• Emma Thompson initially signed a petition calling for Roman Polanski’s freedom, but has she had a change of heart? A reader at the blog Shakesville may have convinced her to remove her name from his list of supporters. [Shakesville]
• An Illinois judge has blocked the enforcement of the state’s controversial parental notification law, which mandates that a physician inform a parent or guardian if a minor age 17 or younger seeks an abortion. The law was blocked through a temporary restraining order by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. [Chicago Breaking News]

Have you been following health care reform? Earlier this autumn, I was rushing home from work to watch Hardball every night. Then all those “town hall” people screaming about Nazism irritated me so much I’ve mostly tuned out. But there is one health care reform issue I’ve followed closely and that is abortion coverage under President Obama’s plan. Now, if you watched Obama’s big speech about health care reform, he stated loud-and-clear that abortion would not be funded under his public health care plan. Unfortunately, nothing in politics is ever that easily explained…

• Illinois’ controversial parental notification law for minors seeking an abortion has been delayed at least until Wednesday morning as officials meet to verify that girls can waive the notification process by petitioning a judge, who has 48 hours to rule on it. The parental notification law does not give parents consent, but requires that they be notified. An exemption is made in the case of a medical emergency or if a girl puts it in writing that she was sexually abused. [Chicago Tribune]

Irene Vilar rebelled against her “controlling” husband in the most unique of ways: by having abortions. Lots of ‘em. From ages 16 to 33, Vilar said she had 15 abortions and now calls herself a recovered “abortion addict” and mother of two.

Have you ever heard of “abortion addiction”? No, me neither. But Vilar has written about her “abortion addiction” in her new book, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony Of An Abortion Addict, which describes how when she was a young woman, Vilar said she married a 50-year-old man who jerked her around emotionally, so she would skip her birth control pills just to rebel against him. Discovering her pregnancies excited and scared her at the time, a rush Vilar likened to the same kind of “high” that a “druggie” feels. Vilar also tried to commit suicide several times.

Considering how ashamed and fearful many women are sharing they’ve had one abortion, it’s pretty annoying that a woman gets a book deal for telling everybody how she’s had over a dozen. Yes, it’s Vilar’s right to have as many abortions as she’d like, and it’s great Vilar is still pro-choice after all this. But everything about Impossible Motherhood is unrepresentative of what an average women’s experience with abortion is.

Unsafe abortions kill 70,000 women each year, according to a recent study of 197 countries by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute. The three-year study also found abortions are happening in countries where they are legal just as often as in countries where they are illegal—despite the fact that 40 percent of the world’s women live in places were abortion laws are strict. Said Sharon Camp, Guttmacher’s president:

‘‘Legal restrictions do not stop abortion from happening. They just make the procedure dangerous. Too many women are maimed or killed each year because they lack legal abortion access.”

Cupcakes! Who doesn’t love cupcakes? Makes me think of Sex and the City ... birthday parties ... sugary frosting ... abortion.

Wait ... wha?! Unless this is a big joke and I am just very gullible, Cupcakes For Life is a website that’s celebrating National Pro-Life Cupcakes Day today by staging a birthday party for the unborn babies of abortion. Cupcakes For Life suggests you bring a tray of cupcakes in for a group of people who, naturally, will ask, “Cupcakes! Whose birthday is it?” Then you, the cupcake baker, are supposed to say, “It’s no one’s birthday. These cupcakes represent the 50,000,000 children who weren’t allowed to be born, who never had a birthday.” The helpful “cupcake ideas” page offers suggested frosting slogans, like “Thou shalt not murder” and “abortion kills.” 

Have you been keeping up with how the media’s all atwitter over a tweet sent by blogger and entrepreneur Penelope Trunk? She wrote a very strange message on her Twitter, essentially telling the world that she was in a board meeting and was having a miscarriage. The response to this 140-character blurb has been extreme, even in the lady blogosphere:

• Out of concern for their safety, young OB/GYN students admit to reconsidering whether or not they’ll do abortions after the recent murder of Dr. George Tiller, a physician in Kansas who terminated pregnancies. “Our doctors are graying and are not being replaced,” the president of the National Women’s Health Foundation has said. [Washington Post]
• Ex-schoolteacher Tiffany Sheperd, 31, has turned to porno after bikini pics got her fired from Port St. Lucie High School in Florida. Shepherd alleged she sent out 2,500 resumes after getting canned last April and has not been hired for a teaching position anywhere. In her new career, Shepherd’s stage name is Leah Lust and she has filmed five flicks, including one called “My First Sex Teacher.” [NY Daily News]
• The attorney for Rifqa Bary, the 17-year-old who ran away from home in Ohio to Florida because she fears her Muslim parents will kill her for converting to Christianity, filed a court memorandum requesting that the girl not be forced to go home. Bary has said her father threatened to kill her and her mother threatened to send her back to her home country of Sri Lanka after they discovered she is a Christian, although both her parents have denied the claims. Presently, the girl is living in foster care. [Fox News]

No reporter happened to be standing at abortion provider George Tiller‘s side on the Sunday morning in May when he was murdered at gunpoint, allegedly by an anti-choice extremist. But, like the famous newspaper article by journalist Jimmy Breslin that covered JFK’s assassination from the point of view of his grave digger, sometimes a reporter discovers the best way to tell a story lies someplace other than the obvious.

In “The Last Abortion Doctor, Esquire focuses on the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado and Dr. Warren Hern, the last physician in the United States who can perform late-term abortions.

Last weekend, my friend (one of those types who’s an encyclopedia of random knowledge) dropped an interesting fact on me. She said that women who are on Medicaid, the government-issued insurance plan for people who can’t nearly afford medical care, are not covered if they would like to have an abortion. As someone who’s pro-choice, this kind of shocked me. First, because it feels a little bit Big Brother. And second, because if someone qualifies for the program they almost certainly will have a hard time coming up with the quarter-million dollars it takes to financially support a child through age 17. And they may be looking for other options than having a baby.

I had to get to the bottom of this. So I put in a call to my home county’s Medicaid office and after chit-chatting with some well-versed people on the subject in New York state, I’ve got some deplorable facts to report about abortion coverage. Err, termination coverage. The first thing I learned is that Medicaid workers don’t like the word “abortion.”

The Women on Waves boat, a vessel which sailed to international waters outside countries where abortion is illegal and terminated pregnancies, may be docking for good.

A little backstory: Founded in 1999, WoW is a Netherlands-based charity with a boat that docked 12 miles off the coast (which constitutes “international water”) of places like Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, where women must rely on illegal abortions to end their pregnancies. WoW provided contraceptives, pregnancy testing, information about STDs, and prescribed the abortion pill (RU-486) to women who came on board. (WoW never actually performed surgical abortions on the boat, although it has had permission since 2008 to use a converted vessel to terminate pregnancies up to 12 weeks.)

• Fox will not broadcast a “Family Guy” episode dealing with abortion. In a statement released yesterday, Fox said they “fully support the producers’ right to make the episode,” called “Partial Terms of Endearment,” and the producers can distribute it however they want. [The Hollywood Reporter]—How long before this banned episode hits the web? We’re curious to see it!
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Meet The Press it will take “the right woman” to become President and she’d love for that woman to be a Democrat. [Jezebel] Translation: Snowball’s chance in hell, Sarah Palin.
• Speaking of Palin, she stepped down as governor of Alaska on Sunday, because that’s what’s best for Alaska or something. [LA Times]
—Something tells me this isn’t the last we’ll be seeing of her, though.

Over the weekend The New York Times ran a lengthy, in-depth report about recently murdered abortion practitioner Dr. George R. Tiller. The doctor, who was called “Tiller the Killer” by some and praised as an American hero by others, lived a life defined by his controversial career. Like a real life version of “The Cider House Rules,” Dr. Tiller was one of three doctors in the United States who regularly performed late-term abortions. To some, he saved the lives of thousands of woman; to others, he killed thousands of babies. As glamorous as anti-abortion groups tried to paint Tiller’s life by pointing to his 8,500 square foot home and more than million dollar business profits from performing abortions, his life was far from desirable.

• The only abortion clinic in North Dakota wants thwart a state law requiring them to show a pregnant woman an ultrasound 24 hours before her abortion is scheduled. [Feministing]
• Two Democrats, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT) and Rep. Tim Ryan (OH), introduced a bill today seeking “common ground” on abortion, called the “Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act.” The politicians hope they can reduce the number of abortions by sending more moolah towards preventing unplanned pregnancies, especially among teens. [Hartford Courant]
• Shanghai, one of the largest cities in China, are encouraging parents to have two children instead of following the one-child policy encouraged throughout much the country. Men have been favored in the culture, so if parents can only have one child, they often prefer to have a boy. As a result, the population is out of whack, with more men than women. [BBC]—Will Chinese girls be considered more valuable, or will they still be treated like second class citizens?

• A center for victims of child abuse in São Paulo has used a newspaper clipping of Joe Jackson in its ad, saying Michael got the ultimate revenge by leaving his father out of his will. [Copyranter]
• Beastie Boy Adam Yauch recently announced he has cancer, and that the Beastie Boys tour will therefore have to be postponed. [Pop Eater]—Yauch will be getting surgery next week, and we hope he gets better!

• Taxpayer money might pay for abortions under Obama’s proposed health care plan, according to Peter Orzag, the White House budget director. However, Orzag added that using taxpayer money that way could be so controversial that a decision has not been made about it yet. [NY Times]
• Rep. John Adams of Ohio introduced a bill in the state legislature last week which would require written consent from the father before an abortion can be performed. If the mom doesn’t know the father’s identity, the abortion would not be allowed. [Feministing] — Hmm, wonder if a woman has to get “permission” if she is raped, too?