by Kelli

• Down on the Pharm says a pair of Austrian scientists is asking for more research to be done on the effects of hormonal birth control on the human brain:
  

  Of particular interest are the social and behavioral effects of these hormones when used in younger patients whose brains are still undergoing major development and maturation….

  Changes in brain development in younger BC users may be more profound, with some expected to be irreversible.

by Kelli “People influence others with regard to all manner of things. In this situation, people who are supportive [of legal abortion] are hearing one thing, and people who are opposed to abortion are less likely to hear those stories,” Sarah Cowan, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Sociology and the study’s author, told […]

We must be careful not to make a fetish of choice. If the technology allows and a woman wants a blue-eyed, blonde baby, do we support her because we are pro-choice? While we must be vigilant about the “pro-lifer”-infested waters, we must be prepared to refine our pro-choice position; it must be circumscribed by context. […]

This weekend’s question comes from good friend Josh Brahm, Director of Education and Public Relations, Right to Life of Central California: What are the most frustrating or annoying things that pro-choice people do that shuts down good dialogue? Stories are welcome. [Photo via nbclatino.com; ]

[Planned Parenthood] and the pro-choice movement in general now have the following struggle on their hands: can they offer the impartial observer — who now has read the transcript of the Gosnell trial — a reasoned argument claiming that abortion is not murder?

… Gosnell killed live babies, but what he did to them inside the womb was indistinguishable to what he did to them outside the womb. New challenges to the pro-choice movement will involve this fact, one which leads inevitably, and immediately, to issues of reason….

by JivinJ, host of the blog, Cassy Fiano has a fantastic reply to Jessica Valenti and her post about abortions for convenience: The whole feminist philosophy is disgusting. They tell women to sleep around like men do. When women then get unintentionally pregnant (usually while unmarried), they tell the women to just kill the damn […]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, Sharon Lerner has a piece on how health care reform was a setback for pro-choicers: But if pro-choice leaders felt beleaguered, the outcome was not so much a reflection of their loss of influence as a painful public display of their longstanding political weakness….