Abortion

An abortion law in Oklahoma that would require women seeking abortions to disclose such information as their relationship with the baby's father and the reason for the abortion has been put on hold.

Oklahoma County District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the new law, which was slated to take effect on Nov. 1.

Abortion advocates have challenged the law, saying it violates privacy protections. more >>

Students in more than 3,000 schools will stick on the familiar red tape over their mouths on Tuesday to stand up for the thousands who are silenced every day by abortion.

The Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity is in its sixth year and is a powerful testament to the widespread pro-life attitude among teens and young adults.

"It's our way of speaking for those who can't," Brittany Shepherd, 15, of Challenger High School in Hickory, N.C., told the Hickory Daily Record. "It's to show our respect to those who didn't get to live." more >>

An estimated one million people participated in a rally in Madrid Saturday to protest a proposed new law that would expand permission for abortion.

The overwhelmingly Catholic country currently allows only abortion in the cases of rape, fetal abnormality, or when the mother’s physical or mental health is at risk. But the proposed law, introduced by socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, would allow abortion for any reason during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Furthermore, the bill is proposing to allow girls as young as 16 to have an abortion without parental consent. more >>

The number of abortions worldwide fell between 1995 and 2003 as contraceptive use increased and more countries liberalized their abortion laws, according to a new survey released by a pro-choice nonprofit.

From 45.5 million in 1995, the number of abortions dropped to 41.6 million in 2003, the Guttmacher Institute reported Tuesday in "Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress."

The institute attributed the fewer abortions to the wide provision of contraceptive services. Globally, the proportion of married women practicing contraception increased from 54 percent in 1990 to 63 percent in 2003. Contraceptive use also increased among unmarried, sexually active young women in many developing countries. more >>

America has been at war over abortion for the last four decades. When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, the court's majority attempted to put an end to the abortion question. To the contrary, that decision both enlarged and revealed the great moral divide that runs through the center of our culture.

Most Americans seem completely unaware of the actual contours of the abortion debate as it emerged in the early 1970s. In 1973, the primary opposition to abortion on demand came from the Roman Catholic Church. Evangelicals - representative of the larger American culture - were largely out of the debate. At that time, a majority of evangelicals seemed to see abortion as a largely Catholic issue. It took the shock of Roe v. Wade and the reality of abortion on demand to awaken the Evangelical conscience.

Roe v. Wade was championed as one of the great victories achieved by the feminist movement. The leaders of that movement claimed - and continue to claim - that the availability of abortion on demand is necessary in order for women to be equal with men with respect to the absence of pregnancy as an obstacle to career advancement. Furthermore, the moral logic of Roe v. Wade was a thunderous affirmation of the ideal of personal autonomy that had already taken hold of the American mind. As the decision made all too clear, rights talk had displaced what had been seen as the higher concern of right versus wrong. more >>