Pema Levy

Last November, Republicans gained control of the Minnesota Legislature for the first time in over 30 years. Thanks to the new majority, they are now considering no less than eight bills to restrict access to abortion. Yesterday, a house committee considered Bill 649 to ban abortion at 20 weeks due to a fetus’ unproven ability […]

I received some pushback on my column today concerning my assertion that most women who get late-term abortions (specifically, those who get them after 20 weeks) do so because of a fetal abnormality. This is incorrect; the majority of women who get abortions after 20 weeks do so for other reasons. The point I was […]

Last night, the Wisconsin GOP decided that rather than compromise with Democrats, it would pass the bill and repeal bargaining rights without them. To do so, they quickly stripped the budget bill of its financial measures which require a 20-member quorum and passed a budget-neutral bill that just repealed union bargaining rights. Many people have […]

A few weeks ago, Dana Goldstein pointed out that Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to roll back bargaining rights would disproportionately impact women who largely populate the professions whose unions are at stake. But Walker’s budget would impact women – particularly poor women – by taking away several avenues to reproductive care and contraception. First, Walker’s […]

Last night, while Congress debated funding the health-care bill, Rep. Steve King couldn’t help also mentioning why he voted to defund Planned Parenthood: “Planned Parenthood is invested in promiscuity.” King really let the cat out of the bag here. This year, the right has launched an attack on Planned Parenthood by arguing that any money […]

Yesterday, Dave Weigel’s assessmnt of the politics behind legislative attacks on reproductive rights was on target until it went very awry. According to Weigel, House Democratic leadership sees anti-abortion extremism — attempts to redefine rape or allow hospitals to deny women life-saving abortions — as a political liability for Republicans, especially given that independent voters […]

There’s a lot of confusion over South Dakota’s SB 1171, a law proposed by state Rep. Phil Jensen that would expand the definition of “justifiable homicide” to include anyone attempting to harm an unborn child. Jensen claims his bill is not aimed at abortion providers, saying it is intended to apply to cases, for example, […]