The New Hampshire House Finance Committee tried to remove the 24-hour waiting period provision, but the House voted to pass the bill with the provision in a 198-100 vote. Lawmakers arguing against the provisions said that the tax-credit bill will most likely be defeated in the State Senate because of the added anti-abortion provision.

One member of the House told the The Huffington Post that “what we have done is take a good piece of fiscal legislation and condemn the legislation to death on the other side of the wall. We’ve hijacked the bill.”

26 States require a 24 hour waiting period. Last week, Utah became the first state to enact a mandatory 72-hour waiting period.

Huffington Post 5/16/12; Concord Monitor 5/16/12; AP 5/15/12; Feminist Daily News Wire 5/10/12

The comments sent to HHS from the USCCB’s General Counsel outlined six points of opposition to the mandate. These points included that contraceptive services are still included as a mandated preventative service in the Affordable Care Act, that religious employers are defined as employers that “primarily hire and serve only members of their own religion”, and that there is a lack of exemption for non-religious employers with “conscientious objections.”

In the comments, the USCCB wrote “we believe that this mandate is unjust and unlawful – it is bad health policy, and because it entails an element of government coercion against conscience, it creates a religious freedom problem. These moral and legal problems are compounded by an extremely narrow exemption that intrusively and unlawfully carves up the religious community into those that are deemed ‘religious enough’ for an exemption, and those that are not.” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters, “We’re not trying to win an argument here… we’re trying to implement a policy that will affect millions of women.”

USCCB Press Release 5/15/12; USCCB Memo to HHS 5/15/12; The Hill 5/15/12; AP 5/15/12; Feminist Daily News Wire 4/13/12, 3/15/12

In the Statement of Administration Policy, the administration blasted HR 4970 for allowing abusers to be notified when domestic violence victims file a VAWA complaint. In the Statement, the administration wrote, “these proposals senselessly remove existing legal protections, undermine VAWA’s core purpose of protecting victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, frustrate important law enforcement objectives, and jeopardize victims by placing them directly in harm’s way.” The Statement also says that “if the President is presented with HR 4970, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”

The House Judiciary Committee passed the Cantor/Adams VAWA Reauthorization bill in a nearly straight party line vote on May 8th. Only one Republican, Ted Poe (TX-2), joined the Democrats in voting no. The Committee, in denying consideration of the substitute bill of Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI), essentially rejected what Vice President Biden (the principal author of the original VAWA) called the “real McCoy” VAWA Reauthorization, which passed the Senate with a bipartisan 68-31 vote in late April.

ThinkProgress 5/16/12; Statement of Administration Policy 5/15/12; Reuters 5/15/12; Feminist Daily News Wire 5/9/12

In his ruling, Judge Worthington wrote that the bill is “so completely at odds with the standard that governs the practice of medicine that [the bill] can serve no purpose other than to prevent women from obtaining abortions and to punish and discriminate against those women who do.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, the group that filed the original legal challenge, issued a statement in which its President and CEO, Nancy Northup, said, “It sends a strong message to anti-choice legislators in Oklahoma and beyond that their disingenuous tactics for restricting access to abortion and their hostility toward women’s fundamental rights will not stand. The court has made it clear this law was never about protecting women. It was about banning safe and effective methods of terminating a pregnancy, and making it impossible for women to exercise the full range of their constitutionally protected rights.”

This is the third time this year that a state court has overturned an anti-abortion law in Oklahoma.  The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office has vowed to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.  Last month, the state Supreme Court ruled against a proposal to put a personhood law on the state election ballot.

Tulsa World, 5/15/12; Chicago Tribune 5/14/12; ThinkProgress 5/14/12; Care2 5/14/12; Center for Reproductive Rights Press Release 5/14/12

The report finds that one third of US CIOs say that within their IT organizations there are no women in management level positions.  52% of US CIOs report that women are underrepresented in their IT organizations, according to the survey.

Senior Vice President of International Technology Solutions at Harvey Nash USA, Anna Frazzetto, said that the numbers reflect that “less and less women are attracted into that space so you wind up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It’s not a very welcoming arena to be in.” She also said that “the skills shortage is the biggest it’s ever been, and it’s going to cause companies to get a little more creative in shifting the culture of organizations.”

Reuters 5/14/12; Business Wire 5/14/12; Harvey Nash USA/ Telecity Group Survey 5/12