Every Sperm is Sacred clause in Oklahoma

In another case of equal treatment, a Democratic state senator appends 'every sperm is sacred' clause to Oklahoma Personhood bill. The amendment called for no male ejaculation except in vaginas. She later withdrew it.

The concept of “personhood” defines human life as beginning at the moment of conception and, in the case of Oklahoma’s pending Senate Bill 1433, says that the resulting fetus “at every stage of development (has) all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state.” If Senate Bill 1433 were to become law, all forms of abortion and some forms of contraception would be considered murder and therefore illegal.

Sen. Johnson, who represents Oklahoma’s 48th District has introduced an amendment to the bill mandating that the same rights and benefits be granted to spermatozoa, writing, “However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”

This would outlaw masturbation by men, anal sex, sex with condoms, all forms of fellatio to completion, as well as numerous other acts. She later withdrew the measure, but stated that she had inserted it to highlight the absurdity and sexism inherent in the current bill.

A second legislator, Democrat Jim Wilson attempted to introduce an amendment stating that all men would be responsible for the full support and well-being of any woman carrying their child for the duration of the pregnancy, including housing, food, transportation, and all medical costs. The amendment failed.

Sons shorten a mother's life

Here's another good reason not to carry a dying or malformed baby to term: a son shortens a mother's life by an average of 34 weeks, apparently through testosterone poisoning. The child born after a boy is smaller, slighter, and less likely to have children, perhaps because the mother's resources are depleted. Similarly, the female twin of a boy is less healthy than expected.

Gee, I wonder if those people aborting females because they want to try for a male child know about this?

Life before birth control: abandoned babies

Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope writes:

...baby abandonment is nothing new. The ancient Spartans systematically weeded out weak or deformed infants by leaving them in a chasm (or maybe tossing them into it -- Plutarch doesn't specify). Chronicles and stories from around the world tell of babies and small children set adrift in chests, dropped off in the forest a la Hansel and Gretel, or otherwise exposed -- a few to be found and taken in, the rest to die. Homes for foundlings, as children rescued from abandonment were called, were set up as early as the eighth century. Pope Innocent III, aghast at infanticide rates in 11th-century Rome, ordered the installation of foundling wheels --revolving-door contraptions that enabled an infant to be dropped off anonymously at a convent. As of 1790 the Hotel-Dieu in Paris was receiving more than 7,000 abandoned infants a year (even with subsequent care, death rates ran as high as 75 percent). Records maintained by the New York Foundling Asylum show that 2,457 infants were dropped off there between October 1869 and November 1871.

This was how women, or families, dealt with excess fertility and the shame of unwed motherhood.

Sexual and Reproductive Health: Executive summary of the Lancet series

It's all here: a summary of the Lancet series on Sexual and Reproductive Health (PDF). It's a rather stinging condemnation of our neglect of women's health and sexual issues in general.

World AIDS Day

I suppose the reason that the Catholic Church is against teaching that condoms prevent AIDS is because it might prevent babies, as well.

Read about World AIDS Day here.

Evangelical teens in "Forbidden Fruit"

Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor, has written a book about how religious beliefs influence sexual behaviour - or don't, as the case may be. Rather deliciously, he has called it Forbidden Fruit. Read Slate's review of Forbidden Fruit by Hanna Rosin.

The most predictable conclusion is that, yes, church-going teens have sex, but they are less likely to be prepared for it with contraception and condoms.
(Thanks to Feministing for the link.)