Daily Feminist News: This Week

House Passes Grant for Processing Untested Rape Kits

7/24/2008 - The House of Representatives passed the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act of 2008 last week, which will help process a backlog of rape kits across the country. The Act provides funds for a grant program that started in 2004, with the objective to process the nearly 400,000 untested rape kits nationwide. In the United States, more than 200,000 rapes are reported to authorities each year. Thousands of victims agree to a rape kits, an invasive process that can take up to six hours. These individuals are often unaware that the critical evidence gathered is never tested.

The Washington Post reports that the proportion of rape victims who report the crime has increased. However, rape arrests have decreased in the face of growing backlogs in evidence processing. Most states are not required to notify victims about the processing of their rape kit.

The backlog of untested rape evidence within the kits has been attributed to lack of financial resources. However, over the past four years, Congress has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for states to conduct DNA testing for sexual assaults. Failure to process rape kits is linked to states "failure to treat rape as seriously as other violent crimes", while other non-sexual violent crime evidence is regularly processed, reports the Washington Post.

Anti-Abortion Groups Continue Fight to Close Aurora Clinic

7/24/2008 - The Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based law firm that specializes in anti-abortion issues, filed appeals this week against an Aurora, IL clinic. The group filed appeals with the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Building Code Board of Appeals to revoke Aurora's Planned Parenthood clinic's certificate of permanent legal status, which was issued July 1, reports the Chicago Tribune.

According to the Fox Valley Villages Sun, the appeals offer no new arguments, but only re-state allegations of fraud against how Planned Parenthood obtained the original building permit for the clinic. Planned Parenthood was cleared of these allegations last year.

The clinic was the focus of protests by anti-abortion extremists when it first attempted to open last year. Doors opened in October 2007, after the city issued a temporary certificate of legal status. The 22,000-square-foot building is the largest Planned Parenthood clinic in the United States, and it will serve about 25,000 patients a year.

HealthNow Fined for Denying Claims from Women Seeking Infertility Treatment

7/24/2008 - HealthNow, a Buffalo, New York based insurance group, has been fined over $1 million by the New York State Insurance Department for denying claims from women seeking infertility treatment and failing to give legal notice of rate increases.

New York State law requires that infertility treatments be covered by insurance companies with few exceptions, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families. HealthNow must now reprocess and pay the claims for more than 2,500 women in Albany, Buffalo and Central New York. Most of the claims were for approximately $150, reports Albany’s Times Union.

"Infertility can be a very difficult experience. Women should not have the added burden of fighting for health benefits they are entitled to receive," said Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo, according to the Ithaca Journal. "It took a lot of courage for one woman to come forward with her experience, but now others will benefit from her strength."

According to The Buffalo News, HealthNow has cooperated throughout the investigation and will pay $600,000 in penalties for denying the claims and another $450,000 for failing to give the required 30 day notice of rising rates to clients, among other insurance law violations.

Northern Ireland Proposes Abortion Rights Amendment

7/23/2008 - Members of Parliament (MPs) in Northern Ireland have proposed an amendment to the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill that would give women the same abortion rights available in Britain. According to the BBC News, women are currently denied abortions in Northern Ireland by the National Health Service (NHS).

Abortion is only available in Northern Ireland if the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life. The 1967 Abortion Act that made the procedure legal in the UK was never enacted in Northern Ireland, forcing thousands of women to travel to mainland Britain for abortions, reports The Independent.

"This fundamental inequity must be remedied," said Diane Abbot, the MP that tabled the clause, according to a Healthcare Republic press release. "Forty years after the 1967 Abortion Act women in Northern Ireland are still facing conditions more reminiscent of the 19th century. All women in the UK must be given fair and rapid access to safe, legal abortion when they need it."

Despite a clear pro-choice majority in the British Parliament, the amendment is heavily opposed by MPs from Northern Ireland, reports The Independent. The amendment will be debated and voted upon this fall.

US Female Soldiers Speak Out Against Sexual Assault

7/23/2008 - With over 190,000 women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, female soldiers have brought sexual assault in the military to the attention of military authorities and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). According to the Associated Press, 15 percent of women veterans who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan have reported being sexually assaulted, raped, or sexually harassed to the VA.

To focus more on the needs of women veterans, the VA has opened a new ward in New Jersey to treat these survivors of military sexual trauma. Carolyn Schapper, of the Virginia Army National Guard, reported repeated sexual harassment from a male superior who would come into her room unannounced. Schapper feared that reporting this behavior would result in her removal from the house, not the other solider. “I didn’t want to be moved, and basically I’d be punished in a sense,” Schapper commented to the Associated Press.

The Miles Foundation, a non-profit that supports survivors of sexual assault in the military, reported that depression, anxiety, and domestic abuse could follow from instances of sexual abuse, according to the Associated Press.

Abnormal Sleep Patterns Increase Middle-Age Women's Risk of Stroke

7/22/2008 - A Women's Health Initiatives research study found that abnormal sleep patterns put postmenopausal women at a greater risk of stroke, finding those who sleep 9 hours or more per night at a 70 percent greater risk.

The study, which will be published in the July 28 issue of Stroke, it reports that "women with a sleep duration of 6 hours or less, 8 hours, or 9 hours or more increased the risk of stroke by 14 percent, 24 percent, and 70 percent, respectively, compared with sleeping 7 hours," reported in Reuters. The study monitored 93,175 women, between the ages of 50 to 79, over an average of 7.5 years. During which 1,166 women experienced an ischemic stroke, leading researchers to link the significance between sleep duration and cardiovascular disease. For women who initially had cardiovascular disease, sleep duration was not reported to have a profound impact on their risk.

Co-researcher, Dr. Jiu-Chiuan Chen, from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill added, "Our data does not imply that if women with long sleep cut their sleep hours they would be at a lower risk. [...] Further studies are needed to help us understand the possible mechanisms involved in the associations found in this study."

Nearly Half of Egyptian Women Harassed Daily

7/22/2008 - A study released last week found that nearly half of Egyptian women are sexually harassed on a daily basis. The report, released by The Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights, stated that 46 percent of Egyptian women were harassed daily and 98 percent of foreign women were harassed while in the country, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Nihad Abu El-Qoumsan, head of The Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights, said most Egyptian women blame themselves for the harassment, reports the BBC. Contrary to popular belief, findings stated that unveiled women were not more likely to be harassed.

This self blame may be only one reason why only 12 percent of victims reported incidences to police last year, as reported by AFP. According to the Windsor Star, victims were also reluctant to report harassment because of a perceived lack of response from authorities. The centre that released the study is campaigning to elucidate the current sexual harassment law in hopes of making reporting the crime easier for Egyptian women.

South Dakota Abortion Law Takes Effect

7/21/2008 - South Dakota abortion providers are now required to recite a script telling patients that the procedure will "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being." They must then warn the woman of a supposed increased risk of suicide.

The law additionally requires that doctors tell a woman seeking an abortion that there is "an existing relationship" with the fetus that "enjoys protection under the United States Constitution" and that, by having an abortion, "her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated," reports to the Washington Post.

The law came into effect last Friday, after a 2005 court order that prevented the enforcement of the law expired. It will affect the Sioux Falls Planned Parenthood, the only recognized abortion provider in the state.

"We have always believed and worked hard to ensure that every woman has the best, medically accurate information so that she can make the right decision for her unique circumstances," said South Dakota Planned Parenthood President, Sarah Stoesz in a company statement. "This law is not about informed consent, it's about compelling doctors to deliver state mandated ideology."

South Dakota will also face a ballot measure this November. The referendum would ban all abortions with exceptions for rape, incest and a threat to a woman's life, according the Associated Press. The measure is similar to a ballot measure rejected by South Dakota voters in 2006.