North Dakota legislators want to ban abortions after as little as six weeks of pregnancy.

Around 6,000 people showed up to yesterday's gun-control rally in Washington, according to NYMag. Reuters reported a vaguer "thousands," including a group of Newtown, CT residents who were bussed in. The rally was organized by Molly Smith and One Million Moms for Gun Control; similar events were held in other cities across the country.

In May of 2011, Texas approved the sale of those charming "Choose Life" license plates, featuring precocious, blue-haired crayon kids. Fork $30 over and everyone on the Mixmaster (the best-named highway interchange ever) knows where you stand on abortion. Of that, $22 go to "qualified organizations who provide counseling and material assistance to pregnant women who are considering placing their children for adoption," according to Texas' Vehicle Title and Registration Services.

The only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi came one step closer to closure today. Last year, the state passed an ordinance requiring all of the doctors working at the Jackson Women's Health Organization to have hospital admission privileges in order to continue operating. The deadline to comply with the order came earlier this week; only one of the four doctors currently employed at the clinic has admitting privileges.

Noted bloggist B-Skillet over at the Christian Men's Defense Network has taken a few moments away from guarding the perimeter of the last flagging Christian outpost from the Yuuzhan Vong invasion to explain exactly how Mitt Romney (apparently some kind of erstwhile candidate for political office) could have lost. B-Skillet blames "the Slut Vote" (Skillet has since put his WordPress on private; you can see Google's cache here):

It's not a secret that Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock believes abortion should only be allowed in the case of when the mother's life is in danger. But tonight he made the mistake of implying that pregnancies resulting from rape a "gift from god." Oof.

TOP TWO PROPS YOU NEED TO BE AN ANTI-ABORTION PROTESTER OUTSIDE THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

What a month it's been for Republicans and rape. Since Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin — at the time leading the polls by a wide margin — told a journalist that in the case of "legitimate rape, the female body has ways" to prevent pregnancy, prominent Republicans haven't been able to avoid putting their rapey feet in their moist, sex-obsessed mouths. Here's a recent history of Republicans on rape.

The issue of abortion in the case of rape has been a hot topic recently in light of Todd Akin's shockingly stupid comments last weekend.

All right, turns out we were all angry over nothing. When Todd Akin used the questionable phrase "legitimate rape," he was just trying to distinguish those rapes from the ones women lie about — you know, the false rapes.

Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, the Republican Senate candidate who believes uteri have a rape exception, has launched a "Still Standing" website asking supporters to sign a petition. Actually, he's launched it three times, because whoever is writing his websites for him doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're."

It's probably a little unfair to blast Todd Akin (R-Missouri) for his belief in uterine magic, since his entire worldview hinges on a poor Nazarene woman practicing that art over 2000 years ago. Then again, the Archangel Gabriel didn't deliver the Annunciation by sticking a flaming foot in his trumpet, so there's that.

Get ready for some cold, hard science facts.

A 24-year-old woman in Spain gave birth to a baby boy — not terribly newsworthy, except for the fact that she'd already had an abortion.

Despite the fact that Arizona has already banned public funding for abortion, Governor Jan Brewer signed an even more restrictive bill that bars funding to any organization that provides abortions — namely Planned Parenthood.

Former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is pro-choice. Wait, no — that's not exactly true. She still supports a full ban on abortion, even in the case of rape or for the woman's health. But Bachmann used an odd choice of words when she appeared on Meet the Press.

Frank Bruni, America's Worst Newspaper Columnist, served up a hack's dream on Sunday: His old college pal is an abortion doctor, Bruni says, and once performed an abortion on one of the most vocal and angry anti-abortion protesters that plagued his clinic. Just goes to show you that things are never quite as they seem, I suppose. But did it happen?

There's a new bill in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and its seemingly innocuous name is rather misleading. The "Life Defense Act of 2012" (H.B. 3308) would require the Tennessee Department of Health to publish way more information on abortions and on the doctors that provide them.

Garry Trudeau, creator of the wonderful Doonesbury comic strip, caused some controversy this week when he opted for a storyline based on the recent trend of dildonic ultrasound abortion bills. A number of papers opted out of running the strip this week due to its content; some, such as the Poughkeepsie Journal, chose to make it available online.

Here is a trailer for October Baby, a movie about a woman who survived her own abortion. Hahaha. Yep. So take a good look at that pretty face of her's, because it was a face that almost wasn't. Luckily, tenacious fetus that she was, Hannah managed to maintain her grip on her devil mother's uterus and give herself life. This her journey.