An excerpt (emphasis mine):

Just in the last several days, a Bismarck news anchor mistakenly uttered vulgarity on live television. He's been heralded by celebrities from New York to California as some sort of pop icon. His bosses have been called goons because they fired him.

We learned this week that the Pentagon is vetting its guide on religious tolerance with a group that compared Christian evangelism to rape, and advocated that military personnel and colluding chaplains who proselytize should be court-marshalled.

Forty years ago, the United States Supreme Court sanctioned abortion on demand. And we wonder why our culture sees school shootings so often.

Not exactly "This is water," is it?

Continue Reading...

The Red River Women's Clinic argues in the suit that the law could make abortion impossible to access in the state, effectively banning it.

President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights Nancy Northup, a co-sponsor of the suit, said in a statement on Wednesday that the law is a dangerous barrier to safe abortion care that could jeopardize women's health: "With their relentless campaign to end safe and legal abortion in North Dakota, lawmakers have effectively told the women of their state, 'We don't care about your health, we don't care about your safety, and we sure don't care about your constitutional and human rights.'"

As the Associated Press notes, the requirements mandated by the law, set to take effect on August 1, are almost impossible for the state's last remaining clinic to comply with: "Opponents of the measure say it's impossible for abortion doctors in North Dakota to meet the minimum number of hospital visits required for because the procedure is safe and women rarely need further care."

Continue Reading...

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe had vetoed the extreme measure in March, citing concerns that it violated Roe v. Wade and that subsequent legal challenges would prove "very costly to the taxpayers of our state" as the "costs and fees [of defending an unconstitutional law] can be significant." The Legislature overrode Beebe's veto in March.

The suit seeks a preliminary injunction against the law, which is set to take effect in July.

“This law is one of the most dangerous assaults on women’s health that we’ve seen in decades,” said Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas. “We may not all agree about abortion, but we can all agree that this complex and personal decision should be made by a woman, her family, and her doctor, not politicians.”

Continue Reading...

What is gateway sexual activity? Lawmakers borrowed from Ohio criminal code to define it as “any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast, for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying either person.” So, basically, anything upwards of and including second base. If a student receives such an education, a parent can sue for damages and the school could be liable for up to $5,000 in fines.

Continue Reading...

No more sex education? That should bode well for a state that just banned abortion at 12 weeks.

The Senate measure also prohibits any organization that holds contracts with abortion providers or referrers, including, as Laura Basset at the Huffington Post notes, power companies, water companies, health insurers and medical suppliers, from receiving any state money.

Despite the fact that Planned Parenthood does not currently receive any state funding for abortion care or family planning services, bill sponsor Republican state Rep. Gary Stubblefield and other supporters argue that it will prevent taxpayer money from paying for abortions. In reality, the only loser under the new measure is the state's sex education program. And, of course, Arkansas students.

Continue Reading...

In March, the Arkansas Legislature overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe to pass a law criminalizing abortion after 12 weeks. Later that month in North Dakota, with the support of Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple, lawmakers passed a "fetal heartbeat" law that banned the procedure at five to six weeks. Abortion rights and reproductive health advocates contend both laws violate a woman's constitutionally protected right to an abortion as set out by Roe v. Wade, which defines fetal viability between 22 and 24 weeks.

"I think they're going to be blocked immediately by the courts — they are so far outside the clear bounds of what the Supreme Court has said for 40 years," Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told USA Today.

Lawyers from the center and the American Civil Liberties Union will lead the court challenges, and expect victories that would require both states to pay their attorneys' fees.

Continue Reading...

Women with reliable access to contraception tend to delay and space out when they have babies. And according to a new Guttmacher Institute review of more than 66 studies conducted over three decades, a woman's ability to control her fertility affects much more than just if and when she'll start a family; contraception plays a big a role in the financial, professional and emotional lives of American women, too.

In fact, access to contraception was found to be related to all sorts of positive outcomes in family, mental health, children's well-being and general life satisfaction.

According to Adam Sonfield, lead author of the review:

The scientific evidence strongly confirms what has long been obvious to women. Contraceptive use, and the ensuing ability to decide whether and when to have children, is linked to a host of benefits for themselves, the quality of their relationships, and the well-being of their children.

But, he went on to say, access to birth control remains uneven and unequal in the United States, which means that women who are economically disadvantaged or otherwise marginalized don't share in these benefits. Recommendations from Sonfield and the literature call for policies that ground "unintended pregnancy prevention efforts... in broader antipoverty and social justice efforts."

Read the research for a more in-depth analysis, but here's the short version: Women controlling their own fertility is a really, really good thing for the world.

Major takeaways from the review, according to the Institute:

Continue Reading...

Under the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act, doctors will lose their medical license if they perform an abortion on a woman who is more than 12 weeks pregnant. While the ban has nominal exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, it remains the most extreme abortion law currently on the books.

Beebe vetoed the bill on Monday, arguing that it is "blatantly unconstitutional" and violates the fetal viability precedent set out by Roe v. Wade.

"In short, because it would impose a ban on a woman's right to choose an elective, nontherapeutic abortion well before viability, Senate Bill 134 blatantly contradicts the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court," Beebe said in his statement. The governor added that such a ban would prove "very costly to the taxpayers of our state," given that "lawsuits challenging unconstitutional laws also result in the losing party -- in this case, the state -- being ordered to pay the costs and attorneys' fees incurred by the litigants who successfully challenge the law. Those costs and fees can be significant."

Continue Reading...

The ads have already been harshly criticized for using these statistics to shame teen mothers rather than educating sexually active young people about where they can access condoms and other contraceptive care. But the subway and bus shelter ads aren't actually the worst part.

As reported by Miriam Pérez for RH Reality Check, at the bottom of each ad is the message: “Text ‘NOTNOW’ to 877877 for the real cost of teen pregnancy.” Text the number and you're directed to a choose your own adventure "game," which includes "scenarios about Anaya being ignored by her 'baby daddy' and shunned by her parents," but no information about how not to get pregnant. Instead, the texts use threats of social isolation, the prospect of losing your boyfriend and petty fat-shaming to drive home the message that teenagers who get pregnant are deserving of hardship and ridicule.

Continue Reading...

Sadly, you can't make this stuff up. A roundup of these and other proposals that are actually being considered by real, live elected officials this week.

Staying together for the kids

A three-member subcommittee in the Iowa House of Representatives is currently mulling a bill that would outlaw no-fault divorce for the parents of minor children. Rep. Tedd Gassman, a Republican member of the subcommittee, said he’s "concerned about the negative impact divorce has on children," according to Radio Iowa.

The issue isn't just political for Gassman -- it's personal: His daughter and son-in-law recently divorced, putting his "granddaughter at risk," he says.

Continue Reading...

If passed, the law would be the most extreme abortion restriction in the country.

Want to really freak out? The original legislation banned abortion at six weeks, but lawmakers decided to "compromise" and "quiet legal concerns" by pushing the cutoff to 12 weeks. "We believe we have struck the proper balance," said the bill's sponsor Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, without any apparent irony.

Rapert defended his bill to fellow lawmakers by saying, "I'm asking you to stand up for life, and I believe when there is a heartbeat, based upon even the standard the Supreme Court has utilized, you cannot have a viable child without a heartbeat."

The bill violates the current legal definition of fetal viability, which Roe v. Wade holds at 22 - 24 weeks. Which is kind of the point, critics say.

Continue Reading...

The Jackson clinic has applied for admitting privileges with seven area hospitals, but has been rejected each time. State law allows healthcare facilities to refuse any medical service on religious grounds, which extends to granting admitting privileges, leading critics to conclude that the denials are politically motivated.

And, of course, they are.

Mississippi state lawmakers have been systematically scaling back women's access to abortion services for years, but 2012's Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law could be the measure that succeeds in shuttering the state's last standing clinic, making it virtually abortion-free.

Continue Reading...

Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu acknowledged the practice -- without directly conceding coercion was involved -- in a letter to Israeli health maintenance organizations, instructing gynecologists in the HMOs "not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.”

Depo-Provera is a hormonal form of birth control that is injected every three months.

Continue Reading...

Rep. Cathrynn Brown introduced House Bill 206 on Wednesday, which would make terminating a pregnancy caused by incest or rape a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence," which could carry three years in prison.

“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says.

The bill is unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled state legislature, but it has generated a considerable amount of outraged among reproductive health advocates.

Pat Davis of ProgressNow New Mexico, a progressive nonprofit opposing the bill, called it "blatantly unconstitutional." “The bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” he told the Huffington Post. “According to Republican philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry the fetus to term in order to prove their case.“

Continue Reading...

More people generally support abortion rights, but a majority of voters have views that aren't absolute on the issue. As reported by the Wall Street Journal:

Some 31% of respondents in the poll said abortion should always be legal, and 9% believed it should be illegal without any exceptions. Between those two opinions are the 23% who thought it should be legal most of the time, but with some exceptions, and the 35% who felt it should be illegal except in circumstances of rape, incest and to save a woman's life.

Continue Reading...

The Republican lawmaker sent shock waves through a legislative breakfast meeting when he asked representatives from the Idaho chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union if their pro-abortion rights stance also meant that they support prostitution. As reported by the Coeur d'Alene Press, Rep. Mendive said:

"I think that there's kind of a double standard ... With abortion there are two beating hearts, and prostitution, there's just one. If a woman were going to make a choice to be a prostitute, that's her decision as to what to do with her body."

ACLU-Idaho executive director Monica Hopkins wasn't pleased with the comparison, to say the least:

"He was correlating a criminal action with something that is constitutionally protected. Those are two completely separate issues. When we're talking about women's rights, and a woman's right to choose, we are talking about reproductive rights that are constitutionally protected. What Rep. Mendive was talking about in the arena of prostitution is something that the state has very clearly said is an illegal activity ... in the same way that someone may choose to rob a bank, but that would be criminal activity that is not constitutionally protected."

Continue Reading...

Launched by College of New Jersey sophomore and interactive multimedia major Kyle McCabe, the Condom Ambulance will get you good and prophylactic-ed within minutes of placing your order by phone, text or Web. After a customer fills out the order form, provides an on-campus location and signs a waiver, McCabe hurries over with your order -- $3 for one condom, and up to 10 for $15 -- and discreetly slips it under your door. The website promises: you've gone from "kissing, to condoms, to sexy-time in mere seconds."

McCabe's motivation for starting the Condom Ambulance isn't purely financial, as he told his campus newspaper, the Signal.

Continue Reading...