A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that about 20 percent of 17-year-olds who called in to a pharmacy to ask for emergency contraception that day were unable to receive it. Seventeen-year-old women legally have access to the morning after pill, also known as Plan B, without a prescription. The decision would have removed a prescription requirement for any woman seeking emergency contraception.

According to the study:

The availability of emergency contraception did not differ based on neighborhood income. However, in 19 percent (n = 138) of calls, the adolescent was told she could not obtain emergency contraception under any circumstance. This misinformation occurred more often (23.7 percent vs 14.6 percent) among pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods. When callers queried the age threshold for over-the-counter access, they were given the correct age less often by pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods (50.0 percent vs 62.8 percent. In all but 11 calls, the incorrect age was stated as erroneously too high, potentially restricting access.

The researchers concluded that “although we found approximately 80 percent same-day availability of emergency contraception in US metropolitan areas, misinformation regarding access was common—particularly in low-income neighborhoods.”

Immediate access to emergency contraception is vital to its effectiveness. Prolonged wait times or other types of barriers to same-day access can lead to an unplanned pregnancy, which is why many women’s health advocates have criticized the federal government for intervening in the FDA’s request.

Since Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced her decision, reproductive health advocates and policy-makers have expressed disappointment with the decision and claim it was based on political calculations, and not on scientific research. Last week, more than 35,000 signatures were sent to President Obama denouncing the decision.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has already sought legal action challenging the federal agency’s decision and a judge is considering hearing it.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (FLORIDA INDEPENDENT/ Cooper Levey-Baker)

Former presidential contender and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has teamed up with Citizens United to promote “fetal personhood,” a movement sweeping the country in the form of amendments that aim to define as beginning at the moment of conception.

Huckabee acts as narrator in Gift of Life, a film that promotes legislative action meant to overturn the landmark abortion rights act Roe v. Wade. He spoke about the film during a segment that aired last Saturday on his eponymous Fox News program, saying he had a recent discussion with his 5-year-old grandson about his passion for abortion issues.

Huckabee says that the film, which he helped produce, will remind voters that, “while the economy and jobs are center stage, treating every human with worth and dignity is still essential in selecting a leader.” Throughout the film, Huckabee espouses his support for fetal personhood bills, which have become increasingly divisive. Though supporters argue they only want to outlaw abortion, critics have argued that defining life in such broad terms could lead to a variety of unintended consequences and have wide-ranging impacts on cancer research as well as in vitro fertilization.

The issue is even more urgent, Huckabee says, because of the recent FDA approval of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B pill — which Huckabee called “a drug that kills a developing baby.”

The personhood movement has had its setbacks recently — an attempt at an amendment in Florida never yielded enough signatures for ballot placement and, despite support from state legislators, a personhood amendment in Mississippi on the state’s November ballot failed.

A Personhood Florida spokesman told The Florida Independent that, despite those recent setbacks, his group would again attempt an initiative for 2014.

Since Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced her decision, reproductive health advocates and policy-makers have expressed disappointment with the decision and claim it was based on political calculations, and not on scientific research.

According to the group’s press release:

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, today sent a letter signed by 35,194 Americans to President Obama opposing the administration’s recent decision to overrule a recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to follow medical experts’ recommendations to remove a restriction on the Plan B® emergency contraceptive.

“We had a major opportunity to improve young women’s access to contraception, which is the best way to reduce unintended abortions and thus the need for abortion, and the Obama administration missed the mark,” Keenan said. “We will continue to call on the administration to follow sound science and recommendations from health experts.”

The grassroots letter, which comes almost a week later, is leading a grassroots public-education and advocacy campaign to mobilize grassroots supporters to take action in response to the administration’s decision reject the FDA’s recommendation. NARAL Pro-Choice America leveraged its activist network to launch a public-education effort immediately after the administration’s decision was announced. The group’s efforts also came as senators, led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and members, led by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), sent letters to the administration expressing their disapproval of this action.

Since U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced her decision, reproductive health advocates have expressed disappointment and claim that the decision was based on political calculations, and not on scientific research.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has reopened “its 2005 lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for imposing unnecessary age restrictions on emergency contraceptives, and seek immediate relief to allow broader access to available drugs,” a new press release from the group states.

The group has also sought to add “Sebelius as a defendant in the reopened case for her role in overruling the FDA’s approval of Plan B One-Step last week,” according to the press release.

According to the group:

This fight is far from over. We intend to take every legal step necessary to hold the FDA and this administration accountable for its extraordinary actions to block women from safe, effective emergency contraception,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEP for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It has been ten years of battling to bring emergency contraception out from behind the pharmacy counter. The FDA cannot simply continue moving the goal posts down the field for women’s reproductive health care.”

While U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman found the contempt motion moot because late last night, the FDA decided to deny the 2001 Citizen Petition to lift age restrictions on emergency contraceptives— two years after the judge had ordered the agency to fairly reconsider the petition— he proceeded to invite the Center to reopen its 2005 lawsuit and agreed that the Center could add Secretary Sebelius as a defendant.

During the hearing, Judge Korman repeatedly noted the striking similarities between recent events —including last night’s denial of the Citizen Petition and Secretary Sebelius’ unprecedented decision to intervene and block the unrestricted sale of the drug—and the findings in 2009 that the FDA under the Bush Administration had “acted in bad faith and in response to political pressure.”

“The FDA has essentially been holding women’s reproductive health hostage to political calculations,” said Suzanne Novak, the senior staff attorney who argued for the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The Washington Post reports today that “Korman said he was willing to hear arguments over whether the agency should have allowed the sale of the morning-after pill to girls younger than 17 without a prescription, and he instructed advocacy groups to file the appropriate legal motions.”

In a statement announcing her decision, Sebelius said that although “the science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use, the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. ”

“I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use,” she said.

Reproductive rights advocates immediately denounced the decision. Numerous groups have already released statements and written letters to Sebelius and the White House expressing disagreement with the decision.

The Washington Post reports that now a group of U.S. senators have written a letter to Sebelius requesting an explanation.

According to the letter:

We feel strongly that FDA regulations should be based on science. We write to you today to ask that you provide us with the rationale for this decision.

As numerous medical societies and patient advocates have argued, improved access to birth control, including emergency contraception, has been proven to reduce unintended pregnancies. Nearly half of all pregnancies that occur in the United States each year are unintended. Keeping Plan B behind the counter makes it harder for all women to obtain a safe and effective product they may need to prevent an unintended pregnancy.

We ask that you share with us your specific rationale and the scientific data you relied on for the decision to overrule the FDA recommendation. On behalf of the millions of women we represent, we want to be assured that this and future decisions affecting women’s health will be based on medical and scientific evidence.

President Obama has publicly supported Sebelius’ decision.

President Barack Obama (Photo: Flickr/The White House)

Women’s health advocates all over the country were stunned yesterday when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reversed an FDA request to expand access to over-the-counter emergency contraception for teenagers under the age of 17. In press releases denouncing the decision, a common theme has emerged: President Obama has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush, on the heated issue of emergency contraception.

The political fight during the Bush administration over Plan B, also known as the morning after pill or emergency contraception, was a volatile one. Conservatives were dead-set against the FDA’s approval of the drug and did all they could to stall access to it once it was approved.

As feminist writer Jessica Valenti has written on the subject:

As you may remember, the concerns the FDA cited over emergency contraception were not about women’s health or the safety of efficacy of the drug. Instead, they were worried about young women getting all slutty. Dr. W. David Hager, one of the FDA committee members who voted against EC’s over-the-counter approval and a key player in making sure Plan B got held up, told The New York Times: “What we heard today was frequently about individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences.” Some things to keep in mind about Hager: in suggested in a book he wrote that women could cure PMS with prayer, and his wife accused him of rape. So yeah, a bit scary that he was in charge of women’s health.

It later came to light that FDA medical official Janet Woodcock wrote in an internal memo that over-the-counter status for Plan B could cause “extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” It has Lifetime Original Movie written all over it. Of course this but-it-will-make-girls-slutty argument is hardly new. It’s the same excuse legislators have given when attempting to limit women’s access to birth control, and more recently, to the HPV vaccine.

Because the argument against emergency contraception wasn’t rooted in any medical or scientific argument, advocates were sure the Obama administration would uphold the recommendation. Furthermore, it was unlikely that a health secretary would publicly overrule the FDA.

According to The New York Times:

Although Ms. Sebelius had the legal authority to overrule the F.D.A., no health secretary had ever publicly done so, an F.D.A. spokeswoman said. Nor had such a disagreement been the subject of such extraordinary dueling press statements. Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the F.D.A.’s commissioner, issued a lengthy statement saying it was safe to sell Plan B over the counter, while Ms. Sebelius countered that the drug’s manufacturer had failed to study whether girls as young as 11 years old could safely use Plan B.

However, the conversation about whether to remove the barrier of a required prescription for girls under the age of 17 was about making sure emergency contraception was available to all sexually active women in an emergency. Requiring a prescription for a young girl could remove Plan B as an option altogether.

Women’s advocates also expected Sebelius and the Obama administration to protect women’s health issues, no matter the political fallout. The administration took a hit from politically powerful Catholic groups when it upheld a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine to include contraception in a list of preventive medicines to be covered without co-payments.

But in the months since the decision to include contraception in the list was made, reproductive justice advocates have been less sure that the administration will stand its ground, and they now consider yesterday’s decision a sign of things to come. Worse, advocates now see the Obama administration as continuing the politics of the Bush administration.

Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, wrote in a press release yesterday that the group “expected this kind of action from the Bush administration, so it’s doubly disheartening and unacceptable that this administration chose to follow this path.”

“We had a major opportunity to improve young women’s access to contraception,” Keenan said in a statement, “which is the best way to reduce the need for abortion, and the Obama administration missed the mark.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights released a statement saying, “Six years ago, we sued the Bush administration for rejecting science and playing politics with women’s health by denying emergency contraception for over-the-counter sale.”

“We are stunned to see the same behavior from the Obama administration,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. ”It is unacceptable that the approval for drugs supporting women’s reproductive health is held to a completely different standard.”

One of the country’s oldest feminist groups, the National Organization for Women, aslo said in a statement that:

It is an unusual and infuriating move for the Obama administration to overrule that decision, especially at a time when rumors are flying that the president is on the brink of caving in to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops by expanding religiously affiliated employers’ ability to deny contraceptive coverage to women under the Affordable Care Act.

NOW calls on the president to stop playing politics with the lives of women and girls. During the Bush years, women’s reproductive health was under constant attack. We don’t need more of the same from the Obama administration.

The Center for Reproductive Rights will be in federal court on Tuesday, according to their stament, continuing to fight for over-the-counter emergency contraception. The group filed a petition years ago, “along with attorneys Andrea Costello of Florida Institutional Legal Services and Natalie Maxwell of Southern Legal Counsel on behalf of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP), National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, grassroots activists, and parents who seek over-the-counter access for their daughters.”

A federal court ordered the FDA to reconsider and rule on the petition filed by the Center in 2001. However, the FDA has yet to follow the order, the Center says.

Groups expect to hear whether Sebelius will uphold her decision to include contraception in a list of preventive services some time this week.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. (Photo: http://degette.house.gov)

“I have always been committed to ensuring all our health policy decisions are grounded in sound science. The FDA’s review process was clearly extensive and thorough, and the data shared with HHS made clear that Plan B is safe and effective for its intended use,” DeGette wrote in a release. “Access to reliable and safe contraception is a fundamental component of health care and bringing Plan B from behind the pharmacy counter onto the shelves with other contraceptive methods would have been a victory for women’s health.”

DeGette looked forward to expanding access to the drug as a great victory for women’s health care and Sebelius’ move clearly came as a surprise.

Writing at the Huffington Post this week in anticipation of the decision, DeGette said expanding access to the Plan B pill to high school girls would be a great victory for women’s health.

If they approve this move, as we hope they will, it would be a great victory for women’s health care; when a woman can plan how and when she wants to have her family, there are proven health, economic and social benefits to her, her family, and indeed our society overall…

If the FDA approves this step, it will reflect the proven science of an important contraceptive innovation for American women. Access to reliable and safe contraception is a fundamental component of basic health care.

DeGette noted that, as with so much related to women’s reproductive health, the topic of the “morning after pill” was fraught. She warned against bad information.

[D]irectly in conflict with that science, many ideologues are once again trying to stand in the way of this advancement for women’s health care…

To be clear — emergency contraception is not a so-called “abortion pill.” Much like the traditional birth-control pill, Plan B One-step works to prevent fertilization, and therefore, pregnancy. Despite false declarations from extreme opponents, Plan B One-step does not work if the woman is already pregnant.

The Plan B pill is currently available without a prescription to any woman 17 or older with a photo ID. Reproductive rights advocates have long warned that this type of age restriction creates ill-advised longer wait times for young women seeking emergency contraception.

Teva Pharmaceuticals had applied to make its pill the first over-the-counter form of emergency contraception.

Secretary Sebelius explained that she thought that women as young as 11 might seek out the pill and she was unsure such young women could use the pill properly.

Although “the science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use,” she said, “the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. ”

“I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use,” she said in a statement today.

According to her statement:

FDA has recommended approval of this application in its Summary Review for Regulatory Action on Plan B One-Step. After careful consideration of the FDA Summary Review, I have concluded that the data, submitted by Teva, do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age.

The average age of the onset of menstruation for girls in the United States is 12.4 years. However, about ten percent of girls are physically capable of bearing children by 11.1 years of age. It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age. If the application were approved, the product would be available, without prescription, for all girls of reproductive age.

The surprise move by a member of the pro-choice Obama administration had many analysts suggesting the rejection of the FDA recommendation should be seen as political maneuvering. They said the White House might be trading access to the morning after pill for conservative support for initiatives it considers more pressing, initiatives likely tied to relieving the economic pressure of the recession.

If there’s any truth to such speculation and if the health care reform debate is any measure, analysts point to the need to win over conservative Democrats on matters related to abortion for an extension of unemployment benefits, for example.

John Tomasic contributed to this report.

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In a recent blog post titled, “A Question the Pro-Life Movement Must Answer,” the youth-focused anti-abortion rights group Students for Life of America (SFLA) describes what it refers to as “the pro-life movement’s stance on contraception,” boiled down to four main points:

1. Birth control – in any form – doesn’t prevent abortions; it provides a false sense of security.

To support this claim, SFLA cites the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that studies reproductive-health issues, which it claims reports that “condoms fail 14% of the time.” This claim links to a report from December 2003 about the implications of public policy that promotes abstinence-only education. This is the paragraph with the 14 percent failure-rate statistic about condoms:

People deserve to have consistent and accurate information about the effectiveness of all contraceptive methods. For example, if they are told that abstinence is 100% effective, they should also be told that, if used correctly and consistently, condoms are 97% effective in preventing pregnancy. If they are told that condoms fail as much as 14% of the time, they should be given a comparable typical-use failure rate for abstinence.

SFLA uses another Guttmacher report to justify the claim: “over half of all abortions are on women who were using some method of birth control. This is a cry in the face of pro-abortion propaganda claiming that if women had better access to birth control, abortions would become unnecessary.”

What this Guttmacher report, from May 2011, says:

Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users report having used their method inconsistently, while 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users report correct use.

2. Birth control comes with complications and risks. “I[n] some cases, it’s deadly for both the child and mother.”

Here, SFLA claims that hormonal birth control has “been proven to end the life of a preborn human mere hours or days after conception by thinning the uterine lining and making implantation more difficult for the developing person.” The group reports that oral contraceptives, commonly referred to as “the pill,” have been categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “Group I carcinogen.” The corresponding link takes readers to a WHO statement (PDF) from September 2005, which states that the use of combined oral contraceptives (COCs) “modifies slightly the risk of cancer, increasing it is some sites (cervix, breast, liver), decreasing it in others (endometrium, ovary).”

According to the National Institutes of Health, oral contraceptives generally consist of the female hormones estrogen and progestin and work by preventing ovulation. They “change the lining of the uterus to prevent pregnancy from developing and change the mucus at the cervix to prevent sperm from entering.”

3. Condoms and birth control are everywhere … “yet the abortion and STD rate hasn’t fallen.”

SFLA claims that despite Planned Parenthood and public health departments giving out “free condoms and birth control for years,” the rate of unplanned pregnancy and abortion has “failed to fall” and that the rate of sexually transmitted diseases has “significantly increased.” SFLA: “What’s even more scary is that Planned Parenthood knows this. They actually rely on the failure of the contraception they provide to increase their abortion profits.”

No sources (or years) are cited for these claims.

A Guttmacher report on induced abortions in the U.S. shows that in 2008, there were approximately 1.2 million abortions, with a rate of 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, which was an increase from the rate in 2005 (19.4 per 1,000 women). According to Guttmacher, the abortion rate has been on a steady decline since 1990, when the reported abortions in the U.S. was at 1.6 million and the rate was 27.4 abortions per 1,000 women.

As far as the rate of STDs in this country, some, such as gonorrhea, have declined over the years, while others, such as chlamydia and syphilis, have increased, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PDF). The rate of other STDS varies depending on region and demographic.

4. Birth control –- in any form -– is a Band-Aid.

SFLA does not suggest an alternative for contraception but offers the following advice:

Dolling out free condoms isn’t social justice. Handing over a pack of pills to an uneducated mother living in poverty with a man who doesn’t respect her enough to marry her isn’t restoring proper relationships in her life. … Protecting women from the scarring trauma of abortion and repairing broken relationships in her life seem to be the best way the pro-life movement can restore true social justice – Christian justice – to this woman’s life.

SFLA is not alone in its stance on contraception.

During a June appearance on the PBS TV- and Web-news magazine “Need to Know,” Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of another prominent anti-abortion rights group, Americans United for Life (AUL), said her group does not address the issue of birth control, “because there are differences of opinion on that.” She went on to explain that contraception is “a red herring that the abortion lobby likes to bring up by conflating abortion and birth control.”

In a profile of Yoest published last week, the Christian Science Monitor reported that the anti-abortion rights leader “bristle[d]” when asked about her personal use of birth control and refused to answer the question.

In fact, AUL has taken a position on contraception, by testifying against (PDF) and condemning the IOM’s recommendation that HHS include FDA-approved contraceptive services among “preventive services for women” to be covered under all insurance plans, without co-pay. AUL’s central argument against these recommendations is that they include coverage of emergency contraception such as Plan B and ella, which can “kill a humans embryo even after implantation” and are therefore “abortion-inducing.”

Despite these attitudes toward contraception promoted by anti-abortion rights groups and religious organizations, current data suggests that women with religious convictions do use contraception.

A recent report produced by the Guttmacher Institute, revealed that about 99 percent of “all women who have had sex” have used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning. Among “sexually experienced Catholic women,” that number is 98 percent. Additionally, 69 percent of sexually active women of all denominations are using a contraceptive method other than natural family planning.

The study’s findings led Guttmacher to conclude: “Policies that make contraceptives more affordable and easier to use are not just sound public health policy – they also reflect the needs and desires of the vast majority of American women and their partners, regardless of their religious affiliation.”

“Our eye was on evidence,” said Dr. Linda Rosenstock, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California-Los Angeles and chair of the IOM Committee on Preventive Services for Women, in response to recent criticism from anti-abortion rights groups that requiring all health-insurance plans to cover birth control and emergency contraception attacks consumers’ conscience rights.

Rosenstock said the 50 percent rate of unintended pregnancy in America is one of the highest in the developed world. That statistic, coupled with health risks for mother and baby if the pregnancy is unplanned (IOM found that babies were born healthier if they were born at least a year after older siblings) informed the committee’s recommendation regarding birth control services, which includes counseling of the different methods of birth control available.

Another IOM committee member, Dr. Paula Johnson, who is chief of the Division of Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, noted that different contraceptive methods have adverse effects on different populations of women. It is important, she said, for women to learn about the full range of available methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

IOM is recommending HHS to require all insurance plans not only to cover all FDA-approved birth control methods available but to eliminate shared consumer costs, or co-pay.

“As someone who has worked on women’s rights for nearly 30 years, I can say that today’s news marks one of the biggest advances for women’s health in a generation,” said NARAL President Nancy Keenan in a press statement after the report dropped Tuesday.

IOM’s other recommendations for HHS include:

At least one well-woman preventive care visit for adult women annually
Annual counseling on sexually transmitted infections for sexually active women
Screening for gestational diabetes
Adding human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing in addition to “conventional cytology” testing every three years for women over 30
Annual counseling on sexually transmitted infections for sexually active women
Annual HIV counseling and screening for sexually active women
Comprehensive lactation support and counseling and costs of renting breastfeeding equipment
Screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence
Despite the panel’s insistence that the recommendations reflected “critical gaps” in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and were based on previous recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, anti-abortion rights advocates have suggested that IOM’s recommendation would essentially be demanding that all insurance companies pay for women’s abortions.

National anti-abortion rights policy group Americans United for Life recently likened the recommendation to Planned Parenthood getting a “bail-out from the federal government.”

Predicting IOM’s decision, AUL staff counsel Anna Franzonello wrote in a blog post Tuesday:

“[I]t seems that Planned Parenthood is about to get another bail-out from the federal government and that no American will be able to choose an insurance plan that does not cover abortion-causing drugs, such as ella. Inconsistent with longstanding American values, such a coercive measure would be, unfortunately, all-too consistent with the anti-life agenda of the Obama Administration.”

The conservative online publication LifeNews.com criticized a recent NPR story, arguing the FDA-approved “morning-after pill” ella works the same way as the abortion pill mifepristone (despite contradictory opinions from many American medical associations such as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) and “can kill an already-implanted human embryo.”

“Any group that attacks [IOM’s] recommendations looks far outside the mainstream,” NARAL spokesperson Ted Miller told The American Independent. “Currently, nearly one in three women finds it difficult to pay for birth control. This is a decision that unifies most Americans.”

In light of IOM’s report, NARAL is working to convince HHS to ensure that insured American women will have access to all forms of FDA-approved birth control without having to pay a co-pay. This is the final phase of the organization’s BC4ME campaign, which began last fall and was updated in June with a Facebook application that generates how much money women would be able to save on various forms of birth control

“Unfortunately, the current anti-choice majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has voted twice this year to defund family-planning programs that provide contraception and other basic care to millions of women and couples,” Keenan said. [W]e will fight them every step of the way.”

Whether or not her attacks on Obama are valid — which they’re not — is one story.

The extent to which her own claims about her “commitment to life” as governor here are accurate proves just as interesting.

There is no doubt she is an outspoken critic of abortion — against it even in incidents of rape and incest.

But Palin may have gone too far in her speech at a rally in Johnstown, Pa., this weekend.

“As governor,” Palin said at the beginning of her speech, “what I’ve been able to do is kind of manifest my commitment to life.”

While Palin ran on a pro-life platform for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, she tapped-danced around abortion when running for governor — generally bringing it up only at supportive venues.

Alaska tends to have a libertarian streak — part of it’s frontier ethos. There is an explicit right to privacy in its constitution. Abortion was legalized in Alaska before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. So abortion as an issue doesn’t galvanize a majority of voters.

That may explain why, as governor, Palin hasn’t worked to diminish access to abortion.

“In the short time that [Palin] has been the governor, she hasn’t taken any action,” Clover Simon, the head of Planned Parenthood Alaska, told me.

Simon noted that two abortion-related bills, one on parental notification and the other on late-term, or so-called “partial-birth,” abortion, failed in the state legislature. Palin did not press for a special session on the bills. Nor, according to Planned Parenthood, did she lobby for the bills’ passage.

The only policy that might be tied to Palin’s abortion views dates to her time as mayor in Wasilla, where the morning-after pill may have been the reason her police department billed rape victims for forensic exams.

News reports show that the state of Alaska stepped in and passed legislation making it illegal to charge a rape victim for evidence collection.

Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat from Anchorage, who no longer serves in the legislature, introduced the bill after the issue came up in a local anti-sexual-assault group’s meetings.

“We kept hearing reports from our in-the-field social workers that clients were getting charged,” Croft said in a recent interview. “We had some talk about — should we get a poster child? Not only is that a shameless use of somebody, it also wasn’t necessary. We decided to just fight on the pure idea of the thing. It became less important why or how much — just shouldn’t.”

Croft noted that Wasilla pushed back throughout the six months it took to get the bill through the legislature. Even after it was signed into law, Wasilla’s police chief cited the cost of the kits as an unreasonable burden on taxpayers.

Estimates at the time were that the kits would cost about $5,000 to $14,000 a year, based on the number of reported sexual assaults in the area. Between 1995 and 2000, the Wasilla Police Dept. says that between five and 18 sexual assaults were reported each year.

“It never made sense to me that it was something worth the fight,” Croft said, “unless it was more about the fact that at the very end of the rape-kit procedure, [the victim is offered] a morning-after pill. If you really believe the hardcore pro-life position…it’s a government-funded abortion.”

Croft added, “I don’t know if for sure that that was the case.”

Palin’s campaign sent an email recently to her local paper responding to questions about her stand on requiring rape victims to pay for their kits.

“The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy,” Palin wrote. ” I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.”

Palin may claim she didn’t know about the controversy — but she appointed the police chief, Charlie Fannon, who was quoted as saying that Wasilla rape victims are routinely charged for exams.

“I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” Fannon told the Frontiersman in 2000.