In the third quarter, only Virginia's state legislature mandated HPV vaccination for students, while other state legislatures specifically banned a mandate. Other state legislatures expanded eligibility for Medicaid family planning services, and some expanded funding for "crisis pregnancy centers."
Barack Obama wants to reduce unintended pregnancies and provide comprehensive sex-ed to young people - and he doesn't think running a dog-fighting ring is equivalent to accessing abortion!
If abortion is criminalized, what should the punishment be for women who have one? Anna Quindlen examines abortion opponents' refusal to confront the logical endpoint of criminalization.
A crisis pregnancy center in St. Paul, Minn. announces plans to purchase a building next to a Planned Parenthood. Manipulation or calculated anti-choice strategy?
Not since the appointment of Dr. W. David Hager to the FDA's reproductive health drugs advisory committee have Americans been so abuzz about an anti-family planning zealot appointed by the Bush administration to a federal body responsible for providing family planning information and services. Just over two months into his tenure as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services (where he administers $283 million annual budget of federal family planning grants), we are still uncovering evidence of "Doctor" Eric Keroack's staggering lack of credentials. The latest exhibit is "OXYTOCIN: Is thisNANO-PEPTIDE a chemical type of HUMAN ‘SUPER-GLUE'?" (emphasis most definitely NOT mine),the PowerPoint presentation that sealed his infamy in the eyes of self-respecting scientists, physicians, and non-crazy people everywhere.
Last week New Jersey became the fourth state to pull itself out of the federal scheme to distribute abstinence-only-until-marriage money. New Jersey, like Maine and California before it, decided that in addition to never having been proven effective as a broad strategy, the federal abstinence-only-until-marriage programs ran contrary to its own state's laws regarding sexuality education. If the state chose to accept the nearly $1 million of federal funds it was entitled to, it would not only have had to follow strict federal rules, it would also have had come up with a match of three state-raised dollars to every federal dollar. New Jersey's decision was therefore not just principled, but fiscally responsible as well.
