wheezing in the emergency room right alongside of us. We need a big transition.