Reproductive Health

While usually attendees at the annual Values Voter Summit focus on hot button social issues, this year the hotel buzzed with the 10th amendment and the national debt.

Women living in rural Minnesota face poor health outcomes according to a report released by Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota on Wednesday. A lack of health insurance and clinics, along with factors like poverty, geographic isolation and even Minnesota’s extreme winters all impact the ability of rural women to access health care. The organization says that as Congress debates health care reform, the needs of rural women must be addressed.

In the Bizarro Land that is modern American politics, all is turned upside-down. Conservatives are toting dog-eared copies of “Rules for Radicals” by the late lefty Saul Alinsky, Jon Stewart has dubbed Fox News the “new liberals,” and — wait for it — Michele Bachmann, a vehement abortion opponent, is telling the government to keep [...]

With more than a year to go until the general election, abortion is already becoming an issue in the 6th Congressional District race. An analysis of anti-abortion campaign donations finds that Rep. Michele Bachmann is one of the country’s top earners — and she’s delivered for her contributors on that issue. At the same time, local anti-abortion forces are already tarring DFL candidate Rep. Tarryl Clark just a day after she announced her candidacy.

Anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life called on Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken to reverse their Senate Judiciary Committee votes to approve Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday. In a letter to the senators, MCCL said that a legal board that Sotomayor once sat on advocated abortion rights.

Health reform could be hijacked by anti-abortion politics despite efforts at compromise — and some of Minnesota’s Congress members are in the thick of the debate. Reps. James Oberstar, Collin Peterson and Michele Bachmann have all been working to gut reproductive health funding from the health reform package moving through the House.

Just as Sen. Al Franken began his opening statements during the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, a woman shouted “wrong about abortion!” and ran out of the hearing.
That woman was Norma McCorvey of Texas, otherwise known as “Jane Roe,” the central figure of the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade.

Reps. Jim Oberstar and Collin Peterson joined 17 other Democrats in threatening to vote against health care reform if a government plan covers abortion. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late last week, the coalition said, “[W]e cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of [...]

The number of abortions performed in Minnesota declined in 2008 for the second straight year and marked the lowest number in more than 30 years. Reproductive health advocates said the decline is due to access to birth control and education, while the state’s largest anti-abortion group says programs to persuade pregnant woman from having an [...]

A Wisconsin couple was arrested on Saturday for distributing bibles without permission at Twin Cities Pride, Minnesota’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender celebration. After Brian and Doris Johnson, self-described “born-again Christians,” were denied a vendor table at the festival, the couple took matters into their own hands.