For everyone who’s ever had a pregnancy scare, there’s nothing, well, scarier. As soon as you’re a day  late..it’s over. The panic starts to rush in and you can’t stop thinking about it; in the shower, while you’re getting ready, through class.  As soon as 3pm hits you rush to CVS and buy the first pregnancy test you see.

You get home, pee on the stick, and three magical minutes later, you find the result.

Well, unless you sign up to receive a free at home pregnancy test from onefreepregnancytest.com , then you also receive a nice little (actually really long) letter from your potentially unborn child.

I wish I was kidding.

It seems that one pro-life group has taken to offering free at-home pregnancy tests as a means to spread their pro-life message. Except, until now, no one really knew that’s what was happening. Girls just thought they were saving some money; not that they were about to receive a letter from the unborn child they may or may not be having, pleading with them to let him or her live.

I understand that pro-choice vs. pro-life is a huge debate, and one which people get quite passionate about, but this just seems to take things a bit too far.

Read the letter then tell us what you think.

Photo courtesy of Jezebel.com

Is it still pro-life when the legislation isn’t actually supporting life?

That’s what our friends over at Feministing are asking as they discuss a proposed law in South Dakota that would expand the definition of  ”justifiable murder” to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus. Who would that include exactly, you ask?  That might be the doctor willing to perform the abortion or maybe even the woman that wants to have the abortion, herself.

Does anyone else find that just the slightest bit contradictory? It’s one thing to oppose abortion. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It’s something else entirely to legalize and justify the killing of a man or woman willing to perform an abortion. It’s extreme, irrational and just a little bit absurd.

As of now the bill has passed out of a committee with a nine to three vote and is expected to face a floor vote soon.

Click here to read all about what  Feministing is calling “anti-choice legislation taken to it’s extreme,” then share your thoughts/feelings/concerns below.

In the past decade, MTV has evolved from a network that aired mostly vapid shows that relate vaguely to music to one that tackles some of the most serious issues facing today’s youth. Often the focus of these programs are controversial in nature: we’ve seen specials on polyamory, cross-dressing, and body dysmorphic disorder. One of the networks most popular shows deals with teenage pregnancy.

But all of these topics seem tame and simple in comparison to the one they plan on looking at next. Recently we learned that MTV plans on airing a show that deals with teen abortion.

I for one have to applaud MTV for choosing to go ahead with a project that will inevitably elicit a lot of criticism. It’s important for teenagers to be faced with the reality of the situation: that people get abortions every day – in fact, 35% of women have an abortion at some point, but this issue is rarely discussed on television.

The special will be called No Easy Choice, which is telling. The assumption seems to be that women who choose to have abortions are quick to jump to that decision, but in reality, this choice is almost always a difficult and intensely painful one. This shows gives MTV a chance to show real girls what it’s really like. On the one hand, it may reach people who deem abortion as cruel and wrong (to our readers who are pro-life: I’m not suggesting that you should change your own beliefs, just that the show may present the issue in a way that makes you see others who choose to have abortions in a different way.) On the other hand, MTV has tremendous power to teach pro-choice women an important lesson: that even though abortion is an option, it is a tremendously difficult one, and that it is so important to be careful and safe. Read More »

There is no doubt that Tim Tebow is an outstanding athlete, a two time Heisman winner who will automatically enter the 2010 NFL Draft. But did you know that the world might never have known that?  In 1987, Pam Tebow was urged by doctors in the Phillipines to abort her pregnancy, because they feared that not only would the baby be stillborn but that her life might be in danger as well.  Pam decided to go against the suggestions of her doctors and carried the baby to term, producing one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time.

And now, Tim Tebow is sharing that story and speaking out against abortion in a 30 second spot for a Christian group called “Focus on Family” during the Super Bowl.

The media is buzzing, the NFL is talking and women’s rights groups nationwide are in a tizzy.

But why?
Why does anyone care?
Why does it matter that Tim Tebow is speaking out on a political cause?

The answer to that is: it doesn’t.  Everyone needs to stop making such a huge fuss about Tim Tebow participating in a pro-life ad. I mean, really, did this take anyone by surprise?  Tebow is the son of two Christian missionaries and has always been known for being a conservative who has religious standings.  He has been criticized for being preachy before, and is often outspoken on issues like this. Read More »

The good news: Someone might surprise you by presenting you with a tray of cupcakes today!

The unsettling news: That person might be a part of the “Cupcakes for Life” movement, a group of pro-lifers dedicated to making people feel uncomfortable via free baked goods.

The Cupcakes for Life crew asks supporters to bring cupcakes to a group of people, prompting those people to ask, “Who’s birthday is it?” [sic—guess they were too busy baking to learn grammar.] The supporters are then supposed to answer by saying, “Its no ones birthday. [still sic. Improper apostrophe use reeeaaally irritates me, okay?] These cupcakes represent the 50,000,000 children who weren’t allowed to be born, who never had a birthday … If you and I were aborted we wouldn’t have a birthday party either.”

Um… awkward. Read More »

In one final attempt to piss off Democrats everywhere, the Bush administration “is quietly cutting off birth control supplies” to poor women in Africa.  According to an Op Ed piece in the New York Times, Bush and his pals threw a bone to Pro-Lifers under the guise of disapproving China’s family-planning program (a program that enforces a sometimes ruthless one-child-per-household law)

“U.S. Agency for International Development ordered six African countries to ensure that no U.S.-financed condoms, birth control pills, I.U.D.’s or other contraceptives are furnished to Marie Stopes International, a British-based aid group that operates clinics in poor countries.

The Bush administration says it took this action because Marie Stopes International works with the U.N. Population Fund in China. President Bush has cut all financing for the population fund on the — false — basis that it supports China’s family-planning program.”

Because of this birth control supply ban, Marie Stopes International estimates that “the result will be at least 157,000 additional unwanted pregnancies per year [in Africa], leading to 62,000 additional abortions and 660 women dying in childbirth.”

Whether MSI’s estimates are overestimated or not, the real issue is how the Bush administration, and many pro-life activists, believe that taking away a woman’s right to choose birth control and abortion somehow benefits her.

You take away sex education and a woman’s right to choose when and how to have a baby, you take away her basic freedom as a human being.  Period.

[photo from www.doctorswithoutborders.org]

This political season, everyone who is against abortion keeps rattling off about how it’s an easy choice for a woman. I hear words scrambled into arguments that are excruciatingly harsh. Words like…MURDER and SELFISH and HUMAN LIFE and RESPONSIBILITY. I am here to tell you that abortion is never an easy choice. For anyone.

No, I have not had an abortion myself. Thankfully, I have been using birth control and condoms consistently and I have never been pregnant. If I were to ever become pregnant somehow, I cannot say that I would have the baby. I know that choice is gut-wrenching. That is why I do everything I can to make sure that I don’t ever have to make it. I have been sexually active for almost 5 years now and my methods of birth control have always worked.

Some of my friends, however, have not been as careful as I have been. Some of my friends, including a best friend and a roommate, have gone through the process of an abortion. Believe me, it is not as easy as many people paint it to be. I have watched these girls cry for nights on end. The choice to have something taken out of your body that could grow into a life, regardless of whether or not you believe it is currently ‘alive,’ is one of the hardest choices a woman can ever make.

My old roommate, Carol, couldn’t speak for days after she found out she was pregnant. She was 21, in college, and a dancer. Going forward with having the baby would mean postponing her college graduation at least a year. She would have had no way to pay rent — since she was paying it through student loans — if she left her dance program. She would have to move back across the country to live with her mom and be apart from all of the friends she had made, including her boyfriend. Her boyfriend wanted the choice to be hers, but we all knew the truth: he didn’t have any money and hardly any responsibility. Read More »

I’ve sought out emergency contraception three times since 2002. In the first part of this article, I shared the situations that got me into trouble. In this part, I’ll share how I got out, and my experiences with the pill itself.

TAKE I:

So, I find myself in trouble, due to two factors: first, the drunk and condom-free attentions of my (newly ex) boyfriend, and second, his unwillingness to deal in any way with the consequences. I solve this problem as I solve all others: by turning to lady friends and Google.

My roommate Kristin and I look up the “morning after” pill, and discover that there’s only one clinic within driving distance that prescribes it. We also discover that EC is only effective if it’s taken seventy-two hours after sex; thanks to my post-breakup moping, I have about twelve hours left. It will take two hours to reach the clinic. We scramble to the car.

When we arrive at the clinic, I am escorted into an exam room, where I meet a blonde woman in a lab coat. I explain my situation, and ask for the EC.

She shakes her head at me. I see pity in her eyes.

“I can’t prescribe those pills to you, honey,” she says. “I’m a Christian.”

This is the precise moment when I start crying. Read More »

Meet Thomas Beatie, 34, born in Hawaii and currently residing with his wife, Nancy, in Oregon. The happy couple wed in 2002 and as you’ve no doubt heard by now, they are attracting worldwide attention thanks to the tiny little fact that Thomas, not Nancy, is carrying their first child.

In the April 8th issue of The Advocate, the leading GLBT magazine, he wrote an article entitled, Labor of Love: Is society ready for this pregnant husband? , in which he discusses his decision to carry his daughter and the difficulties which he and his wife now face.

During his sex-change surgery, Thomas decided to only have his breasts removed– keeping his reproductive organs intact. Therefore, since Nancy, his wife, lost her womb to a disease, it was up to either Thomas or a stranger surrogate to provide the couple with offspring.

The first few doctors they went to were horribly unsupportive. One nearly insisted that he shave off his facial hair and go to counseling. Read More »