Steven Mosher, president of the anti-family planning group, Population Research Institute (PRI), is at loose ends. He no longer has a collaborator in the White House, and so there is likely to be little patience for his extreme views, including his persistent (and recently reiterated) accusation about the UN agency...

When it comes to the abortion conflict in the US a fascinating new consensus is emerging: the need for common ground. Americans, it seems, are weary of the acrimony, the endless fight. People want pro-choice and pro-life advocates to work together to reduce the need for abortion. Pro-choice groups have...

One woman is a victim of daily defamation from the right: Susan B. Anthony. The name and image of the iconic suffragist have been used to promote the anti-woman, anti-choice campaigns of a group that calls itself the "Susan B. Anthony List." Clearly, they hope that co-opting the name of...

It will take years to fully grasp the tsunami that swept Barrack Obama into the presidency. "It's the first time" or "not since" or "historic" have punctuated most coverage of it -- even President Bush called it "awesome." It reconfigured electoral politics and created "never before seen" voting blocs. One...

In this election, record numbers of Catholics and young Evangelicals, the nation's traditional pro-life base, voted in unexpected ways. They voted to elect our second pro-choice President. Rather than induce reflection in staunch pro-life groups, they have instead reacted with denial and yet more extremism.

First the...

Read more Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers

During the last two election cycles, the social policy agenda was almost solely about "abortion-on-demand-and-gay-marriage" as if it were one key on a political reporter's keyboard. Charts in the mainstream media comparing the positions of the candidates in 2004 did not include a host of women's rights issues, as had...

Earlier this month, Governor Bill Ritter announced his opposition to Amendment 48 which seeks to change the Colorado state constitution to grant a fertilized egg the status of a human being, complete with equal rights. The groups pushing the amendment advertise it as a direct challenge to Roe v....

The news was buried in an AP story yesterday. Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's fiancé and soon-to-be baby daddy has dropped out of high school. He informed a reporter in what sounded like a casual interview that took place on his driveway. The news is surprising only insomuch as how...

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...