Abortion

UNITED NATIONS -- Ten years after a landmark UN conference adopted a platform aimed at global equality for women, the United States is demanding that a declaration issued by a follow-up meeting make clear that women are not guaranteed a right to abortion. Starting today, a high-level United Nations meeting attended by more than 100 countries and 6,000 advocates for women's causes will be taking stock of what countries have done to implement the 150-page landmark platform of action adopted at the 1995 UN women's conference in Beijing to achieve equality of the sexes.

After reading the Globe's May 10 editorial " On gay marriage, Obama is on the right side of history ," I became hopeful that the president might also evolve his position on abortion, and do the right thing there. By taking a stand against abortion, the president could start his march toward protecting the civil rights of the unborn. Of course, there is a difference between the two issues. The unborn don't vote or make campaign contributions. Art Polimeno Saugus

GRANTHAM, Pa. - Senator Hillary Clinton said last night that the potential for life begins at conception as she and her presidential rival, Senator Barack Obama, answered questions about faith and religion in both their personal lives and the public discourse. In a forum devoted to a subject rare on the campaign trail, the two White House hopefuls talked about the presence of God in their lives and how often they read the Bible, as well as divisive issues such as abortion, abstinence, and human rights within the context of faith.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The launch of a privately owned cargo rocket heading to the International Space Station was aborted at the last second on Saturday morning. The rocket's nine engines had ignited, but computers detected a discrepancy and shut them down. The next launching attempt will be Tuesday morning at the earliest. The rocket and its cargo capsule, both built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif., represent an important step in NASA's evolution to rely more heavily on commercial companies for its human spaceflight program.

Starting with the New Year, pregnant girls seeking abortions in New Hampshire must tell their parents or get a judge's OK under a requirement reinstated by conservative Republicans over a gubernatorial veto. It is the second time around for a parental notification law in New Hampshire and the only law regulating abortion on the state's books. In 2003, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and others sued, blocking a similar law that was fought over in the US Supreme Court. That law was repealed in 2007 without ever being implemented.

More than 30 activists have been arrested for refusing to leave the Virginia Capitol steps during a protest of anti-abortion legislation. Virginia Capitol Police Capt. Raymond Goodloe says 31 protesters were arrested Saturday. The demonstrators were some of an estimated 500 people who had gathered to protest legislation like a bill that passed the General Assembly earlier in the week that requires an ultrasound before an abortion. The group had a permit to rally at the Bell Tower on Capitol Square, but Goodloe said rallies are not allowed on the Capitol steps.

The Chilean Senate has rejected three bills that would have eased the country's absolute ban on abortions. One of the bills would have permitted abortion when two doctors said it was needed because of risks to a mother's life or other medical reasons, such as a fetus with low chances of survival. It was defeated in an 18-15 vote. Another of the measures rejected on Wednesday would have allowed abortion in the event of rape. Chile permitted abortions for medical reasons until 1973, when the military dictatorship led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet repealed the measure.

CONCORD, N.H. -- A law requiring parental notification before an abortion is performed on a minor is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court said yesterday in a decision that backed a lower court's ruling. The US Court of Appeals affirmed US District Judge Joseph DiClerico's ruling, which threw the law out because it lacked provisions for an exception in the event of a medical emergency. DiClerico ruled just two days before it was to go into effect on Dec. 31, 2003. That ruling came after the law was challenged by Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Jesse Helms, writing with the same passion that made him the archconservative of the US Senate for 30 years, renews his criticism of abortion in a memoir being released today, comparing it to the Holocaust and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "I will never be silent about the death of those who cannot speak for themselves," the former senator wrote in "Here's Where I Stand. " Helms, a North Carolina Republican known as "Senator No" for his consistent efforts to block what he considered liberal initiatives and unqualified foreign policy appointees,...

LONDON - Britain's largest abortion provider said Thursday that thousands of attempts have been made to hack its website following a high-profile security breach when personal details of 10,000 women were stolen. Last week a judge jailed a computer hacker for breaking into the website of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and stealing the data. The service said that in the five weeks since the man's arrest, it had recorded 2,500 more attempts to hack its website, though none have succeeded.

Todd Stave did not set out to be an activist. But because he is the son of an abortion provider, activists have thrust themselves upon him. When he was 16, his father's office was firebombed in the middle of the night. When he was in college, his father called and asked if his roommate could bring him a welder: Some protesters had broken through security and chained themselves to his operating table. And though Stave, now 44, grew up to become an airplane salesman and an energy entrepreneur, he inherited his father's reproductive-health clinic in suburban Maryland.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A new private supply ship for the International Space Station remained stuck on the ground Saturday after rocket engine trouble led to a last-second abort of the historic flight. All nine engines for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roared to life Saturday morning. But with a mere half-second remaining before liftoff, the onboard computers automatically shut everything down. So instead of blasting off on a delivery mission to the space station, the rocket stayed on its launch pad amid a plume of engine exhaust.

State Representative Eugene O'Flaherty miscalculated badly when he tried to place the Chelsea District Court under the control of the central Boston Municipal Court. Reorganizing courts has some merit, but stuffing this move in a late-night budget amendment wasn't the way to win converts to his cause. The recent Probation Department scandal and subsequent indictments raised alarms and awareness of how lawmakers manipulate the administrative side of the judiciary when it serves their political and patronage purposes.

New Hampshire House lawmakers have tried and failed to revive a bill to ban late-term abortions. The House voted in March to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy except when necessary to save the mother's life or avert serious, permanent physical impairment. After the Senate refused to go along, House lawmakers brought the proposal back again Thursday, adding it to another bill related to health screening tests for newborns. The amendment was defeated, however, after lawmakers raised concerns that passing it would effectively kill the underlying bill.

A few thousand people opposed to Italy's 1978 law allowing abortion have marched through the Italian capital in a protest drawing people from around the world, including Americans and Poles. Nuns, priests and lay people marched in Rome Sunday from the Colosseum to Castel Sant'Angelo, a landmark near the Vatican. In Italy, abortion on demand is legal through to the end of the third month of pregnancy. After a long battle between secular forces and the church, voters upheld the law in a 1981 referendum.

Wanda Ramey stood on the University of Colorado campus, cane in one hand, "Close The Pay Gap" sign in the other. The rally for equal pay among women in the workplace was the 65-year-old spitfire's second stop in a day of meetings and protests. A registered independent, Ramey's top priorities this election year aren't necessarily directly related to the "war on women" that Democrats have accused Republicans of waging. She worries about the future of her grandchildren, their education and whether they'll find jobs one day. But when she read about a proposal in Virginia...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A father of six pleaded not guilty yesterday to an attempted murder charge that accuses him of trying to force his girlfriend at gunpoint to have an abortion. Authorities said Dominic Holt-Reid pointed a handgun at his pregnant girlfriend and forced her to drive to a women’s clinic, where she was able to slip a note to an employee who called police. She was not harmed. Holt-Reid entered the plea in Franklin County Common Pleas Court and was ordered held on $350,000 bond.

WASHINGTON - Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia said yesterday that he backed away from a bill requiring women to undergo an invasive procedure before receiving an abortion because he believed it might not have withstood legal scrutiny. McDonnell, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, addressed the matter at a panel hosted by Politico. It was his first extensive comments since asking lawmakers this week to drop a bill that would have required women seeking abortions to submit to a vaginal ultrasound procedure.

Abortion and gay marriage. For years, they've been lumped together as the paramount wedge issues of U.S. politics — hot-button topics in the vortex of sexuality, personal freedom and public policy. Yet these two divisive issues, prominent as ever this election season and still firing up the liberal and conservative bases of the two major parties, are evolving in intriguingly different ways. Partisans are taking care not to overstate how much the issues have in common. Same-sex marriage vaulted into the spotlight when President Barack Obama declared his support this past week,...

The head of a prominent abortion rights group says she's stepping down at the end of the year. Nancy Keenan, who's chaired the board of directors for NARAL Pro-Choice America for eight years, will leave the nation's oldest abortion rights group after the November elections. The Washington Post reported that she is not renewing her contract because the organization needs younger leaders. She said the group's research shows young Americans are not as passionate about abortion rights as previous generations.