Abortion, Women | featured news

Crystal Kelley got paid $22,000 to have a baby. But when an utrasound revealed significant medical issues, the biological parents offered her $10,000 more to have an abortion. The gross immorality of that second offer tells us that there is a lot wrong with the first arrangement, writes bioethicist Arthur Caplan.

Ireland's government is to introduce a new law and regulations to clarify that abortions are permissible when the life -- but not health -- of the mother is at risk, Minister of Health James Reilly announced Tuesday.

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....

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.

Tea Party politician John Koster, the Republican nominee for a hotly contested congressional seat in Washington state, says he opposes abortions, even in cases of "the rape thing," because it is tantamount to inflicting "more violence onto a woman's body."

President Obama's campaign is trying to tie Republican rival Mitt Romney to embattled candidate's comments about rape. In a new video, the Obama campaign asks, "Mitt Romney's solution to extremism against women? Promote the extremists."

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill is taking aim at Republican challenger Todd Akin with a new series of TV ads featuring rape survivors upset about Akin's position on emergency contraception....

Britain's new health secretary has said he favors reducing the time limit for women to have abortions from 24 to 12 weeks, sparking criticism from opposition lawmakers and women's rights activists....

While a student in my final year of college, at age 21, I was raped. I have dissected that moment -- the horrifying moment that I became a "victim" -- from every possible angle. I have poked and prodded, examined and re-examined. Regrettably, I have even suspected myself in a desperate, ultimately futile attempt to understand how I became a victim.

Just look at what happened yesterday. While the nation was engulfed in a ludicrous conversation about “legitimate rape,” “forcible rape” and “personhood,” the Republican platform committee approved a draft that reaffirmed the party’s extreme anti-abortion stance and called for a constitutional amendment to protect all human life... Akin and his extreme and offensive views are no longer the fringe.