Rebecca Watson of Buffalo, N.Y., and London, is a well-known activist, writer, blogger and founder of the website Skepchick. She speaks frequently at atheist and other freethought gatherings on the subjects of feminism, science and young people in the movement, and she has a podcast called The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. There is a contact form available […]

Louise M. Antony is a philosophy professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has written various essays about atheism and is editor of the book Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (2007), to which she also contributed one of the chapters, titled “For the Love of Reason.” She once debated Christian apologist/philosopher William […]

Do religion reporters face issues of balance and fairness that are different from other beats? By Kim Sue Lia Perkes Freelance Writer For religion reporters, the issue of balance is often more complicated than other beats because stories that deal with theology are about beliefs and not proven facts. So how does one discern what […]

In 2009, the White House put together a task force on abortion reduction proposals, an effort that stirred mixed reactions at the time, as this Wall Street Journal story recounts.

Americans are conflicted about the morality of abortion, but a majority say it should be legal in all or most cases, according to a survey conducted in April and May 2011 by the Public Religion Research Institute.

Efforts by some abortion opponents to pass so-called “personhood amendments” have all failed and the strategy appears to have diminished as an effective weapon. These amendments are aimed at effectively ending legalized abortion by making destruction of an embryo at any stage and for any reason illegal. Even some allies of the anti-abortion movement say they are […]

Read a Jan. 4, 2013, New York Times story, “Pregnancy Centers Gain Influence in Anti-Abortion Arena.”

Read a CNN story on the Pew findings and the results in various religious groups.

Patricia M.Y. Chang is a lecturer in the sociology department at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. She has studied clergy career characteristics and the supply of ordained leadership in some Protestant denominations, and she co-authored Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling.