Insight: "I'm playing God this weekend" sounds much better than "I'm spending my weekend at the lab growing microbes that smell like poo.

I miss watching The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Case in point (4 min clip). Full episode

Obama signed an executive order Friday lifting the moratorium on funding international aid to organizations which ( Read more... )

Link to the 42 pages of proposed rules: PDF File

Email comments to: consciencecomment@hhs.govHHS has requested commenters specifically reference "Provider Conscience Regulation". I recommend using it as a subject line and in the first sentence is submitting via email. Alternative comment submission guidelines available in the pdf on pages 1-3 ( Read more... )

Librarians fighting the good fight for freedom of reading material!

Dept. Health & Human Services is moving to redefine "abortion" to include hormonal contraceptives. NARAL Pro-Choice America has an online petition/letter doodad which I will sign when I find better English than "doodad" to describe a vital political tool ( Read more... )

ABC reports a federal judge has struck the Oklahoma ban on adoptions by same-sex couples.

Graduates at the New School for Social Research in NYC protested John McCain's speech at their commencement ceremony Friday. McCain was mainly stumping on behalf of the Republicans at the invitation of his personal friend, the College's president. Student ( Read more... )

Washington Post published an article today entitled Forever Pregnant - Guidelines: Treat Nearly All Women as Pre-PregnantWhy this raises my feminist hackles: Women already get asked every time we go to a doctor whether we are pregnant, have some chance of being pregnant, or plan to get pregnant soon. Usually there is also a question about use of ( Read more... )

The NY Times Magazine has an extensive article (13 solid pages if you print it) on the culture wars over contraception and abortion, entitled Contra-Contraception. The author (Russell Shorto) goes into detail about the history (mostly the last 50 years but also attitudes prior to that time) and rationale both sides of the debate of the debate. He ( Read more... )

The Collegian, my university's student newspaper ran an editorial this week about the Target pharmacists' refusal to dispense emergency contraception. The editorial came out in favor of women's rights, which relieved me, but they hadn't done research about previous cases where emergency contraception and birth control were denied to patients. ( Read more... )

Thursday, several (38) representatives to the U.S. House introduced the "Plan B for Plan B Act" (H.R. 4229 loc link to text; it's short). This bill proposes to give the FDA another 30 days to make Plan B available over the counter, then make it available anyway if no decision is reached. It's currently in committee. Still in the hope that it gets ( Read more... )

I know some bloggers have addressed some of the issues I am about to write about to death, but I want to put my thoughts here so I can find them later, when said blog posts have vanished into the void (aka "archives").

Installment 1: Women's reproductive rights

The case that gets the most attention is Roe v. Wade. This case was, as we all know, ( Read more... )

Susan Wood, director of the FDA's Office of Women's Health, resigned Wednesday due to the announced delay in a decision on whether Plan B emergency contraception will be approved for over-the-counter use. Senators, who approved the current head of the FDA on the condition that a decision be prepared, are understandably outraged.

"I can no longer ( Read more... )