Michelle Goldberg on women's rights, reproduction, and the fate of the world. Also, gay marriage hits the heartland and Notre Dame's reputation is assailed by anti-choicers.
In his first press conference since the Iowa Supreme Court voided the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, Gov. Chet Culver stated voters will ultimately decide the issue.
In Iowa, social conservatism — especially as it pertains to issues of reproductive health and abortion — seemed to carry less sway than in elections past.
In nearly any other election in recent memory, the accusation that a Republican candidate in Iowa not only supported abortion but had participated in one would have been big news -- if not a political kiss of death. Not this year.
Iowa Right to Life wanted to prevent clinics that provide abortion services from receiving family planning funding for low-income women in the state. Now the funding has been cut altogether.
Only two steps remain in Iowa's legislative quest to require insurance companies to provide coverage of vaccinations for the human papillomavirus, the major cause of cervical cancer.
At a state policy briefing on Thursday morning, Iowa legislators were asked to end federally funded abstinence-only sex education in the state. The move would make Iowa the seventeenth state to reject Title V abstinence-only funding.
Iowa has roughly 100,000 low-income women -- 12.3 percent of all women of childbearing age -- who need, but are not receiving, publicly assisted family planning services. The lack of access has been costly to Iowa, a state where half of all pregnancies are unintended.
Last week, Abby Johnson, the director of a Texas Planned Parenthood health center that provides abortions, resigned citing a "conversion". But a radio interview just weeks earlier leaves many questions unanswered.
Shortly after Dr. George Tiller was murdered on May 31 and his Wichita clinic subsequently closed, other providers bravely stepped into the breach. Among them is Dr. LeRoy Carhart, now targeted by anti-choice forces in an eerily similar campaign.
"I would never have sex with an HIV-positive guy," a friend told me. But rather than promoting real risk reduction, such statements reinforce and reproduce harmful stigma against HIV-positive people.
“How would you like it if your mother had an abortion?” ask anti-choicers, without realizing that’s like asking, “How would you like it if the night you were conceived, your dad decided to go to bed early while your mom watched Johnny Carson?”
What some are really doing in the health reform debate is projecting their own vision of what is moral onto those who will be most affected by distorted views and limited coverage: the taxpayers who will fund and use whatever system emerges.
This past weekend the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops instructed pastors at parishes across the country to distribute material urging Catholics to oppose the health reform bills they say allow public funding for abortion.
Not even nine months after President Obama, with much fanfare, signed into law a five year, $33 billion reauthorization of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, House Democrats have proposed to dismantle it.
The peculiarities on Personhood Colorado campaign's recent financial disclosure form may be an oversight by fledgling activists...or a much more cynical attempt to thwart public accountability by a well-oiled theocratic political machine.
The myth of the born-alive fetus has long been a weapon in the pro-life arsenal, one "kept alive" by misleading language, and by efforts to pass laws that further obfuscate and mislead.
As someone who was all but completely celibate throughout high school--not at all by conscious choice--I found the lack of information among sexually active teens, and the politicization of teen sex very frustrating.
Last month, over 8000 ob-gyns from around the world, gathered in South Africa to discuss how physicians living in countries with restrictive abortion laws can best face the challenge of caring for women suffering from complications of unsafe abortion.
One part of readiness for sexual partnership -- and it's a biggie -- is being able to hear, accept and respect another person's limits and boundaries, not just using someone else to get your rocks off.
Congressman Bart Stupak says that while he is leading the charge to eliminate abortion care from both private and public insurance policies, he will support health care reform legislation even if he loses.
Time is running out to ask your Senators to sponsor an amendment that would ensure Certified Professional Midwives are covered under Medicaid, in the Senate health care reform bill. Midwifery gives low risk pregnant and birthing women a safe option and reduces overall costs in health care as well!
As a vote nears--or is rumored to be near--at least on the House health care reform bill, the stakes are rising for legislation that comprehensively addresses women's health care needs, including sexual and reproductive health care and yes, including access to abortion care. The National Women's Law Center's campaign provides a platform for action.
Today is the National Day of Action for Women's Health Care; Health care reform is stalled - are anti-choice Democrats to blame?; more news from around the web.
