Abortion
Sexual Health
Abortion Foes Seek to Redefine Personhood

photo via Flickr If anti-abortion activists thought that redefining the laws of gravity would help their cause, they wouldn’t let a little scientific evidence get in their way. And the latest campaign is almost as far-fetched: A group called Personhood USA is trying to redefine when life begins. It starts “exactly at creation,” according to […]

Pop Culture
Pat Robertson Vs. Evil Lesbians

Have you had your daily allowance of crazy today? If not, here’s a little something to meet your needs — and then some. It’s a clip of Pat Robertson on The 700 Club explaining why liberals are so intent on killing babies: apparently, it’s all part of a vast evil lesbian conspiracy. The clip was […]

News
Repro Rights Rally in NYC Saturday

On February 18, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to bar Planned Parenthood health centers from all federal funding for birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other lifesaving care! Just check out this funny but horrifying Daily Show summary. Here’s what you can do about it. First, you can sign PP’s open letter […]

News
What the Mid-Term Results Mean for Reproductive Rights

photo by Andrew Morrell Okay, so there were some bright spots in the mid-term election results from Tuesday. Like the resounding defeat of both an anti-choice ballot initiative in Colorado and an ex-witch who doesn’t understand the First Amendment (or the myriad pleasures of masturbation). But the rather bleak news is that the House of […]

News
Sex and Gender in the Australia Federal Election

photo by Rob Inh00d We heard from a reader in Australia this week who wanted to alert us to all the sex- and gender-related craziness that is going on in the federal election Down Under. Because we, ahem, don’t have a reporting staff based over there, we thought we’d just share Courtney’s letter with you. […]

News
The New Abortion Providers

Dr. Emily Godfrey is our new hero: she had the courage to be featured on the front page of the NYTimes Sunday Magazine last weekend as a doctor willing to provide abortions, not in an abortion clinic but at her practice where she sees all sorts of patients. In case you missed it last weekend, […]

Dear Em & Lo
And You Thought Your Ex Was the Biggest Sh*t on the Planet

Okay, we admit there isn’t exactly a lot to debate in this week’s edition of Your Call. Clearly this woman should leave her boyfriend, a.k.a. the Biggest Asshole Who Ever Lived. But we wanted to publish this letter anyway because (a) This poor woman needs a public record of all you telling her that she’s […]

Research
New Study Says Fetuses Don't Feel Pain Before 24 Weeks

photo by chadcrowell A report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which was commissioned by the UK’s Department of Health, has found that fetuses don’t feel pain before 24 weeks (and probably not after for some time) for two reasons: 1) the brain is not formed enough to perceive pain, and 2) the […]

News
Who's Going to Tell South Dakota It's 2010?

photo by daveynin We were going to write about Robert Pattinson’s joke misfire in which he told Details magazine that he’s “allergic to vagina” (we read his “explanation” and we still don’t get it). But then our friends at Planned Parenthood sent us a link to this awesome Washington Post profile of PP’s Dr. Carol Ball, who travels 200 […]

Pop Culture
Pro-Choice Responses to the Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad

To kick off your Superbowl weekend, check out these 3 bits that you won’t (but should!) see during the game this Sunday — all are in response to the anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-gay Christian group Focus on the Family’s 2.5-million-dollar spot (that we mentioned the other day) featuring football star Tim Tebow and his mom talking […]

Pop Culture
The Superbowl Ad You WON'T See This Weekend

We used to look forward to Superbowl Sunday for the ads (that, and the excuse to over-indulge in junk food). But it looks like CBS is determined to ruin the one sports-related joy in our lives. First of all they went and accepted an anti-choice ad from conservative Christian group Focus on the Family — apparently CBS […]

Confessions
Comment of the Week: Pro-Choice Means Giving Him a Choice, Too

photo by internets_dairy I’ve always known that I’m in a minority on this issue, but I’m going to voice it anyway. I absolutely believe that if a mother doesn’t want the child and the father does, that she should carry the child to term and he raises the child. Is that “imposing” on the woman’s […]

Your Call
Your Call: Do We Need Male Reproductive Rights?

the seahorse is the only male animal that gets knocked up Dear Em & Lo, The way I see it, there is simply no such concept as male reproductive rights. If your girl gets pregnant and wants to keep the baby, congratulations, you’re a dad! Pay up, sucker. If you want to keep it but […]

Personal Essays
Confession: I’m Gonna Keep My (Hypothetical) Baby

Our contributor Abby Spector, who is double-majoring in English and Feminine/Gender/Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University, has a confession to make: “If you got pregnant, you’d have an abortion — right?” Max asked during our customary post-coital cuddle a few months back. My mind began to spin. For the seventeen years I had been a virgin, […]

Sexual Health
Dr. George Tiller in Doc "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

Salon.com has an extended scene from the forthcoming documentary “What’s the Matter With Kansas?“, based on Thomas Frank’s bestselling book of the same title about the Right Wing’s rise in the once-liberal state. It features Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita-based abortion provider who was gunned down last Sunday while attending church. The clip touches on […]

News
Naked News (06-02-09)

photo by samie.shake News you can use: Research shows that history majors have the most active sex lives. Jerry Springer is secretly a pretty cool guy: he cries at chick flicks, he gets embarrassed on a daily basis, and his least favorite aspect of his appearance? “My mirror.” Our favorite Twitter of the week, courtesy […]