Abortion

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), an OB-GYN, said a rush of adrenaline can prevent the female body from ovulating.

Thousands of abortion-rights opponents will descend on Washington, D.C., in late January for the annual "March for Life" rally.

The event is one of Washington's largest annual protests and the most prominent anti-abortion march in the United States. It began in 1974, the year after the Supreme Court established abortion rights in Roe v. Wade.

This year's march is expected to draw strong crowds given that 2013 marks Roe's 40th anniversary. It is scheduled for Jan. 25, just a few days after President Obama's second inauguration.

Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) this week vowed to continue trying to starve Planned Parenthood of federal funds after the group's latest report showed it performed a record number of abortions in its latest fiscal year.

According to Black, Planned Parenthood's latest report says the group received $542 million in taxpayer funding, nearly half of the group's revenue. She said the group performed nearly 334,000 abortions in the last fiscal year.

A House GOP bill reintroduced Friday would keep Planned Parenthood from receiving funds under Title X, a federal family-planning program, because the group provides abortions with separate dollars.

The Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act has at least 24 Republican co-sponsors, many of whom came to office in the 2010 wave election.

The bill seeks to eliminate any organization that offers abortions as a provider under Title X, a program created under President Nixon that subsidizes preventive healthcare for low-income women. 

Former Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will give the keynote address at the annual gala for one of the nation's most prominent anti-abortion-rights advocacy groups.

The Susan B. Anthony List, an organization that, along with its affiliated political action committee, works to elect anti-abortion-rights candidates, announced on Friday that Ryan will headline its sixth annual Campaign for Life Gala in April.

In a statement, Ryan said he was "honored" to keynote the gala.

States passed fewer restrictions on abortion rights in 2012 compared to 2011, a record-breaking year, according to a new study.
 
The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, found that states sought to restrict the practice with 43 new laws in 2012.

That number is less than half of the restrictions passed at the state level in 2011. 

Nancy Keenan is resigning as president of one of the country’s most prominent and politically powerful abortion-rights groups.

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) received praise as a proponent of abortion rights after news broke late Monday of his death.

Inouye, 88, was the chamber's most senior member and third in line for the presidency. His voting record has been characterized as centrist to liberal and he strongly supported women's access to abortion, receiving a corresponding score of zero percent from the National Right to Life Committee for the 112th Congress.

"Sen. Inouye was a pro-choice champion for reproductive freedom," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in a statement late Monday. 

Prominent abortion-rights groups responded with praise and rancor Friday to Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R-La.) proposal that Republicans back over-the-counter birth control.

The GOP has been "stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue and pretend … that Republicans are somehow against birth control," Jindal, who is expected to run for president in 2016, wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Jindal was referring to debates over the healthcare law's requirement that most employers provide birth control in their health plans without a co-pay. 

Jindal said the GOP has been "stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue."