Michael D. Shear writes on The New York Times blog The Caucus: "The White House may be open to compromising on a new rule that requires religious schools and hospitals to provide employees with access to free birth control, a senior strategist for President Obama said on Tuesday morning."

Maura Dolan reports for the L.A. Times: "A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year."

Laura Bassett writes on Huffington Post: "Karen Handel, vice president for public affairs at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, resigned on Tuesday following public outcry over the announcement Komen would pull funding from Planned Parenthood. After Komen reversed its decision, The Huffington Post reported that Handel drove the decision to defund Planned Parenthood over abortion politics and crafted the strategy to clean up the public relations mess than ensued."

Ylan Q. Mui and Chris L. Jenkins report for The Washington Post: "The Great Recession carried special pain for black women like Jane Ladson. She had always been the one her family turned to when they needed help, and she didn?t hesitate to give it. She helped pay for weddings and rent. She made room for her nephew when her brother died of AIDS. And even now in her 50s, she took in a baby that wasn?t her own."

Judy Norsigian writes for Our Bodies Ourselves: "Close to every cent the [Catholic] Church has not spent settling lawsuits against priests who sexually molested children has gone into this week's media campaign to rile up opposition to covering birth control."

Angi Becker Stevens writes on RH Reality Check: "We are in trouble when even pro-choice activists are scrambling to downplay the necessity and the value of safe, affordable abortion care. What we need is not to reduce the importance of accessible abortion, but to reaffirm it."

Dina Bakst writes for The New York Times: "Federal and state laws ban discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace. And amendments to the Americans With Disabilities Act require employers to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees (including most employees with medical complications arising from pregnancies) who need them to do their jobs. But because pregnancy itself is not considered a disability, employers are not obligated to accommodate most pregnant workers in any way."

Denise Grady reports for The New York Times: "Many Catholic colleges decline to prescribe or cover birth control, citing religious reasons. Now they are under pressure to change. This month the Obama administration, citing the medical case for birth control, made a politically charged decision that the new health care law requires insurance plans at Catholic institutions to cover birth control without co-payments for employees, and that may be extended to students. But Catholic organizations are resisting the rule, saying it would force them to violate their beliefs and finance behavior that betrays Catholic teachings."

NOW President Terry O'Neill speaks on WUSA9 about a bill introduced by Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) that would ban late-term abortions in the District of Columbia: "We are deeply concerned that they (the Supreme Court Justices) will reach out and deny women our fundamental rights if they have the opportunity. This congressman is simply trying to give the Roberts court one more opportunity to do that."

Caroline May of The Daily Caller interviewed NOW President Terry O'Neill about the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade at NOW's annual vigil: "Last year alone, states passed a total of 92 anti-abortion laws around the country, shattering the 2005 record of just 30 something anti-abortion laws passed. We are here to say that we are organized, women are galvanized women will not go back and women will never give up."

Laura Bassett writing for the Huffington Post: "In a long-anticipated decision that will affect millions of women's ability to pay for contraception, the Obama administration announced that it would not allow religiously affiliated employers such as universities and hospitals to deny full birth control coverage to the women they employ."

NOW Action Vice President Erin Matson quoted in this Huffington Post article about the Ohio "heartbeat bill": "It's not surprising to see they're using such emotionally abusive tactics to distract from the fact that this bill is clearly unconstitutional."

Editors of The New York Times write: ". . . the message from Iowa was crystal clear: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman Jr., Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry all stand ready to restrict a woman's right to make her own childbearing decisions and deny essential health care to millions of women."

Ms. magazine reports that the FBI has updated the definition of rape to more accurately reflect the crime, which will help improve reporting and police response. The new definition replaces one written more than 80 years ago.

Amanda Marcotte writes for Slate: "Most of us, when we suffer from a traumatic situation, find that it increases our empathy with others in similar circumstances, and many of us are driven to become activists fighting to make life easier for people in similiar situations. But for Rick Santorum, trauma drove him in the other direction: It decreased his empathy for others in similiar situations, and caused him to want to increase their pain and suffering."