What We're Reading -- April 23
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Good morning everyone and happy Monday! This week voters in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware head to the polls, where Mitt Romney will most likely achieve enough votes to lock up the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. The “who could be the worst candidate for women’s health” primary will finally end, and the long road until the November election will begin. For what’s going on across the country, check out what we’re reading this morning….
“Oral contraceptives taken for reasons other than preventing pregnancy” — “SALISBURY -- Last year, Salisbury University student Sarah Woods underwent an ultrasound to investigate a problem with her kidneys. It turned out that a kidney infection was the least of the 20-year-old's troubles. The scan also revealed a cyst in her left ovary that had caused it to swell to three times its normal size. Her doctor prescribed Loestrin, aka ‘the pill.’ With that, Woods joined the ranks of the 11.2 million American women who use oral contraceptives -- and, of those, the estimated 58 percent who rely on it in part for reasons other than preventing pregnancy. Their plight offers a twist in the still-roiling debate over whether the federal government should mandate health insurance coverage of contraceptives. For them, the pill is about more than birth control; it's also about better health. ‘People just assume it's all about you want to go out and have sex with everybody,’ said Woods, a medical lab sciences major. ‘They basically put me on that so my ovaries don't explode.’”
“McCaskill challengers not opposed to ‘personhood’ amendment” — “COLUMBIA, Mo. — The three Republicans hoping to challenge U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill later this year said they could support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining life as beginning at conception. U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, a social conservative from St. Louis, offered the most explicit endorsement of a so-called ‘personhood’ amendment on Saturday, during a debate hosted by PoliticMo and the University of Missouri-Columbia College Republicans. ‘I believe life does begin at conception, that’s a foundational belief I have,’ Akin said. ‘I would support a constitutional amendment…. McCaskill, who has not shied from from support of contraception rights for women, told a PoliticMo reporter in Springfield that she is opposed to the amendment. She said the amendment ‘would outlaw forms of contraception and would outlaw invitro-fertilization that many families have used as an opportunity to have a child.’ ‘It’s where there’s going to be a market difference between the two candidates,’ she said, in an interview prior to a speech at the Green County Democratic Party’s Jackson Day dinner.”
“Kansas abortion foes struggle to get bills passed” — “TOPEKA -- Abortion opponents are struggling this year to push proposals through the Kansas Legislature because its agenda remains crowded with other big issues and even some anti-abortion lawmakers want to rest after a string of victories last year. A bill giving health care providers greater legal protections if they refuse to be involved in abortions has cleared the House, but it faces skepticism. A more sweeping measure, designed to keep Kansas from subsidizing abortions even indirectly, has stalled in the House. The contrast is sharp with last year, when legislators approved a series of measures, vaulting the state to the forefront of a national trend in which abortion foes capitalized on the election of new, sympathetic Republican governors like Kansas’ own Sam Brownback. Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, the most influential anti-abortion group at the Statehouse, said Kansas still has room to strengthen its laws.”
