By Heron Greenesmith, Andrew Cray, and Kellan Baker | May 23, 2013 Center For American Progress President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ACA, into law on March 23, 2010. Many Americans have already benefited from the ACA, and millions more will benefit as the law fully comes into effect. By January 1, 2014, the law’s provisions will be underway, ensuring that millions of Americans will be able to afford the...

By KERRI MACDONALD – New York Times – May 10, 2013 In the days after Liam Pursley was born in April, the woman who carried him for nine months barely saw him. Liam spent most of his time with his mother and father, Jamie and Jacob Pursley. His surrogate mother, Kristen Broome, stayed in a separate hospital room, trying to navigate the swirl of emotions. “I held him and cried,” Ms. Broome said of the first time she saw Liam, about...

A full 87% say that the traditional family has evolved and they are okay with that. BY Diane Anderson-Minshall – Advocate.com May 08 2013 Turns out the the critics of Murphy Brown — who had a child out of wedlock on TV and got lambasted by then Vice President Dan Quayle for doing so — were right about one thing: TV does have an impact on how Americans view the concept of family. According to a new study by uSamp and Oxygen Media, a full...

May 8, 2013 – BY MARK OPPENHEIMER, NewRepublic.com Last week, on the day that Sports Illustrated posted NBA player Jason Collins’s essay announcing his homosexuality, I was walking with Rebekah, our six-year-old. We were going to pick up our car at the auto mechanic’s shop on the corner, when across the street I spotted a neighbor going in the other direction, strolling hand-in-hand with her two-year-old son. They waved to me, and I said...

April 10, 2013  New York Times By SABRINA TAVERNISE The lead investigators on a large study of the effects of oxygen levels on extremely premature babies failed to inform the infants’ parents that the risks of participating could involve increased chances of blindness or death, the federal Department of Health and Human Services has warned in a letter. The Office for Human Research Protections, which safeguards the people who participate in government-funded...

By NICK BILTON – The New York Times, March 31, 2013   I recently watched my sister perform an act of magic. We were sitting in a restaurant, trying to have a conversation, but her children, 4-year-old Willow and 7-year-old Luca, would not stop fighting. The arguments — over a fork, or who had more water in a glass — were unrelenting. Like a magician quieting a group of children by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, my sister reached into...

By Debora L. Spar. Special to CNN Wed April 3, 2013 (CNN) — Of all the arguments swirling around the legality of same-sex marriage, it’s clear that a major concern is, as always, the kids. Supporters argue that same-sex parents need to provide their children with a stable and supportive family home, complete with the legal protections afforded heterosexual married couples. Opponents claim that children raised by same-sex parents are...

Huffington Post, March 18, 2013 – Dov Fox and I. Glen Cohen This week the United Kingdom joined the ranks of countries like Israel and Canada that provide in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment to citizens under a certain age (42 in the U.K.) who can’t have children without it. That includes gays and lesbians. When it comes to helping people form the families they long for, the United States is woefully behind. The U.S. has among the lowest...

March 21, 2013 New York Times By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS The American Academy of Pediatrics declared its support for same-sex marriage for the first time on Thursday, saying that allowing gay and lesbian parents to marry if they so choose is in the best interests of their children. The academy’s new policy statement says same-sex marriage helps guarantee rights, benefits and long-term security for children, while acknowledging that it does not now...

According to this February 22, 2013 decision, “A coparenting agreement is not automatically rendered unenforceable as violating public policy merely because it contains the biological mother’s agreement to share the custody of her children with another, so long as the intent and effect of the arrangement will promote the welfare and best interests of the children.” The court basically stated that same-sex couples have the same rights...