Republican-appointed justices, who now hold six of nine seats on the Court, are ready to overturn the Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, striking down anti-abortion laws across the nation as violating a woman’s right to privacy under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution.
abortion
The Honeymoon Mutation
I have been both a practicing obstetrician and a research embryologist. The more I learn about human the evolution of human sexuality the more fascinating it becomes. In a recent study in Science magazine, Stanford scientist Rajiv McCoy and colleagues[i] found evidence of a mutation that may have become more common because in our hunter-gatherer ancestors … Continue reading »
Let’s stop killing 26,000 African women each year
January 21 is the anniversary of the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade, striking down restrictive abortion laws across the US. At the time I was the Medical Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in London. I still remember a surprised phone call from New York. My friends and mentors, such as Alan Guttmacher … Continue reading »
Pro-Choice: The game of the name
Oh rats! They’re at it again. According to an article in the July 29 issue of the New York Times, some leaders of women’s reproductive rights organizations are advocating changing the name from Pro-Choice, as it has been for the past 40 years, to something else – anything else (no possibilities are given). While it … Continue reading »
The abortion puzzle
In the last 40 or so years, Americans’ attitudes on many social issues – especially on issues having to do with gender and sexuality – became markedly more libertarian. Americans increasingly supported women’s rights, women working, and women seeking positions of authority, including running for president. Americans also became notably more laissez-faire on most sexual … Continue reading »