Looks like Elena Kagan urged former President Bill Clinton to support a ban on late-term abortions back in the day. Despite how this may look on face, I don’t think it says much about her position on abortion. In fact, her justification for encouraging then-President Clinton to support this particular version of a ban was to prevent the Republican Congress from overriding his veto on a stricter ban.
Documents reviewed Monday by The Associated Press show Kagan encouraging Clinton to support a bill that would have banned all abortions of viable fetuses except when the physical health of the mother was at risk. The documents from Clinton’s presidential library are among the first to surface in which President Barack Obama’s new choice for the high court weighs in on the thorny issue of abortion.
The proposal was a compromise by Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle. Clinton did support the proposal, but it failed and Clinton vetoed a stricter Republican ban. [Read more...]
Senate Republicans, in their relentless tirade on women’s bodily autonomy, have blocked yet another pro-choice judicial nominee by President Obama, 
Arizona used to provide domestic partner benefits for state employees and their partners. While Janet Napolitano was the governor, Arizonans had a strong advocate for equal rights. Things have unfortunately taken a turn for the worse. Last fall Arizona voters voted in favor of Proposition 102, which made same-sex marriage illegal in the state of Arizona (even though it already was). However, the state legislature took it a step further this summer by voting to strip domestic partnership benefits from state employees in an effort to balance the state’s budget. If Janet Napolitano were still the governor, she likely would have vetoed the measure. But Arizona’s current governor, Jan Brewer, is staunchly anti-choice and anti-equality. Consequently, state employees and their families lost equal benefits as of November 24th.
Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit earlier this week against the state of Arizona in response to the state’s decision to eliminate domestic partner benefits for state employees. According to the press release issued by Lambda Legal:
We’ve been ranting for a few weeks now about the 
The good news from Arizona is that the omnibus abortion bill, which was scheduled to go into effect today, will no longer have as much of a sting on women’s access to reproductive health care. Planned Parenthood was victorious in court yesterday, and an injunction will keep the bill from going into effect. Here are the parts of the bill that are currently on hold:
Planned Parenthood of Arizona a filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the constitutionality of several provisions in the omnibus anti-abortion law that threatens women’s access to health care in Arizona. The law was signed by Governor Jan Brewer in July of this year. 
