Migration Category: news-1-5000-national

A nationwide poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times reports that more than two-thirds of respondents believe the decision to obtain an abortion should be left between a woman and her doctor and participants generally opposed a constitutional ban on abortion. Although the two Presidential candidates have completely opposing views on abortion with Gore supporting abortion rights and Bush a long time foe, more than half of Americans say they have “no clear sense” on either candidate’s position on abortion. Thirty-four percent of men and women said that if the candidate’s position disagreed with their own, it would be enough to change their vote. The poll also shows a growing support for mifepristone which is now before the FDA for approval.

A new study showing that in the last four years one million adults with children have lost their Medicaid coverage means that there are approximately 700,000 mothers who now must live without proper health insurance. The changes occurred as a result of the 1996 welfare overhaul that left states responsible for implementation and development of new welfare policies. For example, Governor George W. Bush’s home state of Texas now has the highest rate of uninsured adults at 51% and experienced the second largest percentage drop in Medicaid enrollees. In the last four years in Texas, 106,000 people lost their health insurance.

Investigators now say the reported number of women who were robbed, stripped or groped in last weekend’s annual Puerto Rican Day parade has risen from 6 to 50, with victims ranging in age from 14 to 40 years old. Police have arrested 16 men on charges of sexual abuse, robbery, and assault and are seeking an additional 16 perpetrators supposedly involved in the incident. Two young women from New Jersey plan to sue the city for $5 million each on charges that the police failed to help the victims.

In an attempt to prevent disagreement within the Republican Party, the Bush campaign has decided to eliminate abortion from the agenda for party platform hearings. Abortion will not be discussed at the two policy forums held in advance of writing the platform, and the Bush campaign has told the GOP platform committee that abortion will only be discussed in private meetings without any media. The current GOP stance on abortion calls for a constitutional amendment banning all abortions, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Bush has stated that he does not intend to change any part of the current abortion plank. This decision to limit discussion on the issue reflects fear within the GOP that their position on abortion is out of touch with the majority of Americans and many Republicans.

The House recently appropriated $50 million in funding for abstinence-only education programs through the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant. This recent funding, which came under the Labor, HHS and Education appropriations bill, will bring the total funding for abstinence-only education to almost $125 million (National Abortion Rights Action League, 6/14). Advocates of abortion rights are critical of abstinence-only programs that deny young people of information about reproductive choice and contraception. President Clinton has threatened to veto the legislation because it ignores his proposals to include new teachers, schools, and child care and job training for teens.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights concluded today that the New York Police Department improperly uses racial profiling and that blacks and Hispanics have been stopped and questioned far out of proportion to their representation in a given community. While many cities have adopted community policing practices which minimize racial tensions, the commission found that the NYPD’s training program actually reinforces racial stereotypes. The commission also questions the department’s training and recruitment of black and Hispanic officers. The Feminist Majority Foundations’ National Center for Women and Policing works to achieve community policing and to increase the number of women and minorities in law enforcement agencies. For more information, please visit https://feminist.org/police/ncwp.html.

The Southern Baptist Convention declared yesterday in its revised Faith and Message Statement that women should not serve as pastors in their congregation. The Convention’s passage of the statement follows a recent trend toward the far right amongst conservatives in the Southern Baptist Church, which also opposes abortion and homosexuality. Within the past five years, conservatives have called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Company for its queer-friendly policies, and the Convention has declared that wives should “submit graciously” to their husbands. Southern Baptist congregations act independently of the Southern Baptist Convention, so the full ramifications of the Convention’s statement on the Church’s 1600 women clergy is yet to be determined. David Key, director of Baptist studies at Emory University in Atlanta predicts that, in time, fewer women will serve as pastors—either because they will leave the Southern Baptist church or they will feel discouraged from leading their congregations. The statement will likely have negative implications for the denomination itself, for in a Gallup poll released in May, 71% of Americans who expressed religious preferences said they supported “having women as pastors, ministers, priests or rabbis in your own faith or denomination.”

The 2000 Summer Olympics, scheduled to take place in Sydney, Australia, will include the highest number of women participating in Olympic sports to date. According to Olympic organizers, approximately 3, 952 women will compete this summer, or 38% of the total number of athletes—up from 34% in the Atlanta summer games of 1996. The Australian Olympic Committee has actively supported sexual equality in two sports this year, abandoning initial plans to reduce the size of women’s indoor volleyball and water polo squads.

The Coca-Cola Co. agreed yesterday to settle a pending racial discrimination lawsuit just as four other former employees filed a new $1.5 billion suit. The settlement could affect as many as 2,000 Coke employees who plaintiffs had identified to include in the suit. The new suit, filed on behalf of four black former employees not connected with the original suit, alleges nine counts of discrimination. Last month, Coke announced plans to spend $1 billion in the next five years to expand opportunities for minorities and women.

Last night Oxygen Network hosted the very first “Oxygen Women’s Forum” – a 90-minute special with Vice-President Al Gore. The special aired live on Oxygen’s cable television network, C-SPAN and New Jersey Public Television, and was both provocative and entertaining. Facilitated by “Pure Oxygen” co-hosts, 150 Trenton, New Jersey women, and on-line participants at Oxygen.com, had the opportunity to ask the Vice-President questions about the upcoming election.

When asked about reproductive choice, Gore stated he would appoint Supreme Court justices to protect a woman’s constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion. He reaffirmed his commitment to affirmative action, and pledged to tighten the wage gap between the sexes. When asked if he has considered a woman running mate, Gore responded with an emphatic “Yes, I have.”

The “Oxygen Women’s Forum” premiered in conjunction with befearless.com, a new Oxygen site promoting social, political and legal issues of interest and importance to women. The Feminist Majority Foundation is featured on befearless.com, and feminist.org was promoted on-line throughout the chat.

Atlanta’s public transit agency MARTA recently refused to post paid advertising from the National Abortion Federation (NAF). The advertisements provided information about a hotline for abortion information and referrals, and were rejected by MARTA officials who cited their policy of “avoiding ads for controversial subjects.” However, U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell ruled last week that MARTA’s policy is too vague and has been applied inconsistently, noting that previous ads have been accepted concerning AIDS awareness, pregnancy counseling, and adoption services. NAF Executive Director Vicki Saporta commented that “It’s long overdue that the people in Atlanta have access to this information,” and NAF would like the ads displayed as soon as possible. MARTA officials have not yet stated if they will appeal the ruling. The Feminist Majority Foundation works closely with the National Abortion Federation through our National Clinic Access Project.

Seven women were attacked by a rowdy group of 15 to 20 men in New York’s Central Park this Sunday evening, in the midst of a crowd gathered to watch a parade and enjoy the summer weather. In a confusing period of about 30 minutes, the men targeted women, surrounding at least seven individuals in four separate attacks. The police called the group “near riotous,” and witnesses reported that the men sprayed women passing by with water guns, tearing at their clothing, and even removing the skirt and underpants from one woman. They proceeded to grope the women, sexually abusing one of them, and robbed gold chains, a purse, and $200. Police are investigating the incident, and have already arrested 24-year-old Dave Rowe of Hempstead NY and 23-year-old Tremayne Bain of Brooklyn. The two were charged with second-degree robbery, first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree aggravated sexual abuse.

Republicans are attempting to strip the Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-NY) proposed Bankruptcy Reform Act amendment preventing abortion protesters convicted of crimes from filing bankruptcy to evade fines. Schumer introduced the bill as a result of an alarming trend of anti-abortion extremists filing for bankruptcy after being assessed with clinic-related court judgments. The amendment would strengthen the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which made it a felony to blockade or perpetrate violence against women’s health care workers. Schumer’s amendment would prevent anti-abortion extremists convicted of those crimes from using a preexisting bankruptcy loophole: concealing their assets, filing for bankruptcy, and avoiding financial penalties inflicted by law.

As evidence of how extremists have used bankruptcy laws to evade their court-ordered judgments, Joseph Foreman, a defendant in Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Advocates, filed for bankruptcy in early June. In that case, a federal judge found twelve defendants guilty of threatening providers and awarded the plaintiffs $107.5 million. Five other defendants have already filed for bankruptcy, each within days of his court-ordered deposition.

A recent editorial in the New York Times argues that Republicans may succeed in stripping the abortion violence amendment, which passed in a vote of 80-27 in the Senate, from the final version of the bill. Schumer warned that the loophole, unless eliminated, “will inevitably undermine the effectiveness of a federal law that has proved useful in deterring and punishing clinic violence.”

Trustees at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, the nation’s oldest preparatory school, voted last week to welcome gay and lesbian couples as dormitory advisors in the family-like atmosphere of the dorms, where faculty members live alongside students, acting as role models, academic advisors, and emotional supporters.

Exeter’s decision mirrors that of Phillips Andover Academy and Concord Academy, both in Massachusetts, and is evidence of the formerly white- and male-only schools’ commitment to diversity, and to their students’ health and well-being. Exeter’s principal said in an interview with the New York Times that barring gay and lesbian faculty from the dorms “undercut” the school’s overarching policy of tolerance. In addition, he noted that students use the word “gay” negatively, sending a message to students discovering their homo- or bisexuality “that society does not support them, and in fact condemns them.”

The announcement prompted little response from the student body. Parents have shown a mixed reaction, but the majority support Exeter’s decision.

While pleased that the United Nations Beijing Plus Five Conference in New York ended with 180 nations reaching consensus on a document that reaffirmed the platform approved at the 1995 Fourth World Conference, feminist organizations, including the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), and Feminist Majority Foundation, expressed their disappointment with the failure to implement a stronger statement.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) lamented the lack of “more concrete benchmarks, numerical goals, time-bound targets, indicators, and resources aimed at implementing the Beijing Platform” (see entire statement in the Beijing +5 Newsroom) and condemned the role of the Catholic Church and Muslim countries of holding up negotiations.

Significant gains made at Beijing Plus Five included approval of the Political Declaration that reaffirms and extends governments’ responsibility to implement the Beijing Platform of Action. Delegates agreed on a statement to “eradicate harmful customary or traditional practices” against women, including marital rape and forced marriages. They also called for the prevention of sexual exploitation, including trafficking in women and girls, and condemned so-called “honor killings.” A final negotiation session, which lasted from Friday into Saturday morning, resulted in the inclusion of a statement that “women have the right to decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality…without coercion, discrimination, and violence.”

However, little progress was made on the weekend’s most contentious issues: abortion and sexual orientation. Opponents of proposed recommendations for wider access to and protection for reproductive rights and for non-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians was led by Catholic and Islamic countries, including the Vatican, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran. Conservative delegates blocked the use of the term “sexual orientation” from the final documents, even in a factual statement on the passage of nondiscrimination laws in various countries. They also blocked language that would have called for access to birth control and abortion for women and girls.

As a part of their “See Change” campaign that is demanding that the Vatican’s UN status as a government be rescinded, Catholics for Free Choice sailed a protest ship on the river outside of the United Nations. The ship with banners and chanting protesters was visible to conference delegates.

Despite blocks to progress on reproductive rights and sexual orientation, the final Outcome Document and Political Declaration contained concrete gains for women. For example, the delegates’ condemnation of dowry-related violence, “honor killings,” and marital rape marked the first time an international document has specified these activities as crimes, says both the NGO Linkage Caucus and the New York Times. Other gains include an attention to the gender aspects of various infectious diseases, women’s access to health services, inheritance rights, gender-related asylum, and the negative impacts on women and gender differences in globalization, privatization, and economic restructuring.

This week, openly gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) hosted a gay pride celebration at the CIA’s Langley headquarters. Frank addressed approximately 100 intelligence workers and busloads of openly gay National Security Agency employees saying that the Gay and Lesbian Pride Month at the CIA is a “sign of real progress.”

The agency has a long history of homophobia and discrimination against openly gay and lesbian intelligence officers. During the 1950’s, the State Department interrogated numerous agents because of their sexual orientation. In 1960, two National Security Agency analysts defected to Moscow after suspicions that they were gay, causing major scandal in the NSA. But in 1995, President Clinton signed an executive order overturning a directive from the Eisenhower administration that classified homosexuality as a “sexual perversion.” Clinton’s order prohibited the denial of security clearances “solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the employee.” Shortly after Clinton signed the order, gay and lesbian employees of the CIA began organizing, creating the Agency Network of Gay and Lesbian Employees.

Also in LGBT rights news today, the three largest United States automakers announced today that they will extend same sex partner benefits to their employees. Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors announced the change in policy today, indicating that the move was an effort to remain competitive with other Fortune 500 companies. New York-based IBM and Citigroup are the two largest companies offering same sex partner benefits to date.

In a blow to Clinton’s health care reform plan, the “patients’ bill of rights” was defeated by a vote of 51-48 in the Senate yesterday. The bill, which passed in the House last year, included important protections for women’s health. The bill would have allowed women in HMO’s to designate an OB/GYN as their primary care physician. It would also have granted patients the right to continue care with the same doctor regardless of changes in insurance during treatment. The bill would have enabled patients to appeal to an independent review panel when insurance companies deny them treatment and, in extreme cases, to sue their insurance companies for such denials.

10,000 activists from around the globe are meeting at the United Nations this week to review the world’s progress toward women’s equality since the Beijing conference in the 1995. Five years since Beijing, U.N. officials believe that half of the world’s female population endures some type of domestic abuse, and the U.N. estimates that more than 1 million women are victims of sex trafficking worldwide. In politics, only 8 governments out of 189 have met their Beijing commitment to increase women’s participation in parliamentary positions to 30 percent. However, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and U.S. secretary of state Madeline Albright addressed the delegates, saying that the world’s governments have made some positive strides. “It is no longer possible, after Beijing, to deny that women’s rights are human rights,” Albright declared today. “When a woman is raped, beaten or mutilated, it is not cultural, it is criminal.”

The Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee heard testimony last night on a pending measure that would ban “mid-level” medical practitioners from prescribing methyltrexate, a drug used in chemical abortions in Rhode Island. The bill would overturn an earlier ruling from the Department of Health that deemed midwives, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants capable of prescribing the drug. Supporters of the physician-only policy toward medical abortions claim the bill is “a necessary step to protect women,” but its opponents recognize it as “an attemptƒto limit access to abortions in Rhode Island.”

The bill was introduced just as the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced possible restrictions on the yet-approved Mifepristone, or RU-486, a pill that induces non-surgical abortions. The restrictions would ban mid-level practitioners from prescribing the pill, and would require a national directory of doctors who provide the drug, among other prohibitive mandates. The FDA’s announcement and the Rhode Island bill reveal the current threat against women’s reproductive rights. Chemical or medical abortions would provide wider access to reproductive health care, and are especially needed since 86 percent of counties in America do not have an abortion provider, and clinics and doctors who provide abortion continue to be targeted by anti-abortion terrorists.

For more information on Mifepristone and the FDA’s proposed restrictions, please see the Feminist News, 7 June 2000.

Women’s rights activists accused the Vatican and some Islamic and Catholic countries of blocking consensus on plans to implement the Beijing Platform for Action, which emerged from the United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, China 5 years ago. This week’s gathering of women’s rights activists aims to review the progress made by the US and 188 other countries according to the platform for action they adopted in Beijing. This platform includes addressing women’s equality in health, education, jobs, and an ending the increasing rates of poverty among women.

Women’s rights activists, as well as the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, warned against attempts to roll back the advances made since Beijing. A coalition of anti-abortion and conservative, religious activists blamed Western states for pushing “radical language” that promoted lesbian and gay rights as well as abortion rights. The UN document calls for increased access to abortion, family planning services, and sex education, as well as mandatory training of abortion procedures. Mary Ellen Glynn, spokeswoman for the US Mission to the UN, noted that the Beijing platform recognizes for the first time that human rights include the right of women to control their own sexuality without “coercion, discrimination, and violence.”

Also at the conference, women’s activists issued a report card Wednesday on the United States government’s efforts to improve equality for women in America-revealing great progress as well as failures. The US received failing grades for its attempts to reduce poverty among American women but scored higher, receving a “B,” for the progress made during the Clinton administration to appoint women to important, decision-making positions.

LEARN MORE Click here to read women’s narratives about barriers or successes in accessing reproductive health and family planning services.