Amanda Marcotte writes for and manages the blog Pandagon, blogs for Slate's Double X, and has two books out: "It's A Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments" and "Get Opinionated: A Progressive's Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action)". She's written about politics, pop culture and feminism for outlets such as Slate, Salon, the LA Times, the Guardian, Bitch, and the American Prospect. A former resident of Texas, she now lives in Brooklyn, NY.
The claim that mandatory ultrasounds are about information has no basis in research or common sense. Luckily, conservatives are beginning to abandon that argument and admit that it’s all about punishing women for having sex.
Now that the fig leaf of “religious liberty” has been torn away, the right wing opposition to contraception coverage can be seen for what it is. But the question is, why are conservatives so afraid of free birth control?
Sure, a bunch of Catholic leaders are making a lot of noise about Obama requiring Catholic hospitals and universities to refrain from discriminating against their female employees. But that doesn’t mean American Catholics agree.
Anti-choicers claim to be looking out for women and for children, but their policy choices do nothing but to hurt women and children. A new study even shows how anti-choicers preferred policy would result in a much higher maternal mortality rate.
The 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade should be a day of celebration, but instead it’s a time where we look across the landscape and realize that women’s perception of themselves as free human beings is seriously challenged.
Mitt Romney’s troubling past assertions that his mother was pro-choice in 1970 are rooted in an ongoing tradition of male politicians using their female relatives to bolster their credibility with female voters. The problem is that it’s really not that helpful.
The job of journalists is to investigate, ask follow-up questions, and exhibit skepticism about the claims of politicians. So why are so many journalists refusing to do their job when it comes to reproductive rights?
If you understand the role that hostility to women’s rights plays in Iowa, you understand why the Iowa caucus comes down to a contest of lying about abortion, and why it may not really matter that much for the eventual nomination.
The year was a frantic one in the fight over reproductive rights, but what was really remarkable was how anti-choicers quit pretending to simply love fetuses, and wage all-out war on women’s non-abortion reproductive rights.
Kathleen Sebelius clearly upheld restrictions on emergency contraception as a naked political move, but it wasn’t even smart politics. Young women, a big voting bloc for Democrats, are insulted and will likely be demoralized by this decision.
