I remember where I was when the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services came down. It was 1989, the day before July Fourth, and I was in charge of the opinion pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I was also pregnant with my third child. The editorial board then was made up…
Expectant mothers long have faced the choice of finding out the gender of their child while still in the womb. But what if parents could get a list of all the genes and chromosomes of their unborn children, forecasting everything from possible autism and future genetic diseases to intelligence level and eye color? The technology…
Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman has been making the rounds for the Republican Jewish Committee, joining former Bush White House spokesman Ari Flesicher and RJC director Matt Brooks in shuttling through swing states speaking to Jewish voters. The trio has visited Ohio, Florida, Nevada and, well, Florida once again, speaking mainly on issues relating to…
After an entire first Presidential debate that ignored women’s issues, and a second debate that ignored them until the very last minute, election-watchers concerned about the future of our uteri were getting quite antsy. No mention up to that point of LGBT issues, reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work, childcare, or even education. And…
Sandra Fluke — she of the Limbaugh slut-shaming and the Jewish boyfriend — gave a strong speech about contraception and women’s health at the DNC last night. Bumped up to primetime, the young activist got the crowd excited and did an admirable job hitting the Republican candidates hard over their party’s series of legislative attempts…
My Dearest Daughter: At some point over the last 18 years, I, like many other moms out there, started to worry about the sort of world I brought you into. This is your first week of college, and it’s also your first time away from home for an extended period of time. Your world is…
If you had an abortion, who would you tell? Your family? Your friends? The entire world? Steph Herold has worked in direct service abortion care and reproductive health advocacy for seven years. She founded the blog Abortion Gang as a space for young people in the reproductive justice movement, and runs a tumblr that doubles…
If you’re discouraged by the nasty, vapid tone of this year’s presidential politics, you might want to take a fresh look at our states and counties, where hand-to-hand battles are being fought over a critical issue of real substance: Who (or what) is a person? Most of us think we know the answer intuitively. A…
