Kaiser Updates

Religious groups that support abortion rights are "increasingly active and visible," and "their emphasis on conscience and morality ... has the potential to change the terms of the abortion-rights debate," Brooklyn-based journalist Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow writes in a Boston Globe column. Like religious abortion-rights opponents, the religious abortion-rights supporters use the Bible to validate their support of abortion rights, Tuhus-Dubrow writes. She adds, "Instead of rights, the religious abortion-rights movement tends to emphasize moral agency and conscience," stressing the "sanctity of life and the obligation to protect the vulnerable," which consists first of women and their children. The acknowledgement of a multifaceted moral view of abortion "historically" has been "taboo in the polarized abortion debate," but the religious abortion-rights movement is "not shy about acknowledging the moral complexity" of the issue, Tuhus-Dubrow writes. Some politicians -- including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who in January 2005 said that abortion "represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women" -- have "embraced the idea of moral complexity," according to Tuhus-Dubrow. Despite the reluctance of some abortion-rights supporters to "embrace the approach" of religious groups that support abortion rights, the "influence of religion is increasingly evident throughout the abortion-rights movement," Tuhus-Dubrow writes.

Family planning clinics in West Virginia temporarily might have to suspend programs that provide to low-income women no-cost contraceptive pills and patches after Ortho-McNeil, the leading supplier of the products, earlier this month raised its prices significantly, the Charleston Gazette reports. According to WV Family Planning Program Director Denise Smith, a 30-day supply of one type of contraceptive pill made by Ortho-McNeil earlier this month increased from $0.01 to $21.01, and the cost of the company's Ortho Evra patch increased from $12.15 to $22.46. The company provided more than 75% of contraceptive pills to the state program and it is the only state provider of the birth control patch. In 2005, the program provided contraceptives to about 59,000 low-income West Virginia residents, according to Smith. She said the state family planning program has supplies to provide contraceptives for two more weeks, adding that officials are exploring generic birth control options but that the associated bidding process could take about two months.