I'VE SEEN A BUNCH OF COMPLAINTS recently about bloggers not generating original content. In particular, a comment on Kevin Drum's Blogging Women post yesterday said, "...I realized that obviously the reason women aren't in the top blog circles is that very few of them generate their own content. What's the point of a post which takes another, digests it, says nothing new, and then doesn't even wonder or link to its conclusion."

There is truth to this, although it's just as likely to be true of male as of female bloggers, but anyone who agrees with this comment should check out Maha's blog, especially today. She writes about the World Conference on Women at the United Nations, and the post is not only informative (I, for one, did not know there WAS a World Conference on Women going on at the UN right now); it also makes some very trenchant points about the Bush administration's insistence on removing any language guaranteeing a right to abortion from the conference's statement reaffirming its support for the Beijing women's conference 10 years ago. Maha's meticulously researched commentary on why abortion rights are key to all other rights for women in the developing world, and on the dire consequences for women in Third World countries when abortion is illegal, are a must-read.