McConnell Promises Republicans Will Escalate The Religious War on Women

Because this is the most important challenge the country faces....

Now, the Republicans' first order of business with Mitch McConnell sharing Senate Majority Leader duties with Ted Cruz is precisely what they did when they won the House majority in 2010; attack women's right to choose when they give birth.

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Senate GOP blocks bill on contraception coverage

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a bill aimed at restoring free contraception for women who get their health insurance from companies with religious objections, a legislative setback for Democrats that they hope will be a political winner in November's elections.

The vote was 56-43 to move ahead on the measure, short of the 60 votes necessary to proceed.

Democrats sponsored the election-year bill to reverse last month's Supreme Court ruling that closely held businesses with religious objections could deny coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law.

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WHY I'M A...FEMINIST

Tennessee Criminalizes Pregnant Drug Use

It’s about to become illegal to use drugs while pregnant in Tennessee. The state is the first in the country that will be able to charge women for harm done to their babies due to drug use during pregnancy. The bill, which was signed by the governor on Tuesday and will go into effect on July 1, had strong opposition. Civil and reproductive rights groups argue that it will drive women away from drug treatment programs.

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VA Republican candidate: No incest exception for abortion because sometimes it’s ‘voluntary’

These people are disgusting.

A Republican candidate running for an open seat in Congress representing Virginia has defended his stance against abortion in all cases by stating that even incest can sometimes be “voluntary,” according to The Washington Times.

Bob Marshall, who is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Frank Wolf (R- VA10), explained in an interview with the Boston Globe in 1989 that he wouldn’t make exceptions for abortions, even in the case of rape and incest, stating: “What if incest is voluntary? Sometimes it is.”

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Obama To Sign Executive Orders On Equal Pay .

President Barack Obama will sign two new executive orders on equal pay for women Tuesday, Politico reports. The executive actions coincide with "Equal Pay Day" -- the date that symbolizes how far into 2014 women must work to earn the same amount of money men earned last year.

Both executive orders mirror provisions of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which Congress has twice failed to pass. One would prohibit federal contractors from retaliating against employees who share their salary information with each other. The provision is inspired by Lilly Ledbetter, the namesake of the first bill Obama signed on equal pay in 2009, who worked for nearly 20 years at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. before discovering that men in her same job with equal or lesser experience were earning significantly more money than she was.

The second executive order will instruct the Department of Labor to create new regulations requiring federal contractors to report wage-related data to the government, in the hope that it will hold them more accountable for salary differences based on sex or race.

Women who work full time in the U.S. make an average of 77 cents for every dollar men make -- a number that has remained stagnant for a decade. Researchers who have taken into account factors that may contribute to that gap, including industry, education, college major and location, still find that men get paid 7 percent more than women, according to the American Association of University Women, a non-profit that works to increase equity for women and girls. The gap widens over the course of a woman's career, especially if she has a college degree.

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It Only Takes a Girl

Everything That's Screwing Over Women And Girls Worldwide Spelled Out In Black And White

http://www.itonlytakesagirl.org

Arkansas abortion ban struck down by judge .

A federal judge on Friday struck down an Arkansas law that would ban most abortions starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy, one of the most restrictive such statutes enacted in the United States, declaring the measure unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that the law "impermissibly infringes a woman's Fourteenth Amendment right to elect to terminate a pregnancy before viability" of the fetus, as established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Webber had previously barred enforcement of the measure while she reviewed a legal challenge to it brought by two Arkansas abortion providers.

As enacted, the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act would have banned most abortions at or after 12 weeks of pregnancy, if a fetal heartbeat could be detected by standard ultrasound.

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Recognize: 58% Of Women Use Birth Control For Reasons Other Than Pregnancy Prevention

Lawmakers hide abortion provisions in legislation .

NARAL Pro-Choice America released its annual report (PDF) assessing the status of women’s reproductive rights in the United States, saying that elected officials are increasingly making attempts to pass abortion-restrictive policies at the state level by concealing them in broader pieces of legislation because the public doesn’t support them.

“Politicians have learned that their positions are unpopular so they obfuscate their views and move them into bills that are unrelated,” Donna Crane, policy director at NARAL, told reporters during a conference call.

She cited North Carolina’s bill on motorcycle safety, which was signed into law in October 2013. The bill also contained provisions requiring abortion clinics to meet standards similar to hospitals and surgical centers, which would effectively force many of the state’s clinics to close.

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My viral photo made me an unlikely role model

After I wrote about the spread of my unflattering photo, people wrote to praise me. I was grateful -- and confused

Women Are Hard to Animate Because They Have Emotions, Says Disney

Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, ’cause they have to go through these range of emotions, but they’re very, very — you have to keep them pretty and they’re very sensitive to — you can get them off a model very quickly. So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they’re echoing the same expression; that Elsa looking angry looks different from Anna (Kristen Bell) being angry.

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Shrinking Women

Parody video shows why GOP ‘gynaeticians’ shouldn’t dictate women’s health

Gynotician

India gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

The Indian gang-rape victim whose assault in New Delhi triggered nationwide protests has died, the Singapore hospital treating her said on Saturday.

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Update

Indian police lay murder charges in Indian gang-rape case after victim dies in hospital

The Legal Claims of Wrongful Birth vs. the Right to Lie Over Abortion

While Arizona and Kansas weigh laws to protect doctors who don’t provide women all available information about their fetuses, an Oregon couple just won $3 million over a botched prenatal test. Michelle Goldberg on the thorny concept of wrongful birth.

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