Every day, I take a birth control pill (except during the "off" week). In this way, I am no different from a large number of American women. My daily pill is not an abortion under any recognizable definition of the word, but new regulations under consideration by the Department of Health and Human Services say that it is. Further, people who oppose abortions can deny me my right to medication that has been prescribed to me by a doctor.

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that reproductive rights were not a priority issue for women this election year. This insight struck me while I was in a writing class with nine other (mostly liberal) women in prime childbearing years (20s and 30s), and I was the only person who mentioned that repro rights were among the three issues I considered most important in this election. I wondered what this meant.

Dr. George Tiller is a saint. Despite three decades of harassment - legal and illegal, such as when someone shot him in both arms, Dr. Tiller continues to provide abortions for women carrying severely damaged fetuses or whose lives are endangered by their pregnancies. Like Dr. Tiller, Dr. Bernard Slepian and Dr. David Gunn are heroes, too.

I wasn't going to blog about Thomas Beatie, the pregnant man, even though his story touches on so many aspects of infertility--a wife with endometriosis and a hysterectomy, donor insemination, assisted conception. Even as all of the other bloggers tackled the topic, I sat back thinking: where is the story? Two people want to add to their family and they do so. The end. But the convergence of Pesach cleaning and citrus fruit made me think about how this story is the new orange on the seder plate.

Women's health and judicial appointments. Two topics not usually discussed in the same conversation -- but they should be. Many times we have heard nominees for the federal bench say things like their personal views will be checked at the door of the courthouse and that they will not legislate from the bench. We're hearing it again from a judicial nominee that President Bush is now trying for the second time to get confirmed before he and Laura have to start packing to move back to Texas. Whether or not we can believe that assertion is another question.

It's been one year since the FDA approved Plan B aka Emergency Contraception for sale over the counter. In the first year sales of Plan B have skyrocketed. with 2007 sales predicted to hit 80 million dollars. Here are a few bloggers who recognized the birthday on their blogs. Rachel from Women's Health News is encouraging people join the Pill Patrol. Despite over-the-counter availability, not all pharmacies stock the drug, and not all pharmacy staff are adequately informed about or willing to dispense Plan B. To that end, Planned Parenthood has launched the Pill Patrol campaign, in which women can sign up online to serve as secret shoppers, calling or visiting a nearby pharmacy and reporting back on whether the pharmacy will provide the drug.