Abortion

Planned Parenthood blamed the political controversy over abortion rights for the Susan G. Komen Foundation breaking ties.

An Oklahoma state senator wants to outlaw the use of embryonic stem cells in food research, NPR reports.

Most Americans — almost 6 in 10 — believe the Supreme Court justices will rely more on ideology than a legal analysis of the healthcare law's individual mandate in their ruling, Kaiser Health News reports.

Pregnant women who eat a diet high in animal fat have an increased risk for gestational diabetes, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The Center for Reproductive Rights is petitioning the U.S. 5th Circuit Court for a new hearing on the state's ultrasound law.

The United States doesn't conduct a lot of research on unnecessary healthcare, NPR and Kaiser Health News report.

Abortion foes are planning an election-year strategy aimed at forcing President Obama and congressional Democrats to take a potentially damaging stand on the issue.

Obama marked the 39th anniversary of the decision by saying he remains committed “to protecting a woman’s right to choose.”

The new House GOP majority took eight votes to curtail abortion rights, the most since 2000. Read more...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Each of the Republican candidates touted his record fighting legislation protecting abortion rights.

Rick Santorum's sudden rise, fueled largely by evangelical Republicans, hasn't knocked abortion-rights groups off of their attacks against Mitt Romney.

Santorum has a staunchly conservative record on social issues, and his close second-place finish in Iowa on Tuesday was fueled largely by evangelicals. He won 57 percent of the caucus-goers who said abortion was their top issue, according to a Washington Post poll.

But abortion-rights advocates were quick to attack Romney after the Iowa results were announced.

"He might have scored points with a very narrow segment of voters in one state, but, if Romney becomes the nominee, he will have to start explaining those views to voters in battleground states during the general election," NARAL Pro-Choice America said in a statement. "We will make sure that Romney’s extreme views — and his flip-flops on this issue — are a liability.”

NARAL communications director Ted Miller said the group focused on Romney in part because he was the actual winner. But the group is also concerned that Santorum's popularity with social conservatives could leave the impression that Romney is more moderate on abortion.

Rick Perry's objection to abortions in cases of rape and incest is the starkest but not the only position shift.

The group’s annual report, released Friday, is sure to rekindle Republican lawmakers’ efforts to defund the organization in 2012.

A Hispanic women's group wants the Obama administration to lift barriers to emergency contraceptives in the wake of a medical study showing pharmacists in low-income neighborhoods often restrict their sale.

The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health has asked for a meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to urge her to reconsider last month's decision not to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B available to girls under the age of 17. The request comes after a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that more than 1 in 5 pharmacists in low-income neighborhoods refused to sell Plan B to women aged 17 and over, even though they don't legally require a prescription.

"A disproportionate number of teen pregnancies occur among adolescents from disadvantaged neighborhoods," the study concludes. In those same neighborhoods, "misinformation regarding access was common."