Across the United States, religious health-care corporations are absorbing once secular and independent hospitals and in the process imposing religious restrictions that sometimes pit standard medical practice against theology.
At Wednesday's debate Republican candidate Gabriel Gomez gave some indication of how he would vote on reproductive health policy, a topic that he has been reluctant to discuss in detail on the campaign trail.
Choice does not necessarily have to be in a name. But it needs to be at the core of our values, because respect for women's capacity to decide really does matter.
By preventing unintended pregnancies, contraception provides significant health, social, and economic benefits for women. But correct and consistent contraceptive use is critical.
In May, the same group of experts urged the government of El Salvador to act swiftly to provide a safe abortion for Beatriz, the 22-year-old woman whose pregnancy was finally terminated via hysterotomy abortion earlier this week.
Planned Parenthood representatives say issues cited earlier this year by the state health department have been addressed, while a state agency is arranging a hearing to investigate allegations against a physician who until recently performed abortions at the clinics.
The Catholic Church and the international anti-choice movement are desperate to deny that Beatriz did, in fact, have an abortion. And much of the media is taking the bait.
