Women's Issues

A report by the Guttmacher Institute released on Wednesday shows that women are choosing to delay having children due to the recession. At the same time, the cost of family planning and reproductive health services have put a strain on those women’s finances.

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.

The national Democratic Party joined forces with two of its state organizations to tar Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty with a hard-right social “manifesto” — a 1989 master’s-degree thesis by Bob McDonnell, Republican candidate for governor in Virginia. As Pawlenty crossed the Old Dominion on Wednesday campaigning for McDonnell, Democrats held a teleconference with national reporters and Minnesota media.

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.

Michele Bachmann will address a “teletownhall” meeting this evening with anti-abortion activists from across the country. The event, billed “Keeping the Faith with the Unborn,” is sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group. The organization claims that 320,000 pro-life activists have been invited to participate in a discussion of health-care reform. [...]

Updated: U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar woke up today to a colleague’s voice on her clock radio, sounding off against the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor because of “the empathy standard.” On the floor of the Senate she told of her reaction: “I kind of put the pillow over my head.”

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s press secretary has been named one of the 50 most beautiful people in Washington, D.C. by The Hill. Debbee Keller, 24, hails from Georgetown — a town in Texas where the movie “Varsity Blues” was filmed, not the neighborhood in the nation’s capital.

Al Franken spewed fire and Amy Klobuchar threw brimstone this morning at the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Minnesotans joined 10 other Democrats and one Republican in approving the nominee, but not before Franken raked the current Court and Klobuchar decried bias against women on the bench.

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.

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 [...]