Last year when I was a medical student I did an elective in a sexual health clinic that provides pre- and post- abortion care for women undergoing therapeutic abortions (TAs) at a nearby hospital. One of the patients I met was a Latin American woman in her thirties. She came to the clinic with her mother for the insertion of a laminaria tent -- a device that is used to dilate the cervix -- before her TA that afternoon. This procedure takes about fifteen minutes and usually causes moderate menstrual-like cramping.

The fallout from the assassination of women's healthcare provider Dr. George Tiller continues. As Zack Roth of Talking Points Memo reports, the Justice Department will investigate whether Tiller's shooter, an anti-choice zealot, violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act or any other federal statutes. But little has been said about investigating the killing as an act of terrorism, a federal crime. The Oklahoma City bombers were investigated by the FBI and tried under a 1994 federal anti-terrorism statute, and that was before the PATRIOT ACT, which presumably makes it even easier to prosecute terrorism as a federal crime today.