Breast-feeding as an abortifacient?

I came across this citation while reading a William Saletan column, which, if I can decipher the jargon, indicates that ovulation may still occur during the postpartum breast-feeding stage. Does this suggest that, during this stage, a woman may have a fertilized egg that does not implant due to breast-feeding? This would place breast-feeding as an abortifacient practice in line with other methods of contraceptive unacceptable to pro-lifers.

Saletan's earlier column does a nice job of capturing the scientific uncertainty over what happens with eggs and implantation with emergency contraception (like Plan B).

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Medically necessary abortions: The battle of the experts

Apparently, Representative Joe Walsh is not entirely alone! The assertion that an abortion is never medically necessary has been floating around in the pro-life universe for at least a little while. We are now witnessing a battle of the experts. One the one side is Joe Walsh and friends. Walsh himself released a pdf document with quotations from several doctors-- including some historically prominent pro-choice doctors, like Alan Guttmacher-- making the 'never medically necessary' claim seem quite reasonable. Also on Walsh's side are several doctors who particpated in a recent "International Symposium on Maternal Health" in Dublin. Ireland, despite a European Court of Human Rights ruling in 1992 , has a total ban on abortion. Irish pro-lifers want the country's politicians to resist pressure to implement even a life exception, so the question of medical necessity is directly relevant there. The "Dublin Declaration," released after the S...

Book review: The Street Politics of Abortion

I recently wrote a review of The Street Politics of Abortion , by Joshua C. Wilson, for the Law and Politics Book Review. It can be found here .

Did "tax-funded abortion pills" cause the Newtown tragedy?

Of course not. But this is the kind of nonsense we get when people shamelessly piggyback on a tragedy to score political or culture war points. We also get this kind of analysis when someone is paid to analyze events on cue but has nothing of substance to say regarding something terrible and complex. Watch Mike Huckabee's statement here: I understand Huckabee is trying to make a larger point about the culture, rather than drawing a direct line from the ACA's contraceptive mandate-- which does not mandate taxpayer funding of abortion pills, by the way-- to the Newtown massacre. Still, this is what happens when a tragedy occurs: We extrapolate from an isolated event and determine that it encapsulates, or is the ultimate representation of, something about our society that must be addressed. It is possible, however, that an event is sui generis and cannot then serve as a platform for useful long-term policy reform. We reduce the cause of a tragedy-- which may ultimat...

Reproductive Politics

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