But after writing a lot about the abortion debate in the last couple of weeks, I'm struck by the similarities between the vitriol Vernon reports and typical anti-choice rhetoric. She receives "terrifying" letters and e-mails calling her "selfish ... unnatural, evil." She is "now routinely referred to as 'baby-hating journalist Polly Vernon.'" Ring any bells? How about this -- men more than women, Vernon says, often respond by becoming "aggressive, sneering ... Perhaps the idea that there are women at large who are not actively pursuing their sperm is an out-and-out affront to a certain kind of man. The same men who have spent years believing that all women secretly want to trap them into commitment and fatherhood, probably."

They just won't stop. Yesterday, I wrote to you with breaking news about an attempt to strip Title X funding for Planned Parenthood from the Appropriations Act — now anti-choice senators are pushing a new amendment to undermine access to birth control.

The debate is happening today in the Senate. We need you to call your senators right now and tell them to vote "NO" on the DeMint Amendment to strip affordable birth control provisions from the Appropriations Act. Call the Senate switchboard at 202-224-3121 to contact your senators.

Planned Parenthood has been working to restore access to affordable birth control since 2007, when a legislative error caused the price of birth control to skyrocket by up to 900 percent for low-income women and college students. The no-cost fix to this problem has passed in the House of Representatives, and it's strongly supported by President Obama — but anti-choice senators are making one last effort to derail the affordable birth control fix.

Call 202-224-3121 and make sure your senators know: The affordable birth control fix is not an earmark. It's a vital piece of legislation that will expand access to family planning services for thousands of low-income women and college students and help them prevent unintended pregnancies at no cost to the federal government or to tax payers.

Senator DeMint, a long-time opponent of family planning, has submitted an amendment to remove affordable birth control provisions from the bill, claiming that the vital legislation is nothing but an earmark for Planned Parenthood. But here are the facts: this fix does not provide funding to Planned Parenthood — or anyone else! It simply fixes a mistake in the law that put up a roadblock for pharmaceutical companies who wanted to offer cheaper drugs to health clinics.

In these economic times, government should be removing unnecessary barriers like this one — and supporting common sense policies that give women the ability to plan their families and their futures.

I know we've been asking a lot of you recently, and I want you to know that your support is making a huge difference in Congress. It's so important for those of us who support family planning and expanding health care access to speak out, loud and clear.

Call your senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them to keep affordable birth control provisions in the Appropriations Act.

I've had enough of anti-choice politicians hiding their opposition to family planning behind claims of fiscal responsibility. Don't let them get away with it. Please, call your senators now and help us pass the affordable birth control fix once and for all.

Thank you for standing with us as we work to secure an important victory for family planning and women across the country.

The Bush administration this month is quietly cutting off birth control supplies to some of the world’s poorest women in Africa.

Thus the paradox of a “pro-life” administration adopting a policy whose result will be tens of thousands of additional abortions each year — along with more women dying in childbirth.

The saga also spotlights a clear difference between Barack Obama and John McCain. Senator Obama supports U.N.-led efforts to promote family planning; Senator McCain stands with President Bush in opposing certain crucial efforts to help women reduce unwanted pregnancies in Africa and Asia...

...The latest bout of reproductive-health madness came in the last couple of weeks when the U.S. Agency for International Development ordered six African countries to ensure that no U.S.-financed condoms, birth control pills, I.U.D.’s or other contraceptives are furnished to Marie Stopes International, a British-based aid group that operates clinics in poor countries.

The Bush administration says it took this action because Marie Stopes International works with the U.N. Population Fund in China. President Bush has cut all financing for the population fund on the — false — basis that it supports China’s family-planning program...

...“The irony and hypocrisy of it is that this is a bone to the self-described ‘pro-life’ movement, but it will result in deaths to women who just want to space their births,” said Dana Hovig, the chief executive of Marie Stopes International. The organization estimates that the result will be at least 157,000 additional unwanted pregnancies per year, leading to 62,000 additional abortions and 660 women dying in childbirth.

That may overstate the impact. Kent Hill, an official of the U.S. aid agency, insists that there will be no increase in pregnancies because the American contraceptives will simply be routed to other aid groups in Africa.

That will work to some degree in big cities. But it’s a fantasy in rural Africa. Over the years, I’ve dropped in on a half-dozen Marie Stopes clinics, and in rural areas there’s typically nothing else for many miles around. Women in the villages simply have no other source of family planning.

“This nearsighted maneuver will have direct and dire consequences,” a group of prominent public health experts in America declared in an open letter, adding that the action “will translate almost immediately into increased maternal death and disability.”

Protesters outside our Locust Street Health Center and our Far Northeast Health Center try to intimidate and harass our patients and staff.

If you wish to respond in a meaningful way, then please join our Pledge-a-Picket campaign and raise your voice against theirs!

When protesters gather outside our 12 health centers, they subject our patients to verbal attacks and graphic signs meant to confuse and intimidate. They are sometimes blocked from entering the building, and occasionally are videotaped. They are offered anti-choice propaganda and free rides to the closest “crisis pregnancy center.”

Staff and volunteers are also seen as targets. We are called "murderers," are lectured to about "committing sins," and are told we will pay the “ultimate price” for our actions.

How Pledge-a-Picket Works

You decide on the amount you would like to pledge for each protester (minimum 10¢). When protesters show up on our sidewalks at our Locust Street and our Far Northeast Health Centers, PPSP will count and record their number every day from October 1 through November 30, 2008. We will place a large sign outside of both health centers to track pledges and make protesters fully aware that their actions are benefiting PPSP. At the end of the two-month campaign, we will send you an update on protest activities along with a pledge reminder.

Example of Pledge

If you pledge 30¢ per protester, and PPSP has 100 protesters in October and 160 protesters in November, your donation would be $78 for the entire two-month campaign.

Similar to sponsoring a runner in a charity marathon, your pledge total can be capped at a pre-set amount, if desired.

Millions Who Had Abortions Don't Know It: Ann Woolner

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- It's impossible for me to know how many abortions I've had. If asked last week, I would have confidently declared, none.

Now, I don't know. It depends on what the meaning of the word ``abortion'' is.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has drafted a rule that would call it abortion when a contraceptive prevents a fertilized egg from embedding itself in the uterine wall.

That's one of the ways many birth-control pills and intrauterine devices work. And if that's abortion, millions of women who didn't know they were pregnant -- who medically weren't pregnant -- have killed their unborn children.

No joke.

Quindlen: How Much Jail Time for Women Who Have Abortions?

By Anna Quindlen

Newsweek

Aug. 6, 2007 issue - Buried among prairie dogs and amateur animation shorts on YouTube is a curious little mini-documentary shot in front of an abortion clinic in Libertyville, Ill. The man behind the camera is asking demonstrators who want abortion criminalized what the penalty should be for a woman who has one nonetheless. You have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked. It's as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations. Here are a range of responses: "I've never really thought about it." "I don't have an answer for that." "I don't know." "Just pray for them."

You have to hand it to the questioner; he struggles manfully. "Usually when things are illegal there's a penalty attached," he explains patiently. But he can't get a single person to be decisive about the crux of a matter they have been approaching with absolute certainty.

A new public-policy group called the National Institute for Reproductive Health wants to take this contradiction and make it the centerpiece of a national conversation, along with a slogan that stops people in their tracks: how much time should she do? If the Supreme Court decides abortion is not protected by a constitutional guarantee of privacy, the issue will revert to the states. If it goes to the states, some, perhaps many, will ban abortion. If abortion is made a crime, then surely the woman who has one is a criminal. But, boy, do the doctrinaire suddenly turn squirrelly at the prospect of throwing women in jail.

I read Norris Burkes' weekly Spirituality column via the Gannett newswire. Sure, it's Jesus-y, but he also has a lot of good nondenomational things to say. And he's often very funny. And sometimes I send it to my mom and my mother-in-law, so they don't give me a hard time about not going to church. His column today about abortion protesters and the larger message about getting your point across is quite good.

( Cut for length, but worth the read )