This Just In...

Congratulations to Ellen Moran from EMILY'S List for having just been named White House Director of Communications.

President-elect Barack Obama made the announcement today.

Ellen is currently Executive Director of EMILY's List, a fantastic organization that backs women who support abortion rights in their quest for political office.

Moran has served in the political department of the AFL-CIO and in 2004 directed independent expenditures for the Democratic National Committee, managing placement of presidential advertising and directed television, radio, mail, and phoning efforts in 20 states. In 2000, Moran directed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s $50 million issue advocacy campaign.

This is another example of Barack Obama bringing in very experienced, talented people to help manage the affairs of the White House.

We congratulate Ellen Moran and wish her the best.

Wall Street Journal on Choice

Stephanie Simon has an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today on the future of the anti-choice movement. File this under good and bad news -- she reports that many anti-choicers are moving more towards a platform of reconciliation, choosing to focus more on pregnancy prevention than on criminalizing abortion.

The bad news? She reports that:

"With state courts continually resetting the rules, gay marriage feels more fresh and urgent to voters than abortion, which has settled into a status quo that polls show a large number of Americans can accept."

Sigh. So while I'm all for people finally approaching reproductive rights from a sensible standpoint that puts the health of women first, the implication that it has to be at the expense of someone else's rights makes me sad.

Monday Morning News Dump

Good morning! Here are a few key repro-rights related news stories from this weekend:

- California budget cuts are threatening the state’s family planning funding
- All hail Obama! Washington Post reports that our President-Elect is planning on rolling back as many regulations in place for “overtly political reasons” as possible, including ones related to stem-cell research and reproductive health!
- But, as the Houston Chronicle reminds us, that won’t stop the Bush administration from trying to sneak through as many last-minute changes as possible.
- And, in the news of the horrific department, the AP reports on a Tusla abortion clinic, the main such facility in the state, fighting a state law that would have required women seeking an abortion to not only get an ultrasound beforehand but to listen to the doctors describe to her what the fetus looks like.

Seriously, go vote.

Separation of Church and State Just Flew Out the Stained Glass Window

Via Politico:

The Catholic bishop Kansas City, Robert Finn, urged Catholics not to vote for Barack Obama in a radio interview today -- warning they put their souls at risk by supporting Obama's "fanatical" stance on abortion rights.

"You make yourself a participant in the act of abortion and you mustn''t do it because your eternal salvation is tied up with that important choice," Bishop Finn
said.

Monday in the World of Blogging

While this election has a number of interesting ballot measures on the table, one that we’ve rarely discussed on this blog is Proposition K in San Francisco, legalizing sex work. Broadsheet over at Salon has a nice roundup of the issues involved.

Broadsheet also goes into the pregnancy pact at Gloucester High School, and how one young (and un-pregnant girl) was acting as a PR rep for all the rest.

Feministing takes a look at the New York Times article on gender disparity in Health Care coverage.

And on the Feministing community site, a 14-year-old feminist in Maryland posted pictures of what may be the best Halloween costume yet: Choice Avenger.

Feministe has a new reproductive rights correspondent! Everybody welcome her.

BlogHer has a great post about why you should vote against the parental notification Prop 4 in California. Not that you needed more reasons not to, but in case you have any confused California friends.

Over at Jezebel, Megan has a summary of how Kristi Burton, the 21-year-old anti-choice and repro rights activist behind the Amendment 48 in Colorado that would allot personhood to fertilized eggs, isn’t exactly being backed by a lot of anti-choice leaders.

NY Mag’s Daily Intelligencer has a short piece up about the local NY State Senate elections (which you all should be paying attention to!) and whether or not pro-choice politician Malcolm Smith has a good chance of winning the Majority Leader seat.

And file under information I considered keeping to myself: Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn reports that Babeland is offering voters a free sex toy for voting tomorrow.

Hump Day Headlines!

It’s Wednesday, otherwise known as hump day! Here is your appropriately-reproductive-health-themed news roundup:

• According to Newsweek, more than $1million has been donated to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin’s name. Who knew an anti-choice candidate could do so much good for women’s health?

• A clinic in Iowa is holding a birth control party! Called “Smart and Sexy,” it’s apparently just like the traditional Tupperware parties of the ‘50s, only this time they’ll be talking about how best to prevent pregnancy instead of how best to store leftovers.

• File under gulp: Syphilis is on the rise in Knox County, TN! So in case you were planning any late-October romantic jaunts to the deep south, you know, be careful. As a bonus, public health officials are helpfully warning that either paying for or trading something for sex may put you at a higher risk.

• According to a new survey by the Office for National Statistics, UK women aged 16 to 49 prefer the pill to condoms when it comes to contraception. Insert requisite joke about the Brits’ oral fixation here..

• Laura McGann over at the Washington Independent has a nice roundup of Sarah Palin’s coded anti-choice views.

• A federal appeals court heard arguments yesterday on whether a Virginia law punishing doctors for performing a late-term abortion procedure called dilation and extraction should be upheld. Although the court is expected to take several weeks to make its decision, if the law is overturned it would make only ten, not eleven, states that have laws banning the procedure.

• Amanda Marcotte over at RH Reality check has a great piece up reminding us to not only call for the removal of abstinence-only education, but the implementation of comprehensive Sex Ed. Because the only thing worse than simply telling our kids not to have sex is telling them nothing at all…

Samantha Bee Derides McCain's Derisive Air Quotes

Via Broadsheet: Although the Daily Show is a little late on this one, Samantha Bee reports: “John McCain has finally put the concerns of women where they belong; in derisive air quotes.”

News! Daily News!

Your Tuesday in reproductive health:

• NPR has an interesting in-depth look at the South Dakota Abortion Ban on the ballot.

• A hospital in Tarzana, CA, just outside of Santa Monica, has banned all elective birth control procedures. This includes not just pregnancy termination, but measures such as tubal ligations for vasectomies; a procedure that, until this decision, the hospital performed about an average of seven times a month. According to KTLA news in Los Angeles, Providence Health System bought the hospital in September and has now implemented a policy that adheres to Catholic teachings prohibiting abortions and surgical methods of birth control on hospital property.

• Although perhaps they should have listened to Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., adjunct professor of religious studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, and author of the Encyclopdia of Catholicism (2007). He argues that the Catholic Church has not, in fact, always been opposed to abortion, but rather that its position has been an evolving one. He also points to Joe Biden as proof that there are many ways of interpreting Catholic theology when it comes to reproductive health(via).

• And finally, we can add yet another option to the multi-faceted birth control fray: Barr Pharmaceuticals has announced FDA approval for its newest pill, low-hormone Seasonique (or LoSeasonique). The pill boasts its period reduction qualities, claiming women who take it will only have 4 periods a year. For an interesting take on why pharmaceutical companies market birth control with language on period reduction and not, say, contraceptive effectiveness, please see Sarah Haskins.

Rocky Mountain High

"Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as “person” is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?"

With those 46 words, radical, far-right, fringe members of the social conservative wing of the Republican Party in Colorado are attempting to outlaw all abortions and many forms of contraception.

In a electoral season marked by many punitive and callous attempts to enact retrograde legislation impacting women's health and rights, none is quite as preposterous as Colorado's proposed Amendment 48.

As The New York Times pointed out in it's recent Editorial, the proposed amendment would "redefine the term “person” in the state’s Constitution to include fertilized human eggs — in effect bestowing on fertilized eggs, prior to implantation in the womb and pregnancy, the same legal rights and protections that apply to people once they are born.

"The amendment, which has split anti-abortion groups, carries broad implications, ranging from harmful to downright ridiculous. Potentially, it could ban widely used forms of contraception, curtail medical research involving embryos, criminalize necessary medical care and shutter fertility clinics. A damaged fertilized egg might be eligible for monetary damages.

"Noting the “legal nightmare” the amendment would create, and its potential to endanger the health of women, Gov. Bill Ritter, a self-described “pro-life” Democrat, has joined the opposition to Amendment 48."

Wendy Norris of The Colorado Independent wrote recently that the backers of the "personhood" law have ties to militant anti-abortion groups. "A strange netherworld of extremes exists in today’s anti-abortion movement. Nowhere is that more evident than its latest political salvo coming to a voting booth near you in November — Colorado’s proposed Amendment 48, the so-called Human Life Amendment..." It's an interesting, and sadly not surprising, read.

The Denver Post has called Amendment 48 "absurd."

Let's hope voters feel the same.