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This week, the Virginia House passed a particularly ugly bit of legislation that would require women seeking a first-trimester abortion in the state to undergo a vaginal ultrasound for no medical reason. Many women are upset because by most definitions, forcing a woman to have something put inside her vagina against her will and for no reason is, uh, rape. But Republicans state legislators don't see what the fuss is about. After all, those sluts already consented to be penetrated— when they got pregnant. Are you fucking kidding me? More »
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There's no better way for lawmakers to impress constituents nowadays than to pass draconian abortion restrictions, and no states are trying harder to enforce pregnancy than Kansas and Oklahoma. But which terrible, totalitarian abortion law is worse? Let's find out. More »
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A judge has ruled that it's perfectly legal for the state of Texas to require women seeking abortions to first look at a sonogram, listen to the fetal heartbeat, and listen to a doctor's speil about possible dire consequences that could befall them for choosing to terminate their pregnancies. Don't Mess with Fetus! More »
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A new research report has uncovered some great news for people who love making sure women have tons of abortions: make it illegal. And, while you're at it, if you go ahead and limit women's access to contraception, they'll end up pregnant and desperate enough to resort to unsafe measures more often, resulting in more unsafe procedures and more death. It'll be a Santorumtopia! Personhood paradise! Culture of life! More »
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Fox News is commemorating this Martin Luther King, Jr day by inviting his niece, Dr. Alveda King, to come and speak about his legacy. He was a conservative, she explained, who hated abortion. Except that isn't even close to true, not even the tiniest bit. Leave it to Fox News to wrap a crap sandwich in a lie and call it history. More »
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Richard Retta is one of those shouty dickwads who stands outside of abortion clinics and tries to convince women not to go in. About a year ago, he tried to physically block a woman from entering a clinic in the DC area, which is a legal no-no. And today, a judge has denied his request that charges against him be dropped. More »
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The campaign in South Carolina is heating up, says everyone. That's apparently code for "the candidates are gathered in the roughly same geographic area, and they're emitting high pitched shrieks at each other." Yesterday, they were shrieking about Bain Capital. Today, they're still hollering about Bain, but they're also yelling about fetuses— specifically, which Republican Presidential hopeful deserves the title of Fetus's #1 fan. Let the anti-abortion rights pissing contest begin. More »
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The story of a Texas teenager who's suing her family to stop them pressuring her into an abortion is all over the anti-abortion media. But their coverage of it shows how poorly they understand what it means to be pro-choice. More »
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Let's get down to brass tacks: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Personhood Pledge-signing, Griswold vs. Connecticut-opposing, Mr. Ban Abortion in All Circumstances With No Exception for the Life of the Mother, believes that the actions of his own wife should be treated as criminal. Why? Because, back in 1996, his wife had a procedure that resulted in the deliberate death of her fetus, even though it was a matter of saving her own life. More »
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A coalition called the Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women is advocating for a brighter 2012 for women's rights by flying a variety of pro-choice banners on San Francisco's Market Street. Above, one flies within view of SF's City Hall. Click through for more! More »
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In a year of unprecedented What-The-Everloving-Fuckery, arguably little played a more important role in the events of 2011 than the goings-on inside your own personal uterus. Let's take a nostalgic, squishy walk through your babycave and reflect on all the fascinating adventures it's had this year. More »
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Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that have abhorrant parental consent laws that require pregnant teens to get permission from their parents to have abortions. If they don't want to ask their parents, they have the option to petition a judge. Several months back, one pregnant teen was denied her request to have an abortion because the judge reasoned that if she wasn't mature enough to ask permission from her parents, she sure wasn't mature enough to have an abortion. The minor appealed the decision, but by the time that decision was overturned by the state's Supreme Court, several months had gone by. It's like Catch-22 meets The Handmaid's Tale, but in real life! More »
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Hey, girls, wanna know what's going to be hot in 2012? With funding being slashed for Planned Parenthood left and right and a group of nutjobs who think zygotes and corporations are people running for President, next year it's going to be super hard to afford a fancy storebought abortion. What to do? Do it yourself, like these trendsetting New York City ladies! More »
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While we know that 9 out of 10 abortions in the US occur very early in a pregnancy. But we didn't know much about the sort of woman who has an abortion after she's moved into her second trimester. Until now. More »
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Starting Denver Broncos quarterback and real life Forrest Gump Tim Tebow has made no secret of his ultraconservative views, once appearing with his mom in an anti-abortion ad that aired during the Super Bowl. Now, an internet-based group of pro-choice advocates is turning his moderate gridiron success into a fundraising effort by donating $10 to abortion providers for every touchdown Tebow scores. This makes me want to Tebow right here, right now. More »
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Last Christmas Eve, a 32 year old Idaho woman took RU-486 in an attempt to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. This January, police found the fetal remains on her property and charged her with inducing her own abortion, a crime in the state. The case was dismissed due to lack of evidence, but not before everyone in town ostracized the woman for her acts. Now, some state officials want the authority to charge the woman again, and they're prepared to use the case as a means to issue another challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. And we just won Depressing Abortion Story Bingo. More »
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Today in terrible ideas: Pro life legislators in Virginia think it would be a dandy idea to declare that life begins at the moment of conception and that fertilized eggs are people and hop aboard the Personhood Express. This is the worst train since the one Mary Steenburgen traveled through time on in Back to the Future III. More »
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Less than a month off of their monumental failure in Mississippi, people who want the legal definition of "person" to be changed to include zygotes have decided that their next great battleground is The Badger State. This is a stupid idea that will never work. More »
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San Francisco's city government recently enacted a rule designed to combat so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" that are actually pro-life organizations in disguise. Under the new ordinance, the centers will be fined $500 each time they provide false or misleading information to patients. But some pro-life activists say that they're guaranteed the right to lie to their patients— by the constitution, consarn it. More »
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This year, rather than fix the economy or create jobs, American lawmakers have opted to focus their attention instead on working their evangelical butts off to make sure that there are as many obstacles between a woman and reproductive control as possible, using esoteric imaginary justification to introduce legislation that would be disastrous if enacted. The impact of restrictive abortion laws is not a mystery; dozens of countries around the world already severely restrict women's access to reproductive health services, and, to put it lightly, life for women in those countries is hardly a picnic. In fact, from what we can glean, an America without legal abortions would be pretty terrible for everyone. More »
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Tomorrow, Mississippi voters will weigh in on Initiative 26, otherwise known as the Personhood Amendment, otherwise known as the Most Ill Thought Out Piece Of Terrible Legislation Of All Time, 2011 Entrant. Colorado, Ohio, and Florida are also trying their hands at a game of Uterine Roulette with severely abortion-restricting legislation of their own. While it may seem like the current assault on women's health and reproductive services is unprecedented, a new profile of Planned Parenthood reveals that women's health and access to birth control has always been used as a political punching bag. More »
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Not to be overshadowed once again by its taller, skinnier sister Mississippi or its more popular cousin Ohio, Tennessee is reminding the rest of America that it, too, can suck with the best of them. State lawmakers have successfully introduced a provision to the 2014 ballot that would amend the state's constitution to allow legislators to restrict or outlaw abortion. I guess when they say "The Volunteer State," they don't mean the type of volunteer who escorts patients to Planned Parenthood; they mean the type of volunteer who helpfully offers to vote for other people's rights to be taken away. More »
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It's great to live in America, a place where our two-party system allows you to align yourself politically with someone who sort of agrees with you a lot of the time, and then voting them into office where they'll hopefully make decisions and laws that reflect what you believe is best for the country. If you live in Mississippi, you have a choice in the upcoming governor's race — you can vote for someone who thinks that zygotes are fully human and deserve the same rights as full grown women, or you can vote for someone else who believes the same thing. More »
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Mitt Romney, the GOP candidate with whom your grandmother would most like to waltz, has caught flack in the past for his conveniently flippity floppity views on abortion. Like many of his Republican brethren, he says now that he opposes abortion in all cases except rape, incest, or to preserve the health of the mother. But did you know that he once physically blocked a woman who needed a life-saving abortion and told her not to go through with the procedure? And did you know that Eliza Dushku's mom is involved? More »
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The majority of women in America who seek abortions are already moms. Some of them are too poor to afford another child, but others potentially could — they simply choose not to. Is this choice such a bad thing? More »
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Last week's Congressional passage of the Let Women Die ("Protect Life") Act capped off a year characterized by a dismayingly high number of abortion restricting bills, and there's no end to the fuckery in sight. Since Roe v. Wade has withstood decades of legal challenges, the next wave of abortion restricting laws won't try to take on Roe v. Wade directly; rather, they'll attempt to gradually ebb away at a woman's right to bodily autonomy by eliminating funding, legally redefining "life," and harassing and intimidating doctors interested in providing abortion services. This is going to be the best fall ever. More »
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Operation Rescue, the radical anti-abortion terrorism group responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller, has not-so-subtley found a new target. This time around, they're focused on an anonymous female doctor who travels in a mask to underserved areas to perform abortions to women in need. They've released her name, sketches of her face, and information on how to find her mom. Nobody's more classy than those anti-choice terrorists. More »
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Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman was invited to speak at St. Francis University — until the college was criticized by the Cardinal Newman Society for having a pro-choice speaker on campus. Then the provost wrote her, "After careful consideration, the university feels that the body of your work has reflected statements that are not in close enough alignment with some Catholic teachings and with the values and mission of the university as required for an event of this stature." More »
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I was sure all the men in suits in the lobby knew what I was doing. I hadn't expected it to be in an office building, or to have to choose from a list of what felt like a million names to find it. One of those men in suits followed me into the elevator. Still, I took a deep breath and pushed the button that would take me to the floor where I would have an abortion. Or so I thought. More »
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After I said my piece, there was a silence — possibly a panicked, "who let her in" silence — and then everyone spoke at once. Sarah Jessica Parker finally threw up her hands and said nervously, "I'm really not shirking it." Then she asked the PR person to step in. That's when everyone started telling me to just have babies. More »
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Indiana wins! Go Indiana! Oh wait, that's a chart of the different kinds of abortion restrictions existing in a state — from targeted restrictions on abortion providers (also known as TRAP laws) to parental consent laws to waiting periods. You can play around with the tools over at Remapping Debate, depending on which ones you think are more damaging. More »
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The coalition of extremists pushing a bill that would ban abortion at the detection of the first heartbeat has announced that Rick Perry is on their team. He personally informed a group of 250 activists that he would support the bill, which is in intentional violation of Roe v. Wade's viability standard. More »
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Ladies and gentlemen, the current GOP candidate moderate position on abortion is respecting the existence and authority of the Supreme Court, stacking it with anti-abortion justices instead of just using Congress to pass a constitutional amendment. (Which is somehow "respecting the constitution.") More »
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One of Rick Perry's legislative victories as governor of Texas was a law that fined doctors unless they offered to show sonograms to women seeking abortions, described fetal development in detail, and offered up audio of a heartbeat. Now a judge says that's unconstitutional. More »
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I have never fundamentally disagreed with anyone I like more than Sarina Duvall. More »
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A survey of 1,800 practicing ob-gyns found that while 97 percent of them have encountered a woman seeking an abortion, only 14 percent are willing or able to provide them. More »
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Will this alleged "reboot" of Dirty Dancing include the iconic line, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner?" All we know is that were it to be made in German, the line would translate to, "My baby belongs to me. Is this clear?" More »
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San Francisco is stepping up its actions against anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy centers" whose advertisements mislead the public. The national anti-choice response is officially, "The other side does it too." Not quite. More »
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A judge is allowing former Ohio congressman Steve Driehaus to sue the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List for defamation, because as he sensibly pointed out, they were lying about whether abortion is "taxpayer-funded" under the Affordable Care Act. More »
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A recent study of 510 women in New Zealand showed that giving women free IUDs after abortions drastically reduced their chances of a repeat abortion within two years, compared to the women in the study who chose to go on the pill. More »
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