Abortion, Women | featured news

A federal appeals court ruled late Tuesday that Texas can cut off funding for Planned Parenthood clinics that provide health services to low-income women before a trial over a new law that bans state money from going to organizations tied to abortion providers.

The Republican Party’s platform committee approved anti-abortion language Tuesday without adding exceptions for rape — a suddenly hot issue after weekend comments by GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin in Missouri.

Showing no sign of backing down from his U.S. Senate candidacy, Todd Akin released a television ad in which he apologizes for his remarks about "legitimate rape" seldom causing pregnancy and asks for forgiveness.

In a surprise news conference Monday, President Barack Obama addressed the controversy surrounding a remark by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) that women who suffer "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant. "The views expressed were offensive," said Obama. "Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me. So what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women."

Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, the conservative Republican U.S. Senate candidate, quickly backed off comments that aired earlier Sunday, in which he told an interviewer that a woman's body "has ways" to prevent pregnancy during rape and that such pregnancies are "really rare."

President Obama’s re-election campaign is beginning an intensified effort this week to build support among women, using the debate over the new health care law to amplify an appeal that already appears to be benefiting from partisan clashes over birth control and abortion.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has signed into law a controversial bill requiring women to have an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion.

Tuesday night's episode returns to follow Markai Durham, who first appeared on the show Nov. 16. But this time, she's not giving birth to another child.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion violates the rights of pregnant women to receive proper medical care.