- The makers of the Plan B morning-after pill plan to ask the FDA to allow for the emergency contraception to be sold without a prescription for young women under age 17. Plan B is available without a prescription for women ages 17 and older. [Reuters]
- Black and Latina women are less likely than white women to have a live birth after a fertility treatment by 38 and 13 percent, respectively. [Fox News]
- The Afghan government is writing new rules which would make it even harder for abused women and girls to find refuge in women’s shelters: women would have to justify their reason for needing shelter to an eight-person government panel, which would decide if she should go to the shelter, go to jail, or return home. [New York Times]
- Wyoming’s state Senate is debating a bill that would require a young woman under the age of 16 to notify her parents 48 hours before she intends to get an abortion. [Billings Gazette]
- A bill requiring a parent consent to an underage girl’s abortion was endorsed by a committee of the Kansas state House. Existing law says parents only need to be notified. [KTKA]
- An Arizona state House committee endorsed a bill that would require a woman seeking an abortion to sign an affidavit saying the fetus’ sex or race was not her reason for terminating the pregnancy. [Tucson Sentinel]
- Geeks ask each other, when does in-game armor go from “sexy” to “stripper”? (Not that I have anything against strippers.) [Joystiq]
- Peggy Rea, an actress on “Grace Under Fire,” “The Waltons” and “Dukes of Hazzard,” passed away on Saturday at age 89. [PopEater]
INTERNATIONAL
- Half a million female fetuses are aborted in India each year (where boys are prized) as a result of more advanced ultrasound equipment, according to a study out of Bristol University in the UK. [BBC]
- A man in Sydney, Australia, was caught with a digital camera filming up women’s skirts as they walked up a train platform. [Sky News]
- Why Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sex scandals aren’t just a feminist issue. [Slate]
