Earlier this month the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on the constituitonality of the state of Ohio's 2004 mifepristone ban in a case that could present a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. Legal standards are increasingly replacing medicinal standards as the guide for what constitutes acceptable medical care, and conservative justices either don’t understand that or they don’t care.
The Obama Administration is right to require insurance companies to cover contraception for public employees. The bishops are wrong to seek to use the government to limit the decision-making power of American women. And they are surely wrong to call what they are trying to do freedom.
The Obama administration has powerful new statistics in its corner: the National Center for Health Statistics released a report on Wednesday finding that both pregnancy and abortion rates have dropped for women in their 20s since 1990. An author of the study attributes both these trends to effective use of birth control methods.
In mid-July, world leaders will gather in London to discuss a real and urgent need: increased funding for family planning. The summit documents link the dearth of contraceptives and health services to poverty. This vision is not so much wrong as it is incomplete.
Board members faced with “legal advice” from the AG’s office that is clearly informed more by political objectives than legal principles should decline to follow it and take whatever action is necessary to see that the regulations that they believe are in the best interests of Virginians are published and implemented.
Today I participated in an extraordinary side-event on “Rio+20 and Women’s lives: A Cross-General Dialogue” at the Ford Foundation Pavilion. This event was very intimate, it drew you in, with women’s personal stories for Rio+20 and beyond.
