Every day, I take a birth control pill (except during the "off" week). In this way, I am no different from a large number of American women. My daily pill is not an abortion under any recognizable definition of the word, but new regulations under consideration by the Department of Health and Human Services say that it is. Further, people who oppose abortions can deny me my right to medication that has been prescribed to me by a doctor.

Remember the book, "The Little Prince" by Antoine de St. Exupery?

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that reproductive rights were not a priority issue for women this election year. This insight struck me while I was in a writing class with nine other (mostly liberal) women in prime childbearing years (20s and 30s), and I was the only person who mentioned that repro rights were among the three issues I considered most important in this election. I wondered what this meant.

On Tuesday, I urged serious attention to Naomi Wolf's warning that if citizens don't act we could be a facing the End of America. Today, I want to highlight the warnings coming from career government servants who left the US government in protest at the beginning of the Iraq war. Several of those servants contributed to a recent anthology, Dissent: Voices of Conscience, edited by Col. (ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon.

On July 1, Canada Day, Governor-General Michaëlle Jean's list of inductees to the Order of Canada was announced. It's usually a pretty ho-hum affair which "recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation" and really not that exciting unless you actually know someone who is receiving it. This announcement was anything but boring. On the list was one name that caused Canadians to lose their collective minds - Henry Morgentaler. Words that come to mind when people say that name range from life-saver, to murderer, to abortionist.

After studying how once-democratic nations slide into fascism, writer Naomi Wolf came to a horrifying conclusion: in the last five years, the United States has taken all of the steps that have historically led to the end of republican government. Wolf issued a call to patriotic dissent in her 2007 book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to A Young Patriot. A sample chapter is available here (.pdf).