A great editorial from the DDN that highlights the reasons Ohio should pass legislation that promotes comprehensive sex education, access to contraception and other methods that reduce unwanted preganancies.

Stopping unwanted pregnancy should be a bipartisan goal, and yet the actions and inactions of state lawmakers go beyond failing to make progress against the problem. Legislators are actually making things worse.

First, the General Assembly required school districts to favor “abstinence-only” programs, a discredited approach that seeks only to persuade kids not to have sex until marriage. Districts that wanted to offer some frank talk — or share much practical information — about how to avoid pregnancy when sexually active found state law discouraging.

Compounding the problem, lawmakers blocked educators from establishing health education standards without legislative approval. The lawmakers were trying to assure that abstinence-only programs dominated.

Demonstrators came out to support a pro-choice advocate who was recently attacked by a group of anti-choice protestors outside of an Akron clinic.

The decades-long debate on abortion heated up on the streets of Akron Saturday, with demonstrators for and against setting up camp on separate sides of East Market Street in front of an abortion clinic.

The display is part of a national trend of increasing tension between the two sides since the May 31 slaying of George Tiller, a Kansas physician who performed late-term abortions.

On July 18, the two sides clashed outside the Akron Women’s Medical Group, 839 E. Market St., when Akron resident Charles Wright, an abortion supporter, suffered six broken ribs and a concussion during a skirmish.

This legislation that would severely compromise a woman’s right to choose is currently pending in front of the Ohio General Assembly.

A bill was introduced by a western Ohio lawmaker last week that would create a requirement to obtain paternal consent before an abortion may be performed in the state of Ohio.

House Bill 252, introduced Friday by Rep. John Adams, R-Sidney, would enact section 2919.124 of the Revised Code. The enacted section, if the bill were to pass, would state that no person should induce or perform an abortion on a pregnant woman without the written informed consent of the fetus’ father, when the fetus is both “viable” or “not viable,” meaning that the fetus has developed, or not developed, to the point of being able to live outside of the uterus.

“There are instances when the baby is not a viable baby,” Adams said, “and in those instances, they (would) still need to get consent from the biological father.”

A victory for women’s reproductive freedom and availability of over the counter birth control.

Pharmacists are obliged to dispense the Plan B pill, even if they are personally opposed to the “morning after” contraceptive on religious grounds, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

In a case that could affect policy across the western U.S., a supermarket pharmacy owner in Olympia, Wash., failed in a bid to block 2007 regulations that required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills.

Family-owned Ralph’s Thriftway and two pharmacists employed elsewhere sued Washington state officials over the requirement. The plaintiffs asserted that their Christian beliefs prevented them from dispensing the pills, which can prevent implantation of a recently fertilized egg. They said that the new regulations would force them to choose between keeping their jobs and heeding their religious objections to a medication they regard as a form of abortion.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in two very important cases regarding reproductive rights and medical privacy.

Parents who are suing Planned Parenthood over an abortion clinic’s alleged negligence in allowing a teenage sexual-assault victim to obtain an abortion will not get access to clinic records on other patients, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

[…]

Carrie Davis, the acting legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said the ruling had less to do with abortion than the privacy of medical records. The ACLU joined the case as a friend of the court.

“For any of us, this was very important in preserving the privacy of our medical records,” Davis said.

A sensible editorial from the Dispatch on the need for comprehensive sex education.

Teens should be taught that abstinence will prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. But they also need comprehensive instruction about how to cope wisely with sexual issues if they abandon abstinence.

That’s why President Barack Obama’s budget plan shifts federal funding away from abstinence-only programs in favor of efforts that have demonstrated their effectiveness and focus on teen-pregnancy prevention.

Of about $170 million to be targeted for these programs, about 75 percent of the funding would support those that research shows have reduced teen pregnancy and have caused teens to delay sex and to increase use of contraceptives. The other 25 percent would be directed to innovative programs. These, according to Melody Barnes, director of a White House domestic-policy team, could include some abstinence-only courses, but only if they have proved to be effective.