The Bush Administration’s new reproductive health proposal is out and it’s getting some serious heat. In the proposal, recipients of federal aid for health programs (i.e. hospitals, health clinics, and phamacies) must “certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.” In other words, a women’s clinic cannot refuse to hire a nurse on the basis that she won’t perform abortions or dispense birth control or Plan B. Additionally, the proposal also classifies abortion as “any of the various procedures—including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action—that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” Made my head hurt too, but the last part is important—some people argue that the birth control pill and emergency contraception can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg, therefore those forms of birth control and Plan B would be considered abortion under the proposal. So what do you think about this? Are you worried that the language in this proposal is a step in the direction of reversing Roe V. Wade or do you agree that abortion has been defined properly? Weigh in! [Salon: Broadsheet]

In a recent court decision, South Dakota will enforce a law that forces doctors into guilt-tripping their patients before performing an abortion. As if making the decision isn’t hard enough, now the government requires doctors to read an statement to women that says an abortion will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being” and may lead you to commit suicide. Um. Yeah.  While the court claimed the “burden of proof” rested squarely on Planned Parenthood, perhaps there should be some actual proof to the ludicrous suicide link within the law.  Although the safe sex organization argued that making doctors read the statement aloud to their patients was an infringement on the First Amendment, since the medical professionals don’t agree with the ideology, the court still wouldn’t budge. Now that’s scarier than unwanted children! [The International Herald Tribune]

Um, wow. Color us stupified. This t-shirt is currently for sale on Amazon.com and comes in TWELVE different styles. Appalled? Head on over to Jezebel to get the contact info for Amazon in order to complain your anti-date rape ass off.

You know, no matter where you stand on the abortion debate, toying with women’s lives through false advertising is pretty effed up. We’ve read a lot about “pregnancy crisis centers”, which seem like abortion clinics, but really only offer “counseling” that scares and guilt trips pregnant women into not getting abortions. Likewise, it’s really frickin’ irritating to hear that ProChoice.com is actually an anti-choice website serving up all sorts of anti-abortion information. And it’s poorly designed, to boot! [Feministing.com]

Joyce McFadden, a New York City psychoanalyst, who runs a site called Women’s Realities, actively conducts studies where she asks women questions and then let’s them answer in their own words. As you’d expect, we ladies have sex on our minds. So, when prompted with, What do you want to know about your mother but would never ask?, the responses were overwhelmingly about their mother’s sexual history—from how she lost her virginity, to possible abortions, to if she had even ever questioned her sexuality. While the answers to this query may not be child-proof, as a teenager or adult struggling with our own sexuality and love life, this info could be a bit uncomfortable, but useful and potentially validating. Although, just a few days after buttering our moms up with Mother’s Day presents, we still can’t seem to ask.  [Huffington Post]

We just got a press release in the mail for a new line of denim called “Freedom Of Choice”, which we initially thought was named after the right afforded by Roe V. Wade. Not so! According to the designer, Nathan Menashe (of course, a man), Freedom of Choice jeans are for women who “need a pair of jeans that they can wear in the workplace and then go out in afterwards. They need all this plus that special detail that will make their jeans stand out from the rest of the pack.” Get it? Women need the freedom to choose jeans that they can wear in a board meeting AND when they’re out getting smashed with their friends. Take that, Roe V. Wade!

Grrr. So. That Yale art student and her abortion project? Totally BS. Kudos to gillybeans for smelling a stinker. Yale issued a statement today saying that Aliza Shvarts’ story was a fake, but still a part of her real art project. Um, making us feel stupid? Sort of. The statement read: “The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.” For the record, I still don’t think this is art. [Yale.edu]

UPDATE: [And I swear this is the last thing I am going to write about this annoying little twit, but I feel compelled to update you all since the subject inspired so much discussion.] Now Shvarts is disputing Yale’s claim that her project was a work of fiction, saying Shvarts that she repeatedly “used a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself, and at the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding.” But she doesn’t know whether or not she actually was ever pregnant. “No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,” Shvarts said, “because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.” YAWN. I’m bored. [Yale Daily News]

Check this story out. Aliza Shvarts is a senior at Yale, majoring in Art. For her senior art project she has been documenting “a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself ‘as often as possible’ while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.” Yeah. Let me just say that while I love art, I don’t really get this kind of modern, political, conceptual stuff, but Shvarts says, “I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity. I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.” Now, I think it goes without saying that if you’re Anti-Choice, you’re gonna find her art project pretty darn offensive, but what if you’re Pro-Choice?

Earlier this week, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reported that two cups of coffee a day prevents pregnancy and doubles the risk of miscarriages for pregnant women thereby making it one of the cheapest and tastiest alternative to Roe vs. Wade. But like a pharmaceutical commercial where you’re promised a cure that also happens to make your butt leak, just a few days later another medical report was published claiming that coffee will make you fat.  That’s right, those cappa-frappa-mocha-mmm’s can contain 1/3 of your daily caloric allowance.  So what is a girl to do: let a baby or coffee wake you up? [Reuters, Guardian U.K., and MSNBC]
 

Yesterday marked the 35th Anniversary of Roe V. Wade, the landmark United States Supreme Court decision giving women the right to choose. Since Roe v. Wade, roughly 50 million women in the United States have exercised that right. While The Frisky hopes to post a personal take on this issue on our own in the future, we give mad props to the women at Jezebel and Nerve for sharing their stories. Additionally, The Huffington Post has a fabulous piece from Fear of Flying author Erica Jong about this important right—whether you choose to exercise it yourself or not. [CNN]

Wow. The last movie that made us this upset and confused was, like, Fahrenheit 9/11, so imagine our surprise when we found ourselves wanting to stab Ben (Seth Rogen) in the face as we shouted “Abort! Abort!” at Alison (Katherine Heigl), like she could hear us or something. Sadly, Judd Apatow, the man behind the ever more hilarious but not nearly as emotion-inspiring 40-Year-Old Virgin, probably didn’t intend for his summer blockbuster to get women involved in a heated debate about unplanned pregnancies, but, well, it did. Our highly expertised movie criticism after the jump.