Migration Category: NCWP Old Site

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would criminalize the transportation of a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion without parental involvement. The so-called Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act would require doctors to contact the parents of out-of-state patients 24 hours before performing an abortion. The Senate is expected to consider its version, known as the Child Custody Protection Act, this summer. This is the third time the House has passed such legislation, but the Senate has never considered the measure before. However, the policy is on the Republicans’ top 10 list of priorities this year, the Associated Press reports. President Bush issued a statement yesterday urging the Senate to pass the bill.

Reproductive rights groups are calling the bill the “Teen Endangerment Act” because it “fails to protect those teenagers dealing with precarious family situations—like alcoholic or abusive parents—by forcing them to rely on those parents or to go to any lengths, including dangerous ones, to avoid doing so,” said Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. Situations in which young women who had obtained a judicial bypass in their home state would be exempt, but there is no provision for girls who are not residents of parental-notification states to obtain such a bypass, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

If it becomes federal law, transporting a teenage girl out of a state with parental-notification laws in order to obtain an abortion would become a federal offense with possible consequences of up to a $100,000 fine and a year in jail, according to the New York Times.

LEARN MORE about the Teen Endangerment Act through Moving Ideas, a partner of FMF.

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By declining to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling, the US Supreme Court earlier this week let stand a Massachusetts law that prohibits protesters from coming within six feet of abortion clinic patients to disturb them or hand them leaflets. The law, which also establishes an 18-foot zone around abortion clinics in which protestors cannot interact with visitors or staff, had been ruled as constitutional last October by the 1st US Circuit Court. The law’s creation was prompted by the killing of two clinic staff in two separate Massachusetts clinics by John Salvi in December 1994.

“This is really a common sense measure,” Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly said, according to the Boston Globe. “It protects a woman’s right to seek medical care without being intimidated and harassed É you can’t be getting in someone’s face.”

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A new United Nations reports shows a majority of the 115 million children worldwide who are excluded from receiving an education are girls. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries with the widest gender gaps in education. The “Progress for Children” report states that barriers to achieving gender parity in education include poverty, HIV/AIDS and conflict. Though the report shows that more children are attending school overall, a “quantum leap” and an extra $5.6 billion a year in aid are needed to reach the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education by 2015, reports the UN News Service.

According to the Executive Director of UNICEF Carol Bellamy, “The goal of universal primary education with equal opportunity for girls and boys is realistic. It is affordable, it is achievable and what’s more, it’s our children’s birthright. Education is about more than just learning. In many countries it’s a life-saver, especially where girls are concerned. A girl out of school is more likely to fall prey to HIV/AIDS and less able to raise a healthy family,” reports UN News Service.

Meanwhile, the Global Campaign for Education is blaming 22 of the richest countries in the world for failing to provide the necessary funds to educate the world’s poor. According to BBC News, the Global Campaign for Education produced a report card for the 22 countries based on their spending on development aid in total and funding of education programs. Only two countries received an “A” grade – Norway and the Netherlands. The United States and Austria both received “F”s.

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Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D) vetoed a bill on Friday that would have given the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) increased control over abortion clinics, allowing the department to single out abortion providers to meet standards above and beyond what other physicians must meet. The Feminist Majority sent a letter to Governor Sebelius urging her to veto this bill. Legislation such as this, referred to as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider (TRAP) bills, is often used by anti-choice lobbyists to limit abortion access by forcing clinics in the state to invest large amounts of money in the renovation of their buildings and in staff increases. TRAP legislation leads to clinic closures in many areas and to sharp increases in the cost of an abortion in the clinics that remain open.

“The legislature has chosen pure politics over good policy, has rejected uniform standards for all procedures, and has instead chosen to regulate only one procedure – abortion,” Governor Sebelius said in a statement on Friday. The Associated Press reports that anti-choice legislators are likely to attempt to override the Governor’s veto, as the bill passed both the state House and Senate with a two-thirds majority (which the number of votes required to override a veto). According to the National Abortion Federation, 12 states considered TRAP legislation in 2004, with Mississippi enacting such a law.

Governor Sebelius also signed into law two anti-choice bills on Friday. The first law will allocate $300,000 of state funds to provide matching grants to crisis pregnancy centers. The other law, to take effect July 1, will require doctors to preserve fetal tissue from abortions performed on girls under the age of 14. The tissue will then be sent along with the patient’s name and address, as well as the names and addresses of her parents or guardians, to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for DNA testing, the Associated Press reports. Pro-choice activists in the state are concerned that this law will violate the privacy of patients. “We believe that it will be found to be unconstitutional,” Julie Burkhart, a lobbyist with ProKanDo, an abortion rights state PAC, told the Associated Press.

The Feminist Majority urged Governor Sebelius to veto the fetal tissue bill due to the risk it poses to the civil liberties of women who obtain abortions. “If the intent of the bill’s supporters was to truly seek out child rapists,” the letter stated, “all types of facilities that treat or advise minors would fall under this legislation.”

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The Department of Justice on Friday announced that Eric Robert Rudolph was pleading guilty to all four of the bombings he is accused of committing, including the bombings of abortion clinics in Atlanta and Birmingham. He has signed plea agreements with federal prosecutors agreeing to plea guilty and waive all appeals, as a result of which he will avoid the death penalty and serve life in prison without parole.

“If accepted by the courts, Eric Robert Rudolph’s guilty pleas to having committed the Birmingham and Atlanta bombings will resolve these cases with certainty and finality, and hopefully bring some closure to the many victims of the bombings,” said US Attorneys Alice H. Martin of the Northern District of Alabama and David E. Nahmias of the Northern District of Georgia. Under the terms of the agreement, Rudolph also disclosed the locations of several caches of dynamite and a buried bomb located in a populated area of Western North Carolina.

“We are glad to see closure in the Eric Robert Rudolph case,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “However, we are concerned that law enforcement has never charged any other suspects with aiding Rudolph either in planning or carrying out these bombings or in eluding capture for five years. The plea bargain leaves too many questions unanswered, such as who helped with his target selection; what involvement Rudolph had, if any, with other Army of God participants; who helped with the deployment of the secondary device aimed at law enforcement and first responders at the Atlanta clinic and lesbian nightclub (“the first time such a device was used in the US)?”

“Experts now know so much more about terrorist organizations,” she continued. “A lone wolf theory is entirely inconsistent with such knowledge. Moreover, a drawing of a second possible suspect for the Atlanta clinic was circulated widely at the time but no one was ever charged. This case simply cannot be closed with no further potential with only the plea bargaining of Eric Rudolph.”

Through its National Clinic Access Project, the Feminist Majority Foundation works with law enforcement, and tracks and researches anti-abortion extremists and pursues litigation strategies to bring violent extremists to justice and stop violence against women’s clinics.

DONATE to the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Access project, which works to keep clinics safe and open

Plans have been announced for the first ever Roman Catholic religious society devoted exclusively to fighting against abortion and euthanasia. The male-only group, to be called “Missionaries of the Gospel of Life,” will be headquartered in Amarillo, Texas and led by Fr. Frank Pavone. Pavone currently serves as the director for Priests for Life and was an outspoken figure in the Terri Schiavo controversy.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the new order will train priests and other anti-abortion lay men in lobbying and voter-registration drives. Most disturbing, however, the new group intends to train priests to “lead demonstrations outside offices where abortions and family-planning services are provided.” Planned Parenthood of Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle expressed concerns that the new society will orchestrate blockades of women’s clinics.

Indeed, as the director of Priests for Life, Pavone has written in a pamphlet “Our Media is the Streets” that clinic blockades or “breaking a law of trespass” at abortion clinics is “perfectly justified.” Adding to local clinics’ concerns, Bishop John Yanta of Amarillo told the Los Angeles Times the new group would not shy “away from using aggressive strategies to get their anti-abortion message across.” The Bishop also said, according to the LA Times, that the group is being established with the knowledge and blessing of the Vatican. Cardinal Renato Martino, who leads the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life “may be just what the world today needs.”

Pavone himself has long been associated with some of the most extremist elements of the anti-abortion movement who have organized and led blockades of clinics and targeted doctors in campaigns of intimidation. He participated in the founding convention of the American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA) in which the ACLA unveiled a campaign called the “Deadly Dozen” – targeting 13 physicians across the country who performed abortions.

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Colorado Governor Bill Owens (R) vetoed a bill on Tuesday that would have required all hospitals to inform rape victims about emergency contraception. Owens, a Roman Catholic, claimed that the bill would have forced church-backed institutions to violate their own ethics guidelines, reports the Associated Press. The bill, HB 1042, which passed 46-19 and 22-13 in the state House and Senate, respectively, would have allowed individual health care workers with moral or religious objections to refrain from informing women about emergency contraception (EC), but would have required them to refer patients to another health professional who would discuss contraception options, reports the Kaiser Network. State Representative Terrance Carroll (D) argued that Owens had misconstrued the legislation’s intent. “This was not about abortion, it was not about freedom, it was about women who were raped,” reports TheDenverChannel.com.

Lawmakers tried to attach an amendment to exclude Catholic hospitals, but the bill’s sponsors, Representative Betty Boyd (D-CO) and Senator Jennifer Veiga (D-CO), refused, according to the Rocky Mountain News. Boyd and Veiga pointed out that rape victims do not always have a choice about where they go for treatment.

Republican supporters of the bill argued that studies have shown 50 percent of women who are raped and become pregnant have an abortion, reports the Rocky Mountain News. EC, which can be taken up to five days after unprotected intercourse to prevent pregnancy, would presumably lower these statistics. “This bill was about providing compassionate care to women who have been sexually assaulted,” said Beth Ganz, head of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. “The governor clearly put politics ahead of women’s health and lives,” reports Rocky Mountain News.

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Governor Richard Codey of New Jersey recently signed legislation that will require hospitals in the state to inform sexual assault victims about emergency contraception (EC) in order to prevent unwanted pregnancy after rape. The law will also require all New Jersey hospitals to dispense EC to patients who request it, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. This legislation, referred to as “Compassionate Care for Survivors of Sexual Assault,” makes New Jersey the fifth state with such a law, joining New York, Washington, California, and New Mexico, according to Women’s eNews.

The Justice Department’s recently released guidelines do not mention offering EC to rape victims – an omission that has spurred criticism from many women’s, civil liberties, and health groups across the country. Ninety-seven US members of Congress, led by Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), sent a letter in January to the Department of Justice, in which they “strongly urged” the revision of its new guidelines for the treatment of sexual assault survivors to include information about emergency contraception.

The Congress members’ letter to Diane Stuart, Director of DOJ’s Office on Violence Against Women, said that “by failing to even mention … [emergency contraception] as a potential option for sexual assault victims, the department ignores a crucial opportunity to provide vital and time-sensitive health care to victims of rape and sexual assault.” Maloney said, “It is clear that the administration’s ideological opposition to choice now even extends to rape victims. Women who are sexually violated at the very least deserve the right to prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

LEARN MORE about the Feminist Majority Foundation’s campaign to increase access to EC on college campuses

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The US Department of Defense released a report on sexual misconduct on three military academies’ campuses, showing that one female student in seven reported being sexually assaulted last spring. In addition, half of the women attending the Navy, Air Force and Army academies reported being sexually harassed on campus, according to the Washington Post.

The Department of Defense is instituting a new policy that will begin in June to allow victims of sexual assault to report their attacks confidentially as a way to ensure privacy and to encourage victims to come forward and seek help. The new policy also requires that academy coordinators be informed of the assaults within 24 hours of the report and request for medical care or counseling, reports the New York Times. The undersecretary of defense, David S.C. Chu, said that “this policy change will encourage more victims of sexual assault to come forward and seek help, providing commanders with a better understanding of what’s actually happening in their commands,” reports the Washington Post.

The Defense Department conducted a survey in March and April of 2004 of 1,906 women and a sample of the 3,107 men who attend the three academies. The survey found that 262 students reported 302 incidents of sexual assault, including 94 cases of rape. It also found that only a third of those cases were reported to authorities. 176 cases of inappropriate touching and fondling were also reported.

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