By now, pretty much the entire country is uncomfortably, devastatingly aware of what went on in Ariel Castro's. You'd think it would be impossible to not be completely beside yourself hearing about how three women -- Amanda, Michelle, and Gina -- spent 10 years living a nightmare that the adjectives horrific and inhumane don't even begin to describe. Unless you're Rush Limbaugh, that is. Ol' Rush, it seems, doesn't believe in paying attention to the details of news stories. He just hears the general gist before drawing wide-sweeping, wacked-out, totally tone deaf conclusions ...

Like how apparently, the Ohio kidnap victims must've been part of a welfare scam, because that's what the deal was in a recent episode of Hawaii Five-O that Rush watched ... Yup. And "double welfare benefits if one of the women has a baby,” he declared, reminding listeners one of the victims had a baby. Oh, and wait wait! It's all Obama's fault, too! (Of course it is.)

When the body of a stillborn baby is sent to the hospital laundry, it could be an accident. A tragic accident, but an accident all the same. Only now there's news that a second stillborn's remains are missing at the same Minnesota hospital that lost track of a family's little boy on Tuesday.

Suddenly we've gone from "terrible mistake," the words used by the hospital's chief nursing officer on Wednesday, to what? A callous treatment of human life? An employee with a serious problem?

I've heard some loopy "reasons" for keeping marriage between a man and a woman. I've actually heard (or at least read) people say things like, "If a man can marry a man, what's to stop a man from marrying his dog?" Like a man and a dog are the same thing! Sigh. So I guess it should come as no great surprise when a GOP stalwart said that gay marriage would lead to fake gay marriages. "You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow," Georgia GOP chairwoman Sue Everhart reportedly said. "Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits?" Gee, Sue. I think the question is, What would stop anyone from doing that?

It’s been three years since Congress rammed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act down our throats, and the legislation remains wildly unpopular. According to a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll last month, nearly two-thirds of Americans still have an unfavorable opinion of Obamacare.

The law made its way through the court system, with the Supreme Court eventually upholding it as constitutional last June, on the grounds that it was a tax, and not a mandate. In other words, it was decided that the government isn’t forcing Americans to buy a product they may or may not want -- it is just taxing them if they don’t.

Politicians in Florida are currently debating whether or not to pass the Infants Born Alive Act, which would require that physicians give medical attention to children born alive after a botched abortion.

Since Planned Parenthood has a dog in the abortion fight, they sent along Alisa Laport Snow, a lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, to testify on behalf of the organization. Ms. Snow stated several times that they believe that the decision to end the life of a child born alive should be left to the woman, her family, and her physician. 

"I wish we could all just put down our picket signs and talk to each other." That's the plea of one woman who bravely told the story of her abortion. To mark the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, CNN's iReport invited women to tell their abortion stories. What resulted was a flood of devastatingly emotional and complicated personal stories.

"Right" or "wrong," abortion is something women do. And however you feel about abortion, you cannot walk away from these stories without feeling the profound impact it's had on these women's lives. What looms larger than what led to their decisions is what happens after, whether it's torment, regret, relief, or redemption. We've found four videos with different perspectives. All four of these stories gave me chills. Take a look -- and maybe share with a friend or family member.

It looks like Texas is about to experience another boom. But this time it won't be oil -- it'll be babies! Texas legislators decided to defund what Rep. Bill Zeddler called "the abortion industry" by slashing funding for family planning. Because did you know? Family planning = abortion, y'all! Welp, we reap what we sow, Texas. We reap what we sow.

Thanks to these cuts, Texas is expecting 20,000 more unplanned pregnancies than usual. The Health and Human Services Commissions projects those unplanned pregnancies will add $273 million in costs to taxpayers. Ask any accountant, and they'll tell you that a relatively small budget cut that results in $273 million in new costs means you're flunking math. And the best part? They're not even getting what they think they paid for: fewer abortions. As governor Rick Perry would say, "Oops."

A chilling 911 call out of Bakersfield, California is making the rounds of the Internet today, and it's not good news for the nurse on one end of the call. If what we're hearing is everything that happened, the nurse at a nursing home outright refuses to perform CPR on a dying woman even as the 911 dispatcher begs her to do the right thing. To make the sad case even more confusing: the nurse had actually called 911 to get help for the woman!

By the time medics arrived, it was too late. Eighty-seven-year-old Lorraine Bayless died. Which leaves America wondering today: what should happen to this nurse? Should she be punished for letting someone die on her watch?