Abortion debate roils U.S. House on Roe v. Wade anniversary
Topic: Abortion
Source: Reuters
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill permanently barring federal funding of abortions on Thursday after Republican leaders dropped harsher anti-abortion legislation due to opposition from some of the party's moderate lawmakers. Passage of the bill, and the setback for conservative House Republicans when the more restrictive abortion legislation was set aside, came on the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing the procedure. The abortion fight highlighted fissures within the party that wants to use its new majority to undercut Democrats as the 2016 presidential race begins to heat up. (22/01/15)

El Salvador pardons woman jailed for miscarriage
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: The Guardian (UK)
Women’s rights campaigners have welcomed the decision by El Salvador’s Congress to pardon a woman sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder after experiencing complications in pregnancy. The woman, known as Guadalupe, was originally charged under the country’s harsh abortion laws. She is understood to have given birth to a stillborn baby after being raped. She gave birth at home but was taken to hospital later in the day after heavy bleeding. She was accused of trying to abort the baby. El Salvador is among a handful of countries that forbid abortion under any circumstances. The domestic worker was later charged with aggravated murder. She has served seven years of her sentence. (22/01/15)

On free speech and the campus culture war
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Washington Examiner
Daniel Mael, a 22-year-old student journalist at Brandeis University, first reported on fellow student Khadija Lynch’s tweets in the aftermath of the death of NYPD Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. Lynch, a junior, had served as an undergraduate department representative in the university’s African and Afro-American Studies Department — until Mael’s reporting led the department to ask Lynch to step down. That should have ended things, but it didn’t. The story earned national attention, and Mael was targeted for his reporting.

Anti abortion advocates in U.S. feel empowered
Topic: Abortion
Source: CBC News
Thousands of anti-abortion advocates are in Washington, D.C., for the annual March for Life Thursday and some attendees say they are riding a wave of momentum into the capital and feel a new sense of hope and confidence that the debate is shifting in their favour. "If you go walk among these folks you will see more than ever before a younger, a more woman-dominated group, especially among the leaders, with more vibrancy and intensity than ever before," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of a group dedicated to electing anti-abortion candidates called the Susan B. Anthony List, during a recent speech in Washington. (22/01/15)

Mississippi education bill labeled Tim Tebow Act
Topic: Children and Family
Source: WTOK-TV
Tim Tebow is a name most folks associate with football. Now the question is, did you know he was home-schooled and allowed to play public school ball? A Mississippi family wants students in this state to have that option. “We want the best education we can have for our kids,” said Bryant Butler, who homeschools his four children. Butler says they’re not just learning by the books. They’re all active, involved in the arts and athletics. The oldest plays football, tap dances and plays violin. “To us, that’s an equal part of education. It’s just as important as the biology,” said Butler. “Just as important as the Latin, any of the other languages, arts, those things that you learn outside the classroom.” (22/01/15)

Sex slave targets Dershowitz, Prince Andrew....Clinton?
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Radar Online
An explosive new development in the ongoing royal sex scandal could torpedo Hillary Clinton’s White House run once and for all: RadarOnline.com has obtained a 15-page affidavit from former “sex slave” Virginia Roberts, in which she instructs a top legal team to seek criminal charges against Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, and other high-powered pals of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — including, potentially, Bill Clinton! In her affidavit, Roberts clearly refers to Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, and Clinton, and reveals that she has instructed her lawyers — who include former federal judge, Paul Cassell, and victims’ rights expert Bradley Edwards — to bring the men to justice. (21/01/15)

House GOP Flinches From Passing 20-Week Abortion Ban
Topic: Abortion
Source: National Review
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) met Wednesday evening with Representative Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and other Republican women to ameliorate a last-minute revolt against a 20-week abortion ban that passed the last Congress with overwhelming GOP support. He couldn’t convince the lawmakers, so, House GOP leadership is canceling a vote that was scheduled to coincide with the March for Life and the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision. “I’m honestly stunned — what a complete and utter debacle,” says one Republican lawmaker who supports the legislation. The sticking point: “reporting requirements,” as they’re known on the Hill. In short, the bill bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy — when the in utero infant can feel pain — except in cases of rape, incest, or for the life of the mother. But to benefit from the rape and incest exception, the victim has to report the crime to law enforcement. (21/01/15)

Prince Andrew asked to respond under oath on sex with 17 yr old
Topic: Men's Movement
Source: The Guardian (UK)
Lawyers acting for the woman who alleges she was forced by a multimillionaire financier to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 are formally requesting that he respond under oath to her accusations. Details of the request, contained in a letter addressed to Andrew at Buckingham Palace asking him to take part in a two-hour interview, were contained in a new legal submission filed by the woman, Virginia Roberts, in a Florida court on Wednesday. The court bundle also contains a sworn affidavit from Roberts, providing new details about the sexual encounters she alleges she had with Andrew on three separate occasions beginning when she was 17 and working for Jeffrey Epstein, a former hedge fund boss since convicted for soliciting sex with a minor. (21/01/15)

Page 3 returns to the Sun… after a week
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Baring her breasts and winking at the camera, ‘Nicole from Bournemouth’ today brought to an end speculation that Page 3 had been killed off. It had been widely thought the controversial segment in The Sun newspaper had been dropped after 44 years - and Government ministers welcomed the move. The newspaper had not published pictures of topless glamour models since last Friday, instead advising readers the pictures would be available on its website.(22/01/15)

Feds Spent 432,000 Studying Gay Hookup Apps
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: Washington Free Beacon
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent nearly a half a million dollars studying gay hookup apps such as Grindr. The government awarded $432,000 to Columbia University to interview gay men who use GPS dating apps and determine whether it increases their likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behavior. “Smartphone technologies have provided a new venue for sexual partnering among men who have sex with men (MSM),” the grant for the project states. “Indeed, there are a rapidly growing number of smartphone applications designed to facilitate sexual partnering among MSM.” The project argues that dating apps that use the Global Positioning System, or GPS, has “accelerated” the rate that gay men can find sexual partners, compared to online.

Suit, Mans Penis Ruined Thanks to His Insurer
Topic: Men's Movement
Source: Courthouse News Service
As far as lawsuits go, this line contained in one filed by Rupert Collins against his insurer has to rank among the most horrifying: "Rupert's penis and urethra is permanently eroded away." Courthouse News Service has the graphic details on Collins' suit, which he filed Dec. 30 against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in Napa County Superior Court. While a patient at Napa Valley Care Center (the complaint explains Kaiser was "contractually obligated" to provide physician services there), the elderly Collins began to experience issues with the Foley catheter that had been inserted into his penis. Per the suit, a nurse faxed Kaiser on July 21, 2013, requesting permission to "have a trial of no Foley" to rest the area, which was "red and swollen and cut." Request denied and, per the suit, "his penis began to erode further and further each day." (21/01/15)

Forget College For Everyone
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Federalist
Last May, a proposal was made on this site to have the federal government forgive all student loans owed to it and pay off all student loans owed to private lenders—in return for cancelling basically all federal support to higher educational institutions. It’s a crack-a-jack idea. There are essentially three problems with student loans. Easy-to-get loans encourage many young people (some of whom can’t possibly profit from college) to waste crucial years of their lives at an institution from which they will derive no benefit, partly because the curriculums are useless today and partly because the nature of work is changing. As many people now realize, the primary effect of student loans has been to enable colleges to raise costs, to feed their largely left-wing professoriat. (20/01/15)

Arkansas government kidnaps seven children
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Intellihub
Author: Mike Adams
The need to amend the Bill of Rights to protect medical freedom in America is now greater than ever. Yesterday, government thugs in Hot Springs, Arkansas raided and searched the home of a couple who were in possession of a simple mineral supplement called Miracle Mineral Solution. Law enforcement officers of Garland County, Arkansas served a search warrant on the Stanley home — yes, possession of a legal, medicinal mineral supplement is now grounds for being searched by the government — where they took the family’s seven children by force. (20/01/15)

Protecting Children By Treating Adults Like Children
Topic: Children and Family
Source: BBC News
Broadband provider Sky will block adult content by default, unless users opt out, it has revealed. The decision was announced in a blog post and will be phased in over coming weeks. In 2013 Prime Minister David Cameron put pressure on internet service provider [ISPs] to make online filtering mandatory, saying it was the best way to protect children. (21/01/15)

Shame on Gillibrand
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: SAVE
Author: KC Johnson
Apart from Claire McCaskill, no senator has more aggressively advocated weakening due process protections for students accused of sexual assault than New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand. She continued her anti-due process crusade in two high-profile moves this week. First, Gillibrand invited Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz as her special guest for the State of the Union address. Sulkowicz has attracted international media attention for her “performance art” project of carrying a mattress around campus to protest what she considers Columbia’s insufficient response to a student she claims sexually assaulted her. No evidence exists that the student did, in fact, sexually assault her: even under Columbia’s extraordinarily imbalanced sexual assault policy, which tilts nearly all procedures in the advantage of the accusing student, the disciplinary panel didn’t find Sulkowicz’s allegation credible. (22/01/15)

Saudi Arabia Seriously Considering Allowing Women to Use Forks
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: The Daily Currant
Warning, humor. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced today that it is leaning toward finally allowing its female population to use forks. The highly anticipated move comes as the autocratic Islamic regime faces ongoing criticism around the world for its record on women’s rights, which critics say is among the wors

Should Libertarians Defend a Woman’s Right to an Abortion?
Topic: Abortion
Source: Panam
Author: Debate format
Establishing women’s right to abortion is mostly a matter of refuting (bad) arguments to the contrary. For surely we’ll agree that any given person has a basic right to do any given act, x, if x can be shown to involve no harm to others. So: does aborting a fetus do any harm to anyone? Again, we must bypass any argument about persons with special claims: has anyone (the male involved, say) made any agreements with the mother-to-be that would limit her freedom of action? We will assume not. (21/01/15)

Mom Neglect 10 Yr Old, Toddler by Leaving Alone in Car for Minutes?
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Yahoo Daily News
Author: Lenore Skenazy
Mom wrote, A woman that worked at the store called the police within that 10 minutes. The police said it was child neglect. I told him my daughter is responsible to watch her sleeping sister for 10 minutes, that I’ve never done it in the past but needed to get a few items, and [that] I didn’t want to wake her sister for that short period of time. He told me a murderer that has never murdered anyone in the past doesn’t make them any less of a murderer.To make a long story short, I left that day and didn’t know I was being charged until November when I started receiving letters from lawyers trying to get my business. Fast forward to today and I now have a misdemeanor on my record and six months’ probation. I have never had any issues with the law in my life.

Yes Means Yes Law Proposed by Some Arizona Lawmakers
Topic: Men's Movement
Source: Phoenix New Times
Some Democratic Arizona lawmakers have proposed a "yes means yes" policy at the state's universities that would require clear consent for any sexual activity. A similar proposal was passed into law in California in an effort to combat what's been called a growing problem of sexual assaults on college campuses.

Generation Rent...new phrase to describe UK 20 somethings
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
It’s official: ‘Generation Rent’ is the hot, new, pity-me identity badge for Britain’s disgruntled twentysomethings. Towards the end of last year, the average UK rent soared to £761 per month. And this has led to renewed calls from fresh-faced campaigners for the government to step in and enforce rent controls. On 4 February, the campaign group Generation Rent is organising a day of action, Rent Freedom Day, in an attempt to liberate what it calls ‘a generation sentenced to rent slavery’.