Recently in Reproductive Rights Category

Last night, a Google spokeswoman confirmed that Google AdWords, the advertising network that allows advertisers to create ads that appear next to relevant search results, updated its policy in September of 2008. Among other policy changes, AdWords now prohibits ads for abortion services of any kind in over a dozen countries, including Brazil, France, Mexico, Poland, and Taiwan. Never thought I'd be taking sides in the war of the search engines, but Bing.com is looking real good right about now.

Google's rationale behind disallowing ads in these particular countries, whose abortion laws range from conservative (Argentina, Brazil ) to more liberal by comparison (France, Italy), is shrouded in mystery: the spokeswoman deftly avoided answering my question about how the countries were chosen.

Regardless of the reason, I'm pretty disturbed by Google's ability to withhold information about reproductive health services in these countries without justification or accountability. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that women living in the countries in question should be granted the same access to reproductive health services as women in other parts of the world. If you agree, call or email Google today and let them know they have some 'splaining to do. For sample text of an email you can send, visit the Action Alert on the International Women's Health Coalition's blog Akimbo.

And in case you're still as incredulous as I was when I first heard about this, please read the unedited email exchange I had with a Google representative yesterday regarding the official policy after the jump.

A new level of batshit crazy has come out of Oklahoma, and not surprisingly authored by homobigoted Rep. Sally Kern (R).

The state representative has taken it upon herself to create an "Oklahoma Citizen's Proclamation for Morality," which essentially blames the nation's sinners (you know, like the gays and divorcees) on the economic recession. Here's a snippet of the document, which can be read in its entirety here:

WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and

WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery; and

WHEREAS, alarmed that the Government of the United States of America is forsaking the rich Christian heritage upon which this nation was built; and

WHEREAS, grieved that the Office of the president of these United States has refused to uphold the long held tradition of past presidents in giving recognition to our National Day of Prayer; and

WHEREAS, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior;

This makes me shudder to think that this woman has any clout in this state (or on earth, for that matter). Check out some video news coverage after the jump.

Today the FDA approved the first generic version of Plan B; it will be available to women ages 17 and under with a prescription. (Emergency contraception will also soon be available without a prescription for 17 years-olds.)

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Conservatives say FDA politicized Plan B decision
Plan B-acklash
Over-the-counter Plan B: The First Month
Stores collecting information on Plan B users
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Not over-the-counter, not even behind it...

Check out this piece on Salon by Frances Kissling about whether it's ever okay to limit a woman's access to abortion. (This is in no way an endorsement of Kissling's stance - just fodder for conversation.)

Check out RH Reality Check's new video on the Feminist Majority Foundation's campaign to expose crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which include accounts of students who have been duped into thinking they're at a family planning clinic only to find themselves being told that abortion may cause breast cancer and "boys don't need to know how to put on condoms."

Our Reality: A Look at Crisis Pregnancy Centers from RH Reality Check on Vimeo.

Via Broadsheet.

Sam Brownback holds up a 7-year-old's drawing of an embyro to argue against stem-cell research.

This is pretty big news that has stayed under the radar: Uber-conservative Sam Brownback is looking more and more likely to be the next governor of Kansas -- which means really bad things for reproductive rights in that state. Dana Goldstein breaks it down:

If elected, Brownback will have an enthusiastic, Republican state legislature to work with on rolling back reproductive rights. It's worth remembering that Sebelius' HHS secretary nomination was almost derailed by that body, which forced her to deal with a series of divisive abortion-related bills during her Senate confirmation hearings. Brownback would certainly unleash those forces, moving forward on legislation that would require doctors performing late-term abortions to submit, in writing, exactly what medical risks "justify" the procedure. In April, in one of her last acts as governor, Sebelius vetoed that bill, which also would have allowed the husbands and parents of patients to sue abortion providers if they suspected the pregnant woman's health wasn't really at risk. The bill was intended to intimidate Dr. Tiller and his brethren out of business, and would stymie the work of Dr. Leroy Carhart, the physician who has promised to begin offering late-term abortions in Kansas in Tiller's stead.

While there's still time for Democrats to field a strong candidate and rally behind him/her, Brownback has name-recognition on his side after years of serving as a U.S. senator. (Interim Gov. Mark Parkinson, who filled Sebelius's shoes after she was confirmed as HHS secretary, has announced he won't run in 2010.)

As a reminder... Brownback equates reproductive rights with slavery, says rape and incest survivors shouldn't have access to abortion, has opposed contraception access for low-income women, supported the global gag rule, and has backed a whole host of abortion restrictions. So yeah, he'd be bad news for the women of Kansas.

Anti-choice blogger fabricated pregnancy, dying baby

Until recently "April's Mom" was known as a highly-trafficked pro-life blogger who wrote about her struggle being pregnant with a terminally ill fetus.

After readers emailed their support, sent gifts (and anti-choice advertisers lined up), "April's Mom" blogged that she had given birth to a baby who had lived just a few hours - she even posted a picture of April. But as it turns out - the whole thing was a lie:

None of it was true.

Not the pregnancy, and not the photos posted on the blog of the supposed mother and Baby April Rose, swaddled in white blankets. The baby was actually a lifelike doll, which immediately raised the suspicion of loyal blog-followers.

"I have that exact doll in my house," said Elizabeth Russell, a dollmaker from Buffalo who had been following the blog. "As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was a scam."

"April's Mom" is really Beccah Beushausen, a 26 year-old social worker.

"I know what I did was wrong," Beushausen told the Chicago Tribune. "I've been getting hate mail. I'm sorry because people were so emotionally involved."

Well, you know, that tends to happen when you make up a dying baby. Though as angry as this makes me, I'm with Sadie at Jezebel on this: "It's tempting of course to use this as a chance to take an easy bash at anti-choice, and revel in anything that makes them look foolish, but frankly, I'm just sad for this woman." As am I.

For more on how conservatives are reacting (oh so classily) to this story, check out Jesse at Pandagon.

Sociological Images has a post up pointing out something I have actually never noticed: how women are almost always depicted as voiceless or faceless in editorial cartoons about abortion. This isn't solely the province of anti-choice cartoons, either. Some examples:

What these (and most) editorial cartoons are doing is channeling and distilling the political debate. It's telling how, even in the pro-choice cartoon in the center above, the woman is just a stand in for "women's rights" -- a broad issue, not an individual woman making a choice. This is reflective of how we talk about "contentious" abortion issue -- and it's pretty striking to see all these cartoons lined up. (More here.)

And if you aren't already reading Sociological Images on the regular, I highly recommend it.

While the closing of Dr. Tiller's clinic and the infuriating possibility that anti-choice extremist group Operation Rescue may try to buy the space has made us realize things actually could get worse, Dr. LeRoy Carhart brings us some hope.

Via Feministe, we find that Carhart has stepped in to take Dr. Tiller's place in providing late term abortions in Kansas, although potential plans to open an actual clinic are unknown:

A Nebraska doctor said Wednesday that he will perform third-term abortions in Kansas after the slaying of abortion provider George Tiller, but would not say whether he will open a new facility or offer the procedure at an existing practice.

Dr. LeRoy Carhart declined to discuss his plans in detail during a telephone interview with The Associated Press, but insisted "there will be a place in Kansas for the later second- and the medically indicated third-trimester patients very soon."

"I just think that until everything is in place, it's something that doesn't need to be talked about" in detail, Carhart said a day after Tiller's family announced his Wichita clinic was permanently shutting its doors.

Tiller's clinic was one of the only facilities in the country that performed third-trimester abortions. Carhart has run his own clinic in Bellevue, Neb., since 1985, but had performed late-term abortions at Tiller's clinic because of Nebraska's more restrictive abortion laws.

Carhart is indeed of the Gonzales v. Carhart Supreme Court case, which upheld the 2007 Federal Abortion Ban. (Carhart argued that the ban didn't provide an exception for the woman's health.) He was also a longtime friend of George Tiller.

Check out Ann's piece from a couple of years ago when she met Carhart at his Nebraska clinic, which he had struggled to keep open himself amidst anti-choice forces. But whether or not he opens a clinic in Kansas or practices at an already-existing clinic, we all can rest easier knowing this brave doctor is stepping in to protect women's health and lives.

Please, say it isn't so.

On the heels of the closing of Dr. Tiller's clinic comes the horrific news that anti-choice extremist group Operation Rescue may try to buy the space.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman said that his group has discussed the idea of buying the tan, windowless clinic in east Wichita. He made the comment after the Tiller family announced that the clinic would be closed permanently.

"I would love to make an offer on that abortion clinic, and that's some of the discussion that we're having," Newman said in a telephone interview Tuesday from his group's headquarters in Wichita.

These people seriously have no shame.

Related posts: Tiller's Clinic Will Be Shut Down.
Thank you Dr. Tiller
What Are Civil Rights Leaders Saying About the Murder of Dr. Tiller?
Upcoming vigils for Dr. Tiller

Thanks to Cyril for the link.