In the first study to compare medical records of girls vaccinated or not vaccinated against a strain of the HPV virus that can cause cervical cancer, researchers concluded that the vaccine does not make girls more promiscuous. Why did a dedicated team of researchers need to study this? Probably because when the shots first became [...]
Looks like plastic bags get more respect in San Francisco than victims of domestic violence. Ross Mirkarimi, the San Francisco police sheriff who was given three months probation for bruising his wife’s arm during a New Year’s Eve altercation, will keep his job after all. Mirkarimi was elected to the position last fall, then suspended [...]
UPDATE: Malala Yousufzai has been flown by air ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK, a prime trauma center for military casualties. Yesterday, in Karachi, an estimated 10,000 people rallied in support of the injured girl. Pakistani police are moving quickly in finding the individuals responsible for the assassination attempt of Malala Yousufzai. They’ve [...]
Nothing could stop the ship of Women on Waves, not even the Moroccan navy. In the late afternoon of October 4, after Moroccan police and local authorities had shut down the harbor of Smir, the Dutch abortion activists Women on Waves revealed that the ship they had sent to Morocco to provide abortion pills in international waters was [...]
A coalition pushing for earned sick time in Orange County, Fla., was defeated today when its initiative failed to make the November 2012 ballot. Though the coalition, Citizens for a Greater Orange County, collected around 50,000 signatures during the summer in support of the initiative, the Orange County Commission halted the initiative from going forward. [...]
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court temporarily stopped a harsh voter I.D. law from taking effect in the upcoming November 2012 election, sending the case back to the lower court for further review. In a 4-2 decision the state’s highest court ruled today that the six-month-old voter I.D. law is not being implemented correctly and, as a [...]
The Virginia Board of Health has voted 13-2 to reverse their June decision to “grandfather” existing abortions clinics, thus exempting them from new, hospital-like restrictions for the state’s other abortion clinics–commonly called TRAP laws (Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers). Instead, the clinics must comply compliance with the regulations within two years or face closure. Virginia [...]
Bishop Robert W. Finn of the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph (Missouri) was convicted Thursday of failing to report suspicions of child abuse that took place within his diocese. He is the highest-ranking American cleric to be convicted of a child abuse crime in the Catholic Church. However, he was sentenced to just two years [...]
The latest entry in the headache-inducing saga of politicians attempting to debunk the fact that women can become pregnant from rape comes from Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), an anti-choice congressperson who believes in abortion exceptions for rape but only because they are so small in number. While speaking at a town hall meeting this week, [...]
UPDATE 8/30/12: The Colorado Personhood Coalition announced that it is challenging Colorado’s Secretary of State, who determined the group did not have enough valid signatures for its ballot initiative. Members from Colorado Personhood claim petitions with valid signatures were discarded. A personhood amendment, which would have defined a “person” at “any stage of development,” including [...]
