Migration Category: news-1-5000-national

Since the Democratic National Convention last week, Vice President Al Gore received a post Democratic convention bump, putting him ahead in the Washington Post – ABC poll, and even in the CBS and CNN – Gallup polls:

Washington Post –

ABC Gore pre-convention: 43%—–post-convention: 50%

Bush pre-convention: 52%—–post-convention: 45%

CBS News

Gore pre-convention: 35%—–post-convention: 45%

Bush pre-convention: 50%—–post-convention: 44%

CNN – Gallup

Gore pre-convention: 39%—–post-convention: 47%

Bush pre-convention: 55%—–post convention: 46%

The convention also warmed up women and minority voters, who had been unexpectedly with Gore. According to the Washington Post – ABC poll, as of August 22, 2000, Gore had attracted 56% of women voters, while Bush had 51% of the male vote. Support for Gore from women voters registered as Independents grew significantly after the Democratic convention.

President Clinton kept his promise when he vowed to put more women and minorities on the Federal bench-48 percent of Clinton’s federal judge picks have been women or minorities (compared to 28 percent by George Bush and 14% by Ronald Reagan). Currently, 15 percent of judges are minorities and 20 percent are women. GOP politics in the Senate are to blame for the roadblocks Clinton and his federal judge picks have encountered. Thirty-five percent of those picked by Clinton have been blocked by the Republican Controlled Senate. Women and minority candidates also experience longer confirmation processes than do white male candidates-8 months compared to 5 months. And minorities have been rejected by Republicans twice as much as white candidates.

Republican Senators are determined to make the federal bench more conservative, going so far as to deem one federal judge nominee, Enrique Moreno, unfit for the bench after questioning him about his support for Affirmative Action-a program many Republicans oppose. Federal judges are appointed for life and have a dramatic effect on society long after a president has left the office. The GOP’s continual blockage of women and minority candidates who do not support their conservative ideals will impact the federal court’s perspective and handling of civil rights for years to come.

For more information about the Federal Court Bench, please visit Alliance for Justice. Since 1985, the Alliance has been extensively involved in the appointment process for federal judges. Through the Judicial Selection Project, the Alliance monitors and investigates judicial nominations at all levels of the federal branch, and encourages public participation in the confirmation process.

Protesters at the national Boy Scouts of America headquarters were rejected at the front door Monday when the group arrived presenting a petition with 55,000 signatures of people who objected to the organization’s ban on gay troop leaders. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts can prevent gay men from being troop leaders because the organization is private. This ruling could give the Boy Scouts of American the ability to ban gay youth from being members of the 6.2 million-member organization. Since the Court’s decision, gay troop leaders have been kicked out, as have straight leaders who support gay rights.

A Zogby International poll of 1,005 high school students found that about nine in ten teenagers support gun-control measures such as criminal background checks, with 79 percent of teenage women favoring stricter gun laws as compared with 52 percent of teenage men. A high percentage of teens also supported requiring a safety course and a license to purchase a handgun, and a whopping 96 percent of respondents favored registering weapons when purchased so that they could be traced if used in a crime.

Dennis Gilbert, a sociology professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, who designed the survey with his students stated that, “American high school students have a shockingly high level of exposure to guns and gun violence.” A quarter of the respondents reported that someone they knew had been shot in a situation unrelated to military combat. The survey also found that more than 80 percent of students had discussed gun control at school, at home, or with their friends.

For the first time in history, women will make up 42 percent of the 10,500 athletes competing in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. This figure is up by almost 1,000 since the 1996 Atlanta Games. However, women still only comprise 11% of the 113 International Olympic Committee members. Women will also be competing in the same number of team sports as men for the first time. The level playing field can be, in part, attributed to the 1972 Congressional Educational Amendment known as Title IX. Title IX prohibits discrimination against girls and women in federally funded education, including in athletic programs. As a result of Title IX, women and girls have benefited from more participation opportunities and more equitable facilities.

The spotlight on women will be expanding at the 2000 Olympics with the addition of several previously “male only” sports, including weight lifting, pentathlon, pole vault, and more. And after the gold medal success of the 1996 women’s soccer and softball teams, which was merely a footnote of the 1996 Olympic news coverage, NBC will broadcast all women’s soccer and softball matches in their entirety.

After forcing the closure of the United Nations’ “widows’ bakeries” in the Afghanistan capital city of Kabul and thrusting thousands of Afghan women and their families into poverty and starvation, the Taliban militia has withdrawn the order. The Taliban initially shut down the U.N. subsidized bakeries because the militia has banned women from employment outside the home, including working with any U.N. agency or other aid organization. Outrage in Afghanistan and internationally forced the Taliban to reverse the decree. In response to the Taliban’s reversal, a spokesperson for the U.N. World Food Program said, “We welcome this decision and we hope the ban on women’s employment would be fully rescinded.”

Taliban rulers have created “the world’s worst human rights situation,” said Sehar Saba, spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan when speaking to the U.N. Subcommission on Human Rights in Geneva. Saba urged the United Nations to send peacekeeping forces to the war-torn country and impose sanctions on countries that recognize or aid the Taliban. Currently Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do identify the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Because the Taliban is not recognized internationally as the country’s official government, their plea to participate in the 2000 Sidney Olympic Games has been denied by the International Olympic Committee. The Taliban has suggested that the IOC is discriminating against them because they do not allow women to participate in sports and would not send female athletes to the Games.

In his nomination acceptance speech, Al Gore stressed his commitment to honor the rights of all Americans, and his obligation to issues vital to the civil rights of women and minorities. To overwhelming applause, Gore spoke of his stance on reproductive rights of women, and assertively stated, “And let there be no doubt: I will protect and defend a woman’s right to choose. The last thing this country needs is a Supreme Court that overturns Roe v. Wade.” Gore’s record of supporting pro-choice legislature is strong with his co-sponsorship of the Freedom of Choice Act and his opposition to requiring parental consent for minors seeking abortions.

Gore also spoke to equal rights in the workplace, fighting for gay and lesbian rights and The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would explicitly prohibit job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Gore spoke of striving for pay equity and his commitment to raising minimum wage by $1 over the next two years, a change that would affect 10 million workers earning minimum wage-60 percent of whom are women. Gore also reaffirmed his commitment to affirmative action, an issue he has historically championed, opposing state and local efforts to end affirmative action.

Louisiana has joined Alaska, Florida, Virginia and West Virginia in striking down the “partial-birth abortion” ban that was proven unconstitutional in the recent Supreme Court decision in Stenberg v. Carhart. A federal judge has also blocked an Ohio state law that criminalized a late-term abortion procedure and although Ohio Governor Bob Taft is making continued attempts to argue the constitutionality of the law, it too is expected to be struck down as unconstitutional.

A US District Court in Colorado declared a Parental Notification Act which would have required young women to notify her parents in cases when she chose to have an abortion as a violation of a young woman’s right to choose. The act had no exception for the health of the young woman and, unlike other existing parental notification laws, it did not provide teens with a judicial bypass procedure or other alternative if they felt the could not tell a parent for fear of being abused, thrown out of the house, or harmed in any other way.

A federal appeals court overturned US District Judge William Traxler’s 1999 ruling that certain South Carolina abortion clinic regulations were unconstitutional and violated a women’s right to due process and equal protection. The regulations apply to clinics that perform 5 or more abortions a month, and include items such as airflow standards, doorway widths, and the requirement that registered nurses assist in the abortion. In 1999 Traxler wrote in his ruling that the state “loaded these abortion clinics down with so many unnecessary requirements that this court has no choice but to conclude that the regulation unduly burdens a woman’s fundamental right to undergo an abortion.” However, the appeals court majority opinion stated that the increased costs incurred by the clinics to meet the regulations are modest, and argued that the regulations function as a “valid state interest” to ensure the appropriate care of women seeking abortions. In a divided 2 to 1 ruling, Federal Appeals Court Judge Clyde Hamilton wrote a sharply worded dissent stating that the regulation “singles out and places additional and onerous burdens upon abortion providers.”

A recent study of 121 clinical trials on cardiovascular disease by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute shows that men continue to be the focus for much of the research on heart disease. The study, which evaluates trials completed over a 33 year time period, indicates that women were just 38 percent of participants in mixed sex studies. Researchers concluded that much of the studies concentrated on heart disease problems known to affect men with more frequency, like coronary artery disease. In a series of six studies on congestive heart failure, a disease that affects women, females comprised only 26 percent of the total participants. The study displays that the federal governments’ 15-year push to enroll more women in heart studies has had minimal success, as women remain grossly underrepresented in heart disease research.

In a heart warming and personal speech during the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Karenna Gore Schiff, eldest daughter of Al Gore, seconded her father’s nomination for the Democratic presidential candidacy. She shared the stage and nominating honors with her father’s Harvard roommate, actor Tommy Lee Jones, and Tennessee Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry, a friend of Gore’s of 25 years.

Schiff’s speech culminated with a reminder that Americans will be making important decisions this November regarding health care, equal pay for women, protection of the environment and a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. “I believe in every woman’s right to choose – and I know my father will always, always defend it. I hope for the sake of our country and our future, that my father is elected President.”

In yet another attempt to enforce its brutal system of gender apartheid, the Taliban militia ordered the United Nations to close down bakeries run by Afghan women in Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul. The bakeries employ a number of Afghan women and provide bread at subsidized prices for 7,000 of Kabul’s poorest women and their families. When the Taliban militia took power in Kabul in 1996, they banned all women from working, forcing widows to rely on begging and charity in order to survive. Only a few women are allowed to work in the health and state sectors, and the UN had hoped that Kabul’s bakeries would be exempt from a recent edict forbidding Afghan women from working for relief and aid organizations.

The closing of the bakeries will affect women who were employed in the bakeries, as well as widows who relied on the subsidized bread for survival. Currently, there are tens of thousands of widows in Kabul as a result of two decades of war, many of whom are not sure what they will do now that bread is no longer available. This new decree comes at a particularly difficult time as the drought in Afghanistan is causing many Afghans to face extreme hunger. Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal stated, “we condemn the Taliban’s latest atrocity denying women their livelihood as well as denying food to a nation that is literally starving to death.”

Since 1996, when the Taliban militia took control of Kabul, women in areas under Taliban rule have been oppressed by a strict system of gender apartheid, under which they have been stripped of their visibility, voice and mobility. The edicts imposed by the Taliban, which have been brutally enforced, banished most women from the work force, closed schools to girls in cities and expelled women from universities, and prohibited women from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative. The Feminist Majority Foundation’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan works to fully and permanently restore the human rights of Afghan women and girls.

The New Jersey Supreme Court struck down a state law requiring women under the age of 18 to notify their parents before terminating a pregnancy. The law required a physician to wait a minimum of 48 hours after a parent received notification before performing an abortion. In a 4-2 ruling, the New Jersey high court concluded that parental rights do not outweigh a young woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion. Chief Justice Deborah Poritz who wrote for the majority said, “A minor’s right to control her reproductive process is among the most fundamental rights she possesses.” The ruling made New Jersey the fifth state to strike down a parental notification law but young women still remain a target of restrictive anti-choice legislation. Forty-two states have laws requiring parental consent or notification before a minor can have an abortion.

National Abortion Rights and Action League (NARAL) President Kate Michelman addressed the Democratic National Convention last night, urging voters who are pro-choice to vote for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman because they will protect a woman’s right to reproductive and abortion services. Michelman said, “A woman’s right to choose took a century to win. But could be lost in only one day – Election Day. That’s why we must elect Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.” She went on to state, “One election is all it takesƒIf he [George W. Bush] has the opportunity, George W. Bush will appoint enough Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade and end legal abortion.” The Democratic and Republican parties have adopted vastly different stances on abortion. The official Republican 2000 platform states, “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children” while the Democratic party “stands behind the right of every woman to chooseƒregardless of the ability to pay. We believe it is a fundamental constitutional liberty that individual Americans-not government-can best take responsibility forƒpersonal decisions regarding reproduction.”

In an effort to mend a crack in the Democratic platform, soon-to-be vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman spoke to the party’s black caucus on Tuesday in Los Angeles about issues that had key black political leaders concerned. Issues in question were Lieberman’s advocating of experimental school voucher programs, and his support for Proposition 209, a 1996 California initiative that would have banned state-funded affirmative action programs. Lieberman firmly stated that he only supported a school voucher system that would not detract from the public school education budget, and that he is in total support of affirmative action programs. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), an African American politician who had been very vocal about her concerns regarding Lieberman’s stances, granted her sought after endorsement after Lieberman spoke to the black caucus. “It clears the air,” said Waters. “He has said enough. He has done enough. I feel comfortable in campaigning for him.”

The opening of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles this week highlighted women officeholders and candidates and touched on issues of importance to women such as reproductive choice, health care and education. Speeches by high-profile female Democratic leaders such as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed the importance of this election in determining the future of domestic and women’s issues. At a reception honoring Representative Nita M. Lowey (D-NY), Clinton, the highest-profile female candidate of the Democratic Party declared it was “absolutely critical…that women know what’s at stake in this election.” Ellen Malcolm, President of EMILY’s List, a PAC that funds pro-choice Democratic women candidates, took an even broader look at the role that women could play in determining the future of progressive politics. “We could literally take back the house with women candidates,” she stated. “We probably won’t elect more women [than in 1992] but we will win such significant races it could actually affect who controls both houses.”

The increased level of attention to women candidates and women’s issues is indicative of women’s growing role in the political spectrum. Women are slowly rising through the ranks of state and local offices, and are now poised to compete with their male colleagues for significant seats in the House and Senate. In the House, half the Democratic candidates in the dozen most competitive contests are women. Women candidates are also raising funds on a par with their male counterparts. Among the 12 non-incumbent Democrats who raised at least $1 million this election, eight of them are women. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said female candidates have amassed enough legislative experience and campaign dollars to be taken seriously. “This is a breakthrough year,” he stated. “All these things have converged and made this happen.”

Numerous reports of open resistance to Taliban rule by the Afghan people indicates that the militia is losing its grip over the population, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Anti-Taliban activities, such as bombings, riots, and demonstrations have been sprouting in the very regions where the Taliban have boasted popular support. Women, who have felt the harshest consequences of the Taliban’s draconian policies, are risking their lives in defiance by sending their daughters to clandestine schools and challenging Taliban edicts forbidding them to leaves their homes without a close male relative. “Today, so many women flout the rules that Taliban leaders insist that they never spoke such things,” reports the LA Times. However, women are very aware of the beatings and other consequences that come with violating the Taliban decrees.

Another indication of the lack of popularity of the militia is that many Afghans are rejecting the Taliban’s call to join their ranks and families are fleeing or paying bribe money to the Taliban in order to avoid the militia’s draft. Behind their discontent, Afghans have sited that the Taliban have not brought the peace and security they promised, nor have they worked to rebuild the country, and that the corruption and hypocrisy behind their iron-fisted rule is increasingly apparent. The Times reporter covering this story was detained and later expelled from Afghanistan by the Taliban and his translator, an Afghan national, was beaten, arrested and jailed.

As the Food and Drug Administration’s September 30 deadline to approve mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486, the French abortion pill) looms large, abortion rights advocates are fearful that anti-abortion politics will cause the FDA to further delay approving the drug, or so severely restrict its use that women and their doctors will be reluctant to use it as an alternative to surgical abortion. Mifepristone, which has been used as a safe, more accessible and more private alternative to surgical abortion by women in France and England for a decade is still not available in this country. “I don’t think that the public understands that because of politics, we are falling way behind other countries in terms of access to medical abortion” said Francine Coeytaux, co-founder of the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health in Los Angeles. Clinical evidence shows that mifepristone has promise as a potential treatment for meningioma (brain tumors), ovarian cancer, fibroid tumors and other serious diseases that afflict women. Abortion-rights advocates feel that the window of opportunity for approving mifepristone may close soon if Republicans take control of the White House next year.

The Feminist Majority Foundation has launched an Emergency Campaign to urge the FDA to approve this valuable drug and provide American women with this safe, private abortion option. The Feminist Majority Foundation also runs a Mifepristone Compassionate Use Program designed to provide patients suffering from Ovarion Cancer, Fibroid Tumors, Meningioma and a host of other diseases with mifepristone, as it has been proven in clinical trials to be an effective treatment for these and other types of cancers.

Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush is proposing a $900 billion plan to alter the Social Security system so that 2 percent of an employee’s Social Security taxes would be placed in a private account for that person to control and invest as she or he wishes. Privatizing Social Security withholdings takes huge amounts of money out of the Social Security trust fund, which needs more money, not less, to remain stable and profitable. A weakened Social Security system means less support for many older people, 60 percent of whom are women. According to Judy Mann of The Washington Post, “It’s a bad idea, and particularly bad for women.”

Bush’s privatization plan would be particularly detrimental to women because women typically earn less. A smaller paycheck means less money to invest in a private plan and less money to rely on in retirement. Women live an average of 7 years longer than men. These 7 years of additional annuities will cut into the total retirement package. And, women depend more on Social Security. Without it, 52.9 percent of women 65 and older would live in poverty-a figure that would become reality under Bush’s plan.

Operation Rescue West, the antiabortion group, has launched a week-long campaign in Los Angeles, CA for the duration of the Democratic National Convention to protest against reproductive rights. Their schedule not only includes picketing outside of the convention but also at an interfaith convocation sponsored by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice as well as daily protests at a Los Angeles abortion clinic. Anti-abortion activists began circling the site of the Democratic National Convention this past Saturday, armed with poster-sized pictures of so-called aborted fetuses. There have already been incidents reported at the LA clinic where anti-choice protesters were standing 4 feet from the clinic entrance using bullhorns to harass patients and clinic staff who were attempting to enter the facility.