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Senate Advances Obama Pick for Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
Posted on November 19, 2009onPolitics (USA Today): Senate advances David Hamilton for appeals court: The Senate voted 70-29 today to end a filibuster threat against one of President Obama's first federal judiciary appointees, David Hamilton of Indiana. Obama nominated Hamilton to the United States...
Gail Collins on the "Breast Brouhaha"
Posted on November 19, 2009NY Times Op-Ed Column: The Breast Brouhaha, by Gail Collins:. . . [T]his week, a federal task force reported that most women don?t need annual mammograms. . . The report triggered two immediate and inevitable responses. Doctors and patients began...
Task Force Clarifies Recommendations on Mammograms; Obama Administration Assures Federal Screening Policies Won't Change
Posted on November 19, 2009Wall St. Journal: Task Force Clarifies New Mammography Guidelines, by Barbara Martinez, Shirley S. Wange, and Jonathan D. Rockoff: The federally-funded task force that loosened breast-cancer screening guidelines this week clarified its position Thursday, in response to the intense backlash...
A Comparison of the House and Senate Health Care Bills
Posted on November 19, 2009The New York Times website offers an interactive feature that provides a look at how the House and Senate health care proposals compare on some key issues, including abortion. NY Times: Comparing the House and the Senate Health Care Proposals:...
Senate Health Care Bill Less Restrictive on Abortion Than House Version
Posted on November 19, 2009God & Country (US News & World Report): Senate Healthcare Plan Lacks House Bill's Strict Abortion Funding Ban, by Dan Gilgoff: Now that Sen. Harry Reid has released the Senate version of the healthcare bill, the two main sides in...
Republicans Consider Filibuster of Obama Pick for Seventh Circuit; Obama Supporters Worry About Lag in Filling Vacancies
Posted on November 17, 2009The Hill: Conservatives split over filibuster of Obama court pick, by Alexander Bolton: Leading conservative activists are split over whether to filibuster Judge David Hamilton, whose nomination to the 7th Circuit will serve as a test case for President Barack...
Afghan Mullahs Get a Lesson on Birth Control
Posted on November 17, 2009NY Times: Broaching Birth Control With Afghan Mullahs, by Sabrina Tavernise: MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan ? The mullahs stared silently at the screen. They shifted in their chairs and fiddled with pencils. Koranic verses flashed above them, but the topic was something...
New Guidelines Suggest Routine Mammograms Starting at Age 50, Not 40
Posted on November 17, 2009NY Times: In Reversal, Panel Urges Mammograms at 50, Not 40, by Gina Kolata: Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance...
RNC's Health Insurance Plan Covers Abortion
Posted on November 17, 2009Time Magazine: RNC Health Insurance Plan Covers Abortion: (WASHINGTON) ? The Republican National Committee's health insurance plan covers elective abortions for its employees, an option Republicans strongly oppose in health overhaul legislation that Democrats are trying to push through Congress...
Health Care Reform Bills Don't Require Contraceptive Coverage
Posted on November 17, 2009Slate Magazine (Double X): Why Doesn't Health Care Cover Birth Control?, by Sharon Lerner: Politicians won?t address the subject. Nancy Pelosi made her wrenching choice between the health reform bill and abortion rights, and?unless Obama works some magic soon?American women...
Jeffrey Toobin on Abortion and Health Care Reform
Posted on November 17, 2009The New Yorker: Not Covered, by Jeffrey Toobin: Abortion is almost as old as childbirth. There has always been a need for some women to end their pregnancies. In modern times, the law?s attitude toward that need has varied. In...
Student Scholarship: Sex Selective Abortions
Posted on November 15, 2009Christopher Balding (Political Science Graduate Program, University of California, Irvine) has posted On Sex Selective Abortion on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Abortion is a sensitive issue around the world. Acting as a clear dividing line in American politics, countries...
Democrats Sacrifice Women's Rights for Political Power
Posted on November 15, 2009NY Times Op-Ed: Trading Women?s Rights for Political Power, by Kate Michelman & Frances Kissling: A GRIM reality sits behind the joyful press statements from Washington Democrats. To secure passage of health care legislation in the House, the party chose...
Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society: Call for Papers (Due Nov. 15th)
Posted on November 13, 2009The Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society announces our 2010 Symposium: Contemporary Issues for American Indians and American Immigrants:Conference will be held March 5, 2010 at University of Wisconsin Law School (Madison, Wisconsin). We are seeking original scholarship, from...
New Report on Clandestine and Unsafe Abortions in Pakistan
Posted on November 13, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Clandestine and Unsafe Abortions are Common in Pakistan and Threaten Women's Health and Lives:Poor Women Most Affected by Unsafe Procedures Induced abortion is legal under very limited circumstances in Pakistan, yet it is commonly performed, according...
Pro-Choice Groups Challenge Nevada Abortion Ban Initiative
Posted on November 12, 2009RGJ.com: Nevada groups sue to stop anti-abortion petition, by Anjeaenette Damon: Two abortion-rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday to block an initiative petition aimed at banning abortion in Nevada. The Nevada Personhood initiative violates state law by misleading voters about...
Take Action on Abortion Coverage and Health Care Reform
Posted on November 12, 2009Center for Reproductive Rights: The Fight is Not Over Yet! On Monday, the Pro-Choice Caucus in the House of Representatives announced that it would not support a bill that will restrict a woman's right to choose any further than the...
Pro-Choice Groups Fight Abortion Coverage Restrictions
Posted on November 12, 2009Kaiser Health News: Abortion Rights Groups Unite In Fight Against Coverage Restrictions: Politico reports that abortion-rights "advocates are calling in the cavalry to help fight off an anti-abortion provision House Democratic leaders swallowed in order to win passage of their...
Gay Rights Advocates Find Some Support from Unlikely Quarters: Salt Lake City and the Mormon Church, and the AMA
Posted on November 12, 2009L.A. Times: Gay Rights Advocates Get Good News From Unusual Sources: Salt Lake City and the AMA, by Kate Linthicum: Gay rights advocates were disappointed last week when Maine voters voted to repeal a state law allowing same-sex marriage. But...
NY Senate Postpones Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Bill
Posted on November 11, 2009NY Times: New York Senate Delays Vote on Same Sex Marriage Bill, by Jeremy W. Peters: The fate of same-sex marriage collided with the often-dysfunctional political process here on Tuesday as the State Senate delayed a vote on a bill...
Reps. DeGette & Schakowsky: Stupak-Pitts Amendment Is Offensive to Women
Posted on November 11, 2009Huffington Post: Protecting a Woman's Right to Choose, by Rep. Diana DeGette & Rep. Jan Schakowsky: The health care bill passed in the House of Representatives on Saturday night makes many improvements to benefit women. It bans gender rating for...
Sherry Colb on Narrowing the Scope of Disagreements Over Reproductive Rights
Posted on November 11, 2009Sherry F. Colb (Cornell University Law School) has posted To Whom Do We Refer When We Speak Of Obligations to 'Future Generations'? Reproductive Rights and The Intergenerational Community on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Despite appearances in public debate, there...
Obama Gingerly Addresses Abortion and Health Care Bill
Posted on November 10, 2009Wash. Post: Obama weighs in on abortion -- carefully, by Ben Pershing: Liberals spent a good portion of the health-care debate complaining that President Obama was insufficiently committed to including the public option in a reform bill, accusing him of...
Scott Roeder Admits to Killing Dr. George Tiller
Posted on November 10, 2009If anti-choice advocates and politicians insist on calling embryos and fetuses "babies" and abortion "murder," it should surprise no one when some individuals on the fringes of the anti-choice movement take this rhetoric at face value and kill doctors in...
NY Times Editorial on Abortion Coverage Ban in Health Care Reform Bill
Posted on November 10, 2009NY Times Editorial: The Ban on Abortion Coverage: When the House narrowly passed the health care reform bill on Saturday night, it came with a steep price for women?s reproductive rights. Under pressure from anti-abortion Democrats and the United States...
The Stupak Amendment's Effects on Abortion Access
Posted on November 09, 2009The Huffington Post: Why the Stupak Amendment Is A Monumental Setback for Abortion Access, by Jessica Arons: If you thought that just because abortion is a constitutional right and part of basic reproductive health care it would be available in...
Abortion Rights Opponents Influence Health Care Reform
Posted on November 09, 2009NY Times: For Abortion Foes, A Victory in Health Care Vote, by David D. Kirkpatrick & Robert Pear: A restriction on abortion coverage, added late Saturday to the health care bill passed by the House, has energized abortion opponents with...
House Passes Health Care Bill with Abortion Restrictions
Posted on November 08, 2009NY Times: Abortion Was at Heart of Wrangling, by David M. Herszenhorn & Jackie Calmes: It was late Friday night and lawmakers were stalling for time. In a committee room, they yammered away, delaying a procedural vote on the historic...
Politics vs. Religion in Debate Over Abortion and Health Care Reform
Posted on November 07, 2009Religion Dispatches: Politics, Not Religion, At Heart of Health Care Reform Wrangle on Abortion, by Sarah Posner: As the House of Representatives health care reform bill edges closer to a vote, anti-choice Democrats continue their threats to hijack the bill...
Call for Papers: 7th Annual Symposium on "IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections"
Posted on November 06, 2009IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections7th Annual Symposium April 16, 2010 CALL FOR PAPERS The symposium will convene from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm on Friday, April 16, 2010 at the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. Special Theme:...
China Lacks Sex Education Despite One-Child Policy
Posted on November 05, 2009Slate Magazine: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Didn't Learn Because You Grew Up in China), by Michelle Tsai: BEIJING?The first time Hu Jing tried to have sex with her college boyfriend, there was a technical difficulty....
House Democratic Leaders Struggle With Abortion-Related Objections to Health Care Bill
Posted on November 05, 2009NY Times: Abortion Deal in Health Bill Sets Off Haggling in Congress, by Robert Pear & David M. Herszenhorn: House Democratic leaders struggled Wednesday to strike a deal that would restrict the use of federal money to pay for abortions...
Carter Dillard on Future Children as Property
Posted on November 05, 2009Carter Dillard (Loyola University College of Law) has posted Future Children as Property on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Between Skinner v. Oklahoma and the advent of modern substantive due process, procreation, at least in the eyes of many courts...
Women's Day of Action for Health Care Reform
Posted on November 04, 2009The National Women's Law Center has designated November 4th as the Women's Day of Action for Health Care Reform. Check out NWLC's "Still Nowhere to Turn: How Insurance Companies Treat Women Like Pre-Existing Conditions," which contains the latest research on...
Urge Congress to Pass Comprehensive Health Care Reform!
Posted on November 04, 2009Via the National Abortion Federation: Wednesday, November 4, is National Women?s Day of Action for Health Care Reform - call Congress to demand health care reform that includes coverage for abortion to meet the needs of women! Anti-choice legislators have...
Anti-Choice Advocates Cheer Republican Gubernatorial Victories in Virginia and New Jersey
Posted on November 04, 2009LifeNews.com:Pro-Life Advocates Excited by Defeat of Abortion Backers in Virginia, New Jersey, by Steven Ertelt: Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Tuesday night provided a shot in the arm for the pro-life movement following the disheartening loss last year that resulted in...
Center for Reproductive Rights To Host Webinar on Teaching Reproductive Rights
Posted on November 03, 2009The Center for Reproductive Rights is hosting a webinar on Teaching Reproductive Rights ? What is the Role for Transnational Law? on Friday, November 13th, from 3 - 4 pm (Eastern): To take part, all you need to do is...
Premature Births Are Main Reason for High Infant Death Rates in U.S.
Posted on November 03, 2009NY Times: Premature Births Are Behind Infant Death Rates in U.S., Report Says, by Denise Grady: High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers....
Jessie Hill on Abortion as a Form of Health Care Rights
Posted on November 03, 2009Jessie Hill (Case Western Reserve University School of Law) has posted Reproductive Rights as Health Care Rights on SSRN. Here is the abstract: U.S. legal scholarship concerning reproductive rights has largely revolved around the poles of decisional autonomy, privacy, and...
Nicholas Johnson on Heller and Abortion
Posted on November 03, 2009Nicholas James Johnson (Fordham University School of Law) has posted Supply Restrictions at the Margins of Heller and the Abortion Analogue: Stenberg Principles, Assault Weapons, and the Attitudinalist Critique on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Article will show how...
Should Parental Control Trump Children's Right to Sex Education?
Posted on November 02, 2009Huffington Post: Whose Right to Sex Education?, by Philip N. Cohen: The principle of equality for children is fundamentally at odds with the American interpretation of the principle of equality for adults. We defer parenting to parents at the cost...
USA Today Editorial: Insurance Should Cover Abortions
Posted on November 02, 2009USA Today Editorial: Our view on reproductive rights: Abortion foes seek to use health plan to curb access: It?s a legal medical procedure ? and insurance should cover it. Since the mid-1970s, abortion opponents have managed to cut off insurance...
Former Planned Parenthood Employee Joins Anti-Choice Movement After Experiencing "Spiritual Conversion" While Observing Abortion on Ultrasound
Posted on November 02, 2009Fox News: Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Watching Abortion on Ultrasound: The former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in southeast Texas says she had a "change of heart" after watching an abortion last month ? and she quit her...
Charles Kindregan on Parentage and Assisted Reproductive Technology
Posted on November 02, 2009Charles P. Kindregan, Jr., (Suffolk University Law School) has posted Considering Mom: Maternity and the Model Act Governing Assisted Reproductive Technology on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The traditional family law doctrine governing maternity was easy to apply...
Publicly Funded Abortions and Health Care Reform
Posted on November 01, 2009Swampland (Time): Does Focus on the Family Fund Abortions?, by Amy Sullivan: It does if you hold the organization to the same standard it uses to insist that health reform would result in publicly funded abortions. A few weeks ago,...
Uganda has Highest Unmet Need for Contraceptives in East Africa
Posted on November 01, 2009Guardian News: Huge unmet need for contraceptives in Uganda, by Joseph Malinga and Liz Ford: Uganda has the highest unmet need for contraception in east Africa, but lacks the resources to address the problem Sarah Arawo is aware of the...
HPV Vaccine Approved for Boys but Not Recommended for Routine Use
Posted on November 01, 2009LA Times: CDC panel OKs use of Cervarix HPV vaccine in girls, Gardasil in boys, by Thomas H. Maugh II: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted today to recommend the use of the...
The Pros and Cons of Circumcision
Posted on October 28, 2009A recent issue of New York Magazine focuses on the debate over circumcision: For and Against Foreskin: A comprehensive investigation into the pros, cons, and controversies of circumcision. The feature includes: Would You Circumcise This Baby? The Case Against the...
Philippine Congress Considers Measure to Expand Access to Birth Control
Posted on October 28, 2009NY Times: Birth Control Bill Has Enemies in Philippines, by Carlos H. Conde: Abortion is illegal in the Philippines, though birth control and related health services have long been available to those who can afford to pay for them through...
Advocates in Maine Fight to Keep Same-Sex Marriage Law
Posted on October 28, 2009NY Times: Focus of Gay-Marriage Fight Is Maine, by Abby Goodnough: Supporters of the marriage law, which the Legislature approved in May, have far more money and ground troops than opponents, who have been led by the Roman Catholic Church....
Two Missouri Abortion-Related Ballot Initiatives Are Approved for Circulation
Posted on October 28, 2009Kansas City Star: Two Missouri ballot initiatives on abortion-related issues OK'd, by Jason Noble: JEFFERSON CITY | Two ballot initiatives concerning abortion were approved for circulation this week by the Missouri secretary of state. One of the proposals would prohibit...
Women of Color Advocate for Health Care Reform
Posted on October 27, 2009National Latina Institute: National Latina Institute and Women of Color United Demand Demand Health Care Reform Now, by Samantha Harper: Concerned women of color from around the country are sounding off on health care reform this Tuesday, October 27 in...
For Children Who Flee or Are Kicked out of their Homes, Sex Is Often the Cost of Survival
Posted on October 27, 2009NY Times: For Runaways, Sex Buys Survival, by Ian Urbina: Running in the Shadows. . . Most of the estimated 1.6 million children who run away each year return home within a week. But for those who do not, the...
Republican Obstructionism on Pres. Obama's Judicial Nominees
Posted on October 27, 2009Slate Magazine: The Bench in Purgatory, by Doug Kendall: It's still early in President Obama's first term, but not too soon to conclude that the president's effort to "put the confirmation wars [for judges] behind us" is not going well....
Anti-Choice Activists to Auction Anti-Abortion Memorabilia to Raise Funds for Man Charged with Murdering Dr. Tiller
Posted on October 26, 2009Kansas City Star: Online auction to raise funds in Scott Roeder case, by Judy L. Thomas: An Army of God manual. A prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons. An autographed bullhorn. These...
Anti-Abortion, "Personhood" Ballot Initiative May Energize Nevada Democrats
Posted on October 26, 2009Las Vegas Sun: Anti-abortion bid may have unintended effect, by David McGrath Schwartz: The biggest fans of social conservative Richard Ziser?s newly filed anti-abortion ballot initiative might be Nevada Democrats facing the ballot in 2010. With the top of the...
South Korean Court Finds Stem Cell Scientist Guilty of Research Fraud
Posted on October 26, 2009ABC News/BBC: Stem cell scientist guilty of research fraud: A South Korean court has given a suspended two-year jail sentence to disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk after finding him guilty of fraud in a case that shocked the global...
Katherine Pratt on Federal Tax Law and Deductions for Fertility Treatment Costs
Posted on October 26, 2009Katherine Pratt (Loyola Law School - Los Angeles) has posted Deducting the Costs of Fertility Treatment: Implications of Magdalin v. Commissioner for Opposite-Sex Couples, Gay and Lesbian Same-Sex Couples, and Single Women and Men on SSRN. Here is the abstract:...
Hope Lewis on FGM and FGC as a Violation of Human Rights
Posted on October 25, 2009Hope Lewis (Northeastern University School of Law) has posted Female Genital Mutilation and Female Genital Cutting on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Genital Cutting (FGC) refers to a range of harmful traditional practices performed...
Rep. Patrick Kennedy Criticizes Catholic Church Over Health Care Reform Stance
Posted on October 25, 2009Boston Globe: Kennedy spars with church on abortion, by Milton J. Valencia: The late Senator Edward M. Kennedy seemed to mend his differences with the Catholic Church just before his death. But less than two months later, his youngest son...
Bernard Dickens on Religious Refusals to Provide Medical Care
Posted on October 24, 2009Bernard Dickens (University of Toronto Faculty of Law) has posted Legal Protection and Limits of Conscientious Objection: When Conscientious Objection is Unethical on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The right to conscientious objection is founded on human rights to act...
Religious Refusals Asserted in Ever-Wider Range of Medical Scenarios
Posted on October 24, 2009USA Today: Conscience clauses not just about abortion anymore, by Adelle M. Banks: WASHINGTON ? Faced with a request to give an unmarried female patient a prescription for birth control pills, Dr. Michele Phillips looked to her conscience for the...
State Court Temporarily Blocks Oklahoma Law Requiring Online Posting of Abortion Patient Data
Posted on October 24, 2009LA Times: Judge bars restrictive Oklahoma abortion law requiring online posting of patient data, by Robin Abcarian: While Californians mull whether a fetus is a person, a state judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of a new Oklahoma law that would...
Mark Strasser on Distribution of Embryos Upon Divorce
Posted on October 24, 2009Mark Strasser (Capital University Law School) has posted You Take the Embryos But I Get the House (and the Business): Recent Trends in Awards Involving Embryos Upon Divorce on SSRN. Here is the abstract: More and more couples must decide...
Senate Approves Bill to Protect Victims of Gender- or Sexual-Orientation-Based Hate Crimes
Posted on October 23, 2009NY Times: Senate Approves Broadened Hate Crime-Crime Measure, by David Stout: The Senate voted Thursday to extend new federal protections to people who are victims of violent crime because of their sex or sexual orientation, bringing the measure close to...
American Cancer Society Rethinks Breast Cancer Screenings
Posted on October 23, 2009NY Times: Cancer Society, in Shift, Has Concerns on Screenings, by Gina Kolata: The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast...
Neal Devins on Planned Parenthood v. Casey and State Abortion Politics
Posted on October 22, 2009Neal Devins (William & Mary Law School) has posted How 'Planned Parenthood v. Casey' (Pretty Much) Settled the Abortion Wars on SSRN. Here is the abstract: More than twenty-one years after Robert Bork?s failed Supreme Court nomination and seventeen years...
Health Insurance and Gender
Posted on October 22, 2009Newsweek: The Cost of Being a Woman: Women Pay More than Men for Similar Insurance Policies. Is it Discrimination?, by Sarah Kliff: At a recent Capitol Hill press conference on women and health care reform, Sen. Barbara Mikulski started things...
Texas Lawsuit Challenges Practice of Jailing Women to Protect Their Fetuses
Posted on October 20, 2009Austin American-Statesman: Jailed for being Pregnant? Court to Hear Arguments on Drug User's Incarceration, by Chuck Lindell: Amber Lovill was almost six months pregnant and on probation when a mandatory drug test found high levels of methamphetamine in her system...
Anti-Choice Group Has a New Spokesperson: A Talking Embryo
Posted on October 20, 2009Salon.com: Meet Judy, the talking embryo, by Tracy Clark-Flory: The antiabortion group Choice Kills introduces a new spokesperson -- or should I say "spokesfetus"? From her voice, you would think she was a toddler, but she is much, much younger....
Lawsuit Charges Illinois' Parental Notification Law Is Unconstitutional
Posted on October 20, 2009Chicago Tribune: Lawsuit Challenges Illinois' Parental Notification Law for Abortions, by Sara Olkon: A Chicago physician and a Granite City women's medical clinic have filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court charging that Illinois' parental notification law for abortions...
Arizona Court Rules that Sheriff Cannot Block Inmates' Access to Abortion Care
Posted on October 20, 2009ACLU News Release (10/20): Court Rules That Sheriff Arpaio Can Not Block Inmates Access to Abortion Care: PHOENIX ? In a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, an Arizona court found today that Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio...
Pregnant Women Especially Threatened By Swine Flu
Posted on October 20, 2009NY Times: Flu Story: A Pregnant Woman's Ordeal, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.: WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. ? The group most threatened by swine flu and most in need of the new vaccine, world health authorities agree, is that of...
Should Parents Lose Custody Because Their Children Are Morbidly Obese?
Posted on October 19, 2009Time Magazine: Should Morbidly Obese Kids Be Taken from Their Parents?, by Gaelle Faure: Should morbidly obese children be taken from their parents? That's the question an increasing number of countries are grappling with amid the Western world's obesity epidemic...
What Health Care Reform Could Mean for Women's Health
Posted on October 18, 2009Beacon Broadside: What Health Care Reform Could be for Women's Health, by Carole Joffe: "I have seen the future and it works" goes the old saying. Well, this writer has seen how the future of health care in America should...
U.S. Bishops Threaten to Withdraw Support for Health Care Reform Over Abortion
Posted on October 17, 2009USA Today: Bishops may pull health care support over abortion, immigrants, by Kevin Eckstrom: WASHINGTON ? The nation's Catholic bishops have threatened to pull their support for health care reform unless their concerns about abortion and access for immigrants are...
Spain's Plans to Liberalize Abortion Laws Draw Protesters
Posted on October 17, 2009BBC NEWS: Big Anti-Abortion Rally in Spain More than a million people are said to have taken part in a march in Madrid to oppose government plans to liberalise Spain's abortion law. Several dozen centre-right opposition party joined the demonstration,...
"I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" Continues for Second Season
Posted on October 16, 2009Slate Magazine: Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater, by Troy Patterson: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant is a freak show in a family way Now back for its second season, I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant (Discovery...
New Guttmacher Report on Increased Contraceptive Use and Declining Abortion Rates Worldwide
Posted on October 15, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Abortion and Unintended Pregnancy Decline Worldwide as Contraceptive Use Increases: Increases in global contraceptive use have contributed to a decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies and, in turn, a decline in the number of abortions,...
New Oklahoma Law Establishes Public Database of Women Who Had or Sought Abortions
Posted on October 15, 2009Guardian News: A is for abortion, by Megan Carpentier:Branding women with a 'scarlet letter' won't reduce abortions. As a global study shows, contraception and education are key . . . A new law scheduled to take effect in Oklahoma would...
Unsafe Abortions Kill 70,000 Women Every Year
Posted on October 13, 2009Reuters: Unsafe abortions kill 70,000 a year, harm millions, by Kate Kelland: LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Increased use of contraceptives has pushed global abortion rates down, but unsafe abortions kill 70,000 women each year and seriously harm or maim...
Utah Court Rules Teenager Not Criminally Liable for Soliciting a Beating in Order to End Pregnancy
Posted on October 13, 2009Salt Lake Tribune: Judge: abortion laws protect girl who sought pregnancy-ending beating, by Sheena Mcfarland: A judge has released a 17-year-old Vernal girl from jail after ruling she did not commit a crime when she allegedly paid a man to...
Pink Baby, Blue Baby: Tiny Gender Gaps Grow Thanks to Parents' Influence
Posted on October 13, 2009Wash. Post: The Tiny Differences in the Littlest Brains, by Emily Bazelon: Book Review: PINK BRAIN, BLUE BRAIN: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps -- and What We Can Do About It, by Lise Eliot In one of the...
More NY Times on 21st Century Babies: The Implications of Multiple Births
Posted on October 13, 2009NY Times: Grievous Choice on Risky Path to Parenthood, by Stephanie Saul: 21st Century Babies . . . The birth of octuplets in California in January placed the onus for large multiple births on in vitro fertilization, a treatment in...
Anti-Choice "Street Activists" Tell Their Stories
Posted on October 12, 2009NY Times: Abortion Opponents Tell of Their Journey to the Streets, by Damien Cave: OWOSSO, Mich. ? Action means many things to abortion opponents. Lobbyists and fund-raisers fight for the cause in marble hallways; volunteers at crisis pregnancy centers try...
NY Times Examines "21st Century Babies": IVF Brings Life, But Also Complications
Posted on October 12, 2009NY Times: The Gift of Life, and Its Price, Stephanie Saul: 21st Century Babies . . . An exploration of the fertility industry reveals that the success comes with a price. While IVF creates thousands of new families a year,...
Gender and Judicial Quality? Paper concludes: "Bring on the Women!"
Posted on October 10, 2009Slate Magazine: Do Women Make Better Judges?, by Stephen Choi, Mitu Gulati, Mirya Holman, & Eric Posner: Asked and answered?with data. Justice Sonia Sotomayor's elevation to the Supreme Court brought to the surface a long-simmering controversy about the relationship between...
Chicago City Council Votes to Protect Abortion Clinics and Patients
Posted on October 09, 2009Chicago BreakingNewsCenter: Council Curbs anti-abortion Activists, Who Vow to Fight On, by Kristen Schorsch & Hal Dardick: The Chicago City Council today voted 27-11 to pass an ordinance creating a so-called bubble zone requiring anti-abortion activists to keep their distance...
Guttmacher Institute Study Shows Costs of Treating Complications from Unsafe Abortions
Posted on October 08, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Unsafe Abortion Costs the Developing World Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Each Year: New Study from the Guttmacher Institute Quantifies Burden on Health Care Systems Treating the complications that result from unsafe abortion costs Africa and...
Second-Generation Female Condoms Now Available in United States
Posted on October 08, 2009Female Health Company Press Release: Second-Generation Female Condom Is Now Available in the United States: FC2 Female Condom Will Cost 30 Percent Less than Predecessor Company Makes Announcement at a Meeting of Southeastern Reproductive Health Organizations: FHC Makes Special Commitment...
Supreme Court Lets Stand Ruling Rejecting Free-Speech Claim for "Choose Life" License Plate in Illinois
Posted on October 07, 2009LA Times: Illinois can steer clear of abortion debate, Supreme Court rules, by David G. Savage: A group pushing for the state to issue a 'Choose Life' license plate loses its free-speech claim. Illinois need not offer "Choose Life" license...
All Eyes Are On Sotomayor As Supreme Court Begins Its New Term
Posted on October 07, 2009LA Times (Opinion): Justice Sonia Sotomayor's free-speech tests, by Jonathan Turley: Supreme Court observers will be watching to see whether the new justice's rulings will depart from the liberal voting record of her predecessor. The start of the U.S...
Gun Rights and Abortion Rights
Posted on October 06, 2009Fox News (Opinion): Guns Are the New Abortion, by Curt Levey: With an estimated 90 million firearms owners in America and a huge margin of popular support for a right to keep and bear arms, the gun rights community is...
Raising a Gender-Neutral Child
Posted on October 06, 2009Salon.com: Good luck raising that gender-neutral child, by Tracy Clark-Flory: A Swedish couple has refused to reveal the sex of their 2-year-old to anyone -- except those on diaper duty. When word got out about their decision to eschew personal...
Senate Committee Reinstates $50 Million in Funding for Discredited Abstinence-Only Education
Posted on October 01, 2009The Gaggle (Newsweek): Abstinence-Only Education is Back, by Katie Connolly: After weeks of railing against the price tag of health care reform, Senate Republicans managed to bond over pumping up the budget for one aspect of health care reform yesterday:...
Senate Committee Rejects Republican Amendments to Restrict Abortion Coverage
Posted on October 01, 2009CNN: Senate panel rejects GOP bid to strengthen abortion provision: Republican amendments that Democrats said would broaden current restrictions on federal funding for abortion were defeated Wednesday by a Senate committee considering the only compromise health care bill so far...
Nicolette Priaulx on Tysiac v. Poland and Abortion Jurisprudence
Posted on September 30, 2009Nicolette M. Priaulx (University of Wales System, Cardiff Law School) has posted Testing the Margin of Appreciation: Therapeutic Abortion, Reproductive Rights and the Intriguing Case of Tysi?c v. Poland on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In Tysiac v. Poland (2007)...
Health Care Debate Mired in Abortion Issue
Posted on September 30, 2009NY Times: Abortion Fight Complicates Debate on Health Care, by David D. Kirkpatrick: WASHINGTON ? As if it were not complicated enough, the debate over health care in Congress is becoming a battlefield in the fight over abortion. Abortion opponents...
Researchers and Advocates Voice Health Concerns Over Yaz and Yasmin Birth Control Pills
Posted on September 28, 2009NY Times: Health Concerns Over Popular Contraceptives, by Natasha Singer: The oral contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin are the top-selling pharmaceutical line for Bayer HealthCare, largely as a result of marketing that presents them as much more than mere pregnancy prevention...
Charles Camosy on Surgical Abortion and the Moral Status of Potential Persons
Posted on September 28, 2009Charles Camosy (Theology, Fordham University) has posted Common Ground on Surgical Abortion?-Engaging Peter Singer on the Moral Status of Potential Persons on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The debate over surgical abortion is certainly one of the most divisive in...
South Dakota Appeals U.S. District Court Decision on its Informed Consent Law
Posted on September 25, 2009Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota appealing judge's ruling in abortion case: Attorney General Marty Jackley is appealing a judge?s ruling which struck down portions of South Dakota?s law on informed consent for abortion. U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier last...
Polish Court Awards Damages Against Catholic Magazine for Vilifying Polish Woman Who Sought Abortion
Posted on September 25, 2009BBC News: Award for Poland abortion woman: A Polish court has awarded $11,000 (7,400 euros) in damages to a woman likened to a child killer by a Catholic magazine for wanting an abortion. The article also compared abortion to the...
Sen. Kennedy's Replacement Is a Pro-Choice Catholic
Posted on September 25, 2009Faith & Reason (USA Today): Kennedy's Senate seat goes to a Catholic who's favored abortion rights, by Cathy Lynn Grossman: Paul Kirk has never held elective office before and, in five months, the man named Thursday to stand in for...
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Sets New Guidelines for Pregnant Women Traveling by Air
Posted on September 25, 2009Wash. Post: Should Pregnant Women Fly?, by Rob Stein: Is it safe for a pregnant woman to travel by air? According to some new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) the answer is yes--with a few...
Huffington Post Compiles List of "Craziest Birth Stories of All Time"
Posted on September 25, 2009Huffington Post: The 19 Pound Baby and 9 More of The Craziest Birth Stories Of All Time: This has been an interesting week for mothers of the world. News broke that an Indonesian woman gave birth to a 19 pound...
Study Suggests Why Babies Born in Winter Months Face Greater Challenges
Posted on September 25, 2009Wall St. Journal: New Light on the Plight of Winter Babies, by Justin Lahart: Researchers Stumble Upon Alternative Explanation for the Lifelong Challenges Faced by Children Born in Colder Months Children born in the winter months already have a few...
Guttmacher Institute Releases Data on How the Recession has Affected Reproductive Decisions
Posted on September 25, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Recession has Dramatically Reshaped Women's Childbearing Desires: Amid Growing Concerns About Unemployment and Health Care, Many Women Have Trouble Meeting Contraceptive Needs After months of anecdotal reports, a survey released today provides the first hard evidence...
Naomi Cahn & June Carbone on Access to Contraception
Posted on September 25, 2009Naomi Cahn (George Washington University Law School) and June Carbone (University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law) have posted Contraception: Securing Feminism's Promise on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper traces the history of attempts to restrict...
Investing in Girls' Education Would Help to Increase Global Prosperity
Posted on September 23, 2009Salon.com (Broadsheet): It takes girls to raise a village, by Tracy Clark-Flory: Developing countries lose billions each year by ignoring girls' potential, a report says It might seem a bad omen for the release of a report on the global...
Call for Presenters and Papers: Sixth Annual Wells Conference on Adoption Law
Posted on September 22, 2009The Future of the Family: Modern Challenges in Adoption Law: Conference is March 11, 2010 at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio The conference is seeking proposals for presentations and papers emphasizing the following themes: (1) The Impact of...
WLPPFP and LAWA Fellowship Program Now Accepting Applications
Posted on September 22, 2009Invitation for Applications for WLPPFP and LAWA Fellowships at Georgetown Law: Each year the Women?s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program (WLPPFP) at the Georgetown University Law Center offers fellowship positions providing educational and professional development opportunities for attorneys who...
Babies in China Stolen From Parents for Foreign Adoption
Posted on September 22, 2009LA Times: Chinese babies stolen by officials for foreign adoption, by Barbara Demick: In some rural areas, instead of levying fines for violations of China's child policies, greedy officials took babies, which would each fetch $3,000 in adoption fees...
Jamal Greene on the Court's Shift from Privacy to Liberty
Posted on September 22, 2009Jamal Greene (Columbia University School of Law) has posted The So-Called Right to Privacy on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The constitutional right to privacy has been a conservative bugaboo ever since Justice Douglas introduced it into the United States...
Domestic Violence and the Health Care Debate
Posted on September 22, 2009The Huffington Post: When Getting Beaten By Your Husband is a Pre-Existing Position, by Ryan Grim: With the White House zeroing in on the insurance-industry practice of discriminating against clients based on pre-existing conditions, administration allies are calling attention to...
General Social Survey: American Women Are Getting Sadder
Posted on September 20, 2009NY Times Op-Ed Column: Blue Is the New Black, by Maureen Dowd: ...According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans? mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are...
Operation Rescue Warns of Its Financial Woes
Posted on September 18, 2009Kansas City Star : Anti-abortion group singing the blues, by Lewis Diuguid (op-ed columnist): It's hard to feel sorry for Operation Rescue. The forthright and forceful Wichita-based anti-abortion group is tapped out. The cash it had to be the loud...
Conservative Religiosity and Teen Birth Rates
Posted on September 18, 2009NY Times: Religion?s Link to Teen Pregnancy, by Lisa Belkin: A report this week in the journal Reproductive Health describes what researchers call ?a strong association? between the teenage birth rate of a particular state and its ?level of religiosity...
More on "Abortion Neutral" Health Reform
Posted on September 18, 2009NY Times: In Health Care Battle, a Truce on Abortion, by Peter Steinfels:?And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up: Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion, and federal conscience laws will remain in...
Tying Family Planning to Efforts to Reduce Carbon Emissions
Posted on September 18, 2009Salon.com: Condoms against climate change, by Andrew Leonard: Thomas Malthus: Prophet of overpopulation doom, or the first family planner? From "Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost: Reducing Future Carbon Emissions by Investing in Family Planning": The historical relevance of Malthus'...
Bridget Crawford on Taxing Surrogacy
Posted on September 18, 2009Bridget J. Crawford (Pace University School of Law) has posted Taxation, Pregnancy and Privacy on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Article frames a discussion of surrogacy within the context of existing income tax laws. A surrogate receives money for...
Anti-Abortion Protester is Killed in Michigan
Posted on September 16, 2009NY Times: Abortion Protester Is Killed in Michigan, by Emma Graves Fitzsimmons: A man who had long opposed abortion and was known nationally among anti-abortion protesters was shot to death Friday morning while staging a protest outside a Michigan high...
Courtney Joslin on Same-Sex Parents and Interstate Recognition of Parentage
Posted on September 16, 2009Courtney G. Joslin (UC Davis School of Law) has posted Interstate Recognition of Parentage in a Time of Disharmony: Same-Sex Parent Families and Beyond on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In a number of recent cases, litigants have argued that...
Motherhood and Kim Clijsters' U.S. Open Victory
Posted on September 16, 2009Salon.com: Did motherhood help Clijsters win?, by Vincent Rossmeier: Research suggests women might actually become better athletes after giving birth Every year on my birthday, after reminding me of the agonizing hours of labor pains she suffered through just to...
Risa Goluboff on Abortion, Vagrancy, and Fundamental Rights
Posted on September 11, 2009Risa Goluboff (University of Virginia) has posted Dispatch from the Supreme Court Archives: Vagrancy, Abortion, and What the Links Between Them Reveal About the History of Fundamental Rights on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Essay explores the implications for...
Obama Mentions Abortion During Speech on Health Care Reform
Posted on September 11, 2009NY Times: Check Point: Examining Obama's Assertions, by David M. Herszenhorn: ...Mr. Obama, in his speech, forcefully rejected contentions that the legislation would limit end-of-life care or even encourage euthanasia. Both of those claims are indeed false...
NOW Weighs in on Health Care Reform and Reproductive Health
Posted on September 11, 2009National Organization for Women: NOW Urges Single-Payer as Best for Women: Says Reproductive Health Care Must Be Covered President Barack Obama's address to Congress and the people of the United States resonates at a time when people are fed up...
ACLU Asks Court to End Government Funding of Overtly Religious Abstinence-Only Program in Mississippi
Posted on September 11, 2009ACLU press release (9/9): ACLU Asks Court to End Government Funding Of Religion In Mississippi Abstinence-Only Program: Jackson, MS ? The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Mississippi today asked a federal court in Mississippi to end government...
Conservative Groups Oppose United Nations Sex Ed Guide
Posted on September 09, 2009NY Times: U.N. Guide for Sex Ed Generates Opposition, by Steven Erlanger: PARIS ? A set of proposed international sex education guidelines aimed at reducing H.I.V. infections among young people has provoked criticism from conservative groups that say the program...
Scholarship by Michelle Oberman
Posted on September 09, 2009Michelle Oberman (Santa Clara Law) has posted Thirteen Ways of Looking at Buck v. Bell on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article is a review essay of Paul Lombardo's THREE GENERATIONS, NO IMBECILES: EUGENICS, THE SUPREME COURT AND BUCK...
A Look at the Importance of Birth Order
Posted on September 09, 2009NY Times: Birth Order: Fun to Debate, but How Important?, by Perri Klass: . . . Everyone takes it personally when it comes to birth order. After all, everyone is an oldest or a middle or a youngest or an...
"Revista Argentina de Teoría Jurídica" Publishes Special Issue on Reproductive & Sexual Health Law
Posted on September 09, 2009Via Martín Hevia (School of Law, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Global Fellow, International Reproductive & Sexual Health Law Programme, University of Toronto): Revista Argentina de Teoría Jurídica of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella is the law journal of the School...
Bridget Crawford on Third Wave Feminism
Posted on September 08, 2009Bridget J. Crawford (Pace University School of Law) has posted The Third Wave's Break from Feminism on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Janet Halley proves that third-wave feminism is wrong - wrongly decribed, that is. Young feminists in the United...
Uganda's Plan to Distribute Female Condoms Encounters Resistance from Funders Including PEPFAR
Posted on September 08, 2009Time Magazine (8/30): The Battle in Uganda Over Female Condoms, by Nick Wadhams: On the surface, it seems like a fine idea; reproductive rights groups certainly think so. In July, the Ugandan government announced that, using cash from the U.N....
Controversial Anti-Abortion Bishop Resigns Post
Posted on September 08, 2009Time Magazine: Was an Anti-Abortion Bishop Too Vocal for the Vatican?, by Amy Sullivan: For suddenly departing politicans and CEOs, the standard line is to "spend time with my family." Now the Catholic church may have its own version of...
Abortion Remains at Center of the Health-Care Debate
Posted on September 08, 2009Newsweek (8/29): Return of the Abortion Question, by Eleanor Clift: Opponents of health-care reform are gearing up to bring abortion back into the debate. Much has been made in the coverage of Sen. Ted Kennedy's death about his religious faith...
UN Addresses Economic Consequences of Divorce for Women Worldwide
Posted on September 08, 2009Women's E-News: U.N. Tackles Universal Problem for Women: Divorce, by Theresa Braine: Guardians of the U.N.'s treaty on women's rights have begun to address one of the most daunting challenges for women the world over: financially surviving divorce. Setting international...
Guttmacher Institute Examines Benefits of Home Visiting Programs
Posted on September 08, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Home Visiting Programs Touted by Obama Administration Improve Health and Well-Being of Both Women and Children:Programs Have Attracted Attention as Part of Health Care Reform and President?s ?Common Ground? Initiative Around Abortion Home visiting programs that...
Sudanese Court Fines Woman for Wearing Pants
Posted on September 07, 2009NY Times: A Fine but No Lash for Sudan Woman Who Wore Pants, by Jeffrey Gettleman: NAIROBI, Kenya ? A Sudanese court on Monday decided not to lash a woman for wearing trousers in public but convicted her of violating...
Deborah Tuerkheimer on Domestic Violence Homicide
Posted on September 05, 2009Deborah Tuerkheimer (DePaul University) has posted Control Killings on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A defendant on trial for murdering his intimate has forfeited his constitutional right to confront her as a witness, provided that, by taking her life, he...
Linda McClain and Joanna Grossman on Gender Equality and Citizenship
Posted on September 05, 2009Linda C. McClain (Boston University) and Joanna L. Grossman (Hofstra University) have posted Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Citizenship is the common language for expressing aspirations to democratic and egalitarian ideals of...
Reports Shows Dallas Leading Nation in Repeat Teen Births
Posted on September 05, 2009The Dallas Morning News: Dallas leads nation in repeat teen births, study finds, by Robert T. Garrett: AUSTIN ? Dallas leads the nation in the percentage of teen births that aren't the mother's first delivery, a nonpartisan national research group...
Abortion's Stigma Affects Doctors' Willingness to Provide
Posted on September 01, 2009Wash. Post: Abortion Stigma Affects Doctors' Training And Choices, by Sandra G. Boodman: When Devin Miller, leader of the abortion rights group Medical Students for Choice at Virginia Commonwealth University, heard about the slaying of George Tiller, a Kansas physician...
Three Americans Prosecuted Under New International Child-Sex-Trafficking Initiative
Posted on September 01, 2009Wash. Post: 3 Americans Face Child-Sex Charges, by Ashley Surdin: Men Held in Cambodia Are the First Prosecuted Under Trafficking Initiative LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31 -- Three Americans accused of traveling to Cambodia to have sex with children are expected...
Dr. Tiller's Death Won't Deter Nebraska's Dr. LeRoy Carhart From Providing Abortions Late in Pregnancy
Posted on September 01, 2009Newsweek: The Abortion Evangelist, by Sarah Kliff: LeRoy Carhart is determined to train as many late-term-abortion providers as possible?or the practice just might die with him. Leroy Carhart was at his abortion clinic near Omaha when he got the phone...
Man is Arrested After Threats to a Colorado Abortion Provider
Posted on September 01, 2009NY Times: Man Arrested in Threats to Colorado Abortion Clinic, by Kirk Johnson: DENVER ? Threats telephoned to an abortion clinic in Boulder, Colo., have led to the arrest of a man who, according to a federal indictment, gave chilling...
Thanks To My Summer Research Assistants!
Posted on August 31, 2009A heartfelt thanks to my CUNY Law School research assistants, Amy Hager (2L) and Christina Tenuta (3L), for their helpful research for this blog over the summer.
DHS Ruled Mother Unfit Because of Her Inability to Speak English
Posted on August 29, 2009Time Magazine: Can a Mother Lose Her Child Because She Doesn't Speak English?, by Tim Padgett with Dolly Mascareñas / Oaxac Can the U.S. government take a woman's baby from her because she doesn't speak English? That's the latest question...
Study Examines Effects of Premature Birth on Parents
Posted on August 28, 2009NY Times: For Parents on NICU, Trauma May Last, by Laurie Tarkan: Kim Roscoe?s son, Jaxon, was born three months early, weighing two and a half pounds....About three months after her son?s birth, Ms. Roscoe asked to see a psychiatrist....
Effort to Mandate Protected Sex in Porn Industry Faces Resistance
Posted on August 28, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): Porn's last taboo: Protected sex, by Tracy Clark-Flory: The industry is resisting a push for condom-only smut and not just because it makes far less money You won't find "Debbie Does Condoms" or "Jenna Loves Prophylactics" on offer...
Town Hall Meetings Replete with Protests about Subsidized Abortions
Posted on August 28, 2009Wash. Post: Abortion is New Front in Health Battle, by Fawn Johnson & Laura Meckler: WASHINGTON -- Anti-abortion groups are gearing up for a battle in the fall over health-care legislation, another headache for Democrats who already face concerns about...
Ohio Supreme Court Affirms Employee's Termination for Taking Unauthorized Breaks to Pump Breast Milk
Posted on August 28, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): Lactate on your own time, lady, by Kate Harding:The Ohio Supreme Court affirms the right of Totes/Isotoner to fire a woman for pumping breast milk as necessary On Thursday, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed that Totes/Isotoner had the...
NY Will Become Sixth State to Ban Use of Shackles on Pregnant Prisoners
Posted on August 27, 2009Boston Globe: 6th state will curb shackling, by Cristian Salazar: NEW YORK - For nearly four hours before she gave birth, Venita Pinckney had a chain wrapped around her swollen abdomen. Her ankles were shackled together and her hands were...
Senator Edward M. Kennedy Dies at 77
Posted on August 27, 2009NY Times: Obituary: Edward M. Kennedy, by John M. Broder: Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew acclaim and tragedy in near-equal measure and who...
Public Caning of Malaysian Woman is Delayed
Posted on August 26, 2009NY Times: Malaysian Authorities Postpone Whipping of Malaysian Woman, by Thomas Fuller: Malaysian authorities gave a last-minute, temporary reprieve on Monday to a Muslim woman sentenced to whipping for drinking alcohol in a case that has stirred passions over the...
Marie Claire Publishes Two Women's Stories in "Abortion Debate" Feature
Posted on August 26, 2009Marie Claire: The Abortion Debate: What Would You Do?: Holly Rossiter was pregnant with her second child when doctors discovered that, once born, it would quickly die. How could she bear to keep carrying it? My first pregnancy was a...
Obama Discusses Health Reform and Abortion Coverage on Conservative Radio Show
Posted on August 25, 2009LA Times: Obama tries to 'cut through the noise' on heathcare, by Christi Parsons and Mark Silva: The president appears on Michael Smerconish's radio show and speaks to Democratic supporters, highlighting a communications challenge on his reform effort...
Abortion Pill Has Not Improved Geographic Access to Abortion
Posted on August 25, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Expectations that Abortion Pill Would Dramatically Improve Abortion Access Have Not Been Realized: While Becoming an Integral Part of Abortion Provision, Mifepristone Has Not Expanded Geographic Access Prior to FDA approval in 2000, mifepristone for medication...
NYC Miles for Midwives to be Held October 3, 2009
Posted on August 25, 2009Choices in Childbirth and the American College of Nurse-Midwives sponsor Miles for Midwives on October 3, 2009: Every year, New York City celebrates the dedication and skill of our midwives with Miles for Midwives, an annual charity run/walk. Sponsored this...
Joseph Dellapenna on Abortion and Choice of Law
Posted on August 25, 2009Joseph W. Dellapenna (Villanova University School of Law) has posted Abortion Against State Lines on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this Article, I propose to analyze conflicts of law precedents and theory to explore the extent to which a...
Report Recommends Pregnant Women Consider Therapy Before Drugs for Depression
Posted on August 25, 2009Wall St. Journal: For Moms, Therapy Beats Drugs, by Shirley Wang: Pregnant women suffering from depression should consider psychotherapy before taking antidepressant medications, according to the first comprehensive treatment recommendations issued on the subject...
CDC Considers Promoting Circumcision to Fight Risk of H.I.V.
Posted on August 24, 2009NY Times: Officials Weigh Circumcision to Fight H.I.V. Risk, by Roni Caryn Rabin: Public health officials are considering promoting routine circumcision for all baby boys born in the United States to reduce the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes...
Following Pregnancy Weight-Gain Guidelines Can Increase Risk of Heavy Infants
Posted on August 23, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Pregnancy Weight Gain Guidelines Might Raise Risk of Large, Heavier Infants, Study Finds: The recommended weight gain of 25 to 35 pounds during pregnancy can increase women's risk for giving birth to infants that are...
New York Times Magazine Publishes Special Issue on Global Women's Rights
Posted on August 23, 2009This Sunday's New York Times Magazine is a special issue on international women's rights, Why Women's Rights Are the Cause of Our Time. The cover story, The Women's Crusade, is adapted from a book by Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof...
Review of "Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage"
Posted on August 20, 2009Tuned In (Time Magazine): The Morning After: Eight Is Too Much, by James Poniewozik: This is not something a good TV critic likes to admit, but I made liberal use of the fast-forward button watching last night's special Octomom: The...
Backers of Oklahoma Ultrasound Law Vow to Appeal
Posted on August 20, 2009NY Times: Abortion Law Backers Vow Oklahoma Appeal, by James C. McKinley, Jr.: HOUSTON ? A day after a judge struck down an Oklahoma law requiring women seeking an abortion to see an ultrasound of the fetus and listen to...
Sex, Pregnancy, and Abortion on U.S. Military Bases
Posted on August 19, 2009NYT: Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In, by Steven Lee Myers: FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARHORSE, Iraq ? There is no mistaking that this dusty, gravel-strewn camp northeast of Baghdad is anything other than a combat outpost in a...
Gov't Study Shows Benefits of Gardasil, and Some Potential Complications
Posted on August 19, 2009NY Times: Study on Vaccine for Cervical Cancer Finds Benefits Despite Some Risks, by Roni Caryn Rabin: The new vaccine designed to protect girls and young women from cervical cancer has a safety record that appears to be in line...
Oklahoma Law Requiring Ultrasounds for Abortions Is Struck Down
Posted on August 19, 2009Wash. Post: Law Requiring Ultrasounds for Abortions Is Struck Down, by Kari Lydersen: Oklahoma Judge Says Measure Violates State Constitution An Oklahoma judge decided Tuesday that doctors do not need to perform ultrasounds and offer women detailed information about the...
Study Shows Young People Need Better HIV Education
Posted on August 18, 2009Lesbian & Gay Foundation: Research reveals need for better HIV education for young people: Over half the world's teenagers ignorant to HIV risks A study by the international student organisation AIESEC has revealed that half of the world's teenagers admit...
Justice Sotomayor Casts Her First Supreme Court Vote
Posted on August 18, 2009LA Times: Sonia Sotomayor casts first Supreme Court vote, supporting a stay of execution, by George G. Savage: Newly seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor has cast her first recorded vote on the Supreme Court, joining a dissent by three liberal justices...
Staying Neutral: Abortion Coverage and Health Care Reform
Posted on August 17, 2009Wall Street Journal: Keeping Health Reform Neutral on Abortion, by Steven Waldman: Lost in the vitriol about health care is a surprising development: pro-life and pro-choice leaders say they don't intend to use health reform to shift the balance of...
"Family Guy" Cast Members Perform Reading of Nixed Abortion-Themed Episode
Posted on August 17, 2009Wash. Post: 'Family Guy' Channels Controversy Onstage, by Emily Yahr: LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13 -- Several weeks after "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane announced that the Fox network refuses to air an abortion-themed episode -- on a series best known....
The Cost of Raising a Child
Posted on August 17, 2009Time Magazine: Raising a Child Costs Some $221,000, Before College, by Nancy Gibbs: This is the time of year ? second only to December, maybe ? when we're reminded how much kids cost. It's nice when states suspend their sales...
Jonathan Klick, et al., on Abortion Liberalization and Sexual Behavior
Posted on August 14, 2009Jonathan Klick (Penn Law), Sven Neelsen ((Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research), and Thomas Stratmann (George Mason University) have posted The Effect of Abortion Liberalization on Sexual Behavior: International Evidence on SSRN...
"Pro-Life Majority" Disappears in New Gallup Poll
Posted on August 14, 2009Time Magazine: About That Pro-Life Majority . . ., by Amy Sullivan: You may remember that back in May, Gallup released a poll showing that for the first time, a majority of Americans in their survey described themselves as "pro-life"...
TwitterBirth: Micro-Blogging Childbirth
Posted on August 14, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): The miracle of birth in 140 characters or less, by Lynn Harris: A woman Twitters her way through the delivery room: #toomuchinformation? Back in the old days (2005), we raised our brows over the trendlet of inviting people,...
Student Scholarship: Racial Classification in Assisted Reproduction
Posted on August 13, 2009Dov Fox (Yale 2010) has posted Racial Classification in Assisted Reproduction on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Note considers the moral status of practices that facilitate parental selection of sperm donors according to race. Arguments about intentions and consequences...
Myth and Fact in the Debate About Abortion and Health Care Reform
Posted on August 12, 2009NPR: Abortion In The Health Care Bills: What's True? Melissa Block speaks with Robert Farley, staff writer for Politifact.com, about what is being said regarding abortion in the health care bills before Congress, and whether the claims are true or...
Judge Rules on Challenge to ND Ultrasound Law
Posted on August 12, 2009KFYR TV (Bismarck, ND): Judge Rules on ND Abortion Dispute: A judge says North Dakota`s only abortion clinic does not have to provide audio of a fetal heartbeat for women who want to end their pregnancies. Judge Douglas Herman ruled...
New Revelations on What Takes Place in a Baby's Head
Posted on August 12, 2009Slate Magazine: What's Inside a Big Baby Head?, by Paul Bloom: New research brings surprising revelations What's going on inside a baby's bulbous head? We ask the same question about our pets, but the frustrating thing about babies is that...
Clinton Unveils Plan to Fight Sexual Violence in Congo
Posted on August 11, 2009NY Times: Clinton Describes Plan to Fight Sexual Violence in Congo, by JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and SHARON OTTERMAN: GOMA, Congo ? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled a $17 million plan on Tuesday to fight the widespread sexual violence in...
VA Dem. Gubernatorial Candidate to Attack Opponent's Anti-Choice Views
Posted on August 10, 2009Wash. Post: Deeds to Wage Risky Attack On Opponent's Abortion Views, by Rosalind S. Helderman & Sandhya Somashekhar: Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds will launch a campaign this week to portray his opponent's longtime efforts to restrict abortion...
"Abortion Neutral" Health Care Reform?
Posted on August 10, 2009Huffington Post: Abortion and Health Care Reform: A Common Ground Solution?, by Chris Korzen: Before leaving for August recess, the House Energy and Commerce Committee adopted an amendment to proposed health care reform legislation that raises hopes of a detente...
Some Highly Developed Countries See Rise in Fertility
Posted on August 10, 2009Wash. Post: In Reversal, Highly Developed Nations See Rise in Fertility, by Rob Stein: For decades, the rate at which women were having babies in many of the world's most highly developed countries slowly declined. While the trend cheered some...
Jim Hawkins on Fertility Clinic Doctors as Bankers
Posted on August 10, 2009Jim Hawkins (University of Houston Law Center) has posted Doctors as Bankers: Evidence from Fertility Markets on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In a variety of medical contexts, doctors play a prominent role as bankers, lending directly to patients or...
Society's Blase Attitude Toward Violence Against Women
Posted on August 09, 2009NY Times: Women at Risk, by Bob Herbert: ?I actually look good. I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne ? yet 30 million women rejected me,? wrote George Sodini in a blog that he kept while preparing for...
Aging Mothers
Posted on August 09, 2009Slate Magazine (7/30): Fertile Old Ladies, by William Saletan: Is it OK to impregnate a 60-year-old woman? Until recently, this wasn't an issue. Nature exhausted your egg supply, and that was it. But technology has surmounted that problem. Now you...
Health Insurance and So-Called Maternity Coverage
Posted on August 09, 2009Double X: Health Insurance Woes: My $22,000 Bill for Having a Baby, by Sara Wildman: Our six-month-old daughter cost over $22,000. You?d think, with a number like that, we must have used fertility treatments?but she was conceived naturally. You?d think...
Recession May Have Caused U.S. Birth Rate to Fall, Some Experts Say
Posted on August 09, 2009NY Times: Birth Rate Is Said to Fall as a Result of Recession, by Sam Roberts: For the first time since the decade began, Americans are having fewer babies, and some experts are blaming the economy. ?It?s the recession,? said...
Justice Sotomayor Sworn In
Posted on August 09, 2009NY Times: Sotomayor Sworn In as Supreme Court Justice, by Charlie Savage: WASHINGTON ? Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the judicial oath on Saturday, becoming the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the Supreme Court in United States history....
A Call on Nicaragua to Reverse its Abortion Ban
Posted on August 09, 2009BBC (7/28): Call to reverse Nicaragua's abortion ban, by Mike Wooldridge: Amnesty International has called on Nicaragua to repeal a law introduced last year criminalising abortion in all circumstances. After a fact-finding mission, Amnesty says in that the total ban...
U.S. District Court Rules in Favor of Clinic Safety
Posted on August 06, 2009LA Times: Federal Judge Upholds 'Bubble Ordinance' for Abortion Protesters, by Robin Abcarian: A clash in Oakland between freedom of speech and unfettered access to abortion clinics was resolved Tuesday when a federal judge ruled that a 2008 city ordinance...
Senate Begins Debate on Sotomayor Confirmation
Posted on August 06, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Full Senate To Begin Debate on Sotomayor Tuesday: The full Senate on Tuesday is set to begin debate on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who is widely expected to be confirmed by the end of...
President Obama Approves New Guidelines on Stem Cell Research
Posted on August 06, 2009NY Times/Reuters (7/30): Obama Enacts New U.S. Stem Cell Research Rules: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama directed federal agencies on Thursday to enact new rules governing federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells. The rules, issued earlier...
"Forgettable Contraception" Can Help Overcome Human Fallibility
Posted on August 06, 2009Contraception: Forgettable Contraception, by David Grimes: The term ?forgettable contraception? has received less attention in family planning than has ?long-acting reversible contraception.? Defined here as a method requiring attention no more often than every 3 years, forgettable contraception includes sterilization...
Senate Confirms Sotomayor: 68-31
Posted on August 06, 2009NY Times: Sotomayor Confirmed by Senate, 68-31, by Charlie Savage: WASHINGTON ? Voting largely along party lines, the Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th justice of the Supreme Court. She will be the first Hispanic and...
ACLU Asks FL Court to Protect Pregnant Women's Right to Refuse Medical Care
Posted on August 05, 2009ACLU press release (8/3): ACLU Asks Florida Court to Protect the Rights of Pregnant Women to Refuse Medical Care The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Florida today filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the state's decision to force...
Facts Distorted in Debate on Impact of Abortion Coverage
Posted on August 05, 2009RH Reality Check: Politics Distorts Facts on Impact of Abortion Coverage, by Susan Cohen (Guttmacher Institute): A team of researchers from Guttmacher, Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Ibis Reproductive Health found...
NOW Outraged at House Vote on Abortion Coverage
Posted on August 05, 2009National Organization for Women: NOW Outraged at House Vote on Abortion Coverage -- Women's Rights Traded Away: NOW is outraged to learn that the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed an amendment excluding abortion services from the "essential" health benefits...
Senate Committee Votes to End Funding for Abstinence-Only Programs
Posted on August 05, 2009ACLU press release (7/30): Senate Committee Votes To End Funding For Failed Abstinence-Only Programs: Bill Puts Teens' Health Above Politics And Ideology, Says ACLU WASHINGTON ? The Senate Appropriations Committee today voted to end funding for failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and...
High Rates of Maternal Mortality Persist in India
Posted on July 31, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Maternal Mortality Remains High in India, Despite Slow Decline: Although maternal mortality in India is declining, it remains unacceptably high, according to the report Barriers to Safe Motherhood in India, released today by the New York?based...
Pregnant Women Will Be Among First To Receive Flu Vaccine
Posted on July 31, 2009Wash. Post: Flu Vaccine Panel Creates Priority List, by David Brown: A complicated list of who should get pandemic flu vaccine in the fall is now set. When the vaccine starts arriving in September, first in line will be pregnant...
Man Charged Doctor Tiller's Murder Pleads Not Guilty
Posted on July 31, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Man Charged With Murder of Abortion Provider Tiller Pleads Not Guilty: Scott Roeder, the man charged with the May 31 shooting death of abortion provider George Tiller, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated...
Clifford J. Rosky on Parenthood and Homophobic and Heterosexist Stereotypes
Posted on July 28, 2009Clifford J. Rosky (University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law) has posted Like Father, Like Son: Homosexuality, Parenthood and the Gender of Homophobia on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Article argues that gender influences the expression of homophobic...
Today is the anniversary of the Fourteenth Amendment
Posted on July 28, 2009JURIST: Today in Legal History: On July 28, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, granting citizenship to former slaves and protecting due process of law and equal protection of laws in the States, was ratified. Learn more about...
Sotomayor is Endorsed by Senate Judiciary Committee
Posted on July 28, 2009NY Times: Senate Panel Endorses Sotomayor in 13-6 Vote, by David Stout: WASHINGTON ? The Senate Judiciary Committee voted, 13 to 6, on Tuesday to endorse the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, easing her path to likely confirmation...
Parental Involvement Laws for Abortion: Irrational and Dangerous
Posted on July 27, 2009JURIST: Abortion Parental Notice Laws: Irrational, Unnecessary and Downright Dangerous, by Caitlin Borgmann: On July 14, in Zbaraz v. Madigan, the Seventh Circuit lifted a permanent injunction that had prevented enforcement of Illinois? parental notice for abortion law since its...
Preliminary Hearing Tomorrow for Man Charged with Doctor Tiller's Murder
Posted on July 27, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Preliminary Hearing Set for Suspect in Murder of Abortion Provider Tiller: A preliminary hearing for Scott Roeder, the man charged with the May 31 murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, is set for Tuesday,...
Shrinking Work Force Leads China to Modify One-Child Policy
Posted on July 25, 2009NY Times: 1 Plus 1: Shanghai Tweaks Child Rules, by David Barboza: SHANGHAI ? Thirty years after China began enforcing a one-child policy, this city is actively encouraging young couples to have a second child. City officials are planning to...
Slow Embryo Heart Rate May Indicate Greater Miscarriage Risk for IVF Recipients
Posted on July 24, 2009Reuters: Slow heart rate predicts failed fertility therapy, by Michelle Rizzo: NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A slow embryo heart rate could mean that mothers who have undergone in vitro fertilization are at increased risk for miscarriage, according to a...
Substitute for Embryonic Stem Cells Shows Promise
Posted on July 24, 2009ScienceNow: Embryonic Stem Cell Substitute Passes Acid Test, by Gretchen Vogel: Scientists have for the first time demonstrated that a possible alternative to controversial embryonic stem (ES) cells shares one of their key abilities. So-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells...
ACLU Praises Pregnancy Prevention Bill
Posted on July 24, 2009ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project press release: House Bill To Support Unintended Pregnancy Prevention And Parenting Programs A Welcome Step, Says ACLU: Bill Would Improves Lives Of Women And Families WASHINGTON ? An important bill aiming to improve access to reproductive...
Study Shows Adolescents' Contraceptive Use Has Higher Failure Rate
Posted on July 24, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Adolescent Women's Contraceptive Use is Less Consistent than that of Adult Women, With a Much Higher Failure Rate: New Analysis Compares Evidence from More Than 40 Countries A new study of women?s contraceptive use around the...
Pregnancy and the Swine Flu Threat
Posted on July 23, 2009US News & World Report: Dealing with the Swine Flu Threat During Pregnancy, by Deborah Kotz: The worldwide death toll from swine flu is now at 700, according to the World Health Organization. And the U.S. government is gearing up...
International Guidelines for Mothers Taking Antiretrovirals May Change
Posted on July 23, 2009Reuters: WHO may change ARV guidelines for pregnant mothers, by Wendell Roelf: CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - International guidelines for mothers taking antiretrovirals (ARVs) may change, a senior WHO official said, with new evidence showing HIV infection rates among babies are...
Debate Over Abortion Endures
Posted on July 23, 2009USA Today: Abortion fight is 'enduring divide', by Joan Biskupic: WASHINGTON ? During confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., asked whether she believed court rulings on abortion had ended the national controversy...
Federal Bill Takes a Common Ground Approach on Abortion
Posted on July 23, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): How's that "common ground" going?, by Frances Kissling: A new bill on abortion reduction shows serious strain -- but also progress After four years of behind-the-scenes negotiating, pro-choice groups turned out in full force for the introduction of...
Changing View on Abortion Among Young Latinos
Posted on July 23, 2009Nuestra Vida, Nuestra Voz (National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health): Young Latinos Shift Views on Abortion: A recent poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life along with the Pew Hispanic Center, shows that among first-generation U.S...
Is Refusal to Consent to C-Section Evidence of Child Abuse?
Posted on July 22, 2009Volokh Conspiracy (7/16): Refusal to Consent to Caesarean Section as Neglect of the Child? From today's very interesting decision in New Jersey Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. V.M. (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div.): Defendants V.M. [the mother] and...
Jimmy Carter Protests Treatment of Women by Organized Religion
Posted on July 22, 2009Blogher: Jimmy Carter protests religion's treatment of women, by Mata H: Editor's note: Jimmy Carter officially departed the Southern Baptist church in 2000, but still stayed on at Maranatha Baptist in Plains, Georgia, teaching Sunday School. He held on to...
Report Calls for More Protection for Abortion Providers
Posted on July 22, 2009RH Reality Check: New Report: Abortion Providers = American Human Rights Defenders, Now Under Increasing Attack, by Jodi Jacobson: A new report by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) calls on both the federal and state governments to address the...
More on Abortion Coverage and Health-Care Reform
Posted on July 22, 2009Wash. Post: Health-Care Reform Efforts Marred by Abortion Dispute, by Dan Eggen & Rob Stein: President Obama, who has vowed to find common ground on culture-war issues, finds himself in the middle of a classic Washington dispute over abortion that...
Pregnancy Rates Alarmingly High Among Teens In Foster Care
Posted on July 22, 2009Time Magazine: Teen Pregnancy: Reaching Epidemic Levels in Foster Care, by Amy Sullivan: What's tougher than being a pregnant teenager? Try being a pregnant teenager in foster care. Miranda Sheffield had pinballed in and out of more than 10 foster...
Catholic Church Stands By Opposition to Abortion in Cases of Incest
Posted on July 21, 2009Time Magazine: A Sequel to the Case of the Pregnant Nine-Year Old, by Jeff Israely: The Catholic Church (and Pope Benedict XVI) were presented with a public relations powder keg last March when news broke that a nine-year-old Brazilian girl...
Withdrawal Method Re-Examined
Posted on July 21, 2009NY Times: Withdrawal Method Finds Ally, by Pam Belluck: Which birth-control method is more effective: condoms or withdrawal? For sex educators and others, the answer is glaringly obvious. Withdrawal before ejaculation, the so-called pullout method, is a last resort, they...
NY Times on Shackling Female Inmates During Childbirth
Posted on July 21, 2009NY Times editorial: Childbirth in Chains: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists called several years ago for an end to the barbaric and medically hazardous practice of shackling female prisoners during labor. In addition to further frightening these vulnerable...
Health Care Reform and Abortion Coverage
Posted on July 20, 2009NY Times: Health Bill Might Direct Tax Money to Abortion, by Robert Pear & Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON ? An Obama administration official refused Sunday to rule out the possibility that federal tax money might be used to pay for abortions...
South African Government Fails To Support Circumcision To Help in HIV/AIDS Prevention
Posted on July 20, 2009NY Times: South Africa Is Seen to Lag in H.I.V. Fight, by Celia W. Dugger: ORANGE FARM, South Africa ? ...Circumcision has been proven to reduce a man?s risk of contracting H.I.V. by more than half. Yet two years after...
Richard Storrow on Therapeutic Reproduction
Posted on July 20, 2009Richard Storrow (CUNY Law School) has posted Therapeutic Reproduction and Human Dignity on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Bioethicists have long looked to literature for insight into the difficult questions that arise from developments in biotechnology. Two recent novels, Kazuo...
New Arizona Law Hinders Access to Abortion Services
Posted on July 20, 2009Huffington Post op-ed: New Arizona Law Restricts Access to a Range of Reproductive Health Services, by Sharon Camp (Guttmacher Institute): On July 13, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law a measure that establishes--among other restrictions on access to sexual...
House Lifts 20-Year Ban On DC Abortion Funding
Posted on July 17, 2009ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project press release: WASHINGTON ? The U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday passed the Financial Services appropriations bill lifting a 20-year old ban on the use of locally generated tax dollars for abortions in the District of...
Senate Expected to Confirm Sotomayor in August
Posted on July 17, 2009NY Times: Senate Likely to Vote on Sotomayor in August, by Neil A. Lewis: WASHINGTON ? Judge Sonia Sotomayor completed her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, acknowledging regret for having said that a ?wise Latina? judge could...
Expanded Access Expected with New One-Dose Version of Emergency Contraception
Posted on July 16, 2009Reuters (7/13): UPDATE 1-New Teva emergency contraceptive to expand market: ...Israel-based Teva, the world's biggest generic drug company, and Hungarian drug maker Richter Gedeon GDRB.BU said on Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave final approval to their Plan...
Obama Admin. To Allow Battered Women To Receive Asylum
Posted on July 16, 2009NY Times: New Policy Permits Asylum for Battered Women, by Julia Preston: The Obama administration has opened the way for foreign women who are victims of severe domestic beatings and sexual abuse to receive asylum in the United States. The...
Sotomayor Remains Elusive on Abortion
Posted on July 16, 2009Wash. Post: Sotomayor Avoids Pointed Queries, by Amy Goldstein, Paul Kane, & Robert Barnes: Before nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, President Obama did not ask her about abortion rights or any other "specific legal issue," she testified yesterday...
Sotomayor: Second Day Summary
Posted on July 15, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Sotomayor Calls Roe 'Settled Law', Says Health of Woman Must Be Considered: During the second day of her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said she views the 1973 Roe v...
Sotomayor Questioned on Abortion Law During Confirmation Hearings
Posted on July 15, 2009NY Times: Republican Senators Press Sotomayor on Abortion Views, by David Stout: Judge Sonia Sotomayor refused on Wednesday to be pinned down about her views on abortion rights, a subject she said President Obama never brought up before he nominated....
Confirmation Hearings Abundant with Abortion Protestors, Including Jane Roe
Posted on July 15, 2009Wash. Post: The Scene: Culture Wars Intrude on a Day of Cordiality, by Ann Gerhart: It was but a blip of perhaps 20 seconds, a hiccup in an orderly, polite proceeding, some shouted words about abortion being wrong. Heads swiveled...
Live Blogging Day 3 of Sotomayor Hearings
Posted on July 15, 2009The Caucus (NYT): Live Blogging Sotomayor Hearings, Day 3, by Kate Phillips.
U.S. Organizations Speak Out on Women and HIV to Inform Health Policy and National AIDS Strategy
Posted on July 13, 2009Center for Health and Gender Equity press release: U.S. Organizations Speak Out on Women and HIV to Inform Health Policy and National AIDS Strategy: (Washington, D.C.)-Fourteen U.S. organizations working on issues related to human rights, women, and HIV/AIDS submitted a...
Spain's Proposed Abortion Reform Draws Opposition from Catholic Church
Posted on July 13, 2009RH Reality Check: The Church Battles Reforms in Spain's Abortion Law, by Angela Castellanos: A draft of Spain's reformed abortion bill has ignited the Catholic Church, which called its congregation as well as the Catholic politicians to vote against the...
First Day of Judge Sotomayor's Confirmation Hearing
Posted on July 13, 2009PBS.org: Sotomayor Pledges 'Fidelity to the Law' at Hearing: Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor appeared before a Senate panel Monday, starting confirmation hearings that could culminate with lawmakers endorsing her as the first Hispanic female justice on the top U...
President Obama Chooses a New Surgeon General
Posted on July 13, 2009Wash. Post: Obama Selects Alabama Doctor as Surgeon General, by Michael Shear: President Obama has chosen Regina Benjamin, a family physician from Alabama, to be the next Surgeon General, filling a key public health post ahead of an expected surge...
Questions For Judge Sotomayor
Posted on July 13, 2009NY Times Op-Ed: Questions for Judge Sotomayor: Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama?s nominee for the Supreme Court, is scheduled to appear today at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Op-Ed editors asked seven legal experts to pose...
Congress Debates Increased Screening for Postpartum Depression
Posted on July 12, 2009Time Magazine: Should All Mothers Be Screened for Postpartum Depression?, by Catherine Elton: A month after Melanie Blocker-Stokes gave birth, she stopped eating and sleeping. She had convinced herself that she was a terrible mother, and she was paranoid that...
Parents Struggle with Telling Children about Their Surrogate Births
Posted on July 12, 2009NY Times: No Stork Involved, but Mom and Dad Had Help, by Sara Rimer: ...While there is no widely agreed upon number for surrogate births, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine estimates 400 to 600 births a year from 2003...
NY Times Commentary on Obama, the Pope, and Abortion
Posted on July 11, 2009Room for Debate (NY Times): Does Obama Have a Friend in the Vatican?: President Obama received a warm welcome at the Vatican on Friday in his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed, the Vatican has generally seemed more eager...
The Place of Women on the Supreme Court
Posted on July 11, 2009NY Times: The Place of Women on the Court, by Emily Bazelon: In late February, three weeks after she had an operation for a recurrence of cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Barack Obama?s first address to Congress. Given...
Scientists Report Creating Human Sperm from Stem Cells
Posted on July 10, 2009Time Magazine: Scientists Create Human Sperm from Stem Cells, by Alice Park: Researchers at Newcastle University in England report they have coaxed the first human sperm cells from embryonic stem cells, in a remarkable demonstration of how quickly the field...
Catholics for Choice on the Pope and the President
Posted on July 10, 2009Catholics for Choice Press Release: The Pope and the President: Many Similar Outlooks but Very Different Roles: Washington DC - Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, issued the following statement about the meeting today between President Barack Obama and...
Obama Meets with Pope
Posted on July 10, 2009Reuters: Obama at Vatican for first meeting with pope, by Jeff Mason: VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama arrived at the Vatican on Friday for his first meeting with Pope Benedict and what the White House says will...
Study Suggests Way to Reduce Limited Risk of Infection from Abortion Pill Use
Posted on July 09, 2009NY Times: Abortion Pill Study Suggests Way to Limit Infection, by Denise Grady: A large study of the pills used to induce abortion has found that infections are rare but can be made even less common if the pills are...
Abortion Coverage and Health Care Reform
Posted on July 09, 2009Time Magazine: Could Abortion Coverage Sink Health-Care Reform?, by Karen Tumulty: Should government-subsidized health coverage pay for abortion procedures? For more than three decades, that question has seemed pretty much settled. The Hyde Amendment, passed by the House on September,...
Uganda Moves to Ban Female Genital Mutilation
Posted on July 08, 2009Salon.com (Broadsheet): Uganda to outlaw female genital mutilation, by Lynn Harris: Let's make sure this one doesn't get lost in this week's Palin/Jackson shuffle: Uganda has moved to outlaw female genital mutilation. "God knew what he was doing when he...
A Lack of Medicaid Funded Abortions Forces Many to Carry Pregnancies to Term
Posted on July 08, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Restricting Medicaid Funding For Abortion Forces One in Four Poor Women to Carry Unwanted Pregnancies to Term: Approximately one-fourth of women who would obtain a Medicaid-funded abortion if given the option are instead forced to carry...
House Committee To Vote On Lifting DC Abortion Funding Ban
Posted on July 07, 2009ACLU press release: House Committee To Vote On Lifting DC Abortion Funding Ban: WASHINGTON ? The House Appropriations Committee is expected to vote this evening on a financial services appropriations bill that includes a provision lifting a 20-year-old ban on...
The Silence on Stillbirths
Posted on July 07, 2009Wash. Post: Even Doctors Avoid Talking About Stillbirth, by Alan Goldenbach: About a month after our son died, my wife and I made our first visit back to her obstetrician's office hoping to get answers to some of the questions...
Risks of Pregnancy and Diabetes
Posted on July 07, 2009USA Today: Expectant mothers with diabetes face risky challenge, by Mary Brophy Marcus: Before she became pregnant, Molly Duerr never understood why expectant moms would say they didn't care if it were a boy or a girl, only that the...
Despite Court Order, Arizona Sheriff Continues to Block Prisoners' Access to Abortion
Posted on July 06, 2009ACLU Press Release (7/2): "America's Toughest Sheriff" Agrees To Stop Requiring Court Orders For Abortions But Creates New Obstacle: PHOENIX - The American Civil Liberties Union late yesterday asked an Arizona court to prevent Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio from...
Abrams & Brooks on Same-Sex Marriage and the "Accidental Procreation" Argument
Posted on July 06, 2009Kerry Abrams (University of Virginia) & Peter Brooks have posted Marriage as a Message: Same-Sex Couples and the Rhetoric of Accidental Procreation on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In his dissent in the 2003 case Goodridge v. Department of Health,...
Teens' Planned Parenthood Records Remain Private in Ohio
Posted on July 06, 2009ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project (7/1): Ohio Supreme Court Protects The Privacy of Medical Records in Abortion Case: The Ohio Supreme Court today moved to protect the privacy of minors? medical records when the minor is not a party in a...
India: New Delhi High Court Decriminalizes Gay Sex
Posted on July 06, 2009NY Times (7/2): Indian Court Overturns Gay Sex Ban, by Heather Timmons & Hari Kumar: In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi?s highest court...
Daily Kos: Obama and the Elusive Common Ground on Abortion
Posted on July 04, 2009Daily Kos: The Fog is Lifting over Common Ground on Abortion, by Frederick Clarkson: President Obama has made much about finding common ground on abortion, and Democratic oriented think tanks like Third Way and Faith in Public Life have ballyhooed...
Obama Reassures Catholic Health Care Workers in Advance of Meeting with Pope
Posted on July 04, 2009Wash. Post: Obama Reaches Out Before Vatican Trip, by Jacqueline L. Salmon: President Barack Obama said today that he still favors a "robust" federal policy protecting health-care workers who have moral objections to performing some procedures even though he plans...
Colorado Groups to Submit Another "Personhood" Initiative
Posted on July 04, 2009The Gazette (Colorado Springs): Groups to make another try for 'personhood' measure, by Mark Barna: Two anti-abortion groups, Colorado Right to Life and Personhood USA, will submit a new "personhood" initiative to the Colorado Legislative Council on Thursday in hopes...
Consuming the Placenta
Posted on July 04, 2009Time Magazine: Afterbirth for Dinner, by Joel Stein: There is so much you can't know about your spouse when you get married, like that one day she will want to eat her placenta. But there are two things you don't...
Nineteen House Dems Vow to Oppose Health Care Reform that Includes Abortion Services
Posted on July 04, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Nineteen House Dems Plan to Vote Against Health Reform if Abortion Funding is Included: Nineteen House Democrats recently sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stating that they will not vote for health...
Martha Davis on the Importance of a Transnational Perspective in Teaching Reproductive Rights
Posted on July 04, 2009Martha F. Davis (Northeastern University) has posted Reproductive Rights in the Legal Academy: A New Role for Transnational Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Most law school courses approach reproductive rights law from a purely domestic perspective, as an...
Study Suggests Daily Sex, Rather Than "Saving Up" Sperm, Improves Odds of Pregnancy
Posted on July 01, 2009Science Fair (USA Today): Don't save that sperm -- daily sex may increase pregnancy chances: Couples hoping to conceive a child likely improve their odds with daily sex before ovulation, rather than refraining before making an attempt, finds a study....
Catholic Hospital System Ends Joint Venture with Insurer that Covers Abortion Services
Posted on July 01, 2009Boston Globe: Caritas ends joint venture, by Michael Paulson & Kay Lazar: Caritas Christi Health Care, the financially challenged Catholic hospital system founded by the Archdiocese of Boston, is abruptly ending its joint venture with a Missouri-based health insurer at...
Chlamydia, The "Silent STD"
Posted on July 01, 2009Wall Street Journal: Chlamydia, the Silent STD That Can Cause Infertility, by Melinda Beck: One of the biggest frustrations in public-health circles today involves a tiny bacterium called Chlamydia trachomatis. Chlamydia infection is the most common sexually transmitted disease, responsible...
Ignoring the Octomom
Posted on July 01, 2009Kimberly D. Krawiec (Duke University) has posted Why We Should Ignore the 'Octomom' on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Thanks to the ?Octomom? - a single, low-income, California mother of six, who recently gave birth to octuplets conceived through IVF...
Arizona Senate Sends Abortion Restrictions To Governor's Desk
Posted on June 30, 2009The Arizona Republic: Senate OKs abortion restrictions, by Casey Newton: Bills seek waiting period, stiffer penalties for late-term procedure The Arizona Senate voted Tuesday to require a 24-hour waiting period for abortions and to increase penalties for a controversial late-term...
Senate Bill Condemning Anti-Choice Violence Faces Opposition
Posted on June 30, 2009The Minnesota Independent: Klobuchar bill condemning Tiller murder faces GPO opposition, by Andy Birkey: Weeks after Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed in his Kansas church, the U.S. Senate is debating a resolution condemning violence against abortion providers...
NY To Pay Women for Eggs for Stem Cell Research
Posted on June 30, 2009Wash. Post: New York to Pay Women to Give Eggs for Stem Cell Research, by Rob Stein: New York has become the first state to allow taxpayer-funded researchers to pay women for giving their eggs for embryonic stem cell research,...
Gender Differences in Processing the Appearance of Babies
Posted on June 28, 2009Time Magazine: Is an Ugly Baby Harder to Love, by Jeffrey Kluger: Moms might want to hang on to those Mother's Day cards they got last month. There may not be much more familial goodwill forthcoming ? at least not...
Obama Plans to Meet with Pope
Posted on June 28, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Pope, Obama to Hold Meeting After G-8 Summit: Pope Benedict XVI has agreed to meet with President Obama at the Vatican on July 10, according to White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs, the AP/Boston Globe reports....
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Virginia Abortion Ban
Posted on June 28, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Federal Appeals Court Upholds Virginia Abortion Ban: The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in a 6-5 decision on Wednesday upheld Virginia's 2003 law banning what abortion-rights opponents call "partial-birth" abortion, a...
Generic Version of Plan B
Posted on June 27, 2009The Wall Street Journal: FDA Approves Generic Version of Plan B, by Brian Kalish: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a generic version of the controversial Plan B morning-after contraceptive. For now, the generic version, made by...
Commentary on Motherhood
Posted on June 27, 2009The New York Times: Insult and Injury, by Judith Warner: I recently went to a girls-only dinner that was organized in honor of a friend who not long before had begun a prestigious new job. . . . . [and]...
Human Rights Watch on the Consequences of Immigration Policy on Women's Health and Families
Posted on June 25, 2009Human Rights Watch: US: Immigration Policy Harms Women: Immigration detention is the fastest growing form of incarceration in the United States. On any given day, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds 33,000 immigrants in detention, about 10 percent of...
Dissuading Women from Seeking an Abortion
Posted on June 24, 2009Guttmacher Policy Review: All That's Old Is New Again: The Long Campaign To Persuade Women to Forego Abortion, by Rachel Benson Gold: Just days after assuming office, prochoice President Barak Obama laid out his vision for a public policy agenda...
New Information on Nixon's Position on Abortion
Posted on June 24, 2009The New York Times: On Nixon Tapes, Ambivalence Over Abortion, Not Watergate, by Charlie Savage: On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public...
More on Common Ground
Posted on June 23, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Antiabortion Group's National Convention Focuses on 'Common Ground' in Abortion-Rights Debate: The National Right to Life Committee last week held its national convention in Charlotte, N.C., attracting as many as 1,300 antiabortion-rights advocates from around...
Scholarships for Proving Virginity
Posted on June 22, 2009Salon.com: Scholarships for Virgins?, by Frieda Klotz: Girls living in a small province of Sierra Leone called northern Biriwa are being offered scholarships to college -- but only if they can prove they are virgins, an African news website has...
Reduced Pregnancy Rates and Supervised Foster Care
Posted on June 22, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Closely Supervised Foster Care Linked With Reduced Pregnancy Rates for Delinquent Teens, Study Says: Teenage girls with a history of delinquency who were placed in individualized foster care programs were less likely than their peers...
Daddy on Board
Posted on June 21, 2009Salon.com: Daddy on board, by Katharine Mieszkowsk:Today's fathers spend more time with their children than ever. One of them talks about why that's a good thing As a father, Jeremy Adam Smith has played many roles. The 39-year-old editor and...
Staying Together 'For The Sake Of The Kids' Doesn't Necessarily Help Them, Says Study
Posted on June 20, 2009ScienceDaily: Staying Together for the Sake of the Kids Doesn't Necessarily Help Them, Says Study, by Susan Lang: The research is clear: Adolescents tend to fare better -- academically and behaviorally -- when they live with both biological parents. But...
Teens are Less Likely to Use Contraception
Posted on June 19, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: No Crystal Ball Needed: Teens are Heading in the Wrong Direction: Just as Likely to Have Sex, But Less Likely to Use Contraception Than They Were A Few Years Ago Between 2003 and 2007, the progress...
Health Policy Report Shows a Decline in Childbirth-Related Injuries
Posted on June 19, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Childbirth-Related Injuries Decline, Linked with Use of Instruments, AHRQ Report Finds: There were nearly 158,000 potentially avoidable childbirth-related injuries to women and their infants in 2006, a significant decline from 2000, according to a report...
New Poll Examines Public Opinion on Obama, Sotomayor and Abortion
Posted on June 18, 2009The New York Times: Obama Poll Sees Doubt on Budget and Health Care, by Jeff Zeleny and Dalia Sussman: Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whom Mr. Obama nominated to the Supreme Court three weeks ago, is still widely unknown to the public,...
Baby Gender Test: Parents File Suit
Posted on June 18, 2009New York Post: 'Boy Blunder ' Gender Test, by Dareh Gregorian: Congratulations -- it's a boy! Or a girl! A group of New York moms has filed suit against the makers of a "99.9-percent accurate" baby-gender test, claiming the results...
Obama Seeks to Develop Common Ground on Abortion Policy with Faith-Based Office
Posted on June 17, 2009U.S. News and World Report: Obama Seeks Common Ground on Abortion by, Dan Gilgoff Over the last month or so, the Obama administration has met with ... dozens of ... activists on both sides of the abortion issue as it...
Is There a Next Generation of Abortion Providers?
Posted on June 16, 2009Salon.com: Is there a next generation of abortion providers?, by Kate Harding: Is if the threat of violence and divisive politics weren't enough, getting trained is almost impossible" I vividly remember our abortion training in medical school -- kind of...
Census Data Shows Possibile Trend of Sex Selection
Posted on June 15, 2009The New York Times: U.S. Births Hint at Bias for Boys in Some Asians, by Sam Roberts: The trend is buried deep in United States census data: seemingly minute deviations in the proportion of boys and girls born to Americans...
Talking about Abortion
Posted on June 14, 2009Salon.com: How to talk about abortion, by Frances Kissling: . . . . . . . . . I actually believe in the search for common ground. But I believe in the search and in the process, which is an...
Arizona, North Carolina Legislatures Take Action on Abortion, Sex Education
Posted on June 13, 2009Daily Women's Health Policy Report: Arizona, North Carolina Legislatures Take Action on Abortion, Sex Education Measures: The following summarizes news coverage on women's health-related legislation in Arizona and North Carolina. ~ Arizona: The Arizona Senate Public Safety and Human Services...
Preparing for Childbirth with the Help of YouTube
Posted on June 13, 2009NY Times: Lights, Camera, Contraction!, by Malia Wollan: By her eighth month of pregnancy, Rebecca Sloan, a 35-year-old biologist living in Mountain View, Calif., had read the what-to-expect books, taken the childbirth classes, joined the mommy chat rooms and still...
Guest Editor, Julie Graves Krishnaswami, Starting Tomorrow
Posted on June 13, 2009Starting tomorrow, through June 25, my colleague, Julie Graves Krishnaswami, will guest-edit this blog, as I will be out of the country. Here's her bio: Julie Graves Krishnaswami, Associate Law Library Professor, earned her J.D. from CUNY School of Law,...
Inmate Sues for Being Shackled While in Labor
Posted on June 13, 2009Chicago Tribune: Ex-Cook County inmate sues for allegedly being shackled while in labor, by Steve Schmadeke: A former Cook County Jail inmate who was allegedly shackled while giving birth at Stroger Hospital last year filed a federal lawsuit Thursday that...
DOJ Under Pres. Bush Did Little to Protect Abortion Clinics
Posted on June 13, 2009Wash. Independent: DOJ Abortion Violence Suits Cratered Under Bush, by Daphne Eviatar: ...Just as federal law specifically penalizes hate crimes, the law also makes it a federal crime to threaten or commit violence against abortion providers, or to vandalize their...
MTV Documentary Series Addresses Teen Pregnancy and Parenting
Posted on June 12, 2009Wash. Post: '16 & Pregnant' Deftly Plumbs The Parent Trap, by Tom Shales: Although they tend to be scheduled erratically and under-publicized, the documentaries that pop up on MTV are often respectable, eye-opening and imaginatively produced. In the case of...
Study Concludes Drug for Morning Sickness Is Safe
Posted on June 12, 2009NY Times: Drug Appears Safe for Morning Sickness, by Roni Caryn Rabin: Morning sickness is an unavoidable part of pregnancy for most women, but many are reluctant to take medications to quell nausea and vomiting. Now one of the largest...
Pregnancy Discrimination Increasing in the UK
Posted on June 12, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): Pregnancy discrimination increasing in the UK, by Kate Harding: According to the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, an estimated 30,000 British women lose their jobs because of pregnancy each year, and with a recession hitting, it's only...
Paid Sick Days Would Improve Nation?s Health, Study Shows
Posted on June 12, 2009National Partnership for Women and Families: House Lawmakers Hold Hearing on Family-Friendly Legislation: WASHINGTON, D.C. ? June 11, 2009 ? Guaranteeing workers the chance to earn paid sick days would significantly improve the nation?s health, according to powerful new research...
Report: More Context for Higher Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion Rates Among Women of Color
Posted on June 12, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: New Health Disparities Report: More Context for Higher Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion Rates Among Women of Color: An important new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation documents persistent disparities between white women and women of color...
AFJ Releases Report on Judge Sotomayor's Record on Access to the Courts
Posted on June 10, 2009Alliance for Justice: The Sotomayor Record: Access to Justice: Alliance for Justice has released the first in a series of in-depth reports examining the record of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Alliance for Justice will release a new report a...
House Passes Bill to Provide Paid Leave for Some New Parents
Posted on June 10, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): House passes paid leave for some new parents, by Katharine Mieszkowski: The House approved a bill that would offer federal employees four weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child. The vote went down...
Power Dynamics Within Relationships and Sexual Risk-Taking
Posted on June 10, 2009Guttmacher Institute news release: Power Dymanics Within Relationships May Play a Role in Sexual Risk-Taking: Power dynamics in heterosexual relationships?which partner has the higher income, greater control over sexual and contraceptive decisions, and the stronger commitment to the relationship?may play...
Carole Joffe on George Tiller's Legacy
Posted on June 09, 2009Beacon Broadside: The Legacy of George Tiller, by Carole Joffe (Sociology, UC Davis): "It comes down to who is the patient. Is the woman the patient, or is the fetus the patient? One or other is the patient. I've never...
Federal District Judge Keeps Pregnant Woman Behind Bars Solely Because of her HIV Status
Posted on June 09, 2009The Center for HIV Law & Policy: Behind Bars for Being Pregnant and HIV-Positive, by Margo Kaplan: In May, 2009, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock sentenced Quinta Layin Tuleh, who was about five months pregnant, for the crime of having...
Antiabortion Efforts Move to the State Level
Posted on June 09, 2009Wash. Post: Antiabortion Efforts Move to the State Level, by Peter Slevin: JACKSON, Miss. -- Twelve women sat gloomily in a windowless conference room as Joseph Booker, M.D., recited the instructions required by the state of Mississippi before he can...
Dr. Tiller's Clinic Will Close Permanently
Posted on June 09, 2009The Wichita Eagle: Tiller family: Clinic will close: George Tiller's clinic will close in the wake of the Wichita abortion provider's shooting death, lawyers for the Tiller family said today. Lee Thompson and Dan Monnat, the family's lawyers, said in...
New York Times Editorial Calls on AG to Safeguard Clinic Safety
Posted on June 09, 2009NY Times Editorial: Protection for Doctors: After last month?s fatal shooting of Dr. George Tiller, Attorney General Eric Holder took the prudent step of ordering the United States Marshals Service to provide security for certain abortion clinics and physicians thought...
Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings to Begin July 13
Posted on June 09, 2009The Caucus (NY Times): Sotomayor Senate Hearings Begin July 13, by David Stout: The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor?s nomination to the Supreme Court on Monday, July 13, the panel?s chairman announced on Tuesday...
ACLU Releases Report on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Record
Posted on June 09, 2009ACLU: Report of the ACLU on the Nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, to be Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court: Description: In accordance with ACLU Policy 519, this report summarizes the civil liberties and civil rights record of Judge...
Man Charged with Tiller's Murder Warns of More Violence
Posted on June 08, 2009Huffington Post: Scott Roeder, Abortion Doctor Murder Suspect, Warns Of More Violence, by Roxana Hegeman: WICHITA, Kan. ? The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned around the...
Tiller's Clinic Is Closed; Protestors Contemplate What Happens Now
Posted on June 08, 2009NY Times: Closed Clinic Leaves Abortion Protesters at a Loss, by Monica Davey: For the first time in years, only a Wichita police car has been waiting outside the abortion clinic of Dr. George R. Tiller, who was shot to...
Anti-Choice Activists Worry That a NYC Law Will Hamper Their Protests
Posted on June 07, 2009NY Times: Anti-Abortion Activists Worry That a New City Law Will Make Their Task Harder, by Julie Bosman: ...About 80,000 abortions are done annually in New York City, according to state health statistics, but these days it is far from...
NY Times on Gender and Judging
Posted on June 07, 2009NY Times: Debate on Whether Female Judges Decide Differently Arises Anew, by Neil A. Lewis: Sandra Day O?Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, is often quoted as saying that a wise female judge will come to...
Dr. Tiller Remembered as Devoted to Family and Women
Posted on June 07, 2009NY Times: Kansas Doctor Remembered as Devoted to Family and Women, by David Barstow: George R. Tiller the Wichita physician who was shot dead in his church last week, was remembered at his funeral Saturday as a man of courage...
Hundreds Attend Memorial Service for Dr. Tiller
Posted on June 07, 2009LA Times: Hundreds attend memorial service for slain abortion doctor George Tiller, by Robin Abcarian: It was a peaceful postscript to a violent end: Hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday at a memorial for George Tiller, the Kansas physician who was...
David Brooks & Gail Collins on "Guns, Gays, and Abortion"
Posted on June 07, 2009NY Times Opinion: Guns, Gays, and Abortion, by David Brooks & Gail Collins: Gail Collins: David, can we talk hot-button social issues for a second? I know this is not really an area where you fly the conservative colors, but...
Violence Against Abortion Providers Not a Modern Phenomenon
Posted on June 06, 2009NY Times Op-Ed: Abortion Wars, the First Time Around, by Kate Manning: At first glance, the recent killing of the abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in Kansas appears to be a modern phenomenon, the heinous byproduct of the politics of...
Questions for Sotomayor on Abortion
Posted on June 06, 2009USA Today: Many questions for Sotomayor on abortion issue, by Joan Biskupic: During her 17 years on the federal bench, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has left no clear footprints revealing where she stands on the right to abortion. Some...
Justice Dep't to Investigate Dr. Tiller's Murder
Posted on June 06, 2009Reuters: U.S. Justice Dept to probe Kansas abortion murder: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it is launching an investigation into the murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, who had been reviled by anti-abortion groups...
New Focus on "Late-Term" Abortions
Posted on June 06, 2009Wash. Post: New Attention on Late-Term Abortions, by Rob Stein: ...Tiller's death has focused attention on abortions late in pregnancy. While it is clear that they account for a tiny fraction of the 1.2 million U.S. abortions each year, much...
Dr. Tiller's Important Work
Posted on June 06, 2009NY Times opinion: Dr. Tiller?s Important Job, by Judith Warner: The 9-year-old girl had been raped by her father. She was 18 weeks pregnant. Carrying the baby to term, going through labor and delivery, would have ripped her small body...
Amy Goodman on How the FBI and Local Police Failed Dr. Tiller
Posted on June 06, 2009Truthdig: Dr. George Tiller Didn?t Have to Die, by Amy Goodman: George Tiller did not have to die. He was assassinated while in church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, targeted for legally performing abortions. His death might have been prevented...
Catholics for Choice: Anti-Abortion Advocate Appointed to Senior Position at HHS
Posted on June 05, 2009Catholics for Choice Press Release: Antiabotion Advocate Appointed to Senior Position at HHS: Jon O?Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, issued the following statement today about the appointment of Alexia Kelley to be Director of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships at...
Obama's Cairo Speech and the Rights of Women
Posted on June 05, 2009Huffington Post: Let Women Wear the Hijab: The Emptiness of Obama's Cairo Speech, by Peter Daou: I know many will gush over President Obama's Cairo speech and I'm likely swimming against the tide of the media and my fellow Democrats...
A Different Perspective on Alexia Kelley
Posted on June 05, 2009Huffington Post: The New Pro-lifer, by Cristina Page: In our pain, anger and profound sadness over the murder of Dr. Tiller, pro-choice people risk losing an opportunity to see a better day as a country and a movement. In the...
Documentary Spotlights George Tiller
Posted on June 04, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): New documentary spotlights Tiller, by Judy Berman: "We've been picketed since 1975," says Dr. George Tiller. "My office has been blown up. We have had 4,000 people arrested outside my office in 1991. In 1993 I survived an...
NH Gov. Signs Same-Sex Marriage Bill
Posted on June 04, 2009Boston Globe: N.H. ties gay-marriage knot, by Eric Moskowitz: CONCORD - New Hampshire became the fifth state in New England yesterday and the sixth in the country to allow same-sex marriage, as lawmakers approved and the governor signed revised legislation...
Young Women Who Attend Private Religious Schools More Likely To Obtain Abortions Than Their Public School Peers
Posted on June 03, 2009American Sociological Association Press Release: Religious Devotion Does Not Impact Abortion Decisions of Young Unwed Women Sociologist finds that factors such as grades and parents? education are more influential than religious involvement for pregnant teens and young adults who face...
Will Killing of Kansas Abortion Provider Hamper Whitehouse Efforts to Find Common Ground on Abortion?
Posted on June 03, 2009LA Times: Doctor's slaying a setback for common ground on abortion, by Peter Wallsten & Robin Abcarian: Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington -- In calling last month for "common ground" on abortion, President Obama launched his search for an...
Teens and Sex: Is The Internet Accurate?
Posted on June 03, 2009Below the Belt (National Organization for Women): Teens and Sex: Is the Internet Accurate?, by Kim Gandy: We live in a society obsessed with sex. Our relationship with sex, however, is conflicted and more than a little dysfunctional. Mixed messages...
The Women Who Were Dr. Tiller's Patients
Posted on June 03, 2009RH Reality Check: Tiller Understood the Complexity of Women's Realities, by Erin Kate Ryan: Below the breathless rhetoric of anti-choice extremists, there has been a quiet - yet swelling - murmuring this week. These are the voices of women who...
NH Senate Approves Amended Same-Sex Marriage Bill
Posted on June 03, 2009NY Times: Gay-Marriage Bill Advances in N.H., by Abby Goodnough: The New Hampshire Senate approved revisions to a same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday morning, paving the way for an afternoon vote in the less-predictable House of Representatives. Lawmakers have been...
Statement from Dr. Tiller's Church
Posted on June 02, 2009Wichita Eagle: George Tiller's church releases statement about his death: Wichita's Reformation Lutheran Church -- the church to which abortion provider George Tiller belonged and where he was killed Sunday -- has released a statement about his death...
The Deadly Toll of Banning Abortion: Lessons from Abroad
Posted on June 02, 2009NY Times: The Deadly Toll of Abortion by Amateurs, by Denise Grady: BEREGA, Tanzania ? A handwritten ledger at the hospital tells a grim story. For the month of January, 17 of the 31 minor surgical procedures here were done...
Police Gather Information on Suspect in Abortion Provider's Murder
Posted on June 02, 2009NY Times: Suspect Identified in Killing of Doctor, by Susan Sauling and Monica Davey: The man I married disappeared into this other person years ago,? Ms. Roeder, shaken and puffy eyed, said of Scott Roeder, who was being held in...
Dr. Tiller's Murder Keeps National Spotlight on Abortion
Posted on June 02, 2009Wash. Post: Slaying Raises Fears on Both Sides of Abortion Debate, by Peter Slevin: WICHITA, June 1 -- As the U.S. Marshals Service moved to protect abortion clinics and doctors nationwide, the fatal shooting of the country's most prominent provider....
International Conference of Women Judges
Posted on June 02, 2009American Jewish Congress and the International Conference of Women Judges host Gender and Justice: An International Inquiry: The conference will be a gathering of remarkable women judges and scholars from around the world to discuss important issues. This conference promises...
Doctor, Who Provided Abortions, Murdered in Church
Posted on June 01, 2009NY Times: Abortion Doctor Shot to Death in Church, by Monica Davey & Joe Stumpe: George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death on Sunday...
What Made Dr. Tiller Special
Posted on June 01, 2009I spoke at length with Brian Palmer, of Slate, to brief him for the following piece. With all the vague references to "late-term abortions" being thrown about in the media, it was a relief to talk to a reporter whose...
Obama Sends US Marshals To Protect Abortion Clinics
Posted on June 01, 2009DailyMail (UK): Obama sends in U.S. Marshals to protect abortion clinics across America after controversial doctor is killed, by David Gardner: Guards were sent to clinics across America yesterday amid fears the murder of a prominent abortion doctor could spark...
Does Dr. Tiller's Murder Portend an Increase in Anti-Choice Violence?
Posted on June 01, 2009Huffington Post: The Murder of Dr. Tiller, a Foreshadowing, by Cristina Page: For those who would like to think today's murder in church of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, is an isolated incident, here's the horrifying news: You are...
Troubling Trend Continues in Latin America Toward Criminalizing All Abortions
Posted on May 29, 2009The Guttmacher Institute: A Dangerous Trend: Dominican Republic Adopts Draconian Abortion Restriction, by Sharon L. Camp & Dr. Fatima Juarez: When the Dominican Republic's National Assembly voted in April 2009 to amend its constitution to include a right to life...
More on Sotomayor's Abortion Rulings
Posted on May 28, 2009Broadsheet (Salon.com): Sotomayor and abortion, by Lynn Harris: Even amidst the deserved and moving kudos, some feminist organizations' responses to Judge Sotomayor's nomination have seemed just a teeny bit ... polite. That, as Judy Berman noted here yesterday, is because...
Sotomayor's Stance on Abortion Not Clear Enough for Some Pro-Choice Advocates
Posted on May 28, 2009NY Times: On Sotomayor, Some Abortion Rights Backers Are Uneasy, by Charlie Savage: WASHINGTON ? In nearly 11 years as a federal appeals court judge, President Obama?s choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has never directly ruled on whether...
Cal. Supreme Court Upholds Prop 8; Opponents Vow to Continue Fight
Posted on May 27, 2009NY Times: Proposition?s Opponents Say Fight Will Continue, by Jesse McKinley: Supporters of same-sex marriage in California wasted little time on Tuesday turning away from their courtroom defeat on Proposition 8, and toward a potential campaign to overturn the measure...
Sonia Sotomayor's Record on Abortion
Posted on May 27, 2009SCOTUSblog summarizes Judge Sotomayor's civil appellate opinions, including the one case she decided that addressed abortion (via a challenge to the Global Gag Rule, which President Obama repealed in January): Judge Sotomayor?s Appellate Opinions in Civil Cases: ...
Maternal Mortality in Africa
Posted on May 27, 2009NY Times: Where Life's Start is a Deadly Risk, by Denise Grady: BEREGA, Tanzania? The young woman had already been in labor for two days by the time she reached the hospital here. Now two lives were at risk, and...
Obama Picks Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court
Posted on May 26, 2009NY Times: Obama Selects Sotomayor for Court, by Peter Baker & Jeff Zeleny: President Obama announced on Tuesday that he will nominate the federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, choosing a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised....
Most Laws Mandating "Counseling" and Waiting Periods Before Abortion Have Little Impact
Posted on May 24, 2009The Guttmacher Institute has published a report, Most Laws Mandating Counseling and Waiting Periods Before Abortion Have Little Impact, by Rebecca Wind. Here is the news release: Most Laws Mandating Counseling and Waiting Periods Before Abortion Have Little Impact However,...
Law & Society Roundtable Will Address "Critical Thinking on Reproductive Rights & Society"
Posted on May 22, 2009A message from Martha Davis (Northeastern University): For those who will be attending the Law & Society Conference in Denver, Colorado, please join us at a Roundtable titled "Critical Thinking on Reproductive Rights and Society." Participants will include Pam Bridgewater...
Researchers Say Children Who Are Exposed to Smoking Prenatally or at Young Ages Are More Likely to Become Smokers
Posted on May 21, 2009It annoys me that this headline is so exclusively focused on pregnant women. It seems the data shows not just that pregnant women should avoid smoking but that all parents of young children, regardless of gender, should not smoke near...
Maya Manian on Gonzales v. Carhart and The "Woman-Protective" Anti-Abortion Argument
Posted on May 20, 2009Maya Manian (University of San Francisco School of Law) has posted The Irrational Woman: Informed Consent and Abortion Decision-Making on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on a type of...
The Problem with the Gallup Poll
Posted on May 20, 2009TheHill.com: Pro-life and pro-choice, by Mark Mellman: Obtaining meaningful poll results requires asking meaningful questions. It seems obvious, but too often this basic rule is observed in the breech. Typically, after some useless result escapes into the ether, reporters and...
E.J. Dionne on Obama's Notre Dame Speech
Posted on May 19, 2009Wash. Post Op-Ed: Obama Conciliatory Fighting Words, by E.J. Dionne: ...For his part, Obama gave what may have been both the most radical and the most conservative speech of his presidency. Acknowledging the Roman Catholic Church's role in supporting his...
More Abortion Polls
Posted on May 19, 2009MSNBC FirstRead: A LOOK AT ABORTION POLLING NUMBERS, by Harry Enten: Per a new CNN/Opinion Research poll, 69% of Americans do not want the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade. That result comes as other recent polls have suggested...
Supreme Court Rules Against Women Who Took Pregnancy Leaves Before 1979
Posted on May 19, 2009LA Times: AT&T wins court case over maternity leave, by David G. Savage: Reporting from Washington -- The Supreme Court on Monday dealt a setback to women who took pregnancy leaves from work before 1979. The year before, Congress changed...
President Obama Addresses Abortion in Commencement Speech at Notre Dame
Posted on May 18, 2009NY Times: At Notre Dame, Obama Calls for Dialogue on Abortion, by Peter Baker & Susan Saulny: President Obama directly confronted America?s deep divide over abortion on Sunday as he appealed to partisans on both sides to find ways to...
NH Gov. Lynch Promises to Sign Amended Bill Allowing Same-Sex Marriage
Posted on May 18, 2009Concord Monitor: Revisions will legalize gay marriage, by Lauren R. Dorgan: Gov. John Lynch will sign a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, he announced yesterday - but only if the Legislature passes extra protections for religious groups and their employees, allowing...
Cahn and Collins on Restricting Access to Fertility Treatment
Posted on May 18, 2009Naomi Cahn (GW Law) and Jennifer Collins (Wake Forest) have posted Eight is Enough on SSRN. Here is the abstract: January 26, 2009, the nation's second set of live-born octuplets was delivered. The public fascination with this event quickly turned...
Thanks to my research assistant!
Posted on May 18, 2009Now that the semester is over, I would like to thank my research assistant, Christina Tenuta (CUNY rising 3L), who has been faithfully researching for this blog now for several semesters.
Survey Finds Majority of Catholics Support Obama Speaking at Notre Dame
Posted on May 17, 2009Quinnipiac University: Notre Dame Should Not Disinvite Obama, U.S. Catholics Tell Quinnipiac University National Poll; Attitudes On Abortion Similar Among All U.S. Voters: U.S. voters say 56 - 31 percent, including 60 - 34 percent among Catholic voters, that Notre...
Nicholas Kristof on Maternal Mortality in West Africa
Posted on May 17, 2009NY Times: This Mom Didn?t Have to Die, by Nicholas Kristof: On this trip through West Africa with my ?win-a-trip? contest winner, I was reminded of one of the grimmest risks to human life here. Despite threats from warlords and...
Opinions on Gallup's Latest Abortion Poll
Posted on May 16, 2009The Opinionator (NY Times): Abortion, Debated, by Tobin Harshaw: The idea that Barack Obama is out to win the culture wars has been kicked around since before he took office.... Yet, as gay marriage moves inexorably forward state by state...
New Gallup Poll On Abortion Shows More Americans Calling Themselves "Pro-Life," But Position on Abortion Availability Remains Stable
Posted on May 16, 2009Gallup: More Americans ?Pro-Life? Than ?Pro-Choice? for First Time, by Lydia Saad: A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a...
Will Potential Nominees' Abortion Records Factor Into Obama's Decision Over Souter's Replacement?
Posted on May 16, 2009LA Times: Abortion, gay marriage complicate Supreme Court selection, by James Oliphant & David Savage: Reporting from Washington ? Even as President Obama flies to the University of Notre Dame this weekend to give a commencement speech that promises to...
Missouri Senate Passes Abortion Bill
Posted on May 14, 2009Kansas City Star: Abortion bill passes Senate; House will consider in final days of session, by Jason Noble: Legislation approved early Thursday morning in the Missouri Senate would require women seeking abortions to hear health warnings and descriptions of the...
Spain Plans to Liberalize Abortion Laws
Posted on May 14, 2009BBC News: Spain plans abortion law changes: The Spanish cabinet has agreed to liberalise the country's strict abortion laws, allowing abortion in most cases up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. The proposals must go to parliament, where Prime Minister Jose...
ACLU Challenges Patents on Breast Cancer Genes
Posted on May 14, 2009ACLU press release: The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation, a not-for-profit organization affiliated with Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (PUBPAT), filed a lawsuit today charging that patents on two human genes associated with breast and...
Joanna Erdman on Health Equity and the HPV Vaccine
Posted on May 14, 2009Joanna Erdman (Univ. of Toronto) has posted Health Equity, HPV and the Cervical Cancer Vaccine on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article explores the relationship between technological innovation and health inequity. It examines in particular the relationship between the...
President Obama's Budget Fails to Strike Harmful Abortion Funding Restrictions
Posted on May 13, 2009National Abortion Federation press release: The President?s Budget Misses an Opportunity to Improve Women?s Access to Reproductive Health Care: Statement of Vicki Saporta, President and CEO of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), in response to the release of President Barack...
Ross Douthat on Abortion and Marriage
Posted on May 12, 2009Ross Douthat has published another op-ed on abortion (and marriage) in the NY Times today: Faking Left: Among their many aspirations for his presidency, Barack Obama?s admirers nurse a persistent hope that he might be able to end the culture...
Borgmann and Manian on Facial Challenges and the Roberts Court
Posted on May 12, 2009I have posted Holding Legislatures Constitutionally Accountable Through Facial Challenges on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Roberts Court has viewed facial challenges with skepticism and hostility. The Court issued one early decision suggesting that its primary concern with facial...
Spain Plans to Offer Emergency Contraception Over-the-Counter Without Age Restrictions
Posted on May 12, 2009Feminist Wire Daily Newsbriefs (Ms. Magazine): Spain to Make Emergency Contraception Available Over-the-Counter: Spain announced plans to offer emergency contraception over-the-counter today with no age restrictions. Spain's Health Minister, Trinidad Jimenez, said "It is an emergency method of contraception, not...
Abstinence-Only Proponents Upset Over Obama's Budget Cuts
Posted on May 11, 2009Amplify: The Abstinence Clowns Are Freaking Out: Yesterday, President Obama struck a blow to the abstinence-only community, cutting ALL of their funding streams in his new 2010 budget. Obama made it clear that our government should no longer fund these...
The Problem With Bristol Palin's Abstinence Message
Posted on May 08, 2009As she campaigns to prevent teen pregnancy, Bristol Palin has been preaching abstinence. Her words are telling, however. Palin reportedly has said, "Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only?100% foolproof way you can...
Obama's Budget Slashes Funds for Abstinence-Only Education
Posted on May 08, 2009Wall St. Journal: Budget Widens Teen-Pregnancy-Prevention Efforts, by Laura Meckler: President Barack Obama's 2010 budget eliminates most federal funding for abstinence-only sex-education programs and replaces it with a pair of new teen-pregnancy-prevention programs that could include discussions of birth control...
NYC Teens Not Impressed With Bristol Palin's Abstinence Message
Posted on May 08, 2009ABC News: NYC Teens Chide Palin's Abstinence Call, by Susan Donaldson James: New York City students who heard Bristol Palin's warnings against teen pregnancy say they might consider abstinence, but they wouldn't take advice on it from the young unwed...
NH Legislature Passes Same-Sex Marriage Bill
Posted on May 07, 2009CNN: New Hampshire lawmakers approve same-sex marriage: New Hampshire lawmakers on Wednesday passed a same-sex marriage bill, now headed to Gov. John Lynch. The state House passed the bill in a 178-167 vote. The Senate last week approved the legislation...
White House Hosts Meetings With Abortion Rights Supporters and Opponents
Posted on May 07, 2009Wall St. Journal: White House Begins Effort to Bridge the Divide on Abortion, by Laura Meckler: The White House has begun bringing together a diverse group of abortion-rights supporters and opponents to help craft policies both sides can embrace: preventing...
Maine Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
Posted on May 06, 2009Reuters: Maine governor signs gay-marriage bill, by Jason Szep: Maine's governor signed a bill on Wednesday legalizing same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the northeastern U.S. state to become the fifth in the nation to allow same-sex marriage. "I have...
Bristol Palin Campaigns Against Teen Pregnancy
Posted on May 06, 2009MSNBC: Bristol Palin calls teen motherhood ?hard work?, by Mike Celizic: Campaigning against teen pregnancy on the TODAY show Wednesday, Bristol Palin, 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, told Matt Lauer that a baby ?is not just an accessory...
"Abortion Recovery" Group Not Interested In Teen Pregnancy Prevention After All
Posted on May 06, 2009Abortion Recovery InterNational describes itself as "the first and only Christian affiliate association that works to unite recovery centers, programs and supporting organizations around the world by serving as a network of recovery, awareness, educational and research resources providing information...
National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Posted on May 06, 2009Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Via the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy: Hundreds of thousands of teens nationwide are expected to participate in the eighth annual National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy on May 6,...
Study Shows Effectiveness of Hormonal Birth Control For Men
Posted on May 06, 2009The Independent: Birth control for men in one injection, by Jerome Taylor: Scientists believe they are one step closer to developing an effective male contraceptive jab after successfully carrying out the largest feasibility study to date. Researchers at the National...
Pregnant Briton Faces Death Penalty in Laos
Posted on May 04, 2009Times Online: Pregnant Briton Samantha Orobator faces death penalty in Laos: A pregnant Briton who could face a firing squad for allegedly trying to smuggle heroin out of Laos will receive a fair trial, the country's Government said ? even...
National Zoo Panda May Be Pregnant
Posted on May 04, 2009UPI: National Zoo on panda pregnancy alert: Behavioral changes exhibited by the Washington National Zoo's giant female panda have put zoologists on a pregnancy alert, officials said. Detecting changes in her actions and hormones, zoo officials are cautiously optimistic Mei...
Airman Court-Martialed For Secretly Causing Wife's Abortion
Posted on May 02, 2009Another disturbing case is being reported of a man attempting to induce his partner's abortion without her knowledge: WKOW (Anchorage, AK): WI airman held in forced miscarriage case: Airman 1st Class Scott Boie of Milton, WI, is currently facing a...
Obama Has Opportunity to Choose Justice With "Real-World" Experience
Posted on May 02, 2009NY Times: Obama Has Chance to Select Justice With Varied Résumé, by Adam Liptak: The current Supreme Court, made up entirely of former federal appeals court judges, is in some ways the most insulated and homogenous in American history. None...
GA Supreme Court Chief Justice Mentioned As Possible Souter Replacement
Posted on May 01, 2009Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Sears named as possible Souter replacement, by Bill Rankin: Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears? name has popped up as a potential nominee to succeed retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sears, 53, describes herself...
Justice Souter Plans to Retire
Posted on May 01, 2009NY Times: Souter?s Exit Gives Obama First Opening, by Peter Baker & Jeff Zeleny: Justice David H. Souter plans to retire at the end of the term in June, giving President Obama his first appointment to the Supreme Court, four...
Protest Opposing Obama's Notre Dame Address Gets Uglier
Posted on April 30, 2009Anti-choice activists are resorting to extreme measures to protest Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to deliver a commencement speech. Women on the Web reports that "Anti-abortion groups, including Randall Terry?s Operation Rescue, have vowed to create a 'circus' surrounding...
Obama Addresses Pregnancy Prevention and Abortion at Press Conference
Posted on April 29, 2009Washington Wire blog (Wall St. Journal): Live-Blogging Obama?s Press Conference, by Susan Davis: ...8:33: Eighth question on abortion, and his support of legislation easing state and local restrictions. ?My position on abortion has been very consistent,? he says...
Alaska Students Want Comprehensive Sex Ed
Posted on April 29, 2009Juneau Empire: Alaska students want more sex ed, by Jeremy Hsieh: News flash: Alaska high schoolers are interested in sex - or at least learning more about it. The Alaska Association of Student Governments overwhelmingly passed a resolution during their...
Arlen Specter Announces He Will Become a Democrat
Posted on April 28, 2009Politico.com: Specter to switch to Democratic party, by Martin Kady II & John Bresnahan: Republican Sen. Arlen Specter has decided to switch parties and become a Democrat, stunning his GOP colleagues in the Senate while pushing Democrats and President Barack...
Senate Confirms Sebelius By 65-31 Vote
Posted on April 28, 2009The Caucus (NY Times): Senate Confirms Sebelius as Health Secretary, by Robert Pear: Senate confirmed with a vote of 65-31 the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of health and human services on Tuesday, filling the last vacancy in President...
Palin Supporters and Anti-Choice Activists Fight to Derail Sebelius Confirmation
Posted on April 28, 2009Huffington Post: Sebelius Nomination: Palin Supporters Fighting Despite Health Crisis, by Rachel Weiner: Supporters of Sarah Palin are aiming to derail Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius by pressuring Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) to vote against his home state...
Supreme Court Could Address "Choose Life" License Plates
Posted on April 27, 2009NY Times: Justices Could Weigh Free Speech vs. License Plates, by Adam Liptak: The last time the Supreme Court considered what the First Amendment has to say about license plates was in 1977, when it ruled that New Hampshire could...
UCLA Student Posing as Teenager Continues to Pursue Undercover "Stings" at Abortion Clinics
Posted on April 27, 2009LA Times: College student leads undercover campaign against abortion, by Robin Abcarlan: The girl's voice in the videotape is tiny and tentative. She is talking to a nursing aide in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bloomington, Ind. The girl says...
Mary Ann Glendon Turns Down Notre Dame Award Due To Decision to Award Honorary Degree to Obama
Posted on April 27, 2009MSNBC.com: Abortion Foe Declines Notre Dame Award, by Christopher Wilson: Mary Ann Glendon, a conservative Harvard law professor who was U.S. ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush, has announced that she will not be accepting the Laetare Medal...
Gov. Sebelius Vetoes Abortion Legislation
Posted on April 25, 2009Kansas City Star editorial: The (mis)labeling of Kathleen Sebelius, by Barb Shelly: This year's anti-abortion bill sent to her by the GOP-dominated Legislature had the same problems as a similar measure that Sebelius vetoed last year. The only thing different...
Winners of LSRJ 4th Annual Sarah Weddington Writing Prize
Posted on April 25, 2009Law Students for Reproductive Justice has announced the following winners of the Fourth Annual Sarah Wedding Writing Prize: Joanna Nairn (Harvard ?09) was this year?s first-place winner with her piece, Is There a Right to Have Children? Substantive Due Process...
FDA Approves Access to Emergency Contraception for 17-Year-Olds
Posted on April 22, 2009NY Times: 'Morning After' Pill Cleared for 17-Year-Olds, by Gardiner Harris: Seventeen-year-olds will soon be allowed to buy morning-after contraceptive pills without a doctor?s prescription after federal drug regulators complied with a judge?s order and lowered the age limit by...
NIH Issues Draft Guidelines for Stem Cell Research
Posted on April 20, 2009Wash. Post: Stem Cell Sense: NIH research guidelines avoid some moral minefields: By limiting federal funding to research on stem cells derived from embryos that were created for reproductive purposes and that were slated for disposal, the National Institutes of...
Sarah Palin Considered Abortion "for a Fleeting Moment"
Posted on April 20, 2009Somehow, Gov. Palin manages to twist the fact that she was able to consider all her options and make her own decision into an argument for denying other women the same autonomy. Wash. Post: Palin Says She Weighed Abortion, by...
Afghan Parliament Passes Law Restricting Women's Rights
Posted on April 20, 2009NY Times: Afghan Women Protest New Law on Home Life, by Dexter Filkins: ...About 300 Afghan women, facing an angry throng three times larger than their own, walked the streets of the capital on Wednesday to demand that Parliament repeal...
Call for Proposals for Public Health Law Research
Posted on April 16, 2009Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Making the Case for Laws That Improve Health: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) seeks to build the evidence for and strengthen the use of regulatory, legal and policy solutions to improve public health. The effective...
Jane Fonda on the Importance of Sex Education
Posted on April 16, 2009RH Reality Check: Young People Need, Demand Sex Education, by Jane Fonda: It's about time we make the well-being of our young people more important than ideology and politics. As a country, we benefit from investing in their future by...
Sex Education at the Doctor's Office
Posted on April 16, 2009On Women (US News & World Report blog): Teens and Sex Education at the Doctor's Office, by Deborah Kotz: I was heartened by a recent story in the Houston Chronicle discussing how some Texas moms concerned about their teens and...
Talking to Boys About Sex
Posted on April 14, 2009NY Times: Another Awkward Sex Talk: Respect and Violence, by Perri Klass: Not long ago, in the clinic, a fellow pediatrician and mother asked whether we were still teaching our sons old-fashioned elevator etiquette: stand back and let the ladies...
Economy Takes Toll on State Social Programs for New Mothers
Posted on April 14, 2009NY Times: States Slashing Social Programs for Vulnerable, by Erik Eckholm: Battered by the recession and the deepest and most widespread budget deficits in several decades, a large majority of states are slicing into their social safety nets ? often....
NY Gov. Paterson To Introduce Same-Sex Marriage Bill
Posted on April 14, 2009NY Times: Paterson Will Introduce Same-Sex Marriage Bill, by Jeremy W. Peters: Gov. David A. Paterson on Thursday will announce plans to introduce legislation to legalize same-sex marriage, according to people with knowledge of the governor?s plans. Mr...
Vatican Objects to Caroline Kennedy As Ambassador Due to Abortion Stance
Posted on April 13, 2009The Women on the Web: Vatican Rebuffs Caroline Kennedy Ambassador Seat Over Abortion, Say Sources: Just when Caroline Kennedy was recovering from the political mess over her bid for Hillary Clinton?s Senate seat, she now has hit some more political...
Support the NY Reproductive Health Act
Posted on April 13, 2009Via the NYCLU: The Reproductive Health Act: Guarantees a woman?s right to control her reproductive health; Ensures that a woman will be able to have an abortion if her health is endangered; Treats the regulation of abortion as an issue...
NY Times on the Obama/Notre Dame Controversy
Posted on April 07, 2009NY Times: Invitation to Obama Stirs Up Notre Dame, by Dirk Johnson: As church bells pealed, Claire Gillen, a Notre Dame freshman, stood on the stone steps of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, accusing this fabled Roman Catholic institution...
Second Circuit Affirms Life Sentence of Abortion Provider's Killer
Posted on April 07, 2009The Second Circuit has affirmed the federal convictions and life sentence of James C. Kopp for the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, a Buffalo area abortion provider. See How Appealing for links to the per curiam ruling, prior NY Times...
VT Legislature Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
Posted on April 07, 2009NY Times: Vermont Legislature Makes Same-Sex Marriage Legal, by Abby Goodnough & Anahad O'Connor: The Vermont Legislature on Tuesday overrode Gov. Jim Douglas?s veto of a bill allowing gay couples to marry, mustering one more vote than needed to preserve...
Scranton Diocese Cracks Down on Colleges and Universities' Provision of Contraceptives to Students
Posted on April 05, 2009republicanherald.com: Scranton Diocese asks to see Catholic colleges? info on health services, by Shari Sanger: Diocese of Scranton leaders have asked the presidents of the four area Catholic colleges and universities for ?assurance? that they are not providing or encouraging...
Sebelius Confirmation Vote Will Likely Be Delayed
Posted on April 05, 2009NY Times: Fast Vote Is Unlikely on Health Dept. Pick, by Robert Pear: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas appeared Thursday to be headed for confirmation as health and human services secretary, but several Republican senators objected to an immediate vote,...
ND Senate Rejects Embryonic Personhood Bill, Passes Other Abortion Measures
Posted on April 04, 2009KFYT-TV: Abortion Bill Defeated, by Amanda Tetlak: ...The bill that establishes that human life begins at conception with the intent to challenge Roe Versus Wade failed by a final vote of 29-16.... Senators voted in favor of a bill that...
Call for Papers: Fourteenth Annual LatCrit Conference
Posted on April 03, 2009LatCrit - Outsiders Inside: Critical Outsider Theory and Praxis in the Policymaking of the New Regime Please join us at LatCrit XIV, the Fourteenth Annual LatCrit (Latina and LatinoCritical Legal Theory, Inc.) American University - Washington College of Law Washington,...
Iowa Supreme Court Strikes Down Opposite-Sex Only Marriage Law
Posted on April 03, 2009The New York Times: Iowa Court Says Gay Marriage Ban Is Unconstitutional, by Monica Davey and Liz Robbins: Iowa became the first state in the Midwest to approve same-sex marriage on Friday, after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously decided that...
US at the UN: Strong Support for Family Planning
Posted on April 02, 2009Via RH Reality Check, by Ariana Childs Graham: This week is the 42nd session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) at the United Nations headquarters in New York. It is taking place fifteen years into the Programme of...
Study: Girls As Young As 12 Understand Emergency Contraceptive Labeling As Well As Adults Do
Posted on April 01, 2009Reuters: Teens understand emergency-contraception labels, by Amy Norton: NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenagers do just as well as adults when it comes to understanding the information on emergency-contraception labels, a new study suggests. The findings, say researchers, argue for...
Sebelius Confirmation Hearings Begin
Posted on March 31, 2009NY Times: Sebelius Confirmation Hearings Start, by Kate Phillips: It was a Kansas-fest this morning as the first of two hearings began on the confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to become the administration?s secretary of health and human services...
Notre Dame Faces Criticism for Inviting President Obama to Deliver Commencement Address
Posted on March 30, 2009Wash. Post: Why Notre Dame Should Welcome Obama, by Kenneth L. Woodward: The nation's Catholic bishops have another sticky issue on their plates. President Obama has accepted an invitation to deliver the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame...
Catholics' Opinions on Abortion and Stem Cells Research Similar to Non-Catholics
Posted on March 30, 2009Gallup: Catholics Similar to Mainstream on Abortion, Stem Cells, by Frank Newport: Despite the Roman Catholic Church's official opposition to abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, a Gallup analysis finds almost no difference between rank-and-file American Catholics and American non-Catholics in...
Jury Acquits Kansas Abortion Provider Dr. Tiller
Posted on March 30, 2009NY Times: Jurors Acquit Kansas Doctor in a Late-Term Abortion Case, by Joe Stumpe: After years of investigations and four days of testimony, jurors here took just 45 minutes on Friday to acquit a controversial abortion doctor of charges that...
In Brazil, Sexual Abuse Is Widespread While Most Abortions Are Illegal
Posted on March 28, 2009NY Times: Amid Abuse in Brazil, Abortion Debate Flares, by Alexei Barrionuevo: The waiting room at Pérola Byington Hospital resembles a small day care center many days. Young girls play on the cold tile floors or rock hyperactively in plastic...
Judge Sees "Serious Constitutional Issues" In Teen Girls' Cellphone Photos Case
Posted on March 27, 2009NY Times: Judge Sees ?Serious? Issues in Cellphone Photos Case, by Sean D. Hamill & Liz Robbins: A federal judge said at a hearing on Thursday that ?serious constitutional issues? were raised in a lawsuit filed by three teenage girls...
Britain May Allow Media Ads for Condoms and Abortion Advice
Posted on March 27, 2009AFP: Britain could allow abortion advice, condom ads: Britain could change media rules to allow abortion advice to be advertised on television and radio, as well as easing rules for condom ads, officials said on Thursday. The moves would aim...
Study Shows Circumcision Reduces Transmission of Herpes and HPV
Posted on March 27, 2009NY Times: Circumcision Is Found to Curb Two S.T.D.?s, by Nicholas Bakalar: Male circumcision, already shown to reduce the incidence of H.I.V. infection in men, also reduces transmission of both herpes simplex virus Type 2 and human papilloma virus, a...
Amanda Allen on Harm Reduction, Sexuality Education, and Reproductive Justice
Posted on March 26, 2009RH Reality Check: Harm Reduction Lessons for Reproductive Justice, by Amanda Allen (former CUNY Law student, current Law Students for Reproductive Justice Fellow): Drug policy has benefited from the harm reduction movement's innovative approach to improving personal safety...
Support Funding For International Family Planning
Posted on March 26, 2009Via EngenderHealth: EngenderHealth has released a short animated video that poses the provocative question, "If you had $1 billion to change the world, what would you spend it on: easing world hunger, reducing global instability, or preserving natural resources?" Their...
Back Up Your Birth Control
Posted on March 25, 2009Via the Back Up Your Birth Control Team: The 2009 Back Up Your Birth Control Day of Action is TODAY, March 25! Today is our chance to raise awareness about and increase access to emergency contraception (EC). This year's Day...
Support Rescission of Bush Aministration's Health Care Refusal Rule
Posted on March 23, 2009Via the ACLU: When President Obama took office in January, the Bush Administration left him and the country to deal with its parting shot against women?s health: a Health Care Denial rule. Despite public objections, the rule undermines the ability...
Symposium on Assisted Reproduction, Race, Class, and Sexuality
Posted on March 23, 2009The University of Minnesota Law & Inequality journal will host a symposium on April 10, 2009, on "Contested Contours in Assisted Reproduction: Interrogating Law, Race, Class & Sex": The controversial case of Nadya Suleman, mother of fourteen children conceived with...
Vatican Now Defends Nine-Year-Old Rape Victim's Abortion
Posted on March 23, 2009Wash. Post: Vatican Official Defends Child's Abortion, by Francis X. Rocca: The Vatican's top bioethics official said the two Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim do not merit excommunication, because they acted to save her...
Judge Rules FDA Must Make Emergency Contraception Available to 17-Year-Olds
Posted on March 23, 2009NY Times: Plan B Must Be Made Available to 17-Year-Olds, by Natasha Singer: A federal judge on Monday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make the Plan B morning-after birth control pill available without prescription to women as young...
Study Shows Major Increase in Radiologic Exams on Pregnant Women
Posted on March 22, 2009ScienceDaily: Radiologic Exams On Pregnant Women More Than Doubled Over 10 Years: Researchers have found that over a 10-year period radiologic exams on pregnant women have more than doubled, according to a study published in the online edition of Radiology...
Joanna Grossman & Gillian Thomas on Job Duties and Pregnancy Discrimination
Posted on March 22, 2009Joanna L. Grossman (Hofstra Law) and Gillian Thomas (Legal Momentum) have posted Making Pregnancy Work: Overcoming the Pregnancy Discrimination Act's Capacity Based Model on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article considers the gaps and obstacles in current law faced...
Pope Under Fire For Asserting Condoms Aggravate AIDS Problem
Posted on March 20, 2009NY Times: AIDS Agency Takes Issue With the Pope, by Neil MacFarquhar: The United Nations AIDS agency has joined the chorus of politicians and activists critical of Pope Benedict XVI for saying as he embarked on a tour of Africa...
Judith Daar on Embryonic Genetics
Posted on March 20, 2009Judith F. Daar (Whittier Law School) has posted Embryonic Genetics on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Recent discoveries in the world of reproductive medicine allow prospective parents to peer into the genetic future of their children from the earliest moments...
Arlene Roberts on Reproductive Rights and the New Scrutiny of the Fertility Industry
Posted on March 19, 2009Huffington Post: Octomom, Sextomom and the Looming Incursions on Reproductive Rights, by Arlene M. Roberts: At the end of January, a woman in California gave birth to octuplets. Last October, a woman in New York gave birth to sextuplets. The...
US Birth Rate In 2007 Breaks Record
Posted on March 19, 2009NY Times: ?07 U.S. Births Break Baby Boom Record, by Erik Eckholm: More babies were born in the United States in 2007 than in any other year in American history, according to preliminary data reported Wednesday by the National Center...
Obama Makes First Judicial Appointment, to Seventh Circuit
Posted on March 18, 2009Wash. Post: Obama Names Judge to Appeals Court, by Michael A. Fletcher: President Obama yesterday made his first judicial appointment, naming U.S. District Judge David F. Hamilton to the federal appeals court, a choice excoriated by some conservatives even as...
Experts Link Pre-Eclampsia To Risk Of Heart Disease
Posted on March 17, 2009NY Times: Pregnancy Problem Is a Heart Warning, by Sylvia Pagan Westphal: The aches and pains of pregnancy tend to be forgotten as soon as a mother sets eyes on her newborn. But when it comes to pre-eclampsia, a condition...
New York Ends Mandatory Pregnancy Testing For National Guard Soldiers
Posted on March 17, 2009Via ACLU press release: New York Ends Mandatory Pregnancy Testing For National Guard Soldiers: NEW YORK ? Under a new policy announced today, women in the New York National Guard serving on a state active duty task force will no...
REAL Act Provides Needed Funding For Comprehensive Sex Ed
Posted on March 17, 2009Via ACLU press release: ?Responsible Education About Life Act? Provides Needed Funding For Comprehensive Sex Ed: Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) today introduced the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, a bill that designates federal funds...
Obama Nominates Former NYC Health Chief for FDA Commissioner
Posted on March 16, 2009Women's Daily Health Policy Report: Obama Nominates Former NYC Health Chief Hamburg for FDA Head, Baltimore Health Chief as Deputy: President Obama on Saturday announced his selection of former New York City Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg as his nominee for...
Peter Steinfels and William Saletan on Stem Cell Research
Posted on March 15, 2009Peter Steinfels' "Beliefs" column in yesterday's New York Times laments the absence of "moral argument" in the debate over stem cell research. Steinfels suggests that there are important moral questions at stake in the debate, but he doesn't venture to...
Call for Papers: Feminism, Law, and Masculinity
Posted on March 15, 2009The Feminism and Legal Theory Project of Emory University School of Law has issued a call for papers for a workshop, "Feminism, Law, and Masculinity," to take place Sept 11-12 2009: This workshop will explore the relevance of masculinities studies...
Relentless Pursuit of Abortion Provider Dr. Tiller Soon To Culminate In Trial
Posted on March 14, 2009Los Angeles Times: Eager for abortion provider's case to move forward, by Robin Abcarian: For activists on both sides of the debate over legalized abortion, the criminal trial of Dr. George Tiller, which begins Monday in a Wichita courtroom, is...
Caroline Corbin on Compelled Listening and Mandatory Pre-Abortion Counseling
Posted on March 14, 2009Caroline Corbin (University of Miami School of Law) has posted The First Amendment Right Against Compelled Listening on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Article argues for a new First Amendment right: the right against compelled listening. Free speech jurisprudence-which...
Spokane, WA, Student Sues College Over Barring Of Anti-Abortion Display
Posted on March 13, 2009MSNBC: Student barred from showing anti-abortion display suing college: SPOKANE, Wash. - A Spokane Falls Community College student who was barred from putting up an anti-abortion display is suing the college in federal court in Spokane. Beth Sheeran says the...
GOP Chair Suggests Abortion Is "An Individual Choice"
Posted on March 13, 2009NY Times: In Interview, Republican Chairman Strays From the Party Line on Abortion, by Adam Nagourney: This was supposed to be the week that Michael Steele, the beleaguered new chairman of the national Republican Party, got his groove on, as...
Provider Shortages Loom As Abortion Clinic Workers Near Retirement
Posted on March 12, 2009The New York Times: Where to Pass the Torch? by, Michael Winerip: WHEN Anne Baker graduated from Southern Illinois University in 1975, she was pleased to be hired as a birth control counselor for a Planned Parenthood clinic, though it...
Georgia Bill That Attempts To Grant Embryonic Rights And Increase IVF Oversight Advances
Posted on March 12, 2009The Atlanta Journal Constitution: Embryo Rights go too far in Senate (Editorial), by Maureen Downey: Senate Bill 169 ?- the Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos Act ?- declares: ?A living in vitro human embryo is a biological human being who...
Chemical Castration of Sex Offenders Under Scrutiny In Europe
Posted on March 12, 2009NY Times: Europeans Debate Castration of Sex Offenders, by Dan Bilefsky: Whether castration can help rehabilitate violent sex offenders has come under new scrutiny after the Council of Europe?s anti-torture committee last month called surgical castration ?invasive, irreversible and mutilating?...
FDA Approves New, Lower-Cost Version of Female Condom
Posted on March 11, 2009Reuters/Center for Health and Gender Equity press release: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Approves New Female Condom: Today, the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) granted regulatory approval to the FC2 female condom, a lower-cost, second generation product manufactured by the...
President Obama's Reversal of Stem Cell Funding Ban Reflects Administration's Broader Approach to Science
Posted on March 10, 2009NY Times: Obama Puts His Own Spin on Mix of Science With Politics, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg: President Obama?s directive on Monday to ?guarantee scientific integrity? in federal policy making could have a far-reaching impact, affecting issues as varied as...
Senate Restores Affordable Contraception For Community Health Centers and College Clinics
Posted on March 10, 2009RH Reality Check: And the Beat Goes On: Senate Passes Omnibus, Including Affordable Birth Control Act, by Jodi Jacobson: The Senate tonight passed the $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill, originally passed by the House of Representatives two weeks ago...
MA Catholic-Affiliated Hospital System Faces Anti-Choice Criticism For Proposal To Join Forces With Secular Organization
Posted on March 08, 2009Boston Globe: Caritas draws fire on abortion, by Kay Lazar:Catholic and antiabortion groups in Massachusetts are criticizing a proposal by the Caritas Christi Health Care network, an affiliate of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, to join forces with a nonreligious...
Vatican Defends Excommunications Related to Nine-Year-Old Rape Victim's Abortion
Posted on March 08, 2009NY Times/Agence France-Presse: Vatican Backs Excommunications Stemming From an Abortion A senior Vatican cleric on Saturday defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a 9-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped. The child was...
President Obama Expected To Lift Restrictions On Federally Funded Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Posted on March 08, 2009Reuters: U.S. stem cell announcement only a first step, by Maggie Fox: Researchers and advocates have been invited to a White house ceremony on Monday at which President Barack Obama is expected to lift eight years of restrictions on embryonic...
UT Senate Passes Abortion Measure Requiring Information About Fetal Anethesia
Posted on March 06, 2009Salt Lake Tribune: Senate passes bill mandating 'fetal pain' abortion warnings, by Sheena McFarland: A bill that would require doctors to inform a woman about fetal anesthesia for abortions performed after 20 weeks passed the Senate Thursday. HB222, sponsored by...
Help Reverse Former President Bush's Midnight Regulation
Posted on March 06, 2009You can sign a letter supporting President Obama's decision to overturn President Bush's last-minute religious refusal regulation. This dangerous measure authorized religiously based limitations on a broad range of reproductive health and other services...
Practices at Fertility Institute Raise Ethical Questions About "Designer Babies"
Posted on March 03, 2009Obama Adminstration Begins Process to Reverse Bush Religious Refusal Reg
Posted on February 27, 2009Kirsten Smolensky on Creating Children with Disabilities -- Plus Responses
Posted on February 27, 2009South Carolina House Passes 2-Visit Requirement for Abortions
Posted on February 26, 2009Via the Daily Women's Health Policy Report: South Carolina House Passes Bill Requiring Mandatory Waiting Period for Abortions South Carolina's House on Tuesday voted 83-28 to approve a bill (H. 3245) requiring women to wait at least 24 hours after...
Trial Against Kansas Abortion Provider Dr. George Tiller Set to Begin in March
Posted on February 26, 2009Feminist Wire Daily Newsbriefs: Tiller Case to Move Forward in Kansas Court:A motion by Dr George Tiller's lawyers to dismiss the criminal case against him was denied yesterday by Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens. This pre-trial motion sought to...
Carter Dillard on the Moral and Legal Duties of Prospective Parents
Posted on February 26, 2009Carter Dillard (Loyola University New Orleans) has posted Child Welfare and Future Persons on SSRN. Here is the abstract: While ethicists have delved deep into the rights and wrongs of procreating, lawyers have had little to say about the matter,...
University of Baltimore Law School Hosts Second Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference
Posted on February 25, 2009University of Baltimore School of Law: Applied Feminism: How Feminist Legal Theory is Changing the Law The University of Baltimore School of Law will hold its Second Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference on Friday, March 6, 2009. The conference will...
William Saletan on Abortion and the "Culture Wars"
Posted on February 23, 2009NY Times Op-Ed: This Is the Way the Culture Wars End, by William Saletan:PRESIDENT OBAMA wants to end the culture wars. He recently called for ?common ground? on abortion reduction and an end to the ?stale and fruitless debate? over...
Beth Burkstrand-Reid on Women's Health and Reproductive Rights
Posted on February 23, 2009Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid (University of Illinois College of Law) has posted: The Invisible Women: Availability and Culpability in Reproductive Health Jurisprudence on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Women?s health is widely assumed to be a central consideration in reproductive rights...
Spain May Legalize Early Abortions
Posted on February 21, 2009Telegraph.co.uk: Spain prepares to fully legalise abortion, by Fiona Govan: Spain is preparing to fully legalise abortion for the first time to allow women to have terminations on demand in the early stages of pregnancy. The move has put the...
State Legislative News
Posted on February 21, 2009The North Dakota Senate has approved a measure that would require clinics offering abortion to post signs telling patients that no one can force them to have an abortion (AP story here). The Arkansas Senate has passed a bill that...
Oakland, CA, Pastor Sentenced Under Ordinance Limiting Abortion Clinic Protests
Posted on February 20, 2009San Francisco Chronicle: Pastor sentenced for Oakland abortion protest, by Henry K. Lee:A pastor at a Berkeley church was sentenced Thursday to three years' probation and fined $1,000 after becoming the first person convicted under an Oakland ordinance barring protesters...
Kansas Gov., Possible Nominee For Health Secretary, Is A Pro-choice Catholic
Posted on February 20, 2009NY Times: Kansas Governor Seen as Top Choice in Health in Health Post, by Peter Baker & Robert Pear: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, an early Obama ally with a record of working across party lines, is emerging as the...
NYC Plan to Convert Catholic Schools to Charter Schools Faces Opposition
Posted on February 16, 2009NY Times: Hurdles for a Plan to Turn Catholic Classrooms Into Charter Schools, by Javier Hernandez:To the Roman Catholic bishop of Brooklyn, it seemed like an act of salvation on par with Noah and the ark. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg...
New Annotated Bibliography on International Abortion Access
Posted on February 13, 2009The International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Programme, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto has published Access to Abortion Reports: An Annotated Bibliography. From the Introduction: This annotated bibliography brings together government reports, non-government reports, and secondary literature that investigate...
Symposium: Legal Developments and Challenges in Reproductive Justice
Posted on February 13, 2009Cardozo Journal of Gender and Law is hosting a Symposium on Legal Developments and Challenges in Reproductive Justice:In this time of political change and economic uncertainty, the status of reproductive rights is shifting rapidly. Advocates are trying to understand these...
India: Supreme Court to Review Abortion Law
Posted on February 13, 2009The Hindu News Update Service: Supreme Court to examine law on abortion: The 38-year-old abortion law was on Friday challenged in the Supreme Court which sought a response from the government for continuing with a provision prohibiting termination of pregnancy...
The Short List for Supreme Court Vacancies
Posted on February 11, 2009Wash. Independent: Ginsburg?s Cancer Surgery Sparks Speculation About Future Justices, by Daphne Eviatar: The news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery yesterday for early-stage pancreatic cancer has already led to much speculation about who President Obama is...
Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan Mentioned as Possible Future Replacement for Justice Ginsburg
Posted on February 11, 2009Wash. Post: Harvard Dean, Chosen as Solicitor General, Goes Before Senators, by Robert Barnes: When Harvard Law School hosted a huge dinner a few years ago for the conservative Federalist Society, the school's dean, Elena Kagan, received such long and...
Fertility Industry Under New Scrutiny
Posted on February 11, 2009NY Times: Questions Grow for Fertility Clinics, by Stephanie Saul: Pictures of children, his trophies, decorate Dr. Tien Chiu?s office. Three smiling newborns, he says, were the first Japanese-American triplets conceived in a laboratory, while the robust-looking quadruplets were born...
FDA Requires Pharmaceutical Company to Clarify Birth Control Ads
Posted on February 11, 2009NY Times: A Birth Control Pill that Promised too Much: As part of an unusual crackdown on deceptive consumer drug advertising, the Food and Drug Administration and the attorneys general of 27 states have required Bayer to run these new...
Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly Symposium on Roberts Court and Facial Challenges
Posted on February 09, 2009I had the honor of participating in a fascinating and timely symposium Friday (2/6) at UC Hastings, on the Roberts Court and facial challenges. David Faigman (Hastings) and David Franklin (DePaul) also presented papers. Kevin Walsh (Villanova) responded to Professor...
State Legislatures Consider Ultrasound Legislation
Posted on February 09, 2009The Associated Press published an article yesterday listing twelve states currently considering bills to offer or mandate ultrasounds before abortion. The article is available here.
Congress Extends Health Insurance for Low Income Children
Posted on February 09, 2009The New York Times: Obama Signs Children's Health Insurance Bill, by Robert Pear: The House gave final approval on Wednesday to a bill extending health insurance to millions of low-income children, and President Obama signed it this afternoon, in the...
Anne Donchin on Assisted Reproduction Policy
Posted on February 09, 2009Anne Donchin (Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis) has posted Toward a Gender Sensitive Assisted Reproduction Policy on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The recent case of the UK woman who lost her legal struggle to be impregnated with her own frozen...
Obama to Expand Faith-Based Initiative
Posted on February 05, 2009NY Times: White House Faith Office to Expand, by Jeff Zeleny & Laurie Goodstein: President Obama signed an executive order Thursday to create a revamped White House office for religion-based and neighborhood programs, expanding an initiative started by the Bush...
Justice Ginsburg Undergoes Surgery for Pancreatic Cancer
Posted on February 05, 2009NY Times: Justice Ginsburg Undergoes Surgery for Pancreatic Cancer, Court Says,by Adam Liptak: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York on Thursday for what was apparently early-stage pancreatic cancer, according to a...
Obama's Potential Impact on the Supreme Court
Posted on February 04, 2009The New York Times: To Nudge, Shift or Shove the Supreme Court Left, by Adam Liptak: ...The vacancies that are likely to open up in the early years of the Obama presidency will, if the conventional wisdom holds, arise from...
Study Explores Reproductive Health Care Preferences and Perceptions Among Different Racial & Ethnic Groups
Posted on February 03, 2009Guttmacher Institute: Reproductive Health Service Preferences and Perceptions of Quality Among Low-Income Women: Racial, Ethnic and Language Group Differences, by Davida Becker & Amy O. Tsui: Although racial and ethnic disparities in reproductive health outcomes are well documented, there is...
Commonly Used Chemicals Found to Lower Fertility
Posted on February 02, 2009Wash. Post/HealthDay News: Common Chemicals May Delay Pregnancy, by Steven Reinberg: Chemicals known as perfluorinated chemicals, which are pervasive in food packaging, pesticides, clothing, upholstery, carpets and personal care products, may delay pregnancy, a new study suggests...
Octuplets' Birth Raises Questions About Fertility Treatment Policies
Posted on February 02, 2009TIME: Octuplets Fallout: Should Fertility Specialists Set Limits?, by Bonnie Rochman: Just about the time that eight babies began growing inside a California woman's womb, some nationwide policies about fertility treatment were being codified. In June, the American Society for...
Conference on ART and the Politics of Reproduction
Posted on February 01, 2009Via the Barnard Center for Research on Women: The Scholar & Feminist Conference XXXIV THE POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION: New Technologies of Life Saturday, February 28, 2009 Barnard College 3009 Broadway (at 117th St) New York, NY 10027 Increased demand for...
Women's Law Project Launches Blog
Posted on February 01, 2009The Women's Law Project has started a blog. Here is a recent post: Family Planning and the Stimulus Package Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed an economic stimulus package. A previous version of the bill had included provisions...
Planned Parenthood Decries Removal of Family Planning Provision from House Stimulus Package
Posted on February 01, 2009Politico: Planned Parenthood v. Obama, by Josh Gerstein: President Obama?s only been in office for eight days and some of his friends are already steaming mad at him. The president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Cecile Richards, just sent an...
Senate Stimulus Bill Includes $400 Million in STI Prevention
Posted on February 01, 2009The Washington Times: Stimulus bills include STD prevention, by Stephen Dinan: The two sides of Capitol Hill appear to be engaging in a bidding war to see who can put more money toward the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases in...
"Catholic" Hospitals Serve the Public and Rely Heavily on Public Funds
Posted on January 28, 2009Given the uproar the Catholic Church has initiated over FOCA, and its ominous warnings of hospital closures, a little reminder is in order. Hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church serve the public, and they rely heavily on public dollars to...
Catholic Churches Again Raising Specter of Hospitals Closing Due to FOCA
Posted on January 28, 2009CBS News: Abortion Foes Warn Of Hospital Closures, by Brian Montopoli: On the past two Sundays, parishioners at the Holy Family Church in Nutley, New Jersey, have received a stark warning: If the Obama administration and Democratic Congress have their...
Continuing Education Program on Drugs, Pregnancy, and Parenting
Posted on January 28, 2009National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) presents: Drugs, Pregnancy and Parenting: What the Experts in Medicine, Social Work and Law Have to Say Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Time: 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Place: New York University School of....
The Reality Behind the "Crack Baby" Hysteria
Posted on January 28, 2009NY Times: The Epidemic That Wasn?t, by Susan Okie: ...When the use of crack cocaine became a nationwide epidemic in the 1980s and ?90s, there were widespread fears that prenatal exposure to the drug would produce a generation of severely...
Obama Asks Dems To Drop Family Planning From Stimulus Package
Posted on January 28, 2009The Atlantic: On Obama's Urging, House Dems To Drop Family Planning From Stimpak, by Marc Ambinder: According to the AP, President Obama called Henry Waxman and personally asked that the provision making it easier for states to pay for family...
Glenn Cohen on the Use of ART To Create Disabled Children
Posted on January 28, 2009I. Glenn Cohen has posted Intentional Diminishment, the Non-Identity Problem, and Legal Liability on SSRN. The article has been published as part of a symposium by the Hastings Law Journal. Here is the abstract: This Article, lying at the intersection...
Teens and Risky Sexual Behavior: Myth vs. Reality
Posted on January 27, 2009New York Times: The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity, by Tara Parker-Pope: Parents have worried for generations about changing moral values and risky behavior among young people, and the latest news seems particularly worrisome.... The news is troubling, but it?s...
Symposium Celebrating History of Women Lawyers
Posted on January 27, 2009Rutgers School of Law - Newark presents: ?Rutgers School of Law-Newark Celebrates Women Reshaping American Law? - Feb. 13, 2009 United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be the keynote speaker for the symposium "Rutgers School of Law-Newark...
Symposium Honoring Martha Nussbaum
Posted on January 27, 2009The Gender and Sexuality Law Program at Columbia Law School presents: A Symposium Honoring the Contributions of Professor Martha Nussbaum to the Scholarship and Practice of Gender and Sexuality Law Feminism as Liberalism Carlos Ball Professor of Law, Rutgers Law...
In Economic Slump, More Women Donate Their Eggs
Posted on January 26, 2009CBS News: Down Economy + Egg Donations = Fast Cash, by Cindy Hsu: In these tough economic times, people are getting more creative to make ends meet. According to fertility clinics, more and more women are turning to egg donation...
Obama Stimulus Package Includes Funds for Expanded Medicaid Family Planning Services
Posted on January 26, 2009San Francisco Chronicle: Economic stimulus or just more pork?, by Zachary Coile: As Congress rushes toward what leaders of both parties predict will be a speedy passage of an $825 billion economic stimulus package, critics from GOP lawmakers to government...
Legal Scholarship on the Global Gag Rule
Posted on January 25, 2009Check out my colleague Ruthann Robson's post this morning, on the Constitutional Law Prof Blog, surveying scholarship focusing on the global gag rule: President Obama's decision in his first days to reverse the so-called "global gag rule" or "Mexico City...
Student Scholarship: Modern Genetic Testing
Posted on January 25, 2009Dov Fox (Yale Law School) has posted Reproduction Law in International Perspectives on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The word "eugenics" derives from the Greek words eu (good) and gen (relating to birth), or eugenes, which means "good in birth."...
Female Researchers Seek to Decode Female Desire
Posted on January 25, 2009In this week's New York Times Magazine, Daniel Berger writes about research into women's desire and arousal, in What Do Women Want?. Here is an interesting passage regarding the current focus on biological difference and sexual desire: To account partly...
Constance Cook, NY Abortion Rights Pioneer, Dies
Posted on January 25, 2009NY Times: Constance E. Cook, 89, Who Wrote Abortion Law, Is Dead, by Dennis Hevesi: Constance E. Cook, a former New York State assemblywoman who was co-author of the law that legalized abortion in the state three years before the...
Public to Pregnant Women: Don't Have An Abortion, But Don't Have A Child Either If It Means Inconveniencing Others
Posted on January 24, 2009Apropos my blogging-for-choice comment that we need to change the judgmental, punitive way we talk about women and pregnancy.... NY Times: Candace Parker Is Balancing Career and Family, by Karen Crouse: The Los Angeles Sparks? Candace Parker is carrying a...
President Obama Repeals Global Gag Rule
Posted on January 24, 2009New York Times: Obama Reverses Rules on U.S. Abortion Aid, by Peter Baker: WASHINGTON ? President Obama repealed rules on Friday that restricted federal money for international organizations that promote or provide abortions overseas, sweeping aside a pillar of the...
Carol Sanger on Mandatory Ultrasounds
Posted on January 23, 2009Carol Sanger (Columbia Law School) has posted Seeing and Believing: Mandatory Ultrasound and the Path to a Protected Choice on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Several state legislatures now require that before a woman may consent to an abortion, she...
Pro-Choice Donuts?
Posted on January 23, 2009Via National Post: The American Life League issued the following press release regarding its victory over a company that makes doughnuts. Apparently "choice" is bad, even if it's a choice between honey glazed and plain: ... KRISPY KREME CORRECTS 'FREEDOM...
Anti-Choice Activist Drives SUV Into Minn. Clinic
Posted on January 23, 2009Minnesota Independent: Anti-abortion activist slams car into Planned Parenthood clinic, by Andy Birkey: A man slammed his SUV into the Planned Parenthood clinic on Ford Parkway in St. Paul early Thursday morning. Police say the man was an anti-abortion activist...
It's the 36th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade: Got Hope?
Posted on January 22, 2009I am blogging for choice to celebrate Roe's anniversary. The theme this year is our hopes for the new administration and/or Congress. We have much to celebrate this year as Roe v. Wade turns 36. Our brand-new President is unabashedly...
Obama Revisits Last-Minute Bush Admin. Regs
Posted on January 21, 2009The New York Times: Obama Will Ease Restraints on States' Health Insurance Programs for Children, by Robert Pear: ...Some of the policies may take more time to revise because they are in regulations that have already taken effect and have...
HAPPY INAUGURATION DAY!! I'm excited
Posted on January 20, 2009HAPPY INAUGURATION DAY!! I'm excited to be among the throngs observing the swearing-in today.
Federal Lawsuit Filed Against Nurse Practitioner for Removing IUD Without Permission
Posted on January 19, 2009Courthouse News Service: Woman Says Anti-Abortion Nurse Removed IUD Without Permission, Then Lectured Her: ALBUQUERQUE (CN) - A clinic nurse first removed her intrauterine birth-control device without permission, says the patient in a federal action, then told her that "having...
Pregnant Women in Developing Nations Face Grave Risks to Life and Health
Posted on January 18, 2009Wash. Post/HealthDay News: Mothers, Newborns at High Risk in Developing World: A pregnant woman living in one of the world's poorest countries is 300 times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than women living in more affluent nations,....
Fire Strikes Nebraska Abortion Clinic
Posted on January 18, 2009MSNBC/TheOmahaChannel.com: Fire Engulfs Lower Level Of Clinic Where Abortions Performed: The physician who operates a health clinic where abortions are performed said a fire that broke out Friday morning in the clinic's basement is "very suspicious." The physician, Dr...
Seven States Join Lawsuits Challenging Bush Health Care Denial Rule
Posted on January 17, 2009Wash. Post: Lawsuits Filed Over Rule That Lets Health Workers Deny Care, by Rob Stein: Seven states and two family-planning groups yesterday asked a federal court to block a controversial new federal regulation that protects health workers who refuse to...
National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association and ACLU Ask Court To Block Health Care Denial Rule
Posted on January 17, 2009Via ACLU Press Release: The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, today filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Bush administration's Health Care Denial Rule.....
Naomi Cahn on "Test Tube Families"
Posted on January 16, 2009Naomi Cahn (GW Law) has a new book out: Test Tube Families (NYU Press). Here is the abstract: The birth of the first test tube baby in 1978 focused attention on the sweeping advances in assisted reproductive technology (ART), which...
Obama Expected to Ask Pro-Abstinence-Only AIDS Coordinator to Stay On
Posted on January 14, 2009RH Reality Check: Obama to Keep Abstinence-Only AIDS Coordinator, by Jodi Jacobson: Confirming month-old rumors, a high-level source reported last night that President-Elect Obama's transition team has asked Ambassador Mark Dybul to remain in place as Global AIDS Coordinator, despite...
Rebecca Kukla et al. on Women's Autonomy in Childbirth
Posted on January 14, 2009Rebecca Kukla, et al., have posted Finding Autonomy in Birth on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Over the last several years, as cesarean deliveries have grown increasingly common, there has been a great deal of public and professional interest in...
Madoff Debacle Hits Reproductive Rights Advocacy Groups
Posted on January 13, 2009Salon.com Broadsheet: How the Madoff mess hits women, by Nancy Goldstein: For all the ink that's been spilled on the Madoff investment scandal, I've read nothing about its impact on funding for progressive women's causes -- which is considerable. Simply...
NY Times LTE: Abortion and Low-Income Women
Posted on January 13, 2009The New York Times on Sunday published letters responding to the Jan. 5 article, For Privacy?s Sake, Risking Do-It-Yourself Abortion. See The Abortion Choices of Poor Women. The letters include one from David Cohen (Drexel Law), pointing out that the...
ACLU Files Suit to Stop Religiously Based Restrictions in Federally Funded Trafficking Victims Program
Posted on January 12, 2009ACLU Press Release: ACLU Asks Court To Stop Misuse Of Taxpayer Dollars In Trafficking Victims' Program: BOSTON ? The American Civil Liberties Union today asked a federal court to require the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)...
Lawrence Gostin on Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa
Posted on January 08, 2009Lawrence O. Gostin (Georgetown Law) has posted Male Circumcision as an HIV Prevention Strategy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Socio-Legal Barriers on SSRN. Here is the abstract: UNAIDS and WHO recommend safe, voluntary male circumcision as an additional, important strategy for the...
Thanks to My Research Assistant!
Posted on January 08, 2009Under the category of better late than never, I want to thank my research assistant, Christina Tenuta, for her helpful research for this blog during the fall semester of 2008.
Antiabortion Groups Protest University of Wisconsin Plan To Provide Second-Trimester Abortions
Posted on January 07, 2009Via Daily Women's Health Policy Report: A pending University of Wisconsin plan to provide second-trimester abortions at its Madison Surgery Center is drawing criticism from antiabortion-rights groups, which are questioning the legality of the plan, the AP/Chicago Tribune reports...
Teen Birth Rates Increased in 26 States in 2006
Posted on January 07, 2009USA Today: Teen birth rates up in 26 states, by Sharon Jayson: The newest and most detailed data on teen birth rates shows significant increases in 26 states and represents most regions of the USA. "To see 26 states with...
Utah: Plans to Push Abortion Ban Are on Hold
Posted on January 06, 2009The Salt Lake Tribune: Conservative trio to wait on abortion ban, by Sheena McFarland: Conservative legislators are backing away from costly plans to take on Roe v. Wade this year -- given Utah's tight budget -- but they want to...
HHS Midnight Reg Prompts 200,000 Opposing Comments
Posted on January 05, 2009Chicago Sun-Times: 11th-hour abortion rule draws 200K protests, by David Templeton: An 11th-hour rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is stirring national controversy by allowing people who provide reproductive health services to refuse information or procedures...
Ulcer Drug Popular Self-Abortion Method Within Dominican Community
Posted on January 05, 2009NY Times: For Privacy?s Sake, Taking Risks to End Pregnancy, by Jennifer 8. Lee & Cara Buckley: Amalia Dominguez was 18 and desperate and knew exactly what to ask for at the small, family-run pharmacy in the heart of Washington...
S.C. Bill Would Expand on New Ultrasound Law
Posted on January 02, 2009The State: Proposed S.C. bill sets stage for abortion fight, by Leroy Chapman, Jr.: Abortion foes in the Legislature have sown the seeds of what could develop into another battle over regulating abortion in South Carolina. Seven S.C. House lawmakers....
Anne Hendershott on Kennedy Family and the Right to Abortion
Posted on January 02, 2009Wall St. Journal Op-Ed: How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma, by Anne Hendershott: For faithful Roman Catholics, the thought of yet another pro-choice Kennedy positioned to campaign for the unlimited right to abortion is discouraging. Yet if Caroline Kennedy,...
Teenage New Year's Resolution? Maybe Not An Abstinence Pledge
Posted on December 29, 2008Teenagers searching for a good new year's resolution would do better than to make an abstinence pledge. How about vowing to have sex only when they are ready, and then to do so safely? We adults could help out by...
Jeanne Flavin on the Policing of Reproduction in the United States
Posted on December 27, 2008Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women's Bodies in America (NYU Press), by Jeanne Flavin (Sociology, Fordham Univ.): Panicked teenagers are prosecuted for abandoning or killing their newborns, but are not guaranteed comprehensive sexuality education or reproductive health services...
NY Times Editorial on Last-Minute HHS Religious Refusal Reg
Posted on December 27, 2008NY Times Editorial: A Parting Shot at Women's Rights: Undermining women?s reproductive rights and access to health care has been a pervasive theme of the outgoing administration. On his first full day in office, President Bush imposed the ?global gag...
Conference - Gender and the Law: Unintended Consquences, Unsettled Questions
Posted on December 22, 2008Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Harvard University): Gender and the Law: Unintended Consequences, Unsettled Questions Unsettled questions of gender and the law present a broad range of challenges in courtrooms, legislatures, and everyday lives...
Call for Papers: Women, Incarceration and Human Rights
Posted on December 22, 2008A Feminism and Legal Theory Project Workshop (Emory University School of Law): Women, Incarceration and Human Rights: February 27-29th, 2009 Atlanta, Georgia From 1995 ? 2006, the number of incarcerated women in the United States increased 64 percent making the...
New Magazine for Women in Litigation
Posted on December 17, 2008The new Sue Magazine caters to female litigators: Sue, For Women in Litigation has been created to promote a new generation of professionals who are making a significant impact on the world through their work and their lives-while being true...
Obama Team Reviewing Bush Admin.'s Last-Minute Health Care Reg
Posted on December 17, 2008Wall St. Journal: Bush-Era Abortion Rules Face Possible Reversal, by Laura Meckler: The outgoing Bush administration this week will finalize a regulation establishing a right of conscience allowing medical staff to refuse to participate in any practice they object to...
A Conversation with the Director of Stanford's Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research & Education
Posted on December 16, 2008NY Times: A Conversation With Renee A. Reijo Pera: Using Embryos to Put Fertility First, by Claudia Dreifus: As director of Stanford?s Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education, Renee A. Reijo Pera, 49, a professor of obstetrics...
FDA Panel Recommends Approval of New Version of Female Condom
Posted on December 15, 2008Daily Women's Health Policy Report: FDA Panel Recommends Approval of New, Less Costly Female Condom: An FDA advisory panel on Thursday voted 15-0 to recommend approval of the new, less costly version of the female condom developed by the Female...
Survey Indicates Many Teens Electronically Share Sexually Suggestive Images of Themselves
Posted on December 12, 2008Press Release from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy: THE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT TEEN AND UNPLANNED PREGNANCY AND COSMOGIRL.COM REVEAL RESULTS OF SEX & TECH SURVEY: Large Percentage of Teens Posting/Sending Nude/Semi Nude Images...
Vatican Issues Statement Condemning a Variety of Reproductive Technologies
Posted on December 12, 2008Wash. Post: Vatican Condemns Cloning, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, by Michelle Boorstein & Rob Stein: The Vatican, in its first authoritative statement on reproductive science in more than 20 years, today condemned human cloning, designer babies, embryonic stem cell research...
Planned Parenthood's Kansas Affiliate Challenges Kline's Retention of Patient Records
Posted on December 11, 2008The Associated Press reported yesterday on the legal efforts of Planned Parenthood's attorney to prevent former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline from taking copies of patient files with him when he leaves office. Here's more background on the case from...
Supreme Court Heard Arguments Yesterday in AT&T v. Hulteen
Posted on December 11, 2008NY Times: Justices Hear Bias Case on Maternity, Pensions and Timing, by Adam Liptak: The argument of an employment discrimination case at the Supreme Court on Wednesday was full of references to one of the court?s more controversial decisions in...
Anti-Choice Advocates Take Aim at Planned Parenthood's Government Funding
Posted on December 10, 2008Wall St. Journal: Abortion Foes Open a New Front, by Stephanie Simon: Abortion opponents are pressing state and local governments to stop sending taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, arguing that the nonprofit group has plenty of cash and shouldn't be...
WSJ Opinion Column on Alex Kuczynski's Surrogacy Piece
Posted on December 10, 2008Wall St. Journal: Rent-a-Womb Is Where Market Logic Leads, by Thomas Frank: At long last, our national love affair with the rich is coming to a close. The moguls whose exploits we used to follow with such fascination, it now...
Responses to Ross Douthat on the Republican Party and Abortion
Posted on December 10, 2008The New York Times has published several letters responding to Ross Douthat's op-ed about the GOP and abortion. You can find a link to the op-ed, and my own response to Douthat, here.
It's the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Posted on December 10, 2008Via the United Nations: Human Rights Day: Dignity and Justice for All of Us: The universal declaration of human rights: A living document Many things can be said about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It is the foundation...
Supreme Court to Hear Arguments Tomorrow in AT&T v. Hulteen (Title VII Pregnancy Discrimination Case)
Posted on December 09, 2008Via Feminist Law Professors: Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case, AT & T v. Hulteen ? the case revolving around the interpretation of the scope of gender discrimination and pregnancy discrimination in employment under Title...
Jonathan Herring on the Legal Status of the Body
Posted on December 09, 2008Johnathan Herring (University of Oxford - Faculty of Law) has posted Your Body, My Body, Our Bodies on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article considers the legal status of the body. It argues that our bodies are in constant...
The Future of Abortion: Controversies and Care
Posted on December 09, 2008The Abortion Review is making available papers from a conference, The Future of Abortion: Controversies and Care, held in London in June 2008: The BPAS conference The Future of Abortion: Controversies and Care was a groundbreaking event. It took place...
NYT Public Editor Comments On Alex Kuczynski's Surrogacy Article
Posted on December 09, 2008NY Times: The Privileged and Their Children, by Clark Hoyt: ...The magazine article about gestational surrogacy ? a woman?s bearing the biological child of someone else ? posed a very different issue. The facts were not in dispute. But the...
Call for Participation: Gender, Sexuality and Law
Posted on December 08, 2008The Canadian Law and Society Association invites papers and proposals on the Political Economy of Gender and Sexuality in Legal Scholarship: Canadian legal feminism has a strong tradition of examining the political economy of law's regulation of gender and sexuality...
South Dakota's "Informed Consent Law" and the Doctor-Patient Relationship
Posted on December 08, 2008New England Journal of Medicine: South Dakota's Abortion Script Threatening the Physician-Patient Relationship, by Zita Lazzarini: Under a law that went into effect in July, physicians in South Dakota must tell any woman seeking an abortion that she is terminating...
Catholic Church Creating Premature Uproar Over FOCA and Religious Refusals
Posted on December 07, 2008The Christian Science Monitor: Catholic groups fear abortion rights bill, by Ben Arnoldy: First on the Obama administration's to-do list: a stimulus package, bailouts, and ... abortion? Given the imperatives of the economic crisis, picking an abortion fight early on...
What Does the "Pro-Life" Movement Want? Don't Ask Ross Douthat.
Posted on December 07, 2008The New York Times today published an astoundingly uninformed, naive defense of the current "pro-life" movement, by Ross Douthat, a senior editor at The Atlantic. See: Abortion Politics Didn?t Doom the G.O.P.: An iron law of recent American politics dictates...
Dahlia Lithwick on Selective Solicitude for Health Care Providers' Rights of Conscience in the Reproductive Health Context
Posted on December 06, 2008Slate: Nursing Grudges, by Dahlia Lithwick: What does it tell us about the state of the abortion wars today that battles once waged over the dignity and autonomy of pregnant women have morphed into disputes over the dignity and autonomy...
Yet Another Study Debunks Myth of a "Post-Abortion Syndrome"
Posted on December 06, 2008ABC News/Reuters: Abortion Not Seen Linked With Depression: No high-quality study done to date can document that having an abortion causes psychological distress, or a "post-abortion syndrome," and efforts to show it does occur appear to be politically motivated, U...
Planned Parenthood Offers Gift Certificates; Anti-Choice Groups Object
Posted on December 06, 2008Indy Star: Gift certificate covering abortion stirs controversy, by Francesca Jarosz: For the folks at Planned Parenthood, it is a creative way to help ensure that women receive important health services at a time when money is tight. For members...
KS Supreme Court Sanctions Former AG for Mishandling of Planned Parenthood Abortion Records
Posted on December 05, 2008Kansas City Star: High court sanctions Kline for handling of abortion records, by Joe Lambe & Laura Bauer: The Kansas Supreme Court this morning sanctioned Phill Kline for his handling of Planned Parenthood records and ordered him to give copies...
Politicizing Statutory Rape Reporting Requirements
Posted on December 05, 2008Last night Bill O'Reilly reported on a "sting operation" some UCLA college students conducted on Planned Parenthoods to catch them in the act of refusing to report statutory rape when minors come in seeking confidential reproductive health care. Here is...
Couples Torn Over What To Do With Extra Frozen Embryos
Posted on December 04, 2008NY Times: Parents Torn Over Fate of Frozen Embryos, by Denise Grady: For nearly 15 years, Kim and Walt Best have been paying about $200 a year to keep nine embryos stored in a freezer at a fertility clinic at...
Perspectives on HIV/AIDS, Gender Violence, and Marriage, from Population Action International
Posted on December 03, 2008RH Reality Check: In Their Own Beds: HIV and Marriage, by Amy Coen: This World AIDS Day, Population Action International is exploring a different side of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, one that many people might not even realize is an issue...
Baltimore Will Host World Stem Cell Summit
Posted on December 03, 2008Baltimore Sun: Baltimore to host stem cell summit, by Laura Smitherman: Baltimore will host the 2009 World Stem Cell Summit, solidifying its position as one of the nation's foremost crucibles for bioscience research, Gov. Martin O'Malley and other officials announced...
New Guidelines Define Best Practices for Stem Cell Research
Posted on December 03, 2008Via MarketWatch: Press Release: The International Society for Stem Cell Research Releases New Guidelines to Shape Future of Stem Cell Therapy: Today, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), the world's leading professional organization of stem cell researchers, released...
Why Did South Dakota Voters Twice Refuse to Approve an Abortion Ban?
Posted on December 03, 2008The New Republic: What's The Matter With South Dakota?, by Denise Ross: How one of the most pro-life states in the country ended up voting against banning abortion--twice. South Dakota state legislator Larry Rhoden is as loyal a pro-life crusader...
Children Whose Mothers Took Epilepsy Drug While Pregnant May Face Increased Risk of Autism
Posted on December 02, 2008WebMD Health News: Epilepsy Drug, Pregnancy Raise Autism Risk, by Bill Hendrick: Women who take the epilepsy drug valproate while pregnant may increase their child's risk of autism, a new study shows. British researchers looked at 632 children, almost half...
New Federal Medical Refusal Rule Would Reach Beyond Abortion
Posted on December 02, 2008LA Times: Broader medical refusal rule may go far beyond abortion, by David Savage: Reporting from Washington -- The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and...
Dec. 1 Was World AIDS Day
Posted on December 02, 2008Via the World AIDS Campaign: The 1st of December, World AIDS Day, is the day when individuals and organisations from around the world come together to bring attention to the global AIDS epidemic. 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of World...
NY Times Mag. Cover Story: Alex Kuczynksi's "Adventures in Gestational Surrogacy"
Posted on November 30, 2008NY Times Magazine: Her Body, My Baby, by Alex Kuczynski: ...I did not give birth to my son. He is the product of my egg and my husband?s sperm. After half a decade of trying to become pregnant, sometimes succeeding...
Study on Risk Factors Associated with Adolescent Sexual Activity
Posted on November 28, 2008Journal of Youth and Adolescence: When Two Isn't Better Than One: Predictors of Early Sexual Activity in Adolescence Using a Cumulative Risk Model, by Myeshia N. Price and Janet Shibley Hyde: This study explored factors that may be associated with...
Brazilian Police Target Suspected Abortion Patients
Posted on November 26, 2008BBC News: Brazil targets illegal abortions, by Gary Duffy: Brazilian police are investigating more than 1,200 women suspected of having had abortions in a clinic in the state of Mato Grosso Do Sul. Some 150 women have been charged and...
Anti-Choice Lectures In UK Schools Increase
Posted on November 26, 2008The Guardian (UK): Shock tactics, by Kate Hilpern: Rawnie Chapman-Kitchin, 15, was aghast when her teacher compared abortion to Nazism, saying that in time history would view both with the same revulsion. "I'd been expecting a regular RE class, but...
Slate Opinion Piece on Obama's Intentions to Sign Freedom of Choice Act
Posted on November 26, 2008Slate: Lose-Lose on Abortion: Obama's threat to Catholic Hospitals and their Very Serious Counter Threat, by Melinda Henneberger: If the Freedom of Choice Act passes Congress, and that's a big if, Obama has promised to sign it the second it...
The Challenges of Becoming an Abortion Provider
Posted on November 26, 2008Washington Post (11/23): A Hard Choice, by Patricia Meisol: A young medical student tries to decide if she has what it takes to join the diminishing ranks of abortion providers ...How medical students choose to become abortion providers is in...
Kimberly Mutcherson on Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis
Posted on November 23, 2008Kimberly Mutcherson (Rutgers School of Law Camden) has posted Making Mommies: Law, Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis, and the Complications of Pre-Motherhood on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The article focuses on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis ("PGD"), a technology that allows health care...
Graduate Scholarships in Reproductive and Sexual Health Law for Lawyers from Developing Countries
Posted on November 22, 2008Applications are being accepted for Graduate Scholarships in Reproductive and Sexual Health Law with the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Programme at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto, Canada. The scholarship, which enables lawyer activists from...
Barbara P. Billauer on Abortion Rights and Religious Freedom
Posted on November 22, 2008Barbara P. Billauer (Foundation for Law and Science Centers, Inc.; Institute of World Politics) has posted With Liberty and Justice for All: Abortion, Religious Freedom and the Constitution on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The status of abortion as murder,...
Elizabeth S. Scott on the Social and Political Meaning of Surrogacy Contracts
Posted on November 21, 2008Elizabeth S. Scott (Columbia Law School) has posted Surrogacy and the Politics of Commodification on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This essay examines the changing social and political meaning of surrogacy contracts over the twenty years since this issue first...
Studies Examine Effects of Parent Smoking and "Aquarobics" During Pregnancy
Posted on November 21, 2008Wash. Post/HealthDay: Parent Smoking During Pregnancy Raises Kids' Heart Risks, by Ed Edelson: Damage to the arteries of children of smokers can be detected in the early decades of their lives, a new Dutch study finds.... Uiterwaal and his colleagues...
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Posted on November 20, 2008Via Woodhull Freedom Foundation: The Transgender Day of Remembrance The Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors the memory of those murdered because of anti-transgender prejudice, is recognized annually on November 20. The Transgender Day of Remembrance is observed in late...
More Objections to HHS Regs
Posted on November 19, 2008New York Times: Protests Over a Rule to Protect Health Providers, by Robert Pear: A last-minute Bush administration pla n to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds...
Bolivian Supreme Court Orders Improved Access to Abortion
Posted on November 19, 2008Ipas: Bolivian Supreme Court Directs Courts to Implement Abortion Policy: The Supreme Court of Justice of /Bolivia, the nation's highest court, issued an order on October 17 to all lower courts judges obligating them to implement Article 266 of the...
ACLU Seeks Documents Outlining Government Policies Restricting Immigrant Teens' Access To Reproductive Health Services
Posted on November 17, 2008Via ACLU press release: Bush Administration Blocks Medical Services For Immigrant Teens In U.S. Care FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org NEW YORK ? The American Civil Liberties Union today asked a federal court to order the Administration for...
Philippines: Bishops Oppose Bill Promoting Family Planning and Sexuality Education
Posted on November 15, 2008AFP: Philippine bishops attack family planning bill: The Philippines' influential Catholic bishops on Friday attacked a new a bill promoting family planning in the Philippines, calling for drastic changes before it is passed into law.... [I]n a pastoral statement, the...
Obama Expected to Reverse Pro-Abstinence/Anti-Abortion Approaches to Global Funding for Family Planning and AIDS Prevention
Posted on November 15, 2008Bloomberg News: Condoms Trump Abstinence in Obama Global AIDS Policy, by Jason Gale & John Lauerman: President-elect Barack Obama will reverse U.S. family-planning and AIDS-prevention strategies that have long linked global funding to anti-abortion and abstinence education, a public-health adviser...
Why Many Evangelicals Prefer Obama's Approach to Abortion
Posted on November 15, 2008Huffington Post: The Obamagelical Reformation, by Cristina Page: ...Clearly Obama's inclusive approach resonated with many evangelical voters--but to only credit the candidate is to miss the bigger story. According to a poll taken by Beliefnet.com, Obamagelicals believe the Democratic party...
Uruguay's Congress Votes to Decriminalize Abortion; Rep. Chris Smith's Selective Concern Over Women
Posted on November 14, 2008Reuters: Uruguay Congress allows early abortions, veto looms, by Patricia Avila: Uruguay's Senate voted on Tuesday to decriminalize abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a rare move for a Latin American country, but the president is expected to...
Woman Awaits Forced Abortion in Chinese Hospital
Posted on November 14, 2008Kansas City Star: China trying to force 6-months' pregnant woman to abort, by Tim Johnson: A Muslim Uighur woman who is more than six months' pregnant remained under watch in a hospital in China's far northwest Friday awaiting a forced...
NARAL Unveils New Initiative: "free.will.power"
Posted on November 13, 2008NARAL Pro-Choice America launches free.will.power as part of a new online initiative focused on building the next generation of pro-choice leaders: NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation announced today that it is launching free.will.power, an innovative video-based online initiative designed to reach...
Forum on "Power & Sex: America's War on Sexual Rights"
Posted on November 12, 2008UPCOMING CONVERSATION: Power & Sex: America's War on Sexual Rights: Monday, November 17, 2008 7:00 pm, Elebash Recital Hall The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street New York, NY 10016 How has the conservative agenda come to...
Bishops Assail Proposed Freedom of Choice Act
Posted on November 12, 2008Wash. Post: Bishops Call Obama-Supported Abortion Rights Bill a Threat to Catholic Church, by Jacqueline Salmon: The nation's Catholic bishops Tuesday approved a statement declaring that if the Democratic-controlled Congress and the incoming Obama administration enact proposed abortion rights legislation,...
At Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Urges Continued Lobbying for Outlawing Abortion
Posted on November 11, 2008NY Times: U.S. Bishops Urged to Challenge Obama, by Laurie Goodstein: BALTIMORE ? The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops told his fellow prelates Monday that while they should ?rejoice? at the election of an African-American president,...
Where to Now for the Anti-Choice Movement?
Posted on November 11, 2008Wall St. Journal: Abortion Foes' Dilemma: Confront or Cooperate?, by Stephanie Simon: After making significant gains during the Bush administration, the anti-abortion movement was dealt sharp setbacks in last week's election with the defeat of three state ballot measures restricting...
Pro-Choice Advocates Urge Obama to Repeal Global Gag Rule
Posted on November 10, 2008NY Times: Obama Weighs Quick Undoing of Bush Policy, by Jeff Zeleny: CHICAGO ? President-elect Barack Obama is poised to move swiftly to reverse actions that President Bush took using executive authority, and his transition team is reviewing limits on...
US Catholics Did Not Heed Bishops' Message on Abortion in this Election
Posted on November 08, 2008NY Times: Catholics and Choice (in the Voting Booth), by Peter Steinfels: Anyone constructing a list of the big losers on Tuesday would probably include the nation?s Roman Catholic bishops. Will that fact be candidly addressed when the United States....
Samantha Bee on Abortion and Women's "Health"
Posted on November 08, 2008If you were so unfortunate as to miss this gem, as I was, enjoy (and rejoice that John McCain was not elected President). Daily Show (10/28):
How Will the Election Affect the Anti-Choice Movement's Goal of Overturning Roe?
Posted on November 07, 2008I spoke to another reporter yesterday about the South Dakota ban. His question was what the defeats on the Colorado and South Dakota ballot initiatives meant for the anti-abortion-rights movement's goal of bringing a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.....
Supporters of Stem Cell Research Buoyed by Obama's Election
Posted on November 06, 2008MSNBC Commentary: Obama election signals change in stem cell fight, by Arthur Caplan: ?Change? was the horse that Barack Obama?s presidential campaign rode to victory. Indeed the 2008 election will be remembered not only for Obama becoming the first African-American...
South Dakota Abortion Ban and Colorado Personhood Amendment Projected to Fail
Posted on November 05, 2008CBS News: S.D. Voters Reject Abortion Ballot Measure: CBS News projects that voters in South Dakota voted down Measure 11, which would have prohibited abortions except in cases where the mother's life or health is at a substantial and irreversible...
CA Prop 4 (Parental Notice and Waiting Period for Teens Seeking Abortion) Is Defeated
Posted on November 05, 2008Via the Campaign for Teen Safety -- No on Prop 4: Proposition 4 was defeated with 52.6% No, and 47.4% Yes. The Campaign for Teen Safety ? No on Prop 4 is delighted that California voters rejected Prop 4 and...
Obama's Election a Victory for Reproductive Justice
Posted on November 05, 2008Barack Obama's historic victory is also a stunning victory for reproductive justice. Voters both for and against the right to abortion threw their support to Obama because he is the candidate who is most serious about reducing unintended pregnancies and...
California Proposition 4 (Parental Notice for Abortion) Appears Narrowly Defeated
Posted on November 05, 2008San Jose Mercury News: Prop. 4 losing ground in close race, by Edwin Garcia: The proposed law that would require doctors to notify parents of minors seeking abortions was narrowly failing in statewide returns early today. Proposition 4, a ballot...
South Dakota and Colorado Anti-Choice Ballot Initiatives Defeated
Posted on November 05, 2008L.A. Times: Ballot initiatives to curtail abortions defeated, by Nicholas Riccardi: The most prominent initiative was a measure put on the ballot in South Dakota to outlaw most abortions in hope of triggering a Supreme Court showdown over the landmark...
Pro-Choice Election Victories
Posted on November 05, 2008NARAL Pro-Choice America is listing pro-choice candidates who won their races here. The list will continue to be updated until all the races have been called. And here is NARAL's press release on Colorado's rejection of an extreme, anti-choice ballot...
Abortion Cases in the News
Posted on November 04, 2008Check out this post from the new Constitutional Law Prof Blog: Richmond Medical Center v. Herring - In 2003, the State of Virginia passed a law called the "Partial Birth Infanticide Act." Professor Sherry Colb of Findlaw explains that at...
Study Links Weight Gain in Pregnancy to Heavy Babies
Posted on November 04, 2008NY Times: Risks: Extra Pregnancy Weight Tied to Big Baby, by Nicholas Bakalar: Women who gain more than 40 pounds during pregnancy are about twice as likely to give birth to a heavy baby as those who gain less, according...
Abortion and the Election: "The Silent Issue"
Posted on November 04, 2008Newsweek: The Silent Issue, by Lisa Miller: Abortion hasn't been a central debate in the 2008 campaign. But that doesn't mean that its opponents feel any less strongly about it. It's abortion, stupid. For conservative Christians in this election the....
Palin's Coded Language Speaks to Anti-Choice Voters
Posted on November 03, 2008Washington Independent: Palin?s Coded Anti-Abortion Support, by Laura McGann: During Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin?s last swing through battleground states this week, boisterous supporters cheer almost on cue when she delivers her stump speech. Few lines get a more deep-felt roar...
The Future of the Supreme Court and Its Impact on Abortion Rights
Posted on November 03, 2008USA Today: Abortion Debate Central for Some Voters, by Joan Biskupic: John McCain's and Barack Obama's dueling statements on abortion rights have ratcheted up debate over the future of Roe v. Wade at a time when the Supreme Court could...
Masculinity and the Presidential Election
Posted on November 03, 2008Women's E-News Commentary: New Brand of Masculinity Wins the Pro-Change Vote, by Rob Okun: In the waning days of the presidential campaign, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are the leads in a gripping national drama about masculinity. McCain has...
Abortion Not Primary Concern for Catholic Voters
Posted on November 02, 2008Houston Chronicle: Abortion not main issue for Catholics, by Barbara Karkabi: Abortion is not the most important issue for the majority of Roman Catholic voters, according to a new poll released by Zogby International. Less than a third of Catholic...
I. Glenn Cohen on Genetic Parenthood
Posted on November 01, 2008I. Glenn Cohen (Harvard Law School) has posted The Right Not to Be a Genetic Parent? on SSRN. Here is the abstract. Should the law recognize an individual's right not to be a genetic parent when genetic parenthood does not...
Call for Applications: Center for Reproductive Rights--Columbia Law School Fellowship
Posted on October 31, 2008The Center for Reproductive Rights- Columbia Law School Fellowship is a two-year, post-graduate fellowship offered by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Columbia Law School. The Fellowship is designed to prepare recent law school graduates for legal academic careers in...
New Yorker Examines Why So Many Evangelical Teenagers Become Pregnant
Posted on October 29, 2008The New Yorker: Red Sex, Blue Sex: Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?, by Margaret Talbot: In early September, when Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice-President, announced that her unwed seventeen-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant, many liberals...
Californians to Vote on Parental Notification Ballot Measure on Nov. 4
Posted on October 29, 2008From Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California: Here's the truth behind Prop. 4: 1) It puts teenagers in real danger A scared pregnant teen who can't go to her parents can feel trapped and desperate. Instead of seeking the counseling and...
Cheryl Hanna on Beechman v. Leahy and "Reproducing Women's Rights"
Posted on October 28, 2008Cheryl Hanna (Vermont Law School) has posted Beechman v. Leahy and the Doctrine of Hypocrisy: A Response to Nadine Strossen's Reproducing Women's Rights: All Over Again on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this essay, Professor Hanna discusses Beecham v...
More on Oklahoma's Mandatory Ultrasound Law
Posted on October 28, 2008Slate: Required Viewing: Oklahoma's gallingly paternalistic ultrasound law, by Emily Bazelon: For many pregnant women, ultrasounds are like candy?there can't be too many of those grainy black-and-white images of the fetus napping or kicking in the womb...
Carole Joffe on Oklahoma's Mandatory Ultrasound Law
Posted on October 26, 2008The Beacon Broadside: Averting Their Eyes from an Assault on Women's Health by, Carole Joffe "Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a pregnant woman from averting her eyes from the ultrasound images required to be provided to...
Democratic Party Embraces Anti-Choice Candidates
Posted on October 26, 2008NY Times: Democrats Carrying Anti-Abortion Banner Put More Congressional Races in Play, by Raymond Hernandez: The political advertisement that aired in Montgomery, Ala., spoke plainly to conservative voters? values. As an image of three toddlers in diapers flashed across the...
Whether South Dakota Abortion Ban Passes Will Likely Depend on Undecided Voters
Posted on October 26, 2008USA Today: Voters split evenly on S.D. abortion ban, by Terry Woster (Sioux Falls Argus Leader): On the most divisive issue on our 2008 ballot, South Dakota is evenly divided. An Argus Leader Media/KELO-TV poll showed a dead heat on...
Palin Refuses to Call Abortion Clinic Bombers "Terrorists"
Posted on October 25, 2008Daily Kos: Another Wink and Nod from Sarah Palin, by Meteor Blades: Under the pre-Patriot Act definition of the law, William Ayers and many of his compatriots in the Weather Underground certainly qualify as terrorists. Unlike the abortion clinic bombers...
Depression During Pregnancy May Increase Risk of Preterm Birth
Posted on October 25, 2008CNN: Depression during pregnancy doubles risk of preterm birth, by Anne Harding: Depressed moms-to-be are more likely than nondepressed women to have a preterm birth, and the worse their mood, the greater their risk, says a new study published in...
No Entries in Contest Awarding $10,000 to an Engaged Couple for Avoiding Premarital Sex
Posted on October 24, 2008Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Don?t have sex, win a $10,000 wedding, by Helena Oliviero: There seems to be one small problem with a contest that would pay $10,000 to an engaged couple ? they can?t be engaged in premarital sex. How else...
Palin "Great Uniter" for Pro-Choice Movement
Posted on October 24, 2008Stumper (Newsweek): How Sarah Palin Has Helped Pro-Choice Activists, by Sarah Kliff: Sarah Palin is well known for rallying her base, getting social conservatives behind the Republican ticket. But there?s another constituency that she has gotten plenty excited lately: the...
A Call to End Interference with Distribution of Contraceptive Supplies in Africa
Posted on October 24, 2008Center for Health and Gender Equity: Global Health and Policy Experts Unite in Message to USAID: Rescind Decision to Deny Contracetive Supplies in Africa: More than 140 leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America - including Members...
What ?Pro-Abortion Movement?"
Posted on October 23, 2008Amanda Allen, CUNY Law School '08 and my former research assistant, recently began her tenure as the first fellow at Law Students for Reproductive Justice. She has written a wonderful post on the LSRJ blog, Repossess Reproductive Justice, responding to...
Catharine MacKinnon: "Obama Is The Way Forward For Women"
Posted on October 22, 2008Wall St. Journal Op-Ed: Obama Is the Way Forward for Women:Abortion rights and equal pay are at stake in the election, by Catharine MacKinnon: Women are at a crossroads in our struggle for legal equality as a means to social...
Billionaire Offers $25 Mil. Prize for Development of Pet Contraception
Posted on October 21, 2008Wall St. Journal: Billionaire Pledges $50 Million for Pet Contraception, by Robert Frank: Philanthropists for years have used the ?prize model? to spark societal innovations?from space (the X Prize) to the environment (Goldman Prize). The idea is to create a...
VA "Pro-Life Pharmacy" Will Sell No "Artificial Birth Control"
Posted on October 21, 2008Wash. Times: Va. pharmacy caters to pro-life customers, by Julia Duin: When Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy opens Tuesday in a Chantilly shopping center, it will have on display a picture of St. John Leonardi, the 16th-century patron saint of pharmacists....
Catholic Group Supports Obama
Posted on October 21, 2008Chicago Tribune: Catholics for Obama: No qualms about abortion issue, by Rex W. Huppke: ...Even in an election where religious issues have taken a back seat to the economy, terrorism and health care, the subject of abortion is bound to...
Helen Knowles on Kennedy's Opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart
Posted on October 20, 2008Helen J. Knowles (State University of New York - SUNY at Oswego) has posted Clerkish Control of Recent Supreme Court Opinions? A Case Study of Justice Kennedy's Opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In recent...
Conference: Child-Centered Jurisprudence and Feminist Jurisprudence
Posted on October 20, 2008The Center for Children, Law & Policy at the University of Houston Law Center is hosting a conference on Child Centered Jurisprudence and Feminist Jurisprudence: Exploring The Connections And The Tensions on Friday, November 14, 2008: This conference in November...
Notre Dame Event Addresses When "Pro-Life" Voters Have "A Sufficient 'Proportionate' Reason to Justify a Vote for a Pro-Choice Candidate"
Posted on October 19, 2008Via Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture: On Wednesday, October 8, the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture sponsored a conversation between Gerard Bradley, Notre Dame Professor of Law and member of the Catholics for McCain National Steering...
Charles P. Kindregan Jr. and Steven Snyder on ABA Model Act Governing ART
Posted on October 19, 2008Charles P. Kindregan, Jr. (Suffolk University Law School) and Steven Snyder have posted Clarifying the Law of ART: The New American Bar Association Model Act Governing Assisted Reproductive Technology on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article examines the new...
US Infant Deaths Drop but Still Exceed Rates in Most Industrialized Nations
Posted on October 19, 2008NY Times: Infant Deaths Decline in U.S., by Gardiner Harris: Infant deaths in the United States declined 2 percent in 2006, government researchers reported Wednesday, but the rate still remains well above that of most industrialized countries and is one...
Dutch Nonprofit Group Offers Free Abortion Services To Spanish Women Aboard Boat
Posted on October 17, 2008ABC News: Dutch 'Abortion Boat' Docks in Spain, by Christine Brouwer: A Dutch nonprofit organization is offering Spanish women free abortions on a boat anchored in international waters off Spain's coast. The boat, operated by the abortion-rights group Women on...
Supreme Court Case Brought by Anti-Choice Group Paved Way for Corporate- and Union-Sponsored Political Ads
Posted on October 17, 2008PaperTrail (Center for Public Integrity): ELECTION ?08: Supreme Court Ruling Looms Large in ?08 Political Ads, by Marianne Lavelle: Wonder why you?re seeing so much corporate- and union-sponsored political advertising this election cycle? You have the anti-abortion movement to thank...
CUNY LSRJ Hosts Panel on "Pro-Choice Politics"
Posted on October 16, 2008The CUNY chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Justice is hosting a panel tonight entitled, "Pro-Choice Politics: Where Are They?" Participating on the panel are Vanessa Valenti of Feministing and Sabrina Shulman of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. I will be...
More on Abortion in Last Night's Presidential Debate
Posted on October 16, 2008Beliefnet: How Obama Won the Abortion Part of the Debate: Common Ground and Sacred Sex, by Steven Waldman: ...The discussion began with McCain on the offense, painting Obama as the extremist. McCain focused on the two issues in which Obama...
Candidates Address Abortion in Final Debate
Posted on October 16, 2008Slate: Safe, Legal, and Boring: Can Obama Take the Politics out of Abortion?, by William Saletan: McCain has been trying to make the election a referendum on character: Country first, Obama pals around with terrorists, yada yada yada. How does...
Panel Discussion: New Scholarship on Reproductive Rights
Posted on October 16, 2008The Center for Reproductive Rights and Columbia Law School recently launched a Reproductive Rights Fellowship for graduates pursuing legal academic careers in reproductive health and human rights. A panel discussion will take place on Monday, October 20, 2008, at Columbia...
Joanna Erdman et al. on Medication Abortion in Canada
Posted on October 14, 2008Joanna N. Erdman, Amy Grenon, and Leigh Harrison-Wilson have published Medication Abortion In Canada: A Right-To-Health Perspective, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 98, pp. 1764-1769, 2008. Here is the abstract: The right to health under the International Covenant on...
Palin's Misleading Attacks on Obama Over Abortion
Posted on October 14, 2008Time: How Valid is Palin's Abortion Attack on Obama?, by Michael Scherer: With less than 23 days to go before Election Day, John McCain and Sarah Palin are launching a range of attacks on their Democratic opponent that revolve around...
Voters in 3 States Will Face Anti-Abortion Ballot Initiatives This Nov.
Posted on October 13, 2008NYT Editorial: Abortion Rights on the Ballot, Again: Once again this year, opponents of women?s reproductive rights have managed to get initiatives aimed at ending or limiting abortion rights on ballots ? in South Dakota, Colorado and California. These measures,...
Lawsuit Challenges Oklahoma Ultrasound Mandate
Posted on October 12, 2008U.S. News & World Report/HealthDay: New Ultrasound Mandate Law Challenged in Oklahoma Abortion Case: An Oklahoma law forbidding a woman from having an abortion until she has an ultrasound and has a physician give her a description of the fetus...
CT Supreme Court Invalidates Opposite Sex Marriage Requirement
Posted on October 10, 2008Via How Appealing: "High Court Grants Gay Marriage Rights": The Hartford Courant provides a news update that begins, "Same-sex couples won the right to marry in Connecticut in an historic ruling by the Supreme Court today. Citing the equal protection...
Bush, McCain, Palin: Anti-Abortion But Hardly Pro-Life
Posted on October 10, 2008NY Times Op-Ed Column: Can This Be Pro-Life?, by Nicholas Kristof: The Bush administration this month is quietly cutting off birth control supplies to some of the world?s poorest women in Africa. Thus the paradox of a ?pro-life? administration adopting...
Wall St. Journal Examines McCain and Obama's Approaches to the Court and the Constitution
Posted on October 10, 2008Wall St. Journal: Barack Obama: The Present Is Prologue, by Jess Bravin: ...On legal matters, including Supreme Court appointments, an Obama administration would likely be shaped by its leader's strong convictions on constitutional law. As in other areas, Sen...
Yale Law School Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Rights
Posted on October 10, 2008Today through Sunday, Yale Law School hosts a conference on "The Future of Sexual and Reproductive Rights.": Constitutional law and politics have changed greatly since the last outpouring of legal scholarship on questions of reproductive rights in the 1980s and...
Erwin Chemerinsky on How the Election Might Affect the Supreme Court on Abortion & Other Issues
Posted on October 09, 2008LA Times Op-Ed: The Candidates and the Supreme Court, by Erwin Chemerinsky: Why are the two major presidential candidates virtually ignoring the importance of this election in determining the composition of the Supreme Court and the future of constitutional law?...
European Court of Human Rights to Rule on Ireland's Abortion Laws
Posted on October 09, 2008Wall St. Journal: When Justices Prefer Not to Judge: Court May Pass on Abortion Again, by Paula Park: A European court may decide whether a woman has a basic right to abortion to preserve her health. Or, some observers fear,...
Supreme Court Declines to Review Decision Protecting Incarcerated Women's Right to Abortion
Posted on October 09, 2008RH Reality Check: Supreme Court Will Not Hear Case Limiting Abortion Rights, by Amy Roth: The Supreme Court opened its new term with some good news for women: it rejected an appeal from the state of Missouri, which had hoped...
McCain "Palling Around" With Anti-Choice Activists?
Posted on October 09, 2008Recent news stories document McCain's links to a number of different anti-choice activists. Right Wing Watch: McCain Campaign Palling Around With Schenck: Since Sarah Palin decided to go after Barack Obama for his essentially non-existent ties to William Ayers, maybe...
New York Times Looks Back at "Citizen Ruth"
Posted on October 08, 2008New York Times: Critics' Picks: 'Citizen Ruth', by A.O. Scott: A. O. Scott looks back at Alexander Payne's 1996 film with Laura Dern as a pregnant glue-sniffer who becomes a pawn in the abortion debate.
Yale Journal of Law and Feminism: Symposium on Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Posted on October 08, 2008Yale Journal of Law and Feminism: Respecting Expecting: The 30th Anniversary of the PDA: Please join the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism at a Symposium celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. We will be commemorating this...
Reva Siegel on Dignity and Abortion Regulation After Casey and Carhart
Posted on October 08, 2008Reva Siegel (Yale Law School) has posted Dignity and the Politics of Protection: Abortion Restrictions Under Casey/Carhart on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This essay on the law and politics of abortion analyzes the constitutional principles governing new challenges to...
Supreme Court Against Rejects Appeal of Jury Verdict in "Wanted" Posters Case
Posted on October 06, 2008The Supreme Court has again declined to consider an appeal by the American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA) to overturn a multi-million-dollar jury verdict against the group. In the mid-1990s, ACLA had posted "Wanted" signs that accused certain abortion providers...
Supreme Court Lets Stand 9th Circuit Ruling on Choose Life License Plate
Posted on October 06, 2008The Supreme Court will not review a Ninth Circuit decision, Arizona Life Coalition, Inc. v. Stanton, which held that the Arizona License Plate Commission violated the free speech rights of the Arizona Life Coalition when it denied the group's application...
Why Won't Democrats Talk About Abortion?
Posted on October 06, 2008SocialistWorker.org: Why won't they talk about abortion rights?, by Elizabeth Schulte: IT WAS the elephant in the room. But there was almost no mention of it at all--just the barest passing reference by Joe Biden--in last night's vice presidential debates...
Another Anti-Abortion Legal Scholar Endorses Obama
Posted on October 04, 2008Articles of Faith (Boston Globe): Another Anti-Abortion Scholar for Obama, by Michael Paulson: A second prominent anti-abortion Catholic legal scholar has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president. Nicholas P. Cafardi, a law professor and the former dean of the Duquesne...
Catholic Voters Differ on How to Apply Church's Teachings on Abortion & Other Issues
Posted on October 04, 2008NY Times: Catholic Church Is Riven by Internal Debate, by David D. Kirkpatrick: As the Roman Catholic Church observes its annual ?respect life? Sunday in this heated presidential election season, the unusually pitched competition for Catholic voters is setting off...
The Supreme Court and the Presidential Election
Posted on October 03, 2008The Seattle Times: Think About the Supreme Court When You Vote for President, by Ellen Goodman: When the court opens Monday, it will look like an oasis of calm in the capital. There are no neon-bright cases on the docket...
'Safe-Haven' Laws Intended for Newborns Being Used for Teens
Posted on October 03, 2008NY Times: Parents Give Up Youths Under Law Meant for Babies, by Erik Eckholm: The abandonments began on Sept. 1, when a mother left her 14-year-old son in a police station here. By Sept. 23, two more boys and one...
Palin and Biden Talk to Katie Couric About Roe v. Wade
Posted on October 01, 2008CBS News: Palin, Biden Trade Views On Abortion:
Dieting History May Affect Weight Gain During Pregnancy
Posted on October 01, 2008Wash. Post/HealthDay News: Dieting History Tied to Weight Gain in Pregnancy: Women with a history of dieting or other practices that restrict their eating habits may be more vulnerable to gaining too much or too little weight during pregnancy, a...
Asian-White Couples Face Distinct Pregnancy Risks
Posted on October 01, 2008LA Times: Asian-white couples have distinct pregnancy risks, by Shari Roan: The risk of having problems in pregnancy, such as gestational diabetes, preterm labor or low birth weight, differ among various ethnic groups, studies have shown. Now a study looking...
Sarah Palin Talks to Katie Couric About Abortion
Posted on September 30, 2008As she did when discussing her own daughter Bristol's decision to carry her pregnancy to term, Governor Palin often talks about abortion in a way that suggests that, although she is personally opposed to abortion, she views the decision as...
Studies Find Link Between Talcum Powder and Ovarian Cancer
Posted on September 29, 2008The American Cancer Society reports: It has been suggested that talcum powder may be carcinogenic to the covering layer of the ovaries through the migration of talcum powder particles (applied to the genital area, sanitary napkins, diaphragms, or condoms) through...
An Annotated Bibliography on LGBTQ Youth by Sarah Valentine
Posted on September 29, 2008Sarah Valentine (CUNY School of Law) has posted Queer Kids: A Comprehensive Annotated Legal Bibliography on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This annotated bibliography is published at 19 Yale Journal of Law...
Poll Suggests California Abortion Initiative Could Pass This Time
Posted on September 26, 2008San Diego Union-Tribune: Third abortion initiative given chance of passing, by John Marelius: A twice-defeated initiative requiring parental notification before an unmarried minor can get an abortion appears to have a better chance of passing this year, according to a...
Australian Supreme Court Grants Abortion for 12-Year-Old
Posted on September 26, 2008The Australian: Abortion ordered for 12-year-old girl by Queensland Supreme Court, by Michael McKenna: DOCTORS have been ordered to perform an abortion on a 12-year-old Queensland girl who is 18 weeks pregnant after a suspected rape. In a landmark decision,...
Bernard Dickens on Assisted Reproduction
Posted on September 26, 2008Bernard Dickens (University of Toronto - Faculty of Law) has posted Legal Developments in Assisted Reroduction on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Courts have been quite consistent in allowing ex-partners in marriages or similar relationships, usually men, to veto the...
Report Shows Mixed Statistics on Abortion Rates in U.S.
Posted on September 24, 2008LA Times: The 'why' behind new abortion stats, by Shari Roan: Abortion rates in the United States have declined to their lowest levels since 1974, according to a report released today. However, Latina and black women obtain abortions at rates...
Hillary Clinton and Cecile Richards on Proposed HHS Regs
Posted on September 20, 2008NY Times Op-Ed: Blocking Care for Women, by Hillary Rodham Clinton & Cecile Richards: LAST month, the Bush administration launched the latest salvo in its eight-year campaign to undermine women?s rights and women?s health by placing ideology ahead of science:...
NAPW Law Student Writing Competition
Posted on September 20, 2008Via National Advocates for Pregnant Women: NAPW Law Student Writing Competition 2008-2009 Academic School Year. $1,000 first prize Issues of concern to pregnant and birthing women have often been missing from discussion in law school courses and among reproductive rights...
"Travis judge tells woman to stop having kids"
Posted on September 19, 2008Via the Sentencing Law and Policy Blog: The title of this post is the title of this alternative sentencing story out of Texas. Here are some of the basic details: A judge in Travis County has ordered a woman to...
Call for Papers: Second Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference
Posted on September 18, 2008University of Baltimore School of Law?s Second Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference is seeking submissions on Applied Feminism: How Feminist Legal Theory is Changing the Law: This call for papers seeks submissions for the University of Baltimore School of Law?s...
Catholic Voters Struggle With Abortion Issue
Posted on September 17, 2008NY Times: Abortion Issue Again Dividing Catholic Votes, by David Kirkpatrick: ...A struggle within the church over how Catholic voters should think about abortion is once again flaring up just as political partisans prepare an all-out battle for the votes...
Carter Dillard on Antecedent Law
Posted on September 17, 2008Carter Dillard (Westerfield Fellow, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law) has posted Antecedent Law: The Law of People Making on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In our conception of law we have largely presumed the process by which the...
Naomi Cahn on the Regulation of Reproductive Technology and Incest
Posted on September 17, 2008Naomi Cahn (George Washington University Law School) has posted Accidental Incest: Drawing the Line - Or the Curtain? - For Reproductive Technology on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article calls for setting limits on the number of offspring born...
New Ads Target Obama on Abortion
Posted on September 16, 2008NY Times: Interest Groups Step Up Efforts in a Tight Race, by Jim Rutenberg & Michael Luo: WASHINGTON ? After largely staying on the sidelines, the types of independent groups that so affected the 2004 presidential campaign are flooding back...
Call for Submissions: Rutgers Women's Rights Law Reporter
Posted on September 16, 2008Rutgers School of Law - Newark: Women's Rights Law Reporter: Call for Papers on Gender Law and Family Law : The Women's Rights Law Reporter is a quarterly journal of legal scholarship and feminist criticism published by students at the...
Cass Sunstein on the Election and the Fate of Roe v. Wade
Posted on September 15, 2008Boston Globe op-ed: The fate of Roe v. Wade and choice, by Cass Sunstein: THE RIGHT to reproductive freedom has played an occasional role in many presidential campaigns, but its fate is likely to turn on the 2008 election. Republican...
GOP Confusion and Dissent Over Stem Cell Research
Posted on September 15, 2008Boston Globe: GOP wants to close stem cell lab doors, by Jonathan D. Moreno and Rick Weiss: STEM CELL research was one issue that many observers thought would fly under the radar in this year's presidential election. Both candidates have...
Browne C. Lewis on Afterdeath Children
Posted on September 14, 2008Browne C. Lewis (Cleveland State University - Cleveland-Marshall College of Law) has posted Dead Men Reproducing: Responding to the Existence of Afterdeath Children on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Medical advances currently available permit dead men to reproduce...
Abortion Provider's Receipt of Order of Canada Medal Continues to Ignite Controversy
Posted on September 13, 2008Bloomberg: Montreal Archbishop Returns Medal After Abortion Doctor Honored, by Doug Alexander: Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Montreal, is returning his Order of Canada medal because the award was also bestowed on abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler this...
McCain Faces Tough Questions on Abortion on "The View"
Posted on September 13, 2008Reuters: McCain faces tough questions on abortion on U.S. TV, by Jason Szep: Republican presidential candidate John McCain courted female voters on Friday with appearances on TV shows popular with women, but prompted boos from a studio audience while stressing...
McCain Ad Supports Stem Cell Research But Palin Opposes It
Posted on September 13, 2008The Trail (Wash. Post): McCain Radio Spot Trumpets Stem Cell Policy Palin Opposed, by Robert Barnes: Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign today released a radio ad that four times trumpeted his support for stem cell research but never mentioned...
ACS Releases Issue Brief on Sex Stereotypes in Abstinence-Only Education Programs
Posted on September 12, 2008The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy has released Lesson One: Your Gender is Your Destiny ? The Constitutionality of Teaching Sex Stereotypes in Abstinence-Only Programs, by Bonnie Scott Jones and Michelle Movahed. Here is the summary: In this...
Presidential Race Addresses Stem Cell Research
Posted on September 10, 2008NY Times: Back and Forth on Stem-Cell Research Energizes Race, by Larry Rohter: First abortion, now embryonic stem-cell research. An issue that energizes social conservatives has once again been thrust into the presidential campaign, after Senator Joseph R...
Sarah Palin's 9 Most Disturbing Beliefs
Posted on September 09, 2008Via Alternet: Let's forget for a moment that Sarah Palin likes to kill moose, has lots of children and was once voted the second-prettiest lady in Alaska; that's all part of the gusher of sensationalist, but not particularly substantive, news...
Other Teen Mothers Lack Support Bristol Palin Has
Posted on September 09, 2008Minneapolis Star-Tribune: The Other Young Mothers, by Gail Rosenblum: Dominique Hines has been following media coverage of 17-year-old Bristol Palin's pregnancy with great interest. Dominique, 16, is the single mother of a 3-month-old son, Da'Marion. She's also a high school...
Women's Health Advocates Reflect on Gardasil
Posted on September 08, 2008RH Reality Check: There's More To HPV Prevention than Gardasil, by Emily Alexander: In the two years since Gardasil became the first HPV vaccine to obtain FDA approval, reproductive and sexual health advocates have faced steady challenges in determining how...
Sarah Weddington Writing Prize -- Call for Submissions
Posted on September 05, 2008Via Law Students for Reproductive Justice: LSRJ is accepting submissions for its 4th annual Writing Prize. The theme this year is ?Seeking Reproductive Justice in All Places for All People.? Law Students for Reproductive Justice is looking for fresh student...
Jon Stewart Skewers Newt Gingrich Over Palin's Hypocrisy on Abortion
Posted on September 05, 2008On September 3, Jon Stewart interviewed Newt Gingrich on the The Daily Show. He asked Gingrich whether it wasn't hypocritical for Sarah Palin to emphasize that her daughter, Bristol, had made her own decision to carry the pregnancy to term....
Teen Mothers Find Life Opportunities Limited
Posted on September 04, 2008In the wake of Sarah Palin's revelation that her teenage daughter is pregnant and plans to marry and have the baby, June Carbone (UMKC Law School) and Naomi Cahn (GWU Law School) deliver this important message about the consequences of...
Palin Gets Mixed Reception Among Women
Posted on September 04, 2008Women's E-News: Palin Mixes It Up for Women at GOP Convention, by Allison Stevens & Alison Bowen: ST. PAUL, Minn. (WOMENSENEWS)--Women in various places in and around the Republican National Convention here expressed wildly divergent reactions to vice presidential nominee...
Republicans Face Abortion Issue at RNC
Posted on September 02, 2008MarketWatch (WSJ): Palin's Daughter's Pregnancy Puts Abortion in Spotlight: Family-values voters have a lot to digest as the Republican national convention gets under way. Sen. John McCain?s newly chosen running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said Monday that her 17-year-old...
Brian Lehrer on Gov. Palin's Opposition to Comprehensive Sex Ed
Posted on September 02, 2008Sarah Palin has publicly stated her opposition to comprehensive sex ed, supporting instead the abstinence-only approach, which studies have proven ineffective. On the Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC) today, Lehrer (broadcasting from the Republican Convention) raised the issue of Palin's approach...
N.Y. Times Magazine Examines Cancer Treatment During Pregnancy
Posted on September 02, 2008N.Y. Times: With Child, With Cancer, by Pamela Paul: ...The question of how to handle cancer during pregnancy has long troubled the medical profession. In 1880, Samuel Gross, a pioneering American surgeon and the subject of the celebrated Thomas Eakins...
Mexican Supreme Court Upholds Legal Abortion in Mexico City
Posted on September 02, 2008L.A. Times: Mexican Supreme Court upholds legalized abortion law, by Ken Ellingwood: In a lopsided ruling, Mexico's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a year-old law in Mexico City legalizing abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The court rejected...
Sarah Palin Announces Her 17-Year-Old Daughter Is Pregnant
Posted on September 01, 2008L.A. Times: Sarah Palin announces 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, by Maeve Reston & Noam Levey: As the Republican National Convention prepared to open, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice as his vice presidential running mate, announced that her 17-year-old...
McCain Picks Anti-Choice AK Gov. Sarah Palin
Posted on August 29, 2008Bloomberg.com: Palin Pick Could Be `Home Run' or `Bust' for McCain in Campaign, by Heidi Przybyla: John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is designed to attract disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton and soothe social...
Federal District Court Upholds Mass. Clinic Buffer Zone Law
Posted on August 28, 2008JURIST: District court upholds Massachusetts law mandating abortion protester 'buffer zone', by Joe Shaulis: District Judge Joseph Tauro [official profile] held [PDF text] Friday that a Massachusetts statute [text] establishing a 35-foot buffer zone outside facilities which perform abortions [JURIST...
Mexico's Supreme Court Likely to Uphold Legalized Abortion in Mexico City
Posted on August 28, 2008NY Times: Mexico Court Is Set to Uphold Legalized Abortion in Capital, by Elisabeth Malkin: MEXICO CITY ? A majority of Supreme Court justices have said Mexico City?s law legalizing abortion does not violate the Constitution, making it likely that...
Sen. Casey Says Obama Can Unify Democrats on Abortion
Posted on August 28, 2008New York Times: Casey, an Abortion Opponent, Praises Obama, by John M. Broder: Sixteen years after his father was denied a speaking part at a Democratic convention because his anti-abortion views led him to oppose Bill Clinton?s candidacy, Senator Bob...
Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards Addresses Democratic National Convention
Posted on August 28, 2008Austin American-Statesman: Twenty years after her mother's star turn, Cecile Richards speaks to Democrats, by W. Gardner Selby: DENVER ? Twenty years after her mother wowed the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Cecile Richards took a lighter star turn Tuesday...
Mexico City Struggles to Make Newly Legalized Abortions Available
Posted on August 25, 2008NY Times: Mexico City Struggles With Law on Abortion, by Elisabeth Malkin & Nacha Cattan: When Mexico City?s government made abortion legal last year, it also set out to make it available to any woman who asked for one. That...
Call for Book Reviews: Women and the Law
Posted on August 25, 2008Pace Law Review: Proposals Due September 25, 2008 The editors of Pace Law Review invite proposals from scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals for contributions to a special book review issue to be published in Winter 2008. We seek proposals for...
Obama Wrote 1990 Harvard Law Review Case Comment on Fetal-Maternal Tort Actions
Posted on August 22, 2008Via Politico: [A]n unsigned ? and previously unattributed ? 1990 article unearthed by Politico offers a glimpse at Obama's views on abortion policy and the law during his student days.... The six-page summary, tucked into the third volume of the...
Bush Admin. Proposes Onerous Funding Restrictions That Would Protect Religious Refusals by Health Care Providers
Posted on August 22, 2008Wash. Post: Protections Set for Antiabortion Health Workers, by Rob Stein: The Bush administration yesterday announced plans to implement a controversial regulation designed to protect doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who object to abortion from being forced to deliver...
Questions Raised About HPV Vaccine Gardasil
Posted on August 21, 2008A number of news stories this week have raised questions about Gardasil, Merck's HPV vaccine, including its cost, effectiveness, and the marketing campaign promoting the vaccine. Brian Lehrer examined the issue on the Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC) this morning; you...
More on Candidates' Abortion Views
Posted on August 20, 2008Wash. Post: Candidates' Abortion Views Not So Simple, by Jonathan Weisman: The narrative of the presidential campaign appeared to be set on the issue of abortion: Sen. Barack Obama was the abortion-rights candidate who was reaching out to foes, seeking...
Anti-Abortion Group Challenges FEC Regs
Posted on August 20, 2008Via PaperTrail (The Center for Public Integrity): A new anti-abortion group has its sights set beyond just running ads and launching viral Internet attacks on Barack Obama. The group wants to overturn the federal election law that could rein in...
Calif. Supreme Court Rules Doctors Cannot Deny Fertility Treatments Due to Patient's Sexual Orientation
Posted on August 19, 2008Via Law.com: Three months after approving same-sex marriage, the California Supreme Court gave gay rights another boost Monday by unanimously ruling that doctors can't invoke religion to refuse treating homosexual patients (pdf).... Monday's case began in 2001 when Oceanside, Calif...
Proposed South Dakota Abortion Ban Invokes Discredited "Post-Abortion Syndrome" Claim
Posted on August 18, 2008The discredited claim that abortion causes mental trauma (see previous post) is one of the arguments being used to bolster a ballot initiative that will go before South Dakota voters this fall. The proposed measure would ban all abortions except...
Study Shows Abortion Does Not Increase Risk of Mental Health Problems
Posted on August 18, 2008Yet again, the allegation that abortions cause women mental trauma has been discredited. But that's not going to stop anti-choice advocates from pressing the claim, nor from trying to make women feel so guilty about abortion that the mental trauma...
Obama and McCain Discuss Abortion and Supreme Court Justices at Religious Forum
Posted on August 17, 2008USA Today: Religion, ethics experts comment on forum, by Cathy Lynn Grossman: Sen. Barack Obama, frequently leaning on Bible passages, and Sen. John McCain, sharply delineating his opposition to abortion, sought to burnish their Christian credentials with voters Saturday night...
More on the Democratic Abortion Plank
Posted on August 15, 2008NY Times, Domestic Disturbances: Walking the Abortion Plank, by Judith Warner: ?Are Democrats Now Pro-Life?? asked ABC News this week, in an online story that pretty much summed up the buzz surrounding the party?s new official platform. This year?s language...
Argentina: Recent Abortion Confidentiality Decisions
Posted on August 14, 2008Via Martín Hevia (Escuela de Derecho, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella) and Mercedes Cavallo (LLM Candidate and Sexual and Reproductive Health Law Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, 2008-2009): On June 4, 2008, the Argentine Criminal Division VI of the...
Call for Papers - Assisted Reproductive Technology
Posted on August 14, 2008William Mitchell Law Review, Vol. 35, Issue II (Winter 2008-2009): The William Mitchell Law Review is proud to dedicate a portion of its second issue to Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Law in its upcoming Volume 35 (Winter 2008-2009). We...
Gloucester, Mass., Principal Who Discussed "Pregnancy Pact" Resigns
Posted on August 13, 2008NY Times: Principal Who Discussed Pregnancy Pact Resigns, by Katie Zezima: The principal of the public high school in Gloucester, Mass., resigned Tuesday, two months after telling a reporter that a group of girls at the school made a pact...
National Zoo's Panda Won't Give Birth
Posted on August 13, 2008NBC News: Zoo's Giant Panda Will Not Give Birth: The Smithsonian National Zoo's female giant panda Mei Xiang will not give birth to a cub this year, zoo officials announced Wednesday.Zoo officials said they believe Mei Xiang lost a developing...
Anti-Abortion Democrats Respond to Democratic Reproductive Rights Plank
Posted on August 13, 2008...but the political blogs differ on whether they love it or hate it. The Opinionator (NYT): Abortion Rewrites, by Chris Suellentrop: Pro-life liberals and the Democratic platform: Steven Waldman, the editor-in-chief of Beliefnet, is disappointed by the abortion plank in...
Democratic Platform's Language on Reproductive Rights
Posted on August 11, 2008Political Radar (ABC News): Dems Adopt Platform in Pittsburgh: ABC News' Teddy Davis reports: A Democratic panel adopted the party's platform "Renewing America's Promise" during a Saturday meeting in Pittsburgh. The statement of party principles will now be presented to...
Researchers Block Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Damage
Posted on August 11, 2008ScienceDaily: Damage To Fetal Brain Blocked Following Maternal Alcohol Consumption: In a study on fetal alcohol syndrome, researchers were able to prevent the damage that alcohol causes to cells in a key area of the fetal brain by blocking acid...
AZ Sheriff Violated Inmate's Right to Abortion
Posted on August 08, 2008Arizona Republic: Abortion pits ACLU vs. Arpaio, by Michael Kiefer: The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday asked that Sheriff Joe Arpaio be held in contempt of court for violating a 2005 ruling regarding county jail inmates' rights to be...
Bush Administration Appears to Back off of Controversial HHS Regs
Posted on August 08, 2008Reuters: HHS chief denies new rule to attack contraception, by Maggie Fox: A widely circulated draft U.S. regulation that would define many forms of contraception as abortion will not be proposed in that form, if at all, Health and Human...
The Right-Wing Attack on Contraception
Posted on August 05, 2008Science Progress: Contraception Is the New Abortion: The Latest Right Wing Trend? Attack Birth Control, by Jessica Arons (7/28): The Bush administration has taken its latest swipe at contraception, but again under the pretense of opposing abortion. By manipulating scientific...
US H.I.V Rate Widely Underreported
Posted on August 04, 2008The New York Times: H.I.V. Study Finds Rate 40% Higher than Estimated, by Lawrence K. Altman: MEXICO CITY ? The United States has significantly underreported the number of new H.I.V infections occurring nationally each year, with a study released here...
New Study Shows Most Maternal Deaths in US are Not Preventable
Posted on August 02, 2008American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Maternal Death in the 21st Century: Causes, Prevention and Relationship to Caesarean Delivery by, Clark et al Volume 199, Issue 1, Pages 36.e1-36.e5 (July 2008) Conclusion: Most maternal deaths are not preventable...
More on Proposed Bush Admin. Reg Defining Birth Control Pill as Abortion
Posted on July 31, 2008Wall St. Journal: Treating the Pill as Abortion, Draft Regulation Stirs Debate, by Stephanie Simon: Set aside the fraught question of when human life begins. The new debate: When does pregnancy begin? The Bush Administration has ignited a furor with....
Pre-Pregnancy Diabetes Linked to Higher Risk of Birth Defects
Posted on July 30, 2008US News & World Report/HealthDay News: Pre-Pregnancy Diabetes Boosts Risk for Birth Defects: Women who develop diabetes before they become pregnant are three to four times more likely than non-diabetic women to have a baby with at least one birth...
NY Times Magazine Photo Essay Examines the Young Women of Yearning for Zion Ranch, The Texas Polygamous Religious Sect
Posted on July 30, 2008NY Times: Children of God, by Sarah Corbett: On a humid Wednesday in late June, as she waited to be summoned by a grand jury, 16-year-old Teresa Jeffs hitched up her navy blue prairie dress and hoisted herself into the...
Iranian Woman Sentenced to Death for Forced Prostitution
Posted on July 29, 2008Via Equality Now: Women's Action 29.2: Iran: Kobra Najjar Faces Imminent Execution by Stoning for Prostitution Equality Now is urgently concerned about Kobra Najjar, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery who lost her final appeal for...
Ruthann Robson Reviews Nancy Polikoff's New Book on Marriage
Posted on July 29, 2008Wellesley Center for Women: Families of Affinity, by Ruthann Robson (CUNY Law School) (reviewing Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under The Law, by Nancy Polikoff): The same-sex marriage debate is actually two debates. The more well-known version...
Fourth Circuit Accepts En Banc Review of Virginia "Partial-Birth Abortion" Ban
Posted on July 28, 2008Via How Appealing: "Federal appeals court to review Va. abortion ban": The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a news update that begins, "The full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will rehear a challenge to Virginia's ban on a late-term abortion procedure....
Abortion and the 2008 Presidential Election
Posted on July 28, 2008Patchwork Nation blog (Christian Science Monitor): On Abortion Issue, Obama may have an edge, by Dante Chinni: Abortion, long a divisive issue in American politics, has not played a large role in the 2008 presidential campaign up to now. Neither...
Pregnancy Motivates Many Women to Quit Smoking
Posted on July 28, 2008USA Today: Pregnancy can motivate smokers to kick habit, by Liz Szabo: Ashley Adams had no trouble quitting smoking during her pregnancy. Morning sickness and dry heaves made her too nauseated to crave cigarettes. And seeing pictures of low-birth-weight babies...
Scott Gerber on Chief Justice John Roberts
Posted on July 27, 2008Wall St. Journal: Roberts Can Do Better Than Consensus, by Scott Gerber (Ohio Northern Univ. College of Law): Now that John Roberts has completed his third term as chief justice, it's appropriate to take stock of how he's doing. Most...
More on the 40th Anniversary of the Catholic Church's Contraception Ban
Posted on July 27, 2008Chicago Tribune: Contraception ban remains bitter pill, by Robert McClory (Northwestern University; former Catholic priest): Forty years ago last week, Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae, condemning the birth control pill and all other forms of artificial contraception...
Ethical Concerns Raised by 70-Year-Old Woman's Birthing of Twins Via IVF
Posted on July 25, 2008MSNBC: New IVF dilemmas make old fears seem quaint, by Arthur Caplan: Omkari Panwar has given new meaning to the idea that 70 is the new 60. Or perhaps 70 is the new 30? Earlier this month, the 70-year-old mother...
Anti-Choice Student Group Sues Wayne State Univ. Over Free Speech Rights
Posted on July 25, 2008Detroit Free Press: Anti-abortion group sues WSU: An anti-abortion student group at Wayne State University has sued WSU and its student government, claiming the group was denied free speech rights when it tried to organize an event. According to the....
Former Mass. Doctor Pleads Not Guilty in Abortion Fatality Case
Posted on July 25, 2008Boston Globe: Ex-doctor enters plea in abortion fatality: BARNSTABLE - A former Cape Cod doctor indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter after a woman he performed an abortion on died has pleaded not guilty. Rapin Osathanondh was arraigned yesterday in...
Catholic Groups Urge Pope to Lift Ban on Contraception
Posted on July 25, 2008Reuters UK: Catholic groups ask pope to end contraception ban, by Philip Pullella: ROME (Reuters) - More than 50 dissident Catholic groups published an unusually frank open letter to Pope Benedict on Friday saying the Church's ban on contraception had...
Understanding Female Sexuality: Sue Katz Reviews Gina Ogden's "Return of Desire"
Posted on July 24, 2008AlterNet: "Return of Desire": Fighting Myths About Female Sexuality, by Sue Katz: The Return of Desire is the second of three books that Dr. Gina Ogden -- sex therapist, author and (disclosure) my admired colleague -- bases on her large...
Swedish Study Shows Improvement in Seniors' Sex Lives
Posted on July 24, 2008NY Times: More Sex for Today?s Seniors, by Tara Parker-Pope: The sex lives of senior citizens have improved markedly in the past three decades, according to a new study. The data, published in The British Medical Journal, have been collected...
Bush Administration's Proposed Regs Threaten Access to Birth Control
Posted on July 24, 2008US News & World Report: A Government Threat to Birth Control, by Deborah Kotz: A new set of health laws that could be proposed by the government sometim