Proposed reforms in Spain's abortion laws recommended by a government-appointed commission of doctors, lawyers, academics and government representatives have the Catholic Church up in arms.
Two court cases were decided today by the Ohio Supreme Court, one limiting off-label use of RU 486 and the other protecting confidentiality by denying access by parents of one girl who received an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic to the records of other girls receiving services.
Alexander Sanger, Chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council
and grandson of Margaret Sanger, founder of the birth control movement more
than eighty years ago, discusses the murder of Dr. George
Tiller and criticizes Right Wing talk shows, such as the O’Reilly Factor, for
providing a justification for Tiller’s murder. He writes that: those defending or excusing the murder of Dr. Tiller
adduce a perverse variation on the civil obedience argument of Gandhi and King
and Thoreau---murder for a higher principle. They press that principle further
to say that it was necessary to kill the doctor in order to save lives---the
lives of unborn children he might have aborted. This is to adapt the
Hiroshima/Nagasaki Greater Good justification (we dropped the bombs to end the
war to save American and Japanese lives, as many as a million and more) to the
abortion issue...
If there was a large network of organizations that sought to support
women during unplanned pregnancies and offer unbiased,
fact-based options information, I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, such organizations don't exist.
Regardless of age or
province of residence, all Spanish women will have access to emergency
contraception pill without a prescription. It will be in pharmacies by
August.
The heroic efforts of Dr. Tiller were scary—even to vehemently pro-choice people—precisely because he made it possible for women to take control over their lives.
So much for agreeing on the denunciation of violence against health care workers. A Republican Senator has put a hold on a Senate resolution condemning such violence because it mentions those scary words: "reproductive health."
On Saturday, June 6th, anti-choice extremists across the country
gathered around doctors’ offices, health centers, pharmacies and public
spaces to protest something that most American women have used or will
use at some point in their life, and a majority of Americans strongly
support: birth control.
