Portside

98 percent of black women and 93% of black men voted for Democratic Senator-elect Doug Jones yesterday in Alabama, a state where black people make up a quarter of the population. Black voters made up 28% of the electorate on Tuesday, a turnout that hasn’t been seen since President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Since those numbers started to trickle in late last night and early this morning, one thing became clear: black voters saved America from Roy Moore.

Anti-choice lawmakers’ attacks on independent abortion clinics are working. Fifty-six independent abortion clinics have closed over the past two years, and 145 have shut down since 2012. And a new report documents that Black people back comprehensive reproductive health care. Eighty-nine percent support a person's right to abortion care and 75 percent don’t want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

A response to the recent Rewire commentary, "Want to Lose on Abortion? Talk About It as an Economic Issue."

Cutting off Planned Parenthood from Medicaid reimbursements really means cutting off Medicaid recipients from Planned Parenthood. Women should have the same rights as members of Congress, the right to choose the health-care provider that provides them high-quality, affordable care in their community.

Instead of demonstrating outside of Planned Parenthood, Joyce Arthur, executive director of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), suggests demonstrating outside a "crisis pregnancy center" -- one of the fake clinics run by ideologically extreme religious groups -- or at the office of a local anti-choice group. Also on her list are public areas like city hall.

Trump’s expansion of the gag rule won’t reduce abortion. But it will stop poor women from getting birth control, and kill programs that help war-torn communities.

Proposals that would have limited terminations to cases where mother's life is in danger rejected by 352 votes to 58

'This decision has opened the door to go state by state, legislature by legislature, law by law, and restore access to safe, legal abortion.'

The Zika virus, and responses to it, have shone a light on the inadequacies of abortion and family planning laws in Latin America. Nevertheless, the Zika outbreak represents an opportunity for Latin America to review its sexual health policies and address long overdue issues, from access to contraception and abortion to a machismo culture that fosters sexual violence and discrimination.

The bill, which specifies abortion care should not be mentioned when discussing healthcare options for pregnant women, is now awaiting governor's approval.