Tag: abortion

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Unlikely Coalition Fights Contraception Mandate

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Abortion opponents rallying by the thousands Friday in Washington at the annual March for Life have lost some political battles lately but won a string of court victories, thanks in part to a diverse coalition challenging a contraception mandate in the health care overhaul.

For-profit businesses, state attorneys general and educational institutions are among more than 100 plaintiffs who have mounted some 40 lawsuits challenging the mandate, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit legal institute that has played a leading role in the suits. With lower courts in dispute over the mandate, both sides agree the issue will almost inevitably be settled by the Supreme Court.

The mandate requires employer-sponsored health care plans to cover contraception, including intrauterine devices and emergency birth control drugs that many religious employers equate with abortion. The Obama administration offered a narrow exemption for religious organizations and required insurers, not employers, to pay for the services. However, opponents remain unsatisfied. Read full article.

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Oklahoma City doctor says emergency contraception not abortion

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There’s a difference between the drugs that induce a medical abortion and those used in emergency contraception, or the morning-after pill, an Oklahoma City doctor said this past week.

“Emergency contraception, first and foremost, is not an abortifacient,” Dr. Andrea Palmer, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Lakeside Women’s Hospital, said. “It is not going to dislodge or disrupt an already implanted pregnancy. It’s not something that is going to cause an implanted pregnancy to no longer be implanted or to abort.”

Whether emergency contraceptive pills can cause abortions has been a contentious fight since the pills first came onto the market.

Emergency contraceptive pills have been around since the 1970s, according to a study published in the Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception journal. Plan B and ella are two examples of emergency contraceptive pills currently available in the U.S.  Read full article.

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Planned Parenthood goes beyond “pro-choice”

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Planned-ParenthoodWith a new campaign released today, Planned Parenthood has quietly signaled a move away from the “pro-choice” label.

The women’s health provider has long been the target of conservative chest-pounding (and budget slashing), and their latest video “Not In Her Shoes” is their first effort to get past the divisive rhetoric:

Most things in life aren’t simple. And that includes abortion. It’s personal. It can be complicated. And for many people, it’s not a black and white issue. So why do people try to label it like it is? Pro-choice? Pro-life? The truth is these labels limit the conversation and simply don’t reflect how people actually feel about abortion.

A majority of Americans believe abortion should remain safe and legal. Many just don’t use the words pro-choice. They don’t necessarily identify as pro-life either. Truth is, they just don’t want to be labeled.

What they want is for a woman to have access to safe and legal abortion, if and when she needs it. Read full article.

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Links Between Disruptive Life Events, Poverty and Contraceptive Use

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The researchers, from the Guttmacher Institute in New York, base their findings on feedback data from almost 9,500 women who had an abortion in 2008 (Abortion Patient Survey), in the light of 11 “disruptive” events, and the links between these, poverty, and contraceptive use.

The disruptive events included job loss, separation, falling behind on rental/mortgage payments, death of a close friend, a serious health problem, a partner being sent to prison and becoming a victim of crime.

Poverty in the US is defined as an annual income before tax of $17,500 for a family of three: in 2008, 13% of US residents met this criterion.

The researchers also carried out in-depth interviews with 49 women seeking abortions to flesh out themes from the feedback data.

Their analysis showed that more than half (57%) of the women who had had an abortion had faced a major life stressor in the preceding year. One in 5 had lost their jobs; one in 6 had separated from their partner; one in 7 had fallen behind on their rental or mortgage payments, while one in 8 had moved several times.

One in 10 had experienced the death of a close friend or had had a baby over the past year. And 7% had been subjected to some form of domestic violence.

Women said that the fall-out from one disruptive event could set up a chain reaction. For example, one woman’s grief following the death of her mother kept her from leaving an abusive partner. Read full article.

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Which Personhood Endorser in Colorado Will Be Ryan’s Role Model?

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Colorado is America’s personhood Petri Dish, where anti-choice activists first put a question on the ballot (in 2008) about whether to extend legal rights to fertilized human eggs, otherwise known as zygotes.

They lost and tried (and lost) again in 2010, and they’re trying again this year.

As the personhood initiatives have come and gone here, Colorado has seen the different reactions of politicians who endorse personhood when the eyes of everyday people turn toward them, when the wider population becomes aware that they’ve aligned themselves with the personhood folks, who even stand on the fringe of the anti-abortion movement.

As an endorser of personhood, Rep. Paul Ryan is suddenly in this category. Before being selected by Romney, no one except anti-choice activists knew Ryan had sponsored federal personhood legislation, which, among other things, would ban common forms of birth control as well as all abortions, even in the case of rape and incest.

So the question is, now that Ryan’s personhood cat is out of the back alley, what will he do?

Will Ryan, who supported personhood legislation in Congress, stand by his position? Read full article.

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Behind ‘Personhood’ Leader Keith Mason’s Anti-Abortion Crusade

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Keith Mason and his wife are leading a growing national campaign to legally define human embryos as people, which would outlaw abortion—and possibly some forms of birth control, opponents say. In an exclusive interview, he tells Abigail Pesta about his ambitious plans for 2012’s election season.

The couple laughs. In the four years since Mason launched the pro-life group Personhood USA, he has been crisscrossing the country to convince voters that the best way to overturn Roe v. Wade, the ruling that legalized abortion, is to define human embryos as people from the moment of fertilization. The group has helped spark 22 “personhood” bills and ballot initiatives; while none has passed, in each ballot vote on personhood, the margin of defeat has declined. His group is now collecting signatures for ballot efforts in Colorado, Ohio, and Montana for the November elections and in Florida for 2014. “Wait and watch us grow,” he says confidently. “We’re like a weed.”

Personhood efforts have existed for decades, but they have never taken hold in the public imagination the way Mason’s work has. Nor have they been so present in the pro-life discourse. “They’re saying out loud what many anti-choice activists believe but don’t say upfront—they want to ban abortion in all circumstances,” says Donna Crane, a policy director at the advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America. “In some ways, it’s the more honest conversation to have.” And it has gathered supporters in this election season who include Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry. (Mitt Romney has demurred, but Mason says he is “hammering away” at the nominee.)

Read full article.

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Forced to Abort After 7 months of Pregnancy; the US Raises Concerns on China’s Abortion Policy, But Is it Enough?

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China’s one child policy came into force in 1980 and restricted most families in China from having more than one child as a means of controlling the population.

The Chinese government’s justification for the policy lies in their assertion that it has prevented an additional 400 million births from occurring in the already overpopulated country of 1.3 billion people.

Local authorities pursue birth quotas set by Beijing by imposing abortions and sterilizations. The number of abortions has increased from less than 5 million abortions (before 1979) to 8.7 million (in 1981) – a year after the one-child policy was launched, peaking at 14.4 million (in 1983).

One recent imposed abortion flying around cyberspace is the case of Feng Jianmei. On June 2, Feng Jianmei, 27, was beaten by three Chinese officials, held down with a pillow over her head, and then injected with lethal chemicals to the belly to abort her unborn child. The dead baby was evacuated 2 days later after intense pain to the mother. Her baby was already seven months in utero.

Read full article.

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House Rejects Bill to Ban Sex Selective Abortions

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The House on Thursday rejected a measure that sought to impose fines and prison terms on doctors who perform abortions on women who are trying to select the gender of their offspring — a practice known as sex-selective abortion.

The legislation, which required two-thirds support to win passage under the fast-track procedure used to bring it to the floor, fell short on a vote of 246 to 168. Republicans did not anticipate that the legislation would pass, but saw it as an opportunity to force Democrats to vote on an issue with appeal among conservatives.

“Today’s vote is a stunning declaration by supporters of abortion that they oppose any restrictions on abortion,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana.

Read full article.