Now that the national attention on Bristol Palin's pregnancy is fading (for the time being) it seems the only discussion it inspired was about John McCain's vetting process and, by extension, his decision-making abilities. But there is another far more important subject raised by the 17-year-old's pregnancy. For decades, teen...

As Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt has shown himself to be a devoted bureaucrat and a man of moral conviction. Unfortunately he insists on combining the two, tailoring the nation's business to his faith. That was about the only thing made clear by yesterday's...

One of the most amazing things about the stir caused by the recently leaked HHS proposal is how little, make that no, effort has been made to investigate whether the claim by the anti-abortion establishment about the mode of action of hormonal birth control is even true. In the...

Some of the most chilling threats are whispered. This is the case in a recent blog post by Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In soothing tones, Leavitt explains on his personal blog that a recently leaked HHS proposal was not what he intended....

In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the...

William Saletan, the Slate columnist who's made a career of claiming to be pro-choice while justifying attacks on reproductive rights, has had yet another epiphany: We should all support the rights of pharmacists to refuse to fill our doctor's prescriptions for birth control. According to Saletan, who defends pharmacy refusals...

Most Americans believe that the right to plan when to become pregnant was the most important step toward women's liberation. A Gallup poll revealed that more people cite birth control as having the "highest impact" on women than "opportunity for higher education," "access to jobs," political representation," or even the...

Obama has a huge opportunity to win over an unlikely voting bloc: pro-life voters. The debate over reproductive rights has for decades existed in the abstract; it's been a back and forth volley over "values" that's heavy on emotion and light on fact. But the facts reveal surprising truths and...

Like lawn ornaments in summer, protesters outside the local abortion clinic are fixtures in many places in the United States today.

Their presence and message have long been so predictable that, without looking or listening, people believe they understand the point. And so you might not notice that the...

As the Bush presidency nears its end, the Christian Right is bellying up to the trough for a final feeding. They are hoping, with Bush's help, to get one more shot at their arch nemesis: the Planned Family. Thus the Unplanned Family Research Council has been spearheading a campaign...

On this 'National Day to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy,' I thought it would be a fun exercise to compare the sexual activity of teenagers and their pregnancy rates in the most pro-choice states with those of the most pro-life states. I used NARAL's rankings to determine which...

With detractors like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rick Santorum, Tom Delay and James Dobson, most thinking people might conclude that John McCain comes highly recommended. But just because John McCain is an enemy of some of our most cartoonish villians does not make him...

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. For most Americans, the protracted battle appears never-ending, and for that matter, never-changing. The abortion debate has become political white noise, something you hear and tune out simultaneously. But while we've been half listening,...

The Spears family, it's safe to say, is shocked by very little these days, not with Britney in every tabloid. Still the recent news seemed to shock them. Their 16 year-old daughter, Jamie Lynn, the daughter on whom the family now seemed to pin their hopes, is pregnant. And while...

If you listen to the apocalyptic rhetoric of the religious right you'll find an important theme emerge: The introduction of contraception, which permits people to have sex for fun, is bound up with all of society's ills, from the imagined breakdown of the family to an undocumented surge in crimes...

98 percent of American women have done it.

37 million Americans are currently doing it.

Most of the GOP candidates oppose it.

What is it?

If you said "sex," you were close. The answer is "use contraception." In recent weeks, the GOP candidates have been asked a lot about their...

Any casual watcher of last night's Republican debate may have come away thinking that women don't have much at stake in this election. After all, of the questions CNN chose, less than a third were even from women. (Sadly even in cutting edge political forums, like The Daily Show, that's...

Mitt Romney's "very close" relative died of an illegal abortion (which is why he used to say he wouldn't force his pro-life beliefs on you).

In the 1960s, Mitt Romney lost a "dear" and "close" relative to an illegal abortion. She was the sister of his brother-in-law, Loren "Larry"...

It's been a week since The Lancet published the comprehensive Guttmacher Institute study which found that bans on abortion fail to reduce abortion rates. The researchers of the study also discovered that countries where abortion is legal (and the emphasis is on prevention rather than prosecution) experience the most...

Looks like Verizon may have (finally!) woken up to the First Amendment, a small victory for reproductive rights. Though it took embarrassment on the front page of The New York Times to get it done, a frightening idea since political speech seems to be under attack -- subtly and not-so-subtly...