Portside

A shocking new reports exposes rampant discrimination and denial of life-saving treatment in 1 of 6 hospital beds.

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.

Neither the videos nor the many investigations that followed have found any evidence that Planned Parenthood employees offered to sell fetal tissue for a profit. Texas is the 12th state in which investigations stemming from the videos have found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. A grand jury in Harris County, Tex., went a step further. Though it was convened to investigate Planned Parenthood, it indicted two members of the group that made the videos instead.

Portside readers may have noticed that our website has been intermittently off line for the past week. May First/People Link, which hosts Portside also hosts several pro-choice sites and those sites have been subjected to a massive attack. Women's health/pro-choice sites have been under ruthless, relentless attack for decades and the cyber front of those attacks has now expanded significantly.

Anti-abortion groups have long pushed to defund Planned Parenthood, even though no federal money is used to provide abortions. But that hasn't stopped their efforts to shut down the clinics, which provide services like contraception, cancer screening and other tests.