Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

William Saletan, The Judas Goat of pro-choice critique

William Saletan, the self-styled "liberal Republican," who hails these days from the elitist community of Chevy Chase, Maryland and who's the chief national correspondent and 'Human Nature' columnist at Slate.com is in the news again. This week, his topic is Plan B. But before we get into that, let's review his other great contributions to journalism.

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Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

We have news from South Dakota.

South Dakotans Launch Major Grassroots Effort to Repeal Over-reaching State Abortion Ban

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 24, 2006

SIOUX FALLS, SD -- Today the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, a new coalition of community leaders from across the state, announced the launch of a major grassroots mobilization to refer the state abortion ban to the November ballot. The referral will allow South Dakotans to vote to overturn the nation's most extreme abortion law which was signed by Governor Mike Rounds on March 6. With Governor Round's signature, this law clearly endangers the health of women in South Dakota and violates the right of women and families to make private, personal health care decisions.

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Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

Our award this week for worst medical legislator in a lab coat© goes to wild-eyed Mike Foley of Nebraska. Mike is a danger to women.

Foley: "Pro-life" beliefs are driving efforts

After two days of tiptoeing around the issue, Sen. Mike Foley acknowledged Thursday that his "pro-life" beliefs and his disgust with Planned Parenthood are driving his efforts to redistribute funding for women’s health services.

“I am "pro-life" to the core, with no apologies,� said Foley, who said he is working to make sure Planned Parenthood doesn’t get state funding.

“They are to abortion what McDonald is to cheeseburgers,� the Lincoln senator said. “They do more than anyone else.

“And that’s what this is about.�

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This post contains an appeal for action at the end. Please read all of this post.

Four years ago, an unconscious 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by three teenage boys who penetrated her with objects that included a pool cue, a Snapple bottle, a juice can, and a lit cigarette while videotaping the entire event. The three were arrested in July 2002 after a girlfriend of one of the boys' acquaintances found the videotape at a house where he had been showing it to friends.

In what came to be known as the Haidl rape case (so named after one of the defendants), what came next was one of the most aggressive blame-the-victim defense tactics this country has seen in 30 years.

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Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

Here's a story from Mississippi concerning reproductive rights from the BBC.

Abortion battle lines drawn in Mississippi

The Jackson Women's Health Organization is an anonymous enough building in the heart of strip mall America. Anonymous save for the permanent protest outside.

Arriving here is an intimidating, even shocking, experience. Anti-abortion campaigners hold up enormous and gruesome pictures of aborted fetuses. They stop every car going into the car park and try to persuade those inside to wind down their windows and take their literature.

The women going into this clinic for an abortion are screamed at. One protester, a man, yells "Don't go to those demons, don't let them take your money, don't let them kill your baby". When I ask him why he is being so aggressive, he tells me it's because America needs to know the truth: "Abortion is murder," he says.

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On January 1, 2000, Texas began enforcement of a law that requires physicians to notify a parent of a minor child seeking an abortion at least 48 hours before the procedure.

Today, March 9th, The New England Journal of Medicine is publishing a statistical study entitled Changes in Abortions and Births and the Texas Parental Notification Law by Theodore Joyce, Ph.D., Robert Kaestner, Ph.D., and Silvie Colman, B.B.A. The study concerns itself with analyzing abortion statistical changes due to Texas' recently passed parental notification law.

:::UPDATE::: I've tacked on additional material at the bottom of this post.

Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

This week's news has been dominated by stories about the South Dakota abortion bill, an amended version of which passed the South Dakota House by a vote of 50-18 on Friday, Feb 24th. The bill (HB 1215) would ban all abortions in the state except to save a pregnant woman's life and it's been sent the bill to Gov. Mike Rounds (R), who has indicated support for the measure. Also in the news are related stories of other states mirroring South Dakota's efforts.

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Police: Woman shot self to induce an abortion

SUFFOLK -- A Suffolk woman who lost her unborn baby after suffering a bullet wound to the abdomen was arrested yesterday and charged with shooting herself to "illegally induce an abortion."

Tammy W. Skinner, 22, originally called police Thursday at 4:11 a.m. on her cell phone from the parking lot of an auto dealership on North Main Street. She reported someone had shot her, said Lt. Debbie George, a Suffolk police spokeswoman.

Skinner was rushed by ambulance to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where doctors listed her in good condition but her fetus was pronounced dead. Doctors had planned to induce labor for Skinner, who police said was seven to nine month's pregnant, that day.

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Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

Great interview of Cristina Page by Rachel Fudge at Alternet about her new book, How The Pro-choice Movement Saved America.

Did the Pro-Choice Movement Save America?

Cristina Page boldly declares that the pro-choice movement is "doing a better job at what the public understands to be the pro-life agenda than the pro-lifers are": that is, not only dramatically reducing the number of abortions in the United States, but also putting forth (and achieving) a truly pro-family, pro-child vision of life in America.

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Economic sabotage, whisper campaigns, and threats: How the Democrats took Paul Hackett out.

Swift boats soon appeared on the horizon. A whisper campaign started: Hackett committed war crimes in Iraq—and there were photos. “The first rumor that I heard was probably a month and a half ago,� Dave Lane, chair of the Clermont County Democratic Party, told me the day after Hackett pulled out of the race. “I heard it more than once that someone was distributing photos of Paul in Iraq with Iraqi war casualties with captions or suggestions that Paul had committed some sort of atrocities. Who did it? I have no idea. It sounds like a Republican M.O. to me, but I have no proof of that. But if it was someone on my side of the fence, I have a real problem with that. I have a hard time believing that a Democrat would do that to another Democrat.�

In late November, Hackett got a call from Sen. Harry Reid. “I hear there’s a photo of you mistreating bodies in Iraq. Is it true?� demanded the Senate minority leader. “No sir,� replied Hackett. To drive home his point, Hackett traveled to Washington to show Reid’s staff the photo in question. Hackett declined to send me the photo, but he insists that it shows another Marine—not Hackett—unloading a sealed body bag from a truck. “There was nothing disrespectful or unprofessional,� he insists. “That was a photo of a Marine doing his job. If you don’t like what they’re doing, don’t send Marines into war.�

A staffer in Reid’s office confirmed that Hackett had showed them several photos. “The ones I saw were part of a diary he kept while serving in Iraq and were in no way compromising. The one picture in question depicted Marines doing their work on what looked like a scorching day in Iraq,� said the aide.

But the whispering continued, and Hackett was troubled. “It creates doubt and suspicion,� Hackett told me, saying his close supporters were asking him privately about the rumors. “It tarnishes my very strength as a candidate, my military service. It’s like you take a handful of seeds, throw them up in the wind, and they blow all around and start growing. It really bothered me.�

Inquiring minds wish to know.