The “Right to Lie” movement claims credit for shutting down a clinic that closed because the physician has cancer, while doing nothing to actually lessen the need for abortion.

Written by Charlotte Taft for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Pawlenty’s executive order will affect the elderly, teens, the poor and middle class, those in high risk insurance groups, rural Minnesotans, the mentally ill, new moms and newborns. You can do the math, but you can’t begin to calculate the damage.

Written by Sarah Stoesz for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

My experience with health care in my native country led me to take health insurance for granted and consider health care as a human right. What a shocking experience to come to the U.S. as a penniless international student!

Written by Susana Sanchez for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

The case is strong for over-the-counter access to the pill. Birth control pills are a safe, effective medication used by over 10 million women in the United States alone, and the pill has 50 years of global data backing it up.  There is no “one good time” to do this, so women’s advocates need to take the initiative and make this happen.

Written by Kirsten Moore and Aimee Thorne-Thomsen for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Fundamentalist Christians want “freedom” to discriminate against people who don’t share their beliefs and consider anyone who doesn’t a threat to their own “freedom.”

Written by Amanda Marcotte for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Weekly Pulse: The Religious Right vs. Birth Control

by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

Does health care reform’s promise of preventive care extend to free birth control? Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have 18 months to decide whether to require insurers to provide oral contraceptives, IUDs, and other prescription birth control with no co-pay. With pro-choice Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the helm, HHS is expected to say yes.

[Update: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that birth control will not be on the White House's preliminary list of free preventive services, to be issued today. However, as Miriam Perez of feministing explains, HHS will ultimately have the final word. Observers, including Dana Goldstein who covers reproductive rights for the Daily Beast, are optimistic that the pro-choice side will carry the day at HHS.]

Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings kicked off on Monday. Her nomination has been met by glum resignation on the left and indifference on the right, as Adam Serwer notes in the American Prospect. Kagan is hoping to replace the Supreme Court’s most prominent liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, who stepped down earlier this week. Progressives are counting on Kagan to shore up the pro-choice faction on the court.

All the “celebration” about The 50th Anniversary Of The Pill is a party I can’t attend. There are missing pieces that are being ignored in the celebration and these pieces are vital parts of my history.

Written by Bianca I. Laureano for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

Fifty years ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth control pill. Needless to say, the repercussions of this medical and public policy breakthrough are still being felt today.

Why is there a $250 million “bonus” for failed abstinence-only programs kept in the health reform bill?  Was this a chit to be traded for the votes of Democrats like Stupak?

Written by James Wagoner for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.