The Obama administration’s crusade to block over-the-counter access to emergency contraception for women of all ages has hit yet another road block. On Wednesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the administration to make two-pill versions of emergency contraception immediately available over the counter to women of all ages. The court will, however, hear arguments on limiting access to one-pill emergency contraception, including the popular Plan B One-Step.

In April, district Judge Edward Korman ordered the FDA to immediately lift restrictions on the morning-after pill. The Obama administration resisted, instead going forward with a more limited plan to lower the eligible age from 17 to 15. In a series of contemptuous opinions, Korman called the Obama administration’s defiance “an insult to the intelligence of women” and “a charade” meant to stall his original order.

Gynecologists and medical experts have watched the political scuffle over emergency contraception with bemusement, as the administration’s arbitrary age restriction on the medication has no grounding in science. The morning-after pill is actually safer than aspirin, according to extensive research.

What’s more, the age restriction would have likely driven up prices and left many older women unable to buy the contraception if they couldn’t show a government-issued ID proving their age.

If the administration wants to continue this deeply unpopular battle, they will now have to appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) filed federal complaints against five major institutions for violating Obamacare gender discrimination protections. The complaints, which were made to the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Civil Rights, claim that the institutions’ health plans offer less comprehensive benefits for dependent women than they do for dependent men by excluding maternity care services.

The five organizations named in the complaints are Auburn University, Battelle Memorial Institute, Beacon Health System, Gonzaga University, and the entire Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). NWLC alleges that these institutions’ health plans explicitly deny employees’ dependent daughters from accessing maternity care services.

Denying maternity benefits to women is equivalent to charging them significantly more for their coverage solely on the basis of gender. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 25 percent of all U.S. hospitalizations are a consequence of pregnancy and childbirth, and out-of-pocket costs for maternity care services can reach as high as $15,000 depending on a woman’s insurance plan. NWLC estimates that the five groups named in their complaints employ close to 45,000 employees altogether, meaning that thousands of employees’ dependent daughters could bear the brunt of those maternity costs if they were to become pregnant.

But as the complaints point out, denying employees’ daughters those benefits likely runs afoul of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Section 1557 states that “an individual shall not… be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under, any health program or activity” on the basis of sex, race, age, gender identity, or disability if the organization providing coverage receives federal funding.

In a press release, NWLC spokespeople said they were confident that HHS’ Office of Civil Rights would find the institutions’ practices illegal under Obamacare. “The ACA has made great strides in improving women’s health care and addressing sex discrimination in health insurance coverage,” said NWLC Co-President Marcia D. Greenberger. “The Center is confident that OCR will take all necessary steps to investigate these complaints and ensure that young women have equal access to comprehensive health care coverage.”

Women’s health advocates have touted Obamacare’s landmark protections for women. The health law guarantees women’s preventative services such as mammograms and Pap smears — without a co-pay or deductible — and bans the practice of “gender rating,” in which insurers can charge women higher premiums than men for identical health benefits. It also lists maternity care services as a mandatory “essential health benefit” that any plan sold on a statewide Obamacare marketplace must include.

But even the health law doesn’t fully bridge the gap between men and women’s disparate coverage. The long-term care insurance industry isn’t subject to the same gender protections as other health plans are under Obamacare. In February, the nation’s largest long-term care insurer announced that it would begin setting its prices by gender — and charging women more than men — as early as this year.

Beatriz, the 22-year-old Salvadoran woman who has been close to death as she has been forced to carry a fetus without a brain, received an emergency Caesarean section on Monday. Beatriz’s 27-week-old fetus, which has a fatal birth defect that has left it without a brain and parts of its skull, will likely not survive outside the womb for very long.

Over the past several months, Beatriz’s doctors warned that she would die if she was not allowed to end her pregnancy — but she was unable to get a legal abortion in her deeply conservative country, where terminating a pregnancy can lead to up to 30 years in prison. Her doctors took her case all the way to the Supreme Court, hoping to receive an exception to the country’s total abortion ban. The case stretched on for three months, and Beatriz’s health got worse every day.

Last week, the Supreme Court finally handed down its ruling, choosing to deny Beatriz the critical abortion care she needed to stay alive. Even though a team of Beatriz’s doctors repeatedly warned that the young woman — who suffers from multiple health conditions that worsen when she’s pregnant — would likely not survive if she was forced to carry the nonviable pregnancy to full term, the court decided that her health “was not yet in absolute danger.”

After weeks and weeks of waiting for a conclusion to the legal proceedings, Beatriz was already at the end of her second trimester when she was officially denied the right to a life-saving abortion. Since she was so far along in her pregnancy, El Salvador’s health minister determined that her case no longer fell under the country’s abortion laws. The country’s health department could therefore decide the best course of action to safeguard Beatriz’s life, including ending the pregnancy early by inducing birth.

“At this point, the interruption of the pregnancy is no longer an abortion. It is an induced birth,” the health minister, María Isabel Rodríguez, explained on Thursday. She said it could be either “an abdominal or vaginal birth.”

Late on Monday, the Associated Press reported that Beatriz received a C-section. She is currently recovering from surgery, and her pre-term baby is not expected to survive very long. “No one can say how long she will live,” one source told the AP in reference to Beatriz’s baby girl. “It was painful to see the little creature. That’s what the grandmother told us, and the doctors confirmed it.”

Essentially, Beatriz was forced to carry a nonviable fetus for months — all while her health deteriorated, and she remained in a hospital room separated from her husband and young son — until she could end her pregnancy with a type of reproductive care that makes El Salvador comfortable. The outcome will end up being exactly the same, since her baby will not be able to survive long without a brain. But, because El Salvador’s government claims that this type of C-section is not considered to be an abortion, it’s an “intervention of the pregnancy” that is allowed.

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The gene flaw that prompted Angelina Jolie to undergo a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of breast cancer has been detected in a surprisingly large number of black women with breast cancer. The first comprehensive study of black women with breast cancer has found that 20 percent of these women have genetic mutations that dramatically increases their risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer.

The discovery, presented at a conference in Chicago on Monday, could provide clues to why black women have higher rates of breast cancer at younger ages and a worse chance of survival than their white counterparts. African American women are more likely to die from breast cancer than all other women.

Jolie brought attention to the gene BRCA in a candid op-ed about her own discovery that she carries the gene mutation BRCA1, which gave her an 87 percent chance of getting breast cancer and 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer. She noted the mutation is exceedingly rare; just 5 percent of white women and 12 percent of Eastern European Jews carry the gene.

The newly-discovered rate among black breast cancer patients, however, is more than double the national average. Many women in the study had mothers, aunts, and sisters who had also suffered from breast cancer.

But black women with the BRCA mutation likely won’t get the same medical counseling and care Jolie received. Because bio-pharmaceutical giant Myriad Genetics was permitted to patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, testing alone is prohibitively expensive at $4,000. Therefore, many of these women found out about their mutation after they had already contracted the cancer — too late for the preventative measures Jolie took. Even with health insurance, Americans combating cancer are twice as likely to go bankrupt due to the arbitrarily high cost of cancer drugs.

African American women in particular have more unstable insurance coverage than white women do, and are more likely to delay seeing a doctor because they can’t afford it or couldn’t get time off work. They also depend more heavily on Medicaid than other women, which could explain why they have significantly more trouble finding specialists when needed.

Furthermore, black women suffer from the medical world’s widespread racial biases. A large-scale Johns Hopkins study found that many healthcare providers unconsciously prefer white patients, leading them to neglect black patients, offer them fewer treatment options than whites, and even prescribe them fewer painkillers. Angelina Jolie’s story may be encouraging to other women with BRCA gene flaws, but, as a white celebrity, her medical reality is completely foreign to black women in the same position.

In an interview with the Guardian published Monday, actor Michael Douglas said that his throat cancer — which he successfully overcame two years ago — was caused by a sexually transmitted disease he contracted from oral sex. According to Douglas, his 2010 cancer diagnosis didn’t make him regret his heavy smoking and drinking habits over the past several decades because “this particular cancer is caused by HPV, which actually comes about from cunnilingus.”

As demonstrated by the national conversation sparked by actress Angelina Jolie’s disclosure about the steps she took to mitigate her breast cancer risk, public figures can help raise awareness about important health issues by speaking frankly about their own experiences. But Douglas’ announcement likely didn’t help move the conversation forward in that way (particularly since he also joked that cunnilingus is the best cure for HPV). The actor didn’t use his platform to further explain the link between HPV and cancer, or point to the effective prevention methods that can stop the spread of this particular type of STD.

Even though it’s not effective for adults Douglas’ age, the HPV vaccine — commonly known as Gardasil — is an important part of the conversation about STDs, cancer, and sexual health. Gardasil is extremely effective at protecting young people from contracting the virus, particularly if young children first begin receiving dosages at the age of 11. That’s why government health officials recommend that all girls and boys should receive their Gardasil shots while they’re teenagers. But Americans aren’t following that advice.

Cancers related to HPV have been on the rise in the U.S. over the past two years. Public health officials explain that’s a direct result of too few American youth getting vaccinated — just 30 percent of U.S. women receive one or more dosages of the HPV vaccine, which is administered over three doses. Even though study after study has confirmed that the HPV vaccine is safe for young Americans, parents remain resistant to giving their children their recommended HPV shots. That’s largely because the vaccine has been politically contentious over the past several years. Far-right figures like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) have peddled conspiracy theories that Gardasil could lead to mental retardation, or encourage young girls to become wildly promiscuous.

While it’s certainly true that oral sex can lead to HPV-related cancers, a representative for the actor told CNN that Douglas didn’t mean to imply that cunnilingus was the sole contributor to his cancer diagnosis. According to Douglas’ spokesperson, he meant only that sexual activity was “one of many possible causes.” But headlines about oral sex and throat cancer have already spread throughout the mainstream media.

The continued controversy over the HPV vaccine is yet another example of many Americans’ discomfort with teen sexuality. Rather than ensuring that adolescents receive preventative health resources to help safeguard them in their future years, many socially conservative Americans are too uncomfortable to effectively equip youth with the sexual health tools they need. But — regardless of Douglas’ prominent statement — expressions of sexuality aren’t necessarily as much to blame as our continued failure to protect kids is, particularly since the means to do so are readily available to us.

Friday marks the fourth anniversary of Dr. George Tiller’s murder. Specifically because of his work providing women with reproductive health care, the Kansas-area abortion doctor was shot and killed by an anti-choice activist in 2009. His killer is currently serving a life term in prison.

Dr. Tiller — who was one of the few medical professionals available to perform late-term abortion services for the women who desparately need them — has become one of the most prominent symbols of the anti-abortion harassment leveled against members of the reproductive rights community. After a period of heightened violence against abortion providers in the 1990s that left seven people dead, Tiller’s murder was the first for more than a decade. In the years since his death, abortion rights activists have invoked his name as a testament to the brave work that all abortion providers do, often even at the risk of their health and safety.

Several years after Tiller’s murder and his killer’s conviction, violent anti-abortion harassment has hardly subsided. The handful of remaining late-term abortion doctors in the nation still face serious threats and intimidation, and are forced to tighten security as their health clinics with metal detectors and security cameras. The reproductive health clinics that don’t provide late-term services aren’t necessarily safe, either. Women attempting to enter health clinics — sometimes, even Planned Parenthood sites that don’t provide any type of abortion care — routinely have to face shame-based taunts, chants, and signs from anti-abortion protesters. Sometimes women are doused with holy water. Once, a woman whose baby died in utero had to walk past a group of protesters singing “Happy Birthday, dead baby” to enter the doctor’s office to have it removed.

Julie Burkhart, the women’s health activist who purchased Tiller’s old clinic building, is all too aware of the reality that abortion providers face. Over the past several months, as Burkhart has worked to re-open the clinic so that Wichita women will have access to nearby abortion services for the first time since Tiller’s death, she’s had an uphill battle. Her home has been picketed and she’s been referred to as a “killer” in anti-abortion pamphlets. Several of the contractors working on the building’s renovations were harassed. Increased security at the new clinic is Burkhart’s top priority, especially after radical anti-choice activists — including Tiller’s murderer himself — suggested she’s made herself into a shooting target by taking over Tiller’s property.

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The Republican nominee for Massachusetts’ senate seat refuses to say whether he supports the Blunt Amendment — a measure that would allow employers to choose to deny their employees insurance coverage for contraception costs.

Gabriel Gomez has reportedly been asked several times by reporters whether he would vote for the amendment, and each time has avoided answering. At a press conference Thursday, he once again ducked: “I’m not sure how much more clear I can be,” he began. He then offered an answer that avoided the question of voting entirely. “Contraception should be available over the counter,” he said. “They should take the politics out of it. And they should take the pharmaceutical companies out of it.”

This echoes an op-ed by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) calling for over-the-counter contraception access. While this could help to de-politicize contraceptive care, it doesn’t help with the prohibitively high costs of some contraception that, despite Gomez’s claim to the contrary, can be arbitrarily enforced by pharmaceutical companies. It also avoids the issue of how to deal with intrauterine devices, or IUDs, which are the most effective form of birth control but require administration by a gynecologist.

Gomez, though trying to portray himself as a moderate, still holds conservative views on women’s reproductive issues as a whole. He opposes the use of public funds to pay for abortion — something that is already illegal, but which Republicans use as a launching point to advocate against funding Planned Parenthood’s preventative services. He has also advocated for giving religious organizations full exemption from covering contraception. Earlier this month, Gomez told a reporter at the Boston Globe, “Honestly, I haven’t read the Blunt Amendment.”

Beatriz, the 22-year-old El Salvadoran woman who needs an emergency abortion in order to survive, will now be allowed to end her pregnancy with a Caesarean section. On Thursday, El Salvador’s health minister approved the C-section procedure for the dying woman, whose health has increasingly worsened throughout her pregnancy.

“The medical team at the Maternity Hospital is ready to act immediately at the slightest sign of danger,” Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez said on Thursday. “For me, what matters is to protect Beatriz’s life.”

Over the past three months, Beatriz’s life has hung in the balance as her deeply conservative country has refused to compromise its stringent abortion ban. In El Salvador, having an abortion is illegal under all circumstances and can result in up to 30 years in prison. Even though Beatriz is carrying a nonviable fetus — it will not be able to survive outside the womb for more than a few hours because it’s missing its brain — her government has continued to deny her the life-saving abortion that would prevent her from dying along with her fetus. On Wednesday, El Salvador’s Supreme Court refused to grant Beatriz an exception to the country’s abortion ban, and there didn’t seem to be much hope left for the pregnant woman who has begged for the chance to live for her 14-month-old son.

However, since Beatriz is now 26 weeks along in her pregnancy, her case is no longer subject to El Salvador’s abortion laws. The reproductive rights advocates who have taken up her case say that at this point, the country’s health ministry can decide on the best option to safeguard Beatriz’s health.

That’s exactly what El Salvador’s health minister has decided to do. Essentially, Beatriz will be given a different means to achieve the same ends. Rodriguez will sidestep the abortion controversy by allowing Beatriz to undergo a C-section surgery — which her fetus will likely not survive — instead of undergoing a less-invasive abortion procedure. The Health Department hasn’t yet decided when Beatriz will have her surgery, but she is now “going through all the medical exams” in order to prepare for it.

Independently of Rodriguez’s announcement that Beatriz may have a C-section, the highest human rights courts in the Americas ordered El Salvador on Thursday to provide Beatriz with the life-saving health care she needs. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has never before considered a case on abortion, but it stepped in this week to criticize El Salvador’s Supreme Court for its “cruel and callous” decision to deny Beatriz the right to terminate her doomed pregnancy. The Inter-American Court pointed out that forcing the ailing woman to continue carrying her fetus is “a potential death sentence for Beatriz.” The health minister’s decision ensures that El Salvador will be in compliance with the court’s order.

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El Salvador’s Supreme Court has decided to deny a 22-year-old woman a lifesaving abortion, ruling against making a medical exception to the conservative nation’s stringent abortion ban. Without an abortion, the woman will likely die — along with her nonviable fetus, which is missing its brain.

Identified in the press only as “Beatriz,” the young Salvadoran woman suffers from a chronic health condition that worsens when she is pregnant, and her doctors have warned that she is at “high risk of death” if she continues to carry her fetus. Several ultrasounds have revealed that, even if Beatriz does survive to carry the fetus to full term, it has virtually no chance of survival because it has no brain.

Beatriz has been fighting for an abortion for the past three months, and several international human rights organizations have taken up her case. But it’s been an uphill battle in her deeply Catholic nation, where abortion is illegal under absolutely all circumstances and punishable by up to 30 years in prison. After El Salvador’s attorney general refused to grant Beatriz and her doctors an exception to the harsh law, the pregnant woman turned to the Supreme Court.

And on Wednesday, the highest court in the country denied Beatriz permission to access the medical care that would save her life. El Salvador’s Supreme Court took several weeks to deliberate Beatriz’s case in consultation with the Institute of Legal Medicine, which advises the court on medical issues. The Institute determined that Beatriz’s health “was not yet in absolute danger.”

There are no options left. “We cannot appeal the case because this was the last step, the Supreme Court,” Victor Hugo Mata, the lawyer representing Beatriz, told CBS News.

Beatriz has been hospitalized for the last several months, separated from her husband and 14-month-old son. And even though the country’s Institute of Legal Medicine claims that Beatriz isn’t in critical condition yet, a group of her doctors have warned that her health is deteriorating daily. Earlier this month, Beatriz recorded a personal appeal to her president to intervene and save her life. “President Mauricio Funes Cartagena, help me please,” she begged. “This baby inside me cannot survive. I am ill. I want to live… I want to live for my son.” That help has not come for Beatriz.

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In an op-ed published on Wednesday, an Oklahoma Republican sharply criticizes his fellow party members for focusing on enacting unnecessary legislation to limit women’s access to abortion and contraception. “What happened to the Republican Party that I joined?” state Rep. Doug Cox (R) wonders, pointing out that the mounting pile of reproductive restrictions represents a government intrusion into women’s personal lives.

Cox, who is a practicing physician, writes that the GOP-led pushes to eliminate women’s health resources don’t work in the “real world,” as the U.S. continues to face high rates of unintended teen pregnancy. Instead of expanding access to contraception to help address that reality, his fellow Republicans are working to do the opposite — pushing to eliminate Medicaid coverage for Plan B and allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions for any reason. The state lawmaker doesn’t believe those legislative priorities reflect the fundamental issues at the heart of the Republican Party:

What happened to the Republican Party that I joined? The party where conservative presidential candidate Barry Goldwater felt women should have the right to control their own destiny? The party where President Ronald Reagan said a poor person showing up in the emergency room deserved needed treatment regardless of ability to pay? What happened to the Republican Party that felt government should not overregulate people until (as we say in Oklahoma) “you have walked a mile in their moccasins”? [...]

What happened to the Republican Party that felt that the government has no business being in an exam room, standing between me and my patient? Where did the party go that felt some decisions in a woman’s life should be made not by legislators and government, but rather by the women, her conscience, her doctor and her God?

This isn’t the first time that Cox has spoken out against his party’s stance on women’s health issues. In February, when Oklahoma was considering additional abortion restrictions that would make it harder for minors to get an abortion without parental consent, Cox testified in opposition to the legislation. “We keep passing stuff like this, they’ll be done in back alleys with coat hangers, people,” he pointed out. At the same hearing, Cox also explained that, despite Republicans’ attempts to construe abortion care as inherently unsafe, abortion doctors don’t actually need to be burdened with additional regulations.

This year, Cox was the recipient of Planned Parenthood’s Barry Goldwater Award, which is presented to “outstanding” public officials in the Republican Party who have demonstrated their support for reproductive health issues. “As a highly regarded member of the Oklahoma State House, Rep. Cox has tirelessly and effectively argued against more than 160 anti-women’s health measures,” the women’s health organization noted.

But the other lawmakers in Oklahoma — a state that is already particularly hostile to women’s reproductive rights — have certainly kept Cox busy. Earlier this session, one state lawmaker advanced a measure that would allow employers to deny their workers birth control coverage for any reason. Another legislator has repeatedly pushed to outlaw all abortions and some forms of contraception with a “personhood” initiative that would endow embryos with the full rights of U.S. citizens. And just last week, in the wake of two deadly tornadoes that ravaged the state, the Oklahoma Senate voted to defund Planned Parenthood.