Women | featured news

A federal lawsuit filed by four service members Tuesday challenges the Pentagon's longstanding policy barring women from serving in direct combat positions.

Pediatricians treating teenaged girls should consider writing just-in-case prescriptions for the morning-after pill, the the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said on Monday. It’s the second recommendation in a week from a major doctor’s group that would make contraception more widely available to women. Last week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended making all birth control pills available over the counter.

Sorry, fellas, but President Barack Obama's re-election makes it official: Women can overrule men at the ballot box. For the first time in research dating to 1952, a presidential candidate whom men chose decisively - Republican Mitt Romney - lost. More women voted for the other guy.

U.S. abortions fell 5 percent during the recession and its aftermath in the biggest one-year decrease in at least a decade, perhaps because women are more careful to use birth control when times are tough, researchers say....

CNN's Randi Kaye looks at the fascination some military followers have with men in uniform.

It's been a groundbreaking year for women in business. IBM appointed its first female CEO in Ginni Rometty. Sheryl Sandberg led Facebook through a much-anticipated IPO. Irene Rosenfeld split Kraft into two public companies, and Marissa Mayer jumped from a top Google exec to the CEO seat at Yahoo. See the those named the top businesswomen on the Forbes 2012 list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women.

The husband of a pregnant woman who died in an Irish hospital has said he has no doubt she would be alive if she had been allowed an abortion. Savita Halappanavar's family said she asked several times for her pregnancy to be terminated because she had severe back pain and was miscarrying.

With thinning brown hair and nearly invisible eyebrows, Margaret Fisher sits her frail frame down in the salon chair. She received a diagnosis of Stage IV pancreatic cancer almost two years ago and has undergone 18 radiation treatments and six rounds of chemotherapy since. A hairstylist places a wig on Fisher’s head and draws eyebrows on her bare face. Fisher, 63, looks in the mirror and smiles.

Women are passing men on the nation's roads. A study by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute says more women have driver's licenses than men.

Doctors trying to find some of the causes of autism put another piece into the puzzle on Monday: They found women who had flu while they were pregnant were twice as likely to have a child later diagnosed with autism.