A group of 60 Catholic clergy, theologians, and social justice leaders are calling on “pro-life” members of Congress — such as Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — to focus on gun violence prevention as part of their moral commitment to sanctity of human life.

Noting that thousands of Catholics will gather in Washington, DC this week for the National March for Life, an annual anti-abortion protest that commemorates the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the group of religious leaders is encouraging lawmakers in Congress to “show greater moral leadership and political courage” in confronting the dangers posed by Americans’ current access to military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The coalition’s statement, via Faith in Public Life, challenges Republican lawmakers to extend their focus on the sanctity of life beyond the womb:

We especially encourage our fellow Catholics in Congress, including prominent leaders such as House Speaker John Boehner, to stand up to the National Rifle Association and other gun lobbyists who choose to obstruct sensible reforms. Catholics who earn an “A” rating from the NRA – including Republicans like Speaker Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Joe Donnelly and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp – should not put powerful special interests before the common good. We urge you to reflect on the wisdom in our church’s call for a “consistent ethic of life” as you consider legislation in the coming months that can provide greater protection for our families and communities.

Thousands of Catholics will gather this week for the annual “March for Life” in Washington to speak out against the tragedy of abortion. Our faith and our Church call us to remember, as we reflect on our most recent massacres, that the defense of human dignity extends beyond protecting life in the womb. Gun violence demeans human life and tears communities apart. There have been more than 70 mass shootings since the January 8, 2011, massacre in Tucson, Arizona. More than 900 people have been killed with guns since the Newtown tragedy.

The Catholic leaders are echoing the position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has advocated for stronger gun restrictions over the past three decades. The USCCB also renewed its call for increased gun safety measures in the aftermath of last month’s Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Catholics aren’t the only religious group to support policy solutions to address gun violence; 73 percent of Evangelical leaders also support increased gun regulations.

Unlike assault rifles, abortion services are already heavily regulated by state-level restrictions. In fact, in several states across the country, it’s easier to get a gun than it is to get an abortion.

In an interview with Kaiser Health News on Wednesday, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) explained he remains a staunch opponent of Obamacare because health care reform is unnecessary. According to Bryant, every single American already has the health care they need.

In order to justify his continued refusal to expand his state’s Medicaid program — which would extend health coverage to an additional 200,000 low-income Mississippians — the governor explained that poor people don’t need a “massive new program” when they can simply visit an emergency room to receive care:

BRYANT: There is no one who doesn’t have health care in America. No one. Now, they may end up going to the emergency room. There are better ways to deal with people that need health care than this massive new program.

This is not a new train of thought in the Republican Party. During the presidential election, GOP candidate Mitt Romney claimed that “we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance” by picking them up in ambulance and taking them to the hospital. But suggesting that uninsured Americans can simply get the care they need in the ER is naive. Emergency room and ambulatory care are some of the most expensive medical services in the industry, and the current health care safety net isn’t able to accommodate the strain of an influx of uninsured, low-income Americans who can’t foot those bills.

And, of course, Bryant’s assertion that “there is no one” who lacks health care in this country is false. The Census Bureau estimates that nearly 49 million people were uninsured in 2011. Over 20 percent of working Americans don’t have health care, and 40 percent of the people living in poverty were unable to visit a doctor in 2010. Some of the country’s poorest residents are currently unable to qualify for Medicaid coverage — and even when they do, they can still struggle to access the health services they need.

Obamacare makes big strides to improve Americans’ access to care, particularly with its optional Medicaid expansion, which could extend coverage to 17 million previously uninsured low-income people across the country. But if Republican leaders like Bryant — whose own state has a 19 percent uninsurance rate, one of the worst in the nation — continue to oppose health care reform by pretending uninsured Americans don’t exist, that progress will be placed in jeopardy.

In a stark shift from 2004 — when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force did not find ample evidence to recommend regular domestic violence screenings — the influential panel of scientists and medical professionals has now concluded that screening all women aged 14 to 46 for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) produces a “moderate net benefit,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

While the panel did not find sufficient evidence to recommend even more widespread screenings, their recommendations bear the full weight of the law, since Obamacare requires insurers to cover any preventative services deemed appropriate by the task force — for free.

The new recommendations were lauded by women’s health advocates as a huge step in the right direction when it comes to treating the widespread physical and mental health problems wrought by IPV:

Intimate partner violence includes physical violence, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, stalking and reproductive coercion — intimidation that increases the risk of unplanned pregnancy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 31% of women and 26% of men have experienced IPV in their lifetimes. Immediate health consequences include injury, death, sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancy, psychological distress and premature births.

Screening for domestic violence is recommended by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists for women of all ages. Other organizations, such as the American Medical Assn., encourage physicians to inquire about abuse in all patients as part of medical history, but do not recommend a specific screening format or list of questions.

Monday’s recommendation by the task force could possibly steer organizations toward adopting a more standardized protocol, according to some healthcare providers.

“This is very significant,” said Eric Ferrero, a Planned Parenthood spokesman who was not involved in the study. “It’s just good practice to know a patient’s health history, and we have been conducting screenings for a number of years. Hopefully, with this recommendation, it will be done more broadly.”

Studies have shown that domestic and dating violence in youth leave a lasting impact on adult well-being. And as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and his GOP allies have resisted reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, preventative provisions such as IPV screenings might prove themselves to be a crucial resource for American women.

This isn’t the first time that Obamacare’s preventative care provisions have helped protect vulnerable Americans. Last year, the same preventive task force recommended that every American between the ages of 15 and 65 be tested for HIV, making those screenings free for consumers as well.

The Medicaid program that provides low-income Americans with public health insurance has serious coverage gaps across states, a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds.

Obamacare seeks to raise each state’s Medicaid’s eligibility level from about $19,000 a year for a family of three — the current federal poverty level — to 133 percent of that rate, which is about $24,000 for a family of three. If all 50 states choose to opt into the expansion, which the federal government will completely fund for the first several years, about 17 million additional low-income Americans who currently fall between that gap will become eligible for Medicaid coverage. But if states stick with the status quo instead, they will perpetrate a fractured system that fails to reach all of the nation’s poor, according to the report’s findings:

Eligibility for parents was limited on average to those earning no more than 61 percent of the federal poverty line, which equals about $19,000 a year for a family of three. Thirty-three states required parents to earn less than the poverty rate, with 16 restricting eligibility to less than 50 percent.

Nine states extended full Medicaid coverage to adults without dependent children while three states, Hawaii, Illinois and Minnesota, reduced eligibility for adults where it was not required by federal rules.

Medicaid, which is run by states but has federal funding and oversight, represents a major budget expenditure for state governments. Many have sought to curtail benefits and eligibility in recent years because of fiscal constraints imposed by the recession and a slow economic recovery.

Nonetheless, Republican opponents of Obamacare represent a roadblock to extending health coverage to American families whose incomes fall well below the poverty line. Just four GOP governors have agreed to expand Medicaid under the health reform law, while more than a dozen Republican leaders have refused the expansion.

But fortunately for the low-income Americans who don’t currently qualify for Medicaid, the Republican resistance to Obamacare may finally be waning. GOP leaders presented a united front against Obamacare just two months ago, but the fact that some staunchly conservative politicians like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) are now agreeing to move forward with the Medicaid expansion suggests that Republicans may not continue to reject health reform at all costs. “The arc of partisan fever is beginning to recede and pragmatism is beginning to come to the fore,” Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, told Kaiser Health News.

High fructose corn syrup, the central ingredient in most sweetened drinks and processed foods, is on the decline. According to a new 2013 projection by the US Department of Agriculture, the amount of corn used to produce the sweetener will drop to its lowest level in 15 years.

This latest data is part of a steady decline in the sweetener’s popularity. Americans consumed an average of 131 calories of high fructose corn syrup every day in 2011, a 16 percent drop since 2007. At the same time, consumption of soft drinks, the main vehicle for the corn syrup, dropped 21 percent from 1998 to 2011.

High fructose corn syrup is linked to type 2 diabetes and obesity. Several cities have launched anti-obesity campaigns that may be partially responsible for public opinion turning against the sweetener. Another factor may be the rising cost of corn in recent years; high fructose corn syrup has been heavily subsidized by American taxpayers, keeping production costs artificially low:

For decades, corn syrup benefited from the relatively low cost of corn compared with sugar. A tripling of corn costs since 2004 has lessened that advantage, while consumer obesity concerns and negative publicity have also eaten into demand, said Lauren Bandy, an ingredients analyst with Euromonitor International in London. [...]

The sweetener industry often contests that high fructose corn syrup is being unfairly demonized while traditional cane sugar is overlooked. But according to USDA statistics, Americans aren’t replacing high fructose corn syrup with sugar to satisfy their sweet tooth. Though sugar intake has risen 8.8 percent since 2007, total sweetener production is still down 14 percent since 1999.

High fructose corn syrup producers have worked hard to alter their image, even requesting the USDA change the product’s name to “corn sugar.” As the diabetes and obesity epidemics are particularly prevalent among minority and low-income communities, the sugary drink industry has aggressively targeted their marketing to black and Latino children. But as this latest USDA data indicates, the industry may be losing ground against minority-heavy cities that are gradually lowering their obesity rates via robust anti-obesity policies and campaigns.

Earl Martinez is a 28-year-old Oregonian suffering from Alport Syndrome, a genetic kidney disorder that has forced him to undergo dialysis treatments for the past year and a half. In order to survive, he needs a new kidney, but the hereditary nature of his disease makes it impossible for his family to provide it. So, after waiting on a transplant list for over a year, Martinez has taken a more active role in addressing his medical needs — by begging for a kidney donor on the side of an Oregon road, CBS News reports.

Money is no obstacle for Martinez, who has health insurance. “My insurance would cover all medical costs on my side and the donor’s side,” Martinez told local CBS affiliate KOIN. “The donor would have no medical costs at all.”

But coverage alone isn’t enough for the approximately 113,000 Americans on an organ transplant waiting list — 80 percent of whom need a new kidney. According to a 2009 Rutgers Law Review article, only 30,000 transplants are performed in America every year. That meets less than a third of the annual demand and leads to 20 American deaths every day due to the lack of organ donors, and 4,000 deaths annually from too few kidney transplants.

Studies suggest that America’s dearth of organ donors may have to do with public health policy. The U.S. relies primarily on an “opt-in” system when it comes to organ donation, meaning that potential donors must actively volunteer to donate, as many Americans do at the DMV after receiving a driver’s license. But other nations’ experiences with organ donation policy suggest that an “opt-out” system — which always presumes a person’s consent upon death, unless that person or his family refuses — could be more effective. Austria, an “opt-out” nation, has a staggering donation consent rate of 99.98 percent, for example.

Still, despite its donor shortage, the U.S. ranks third worldwide in overall organ donation rates after death. And even in states like Oregon, where 70 percent of residents over the age of 18 are registered donors, there are only 274 organ transplants performed annually — suggesting that a lack of registered donors isn’t the root of the problem. The answer to this dilemma may actually lie in the source of Americans’ demand for organs.

The vast majority of U.S. residents waiting for a transplant need a kidney, and the most common causes of chronic kidney disease are diabetes and high blood pressure. It follows that America’s diabetes and obesity epidemic is in large part responsible for the nation’s unsustainable demand for kidney transplants. Addressing the soaring rates of obesity in the U.S., and therefore improving the health of the general population, could help reduce America’s demand for organ transplants. And that could give Americans like Martinez — who has no control over his disease — a much-needed leg up on the waiting list.

As states across the country impose restrictions to limit women’s access to abortion, California lawmakers are taking the opposite route. On Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to expand the availability of first-trimester abortions by allowing more medical professionals — such as nurses and midwives — to perform the procedure.

Assembly Bill 154 revives last year’s push to allow nurses to perform nonsurgical abortions. Gov. Jerry Brown (D) ended up signing a watered down version of that bill, which only allowed non-doctors to perform early abortions after going through training in a specific pilot program. The California’s Nurses Association opposed the initial version of last year’s bill because they wanted to see the results from a multi-year study on early abortion that researchers were conducting at the University of California-San Francisco — but since the results from that study were published last week, lawmakers say the political landscape is different now.

The six-year study led by UCSF found that first-trimester abortions are just as safe when they are performed by professional nurses, physician assistants, and midwives as when they are performed by doctors. In a press release about their results, the researchers explained that expanding the abortion procedure beyond doctors could ultimately help eliminate the economic and racial barriers that prevent some women in California from accessing early abortions:

Nationally, 92 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester but studies find that black, uninsured and low-income women continue to have less access to this care, according to the researchers.

In California, 13 percent of women using state Medicaid insurance obtain abortions after the first trimester. Because the average cost of a second trimester abortion is substantially higher than a first trimester procedure and abortion complications increase as the pregnancy advances, shifting the population distribution of abortions to earlier gestations may result in safer, less costly care, according to the research team.

“Increasing the types of health care professionals who can provide early aspiration abortion care is one way to reduce this health care disparity,” said lead author Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA, a UCSF associate professor and director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the UCSF Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. “Policy makers can now feel confident that expanding access to care in this way is evidence-based and will promote women’s health.”

In a press conference on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to unveil the bill, California lawmakers said they are committed to ensuring that women can access reproductive care no matter where they live in the state. According to the bill’s sponsors, 52 percent of California counties don’t have an abortion provider other than hospitals, which may have limited services. “California will not go back. We are going to go forward,” said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D).

But other states across the country are going back, as women’s access to first-trimester abortions continues to be threatened. In states like Iowa, Texas, and Wisconsin, anti-choice lawmakers are imposing unnecessary barriers to early abortion — even though restrictions on first-trimester abortions simply lead to a rise in more costly later term abortion procedures.