● The Guttmacher Institute has published a fact sheet on induced abortion in the US. It’s a quick read and it disproves a lot of stereotypes on who has abortions.

Here’s the info:

• Only 18% of women obtaining abortions are teenagers, and women in their 20s account for more than half of all abortions.
• Approximately 61% of abortions are obtained by women who are already parents to one or more children.
• Non-Hispanic white women have the most abortions, accounting for about 36%; then non-Hispanic black women at 30%; Hispanic women at 25%; and women of other races at 9%.

Also, abortion has been proven as very safe, with less than 0.3% of patients experiencing a complication that requires hospitalization, but “the risk of death associated with abortion increases with the length of pregnancy, from one death for every one million abortions at or before eight weeks to one per 29,000 at 16–20 weeks—and one per 11,000 at 21 or more weeks.”  Think about that the next time someone tries to pass abortion restrictions like waiting periods that make it hard for women to get to clinics when they want an abortion.

● Anti-abortion forces are attempting to pass a personhood amendment in Colorado.  No, you haven’t somehow time traveled to 2008.  They are pushing the issue again after it failed in 2008 and 2010.  They say this time it’s different, because it will act to “protect every child, no matter their size, level of development, gender, age or race.” That sounds like a pretty broad, vague goal to me.  It will still work to give a zygote full legal rights and potentially make birth control, IVF, and even miscarriages illegal.  The people of Colorado already beat this twice, so if I were on the Personhood campaign, I’d be worried.

● Personhood Amendment supporters in California are passing around a petition to get such an amendment on the ballot for 2012.  Considering that this failed in conservative Mississippi, if this passes in California of all places, I will eat my hat. As a bonus, “The Legislative Analyst’s Office and Department of Finance said if voters adopted the initiative, the potential cost to the state could be in the tens of millions of dollars annually to establish due process and equal protection for “zygotes, embryos, and fetuses.” California voters will just love that.

● And my favorite pet peeve is the news again: Conscience clauses. Nurses in New Jersey are suing the hospital they work at for requiring them to, you know, take care of patients. But these aren’t just any patients, they are patients who are having abortions. The nurses are arguing they shouldn’t have to take care of women they find immoral, because it goes against their beliefs.  Look, I’m an omnivore now but for a while, I was vegan.  I found (still kinda do, actually) eating factory farmed meat to be cruel and wrong.  If I had gotten a job at McDonalds and told them, “Look, I will do any task here but I won’t sell hamburgers because I think it’s wrong for these people to eat meat,” I would have been fired for not doing my job.  When you are a nurse, your job is to take care of your patients.  If someone comes in who was injured while committing a robbery, you take care of them even though you think theft is wrong; you also can’t turn someone away from a hospital because you think they are immoral.  The only reason the complaint about abortion is being considered by the courts is because it is a religious complaint.  I’m looking forward to the outcome of this lawsuit, because I know it will set a precedent for future cases – and there will be similar cases.  Hospital patients deserve care and respect, and should not be at risk for receiving less quality care because they are having a routine and common medical procedure like abortion.