Migration Category: news-1-5000-national

One in every three women has beaten, raped or abused according to a global study released Thursday by The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Center for Health and Gender Equity. Authors stated that their report, Ending Violence Against Women, is the first worldwide analysis of violence against women.

The study also reported that abuse has been linked to gastrointestinal disorders and chronic pain syndromes associated with anxiety. Moreover, women who are victims of violence suffer from depression and their children have a greater probability of being stillborn or to die in infancy.

Advocates for Youth released a study on Wednesday concluding that the federal government should invest more money into sex education programs rather than in abstinence only programs. Their report reveals that “balanced, realistic sexuality education” that includes both abstinence and contraception helps to reduce teen pregnancy.

The group is critical of programs that stress abstinence-only programs.

“Eighty percent of the decline in teen births is due to an increased use of contraception, while 20% is due to an increase in abstinence” reported James Wagoner, president, Advocates for Youth. Wagoner added “federal programs that provide information on contraception have been highly successful.”

On March 7, 2000, Californians will vote on Proposition 22, the measure stating that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Proposition 22, also known as the Knight Initiative after its sponsor, Republican state Senator Pete Knight, will prohibit same-sex marriage in California, and could possibly prevent California from recognizing same-sex marriages from other states. The ballot measure threatens hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, and other equal rights and protections for people in same-sex relationships.

Currently gay marriage is not legal in any state, and ballot measures similar to Proposition 22 have already passed in Alaska and Hawaii. Since 1993, Congress and 30 states, mostly in the South and Midwest, have passed laws similar to the Knight Initiative, stating that they will not recognize same-sex marriages even if they are legalized in other states.

Washington DC — Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and a leading national expert on anti-abortion terrorism, today released the organization’s seventh annual National Clinic Violence Survey Report, the most comprehensive study of anti-abortion violence in the United States. The 1999 survey shows that in the past twelve months, 20% of clinics experienced one or more forms of severe anti-abortion violence including blockades, invasions, bomb threats, bombings, arson threats, arsons, chemical attacks, death threats, or stalking. This percentage is only slightly down from 22% in 1998 and sharply down from its high mark of 52% in 1994.

“The fact that one-fifth of the women’s health clinics in this country are still battered day after day with violence is unconscionable. We must have zero tolerance for domestic terrorism,” said Smeal.

“Our survey reveals the enduring problem of anti-abortion violence at clinics, even though anti-abortion violence was not highly visible in 1999 because no fatalities occurred. The war of attrition against abortion clinics continues.” As in 1998, a small percentage of clinics (5%) is again besieged with multiple, and often simultaneous, types of violence as anti-abortion extremists continue to try to force clinics out of business.

For the first time since 1995, more clinics are experiencing violence. The gap between those clinics experiencing no violence and moderate violence has narrowed. There is a greater dispersion of harassment, intimidation and violence at clinics nationwide, with more clinics affected by at least one or two types of anti-abortion violence.

For the first time, the 1999 survey also revealed that abortion clinic providers are open targets in cyberspace, with 18% reporting harassment via the Internet or Web. Anthrax threats were also prevalent in 1999. Eleven percent (11%) of clinics nationwide received threatening anthrax letters in the past twelve months. In this month alone, over 30 clinics have received such threats.

“One of the most encouraging findings in this study is that clinics’ ‘excellent’ ratings of law enforcement have significantly increased at the local, state, and federal levels,” noted Smeal. All levels of law enforcement received higher “excellent” ratings this year, with local law enforcement yielding the largest net increase.

Editor’s Note: Copies of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s 1999 National Clinic Violence Survey Report are available by calling the Feminist Majority Foundation at 703-522-2214 or visiting the Feminist Majority Foundation Online at www.feminist.org. The Feminist Majority Foundation operates the National Clinic Access Project, the oldest abortion clinic access and defense project in the nation.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a 1993 Colorado law which prohibits anti-abortion protesters from approaching within eight feet of people entering health-care clinics, unless the person consents. Three anti-abortion protesters have challenged the law, claiming that it violates their freedom of speech. Supporters of abortion rights argue that the law protects patients’ privacy and safety while allowing ample opportunity for free speech. Justice Department lawyer Barbara D. Underwood, arguing in Colorado’s support, stated that “there is a problem at health-care facilities, a problem of intimidation and violence.”

Eighteen states are backing the Colorado law, which was upheld last year by the Colorado Supreme Court. The justices are expected to rule by July. At the oral argument today, one of the justices noted that all the law does is prohibit people from chasing women who don’t want to listen to them.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ordered lower courts to restudy the scope of the Equal Pay Act, a 1963 federal law requiring employers to give men and women equal pay for equal work. This decision was based on a “states’ rights” argument claiming that in applying the Equal Pay Act at the state level, the federal courts violated the 11th amendment. The court’s order on the Equal Pay Act is both surprising and disappointing to feminists. Although not as comprehensive as the concept of pay equity, which provides equal pay for comparable work, the Equal Pay Act is still extremely important.

Legislators in West Virginia and Arizona have proposed measures requiring minors to obtain parental consent before seeking an abortion. There is currently a parental notification law in West Virginia that provides an exception for minors who obtain a judicial bypass. The new legislation, proposed by Delegate Barbara Warner, would require minors to have parental permission for the abortion, with an exception only in cases of life-threatening injuries or rape. Warner has also proposed limiting the advice doctors can give to patients seeking abortion.

Senator Ken Bennett introduced a similar parental consent bill in Arizona last week. Arizona Representative Karen Johnson proposed another bill restricting access to abortion by requiring a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion. Parental notification and consent laws endanger the lives and health of young women who desperately want abortions but fear telling a parent, and turn to dangerous “back alley” abortions.

The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in Hill v. Colorado on whether the 1993 Colorado law that establishes a protective bubble around abortion clinics legally protects patients from harassment or violates demonstrators’ right to free speech.

The Colorado law prohibits demonstrators within a 100 ft. of a health-care facility entrance from getting closer than 8 feet to patients without their consent. Anyone who violates the law faces up to six months in jail and $750 fine.

Following the oral arguments for Hill v. Colorado, the Feminist Majority Foundation will release the results of our 1999 Clinic Violence Survey at a joint press conference with the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The press conference is scheduled for Wednesday, January 19 at 1:00 pm at the National Press Club Conference Room and will feature Eleanor Smeal, President, Feminist Majority Foundation, Vicki Saporta, Executive Director, National Abortion Federation, and Jacquelyn Lendsey, Vice President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Lucinda Finley, Professor of Law, University of Buffalo, who drafted an amicus brief on behalf of 19 amici (including FMF, NAF and PPFA) for the State of Colorado.

A three-day conference entitled Global Forum of Women Political Leaders began on Monday in the Philippines. Participants will prepare strategies aimed at the United Nations to drastically change politics and increase the number of women in political power.

According to Pippa Norris, a lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, women accounted for only eleven percent of world parliamentarians in the 1970s, twelve percent in the 1980s and thirteen percent in the 1990s. With the percentage of women political leaders growing by just one percent per decade, the Global Forum is encouraging women to assume responsibility for their own equality, exchange information with one another and take “guns, goon and gold out of politics.”

“It seems that it is only when women take matters into their own hands that they are able to secure their rights and privileges as full human beings,” stated Former Philippine President Corazon Aquina in an address to the conference.

States passed 57 bills increasing reproductive rights and 70 bills restricting them in 1999 according to a study released on Thursday by The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League titled Who Decides? A State-By-State Review of Abortion Rights 2000.

“These anti-choice measures have made it more difficult for women to access abortions,” said Kate Michelman, President of NARAL. Michelman also stated that abortions are harder to obtain now than in 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized them.

Notable gains in abortion rights last year were laws passed in nine states requiring insurance coverage for contraceptives and the law passed in New York protecting abortion clinics from violence and harassment.

Students from Fatemieh, an all-female medical school in the city of Qom, have gone on strike in protest of poor education resulting from sex segregation.

The students have boycotted classes for two weeks and are also refusing to work at a hospital affiliated with Fatemieh, the only all-woman medical school in Iran.

Fatemieh has served as a pilot program since Iran’s conservative controlled parliament enacted legislation in 1998 to segregate health services.

The BBC reported Tuesday that the extremist fundamentalist Taliban continues to ban girls from receiving formal education and to forbid female teachers from working.

Since seizing control of Kabul in 1996, the Taliban has imposed a strict system of gender apartheid against all women living in areas controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban’s edicts, which have been brutally enforced, banish most women from the work force, closed schools to girls in the cities and expelled women from universities.

The BBC also reported that some are defying the Taliban’s rules and seeking alternative forms of education for girls such as home-based schools. But home-based schools provide only rudimentary level of education to a small number of young girls. Afghan families who flee to refugee camps in Pakistan can send their daughters to camp schools, although educational opportunities for Afghan girls in Pakistan are extremely limited.

The Taliban claims that they will rebuild and open schools for girls and women once peace is restored. One Afghan father of five school-age daughters responded to the claim by asking “how long are we waiting for that? Because you know the children will grow up and, naturally, the time never comes again for them, the time is golden. We are missing that.”

A poll released last month shows that 45 percent of Czech women were approached in an improper sexual manner in the workplace. Despite the frequency of sexual harassment, women in the Czech Republic rarely report it.

Only one Czech woman, a university student harassed by her lecturer, has brought a sexual harassment case to court. The man was convicted and sentenced to eight months in prison for forcing the student to fondle his genitals. His sentence was suspended and he continues to teach at the university.

Although some try to distinguish between Western and Eastern European definitions of sexual harassment, feminists in Prague said that the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace must be acknowledged. “What is different here is that women seldom differentiate between harassment and a flirt,” said leading feminist Eva Hauserova. “But when you ask them specifically, they realize they in fact have been harassed.”

In accordance with European Union court rulings, Britain ended its ban on lesbians and gay men in the military and introduced a new sexual conduct code that does not distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual behavior by military personnel.

Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon of the Labor Party told the House of Commons yesterday “As no primary or secondary legislation is required, with effect from today, homosexuality will no longer be a bar to service in Britain’s armed forces.”

Britain’s new military policy will allow former members of the military who were dismissed for being gay to re-apply for military service, and all actions against current service members will be dropped.

Women in Mexico won an important victory on Friday when they were granted the opportunity to serve in Mexico’s military. Women who enlist in Mexico’s military service will do so as volunteers and will not be subjected to military discipline, unlike men.

Every man in Mexico must report for military service at the age of 18, but only five percent are actually trained. Women will be required to attend six-hour training sessions each Saturday.

Military Service Director Jesus Rodriquez said at a news conference “At the start of the new millennium, equality between men and women becomes more evident than ever, and women’s participation in the military service is a clear reflection of that.”

The U.S. Supreme Court voted in a unanimous decision to uphold the Drivers’ Privacy Protection Act of 1994, a decisive victory for reproductive health care and for protection of women against violence.

The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act is crucial to protecting workers at abortion clinics. Stalkers obtained home addresses of individuals from state departments of motor vehicles using their license plate numbers. For some time, anti-abortion extremists’ publications have encouraged the identification of doctors, staffs, and patients through these license plate numbers.

“This Supreme Court decision will save the lives of both abortion providers and women targeted by stalkers. One of the weapons of anti-abortion extremists has finally been taken away,” stated Eleanor Smeal, President, Feminist Majority Foundation.

The Attorney General of South Carolina challenged the federal Act on the grounds of states’ rights in response to the 1989 killing of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a stalker who got her address from drivers’ license records.

Our National Clinic Access Legal Director, Sara Love, and Professor Erwin Chemerinsky (University of Southern California Law School) completed an amicus brief for the U.S. Supreme Court defending the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA). The brief was filed on behalf of the Feminist Majority Foundation and 16 amici including: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; Center for Reproductive Law and Policy; NARAL; NOW; NOW LDEF; Planned Parenthood Federation of America; ACLU; National Center for Victims of Crime; and National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The DPPA prohibits state departments of motor vehicles, and their employees, from disclosing personal information about individuals without their consent. As the amicus brief states “the Act is crucial to protecting women from stalking and violence.”

The Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Center for Women & Policing and National Clinic Access Project represent victims of both domestic violence and anti-abortion clinic violence in this important amicus brief.

The Drivers’ Privacy Protection Act, introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Warner (R-VA), was inspired by acts of violence against women and reproductive health care professionals who had been stalked and murdered by individuals who learned their addresses through use of information gained from state departments of motor vehicles.

Editor’s Note: The Feminist Majority Foundation operates the National Clinic Access Project, the oldest and largest clinic access project in the nation. Since 1993, the Feminist Majority Foundation has produced the National Clinic Violence Survey Report, which provides an analysis of anti-abortion violence trends. Copies of the report may be obtained by contacting the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Julie Goldscheid of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (NOW LDEF) and Solicitor General Seth P. Waxman argued before the Supreme Court yesterday in defense of the civil rights statute of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which allows victims of gender-based violence to sue for damages in federal civil court. Justices indicated skepticism about whether Congress had overstepped its bounds in opening federal courts to these suits, and their recent decision in a separate case was a 5-to-4 majority for states’ rights. The New York Times reports “little evidence” of a shift in that majority.

Goldscheid argued that violence against women affects interstate commerce, which is within Congress’s bounds to regulate, by deterring women from taking certain jobs or continuing their education. Waxman and supporters of VAWA note that its goal is to provide remedies for violence against women when state laws, local law enforcement agencies, and other avenues are continually blocked by inadequate statutes and sex discrimination or stereotypes.

In the recent decision barring access to federal courts in cases of age discrimination, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor argued that Congress does have the power to protect people from race and sex discrimination.

Both the Clinton administration and most states are in favor of the statute; only Alabama filed a brief in favor of declaring it unconstitutional. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed support for Brzonkala’s right to sue under VAWA, noting that, in the past, both the federal government and the states had passed concurrent laws against race discrimination.

Feminists rallied in front of the Supreme Court building this morning in support of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as the Court heard Brzonkala v. Morrison today. The case involves a Virginia Polytechnic Institute student who was allegedly raped by two Virginia Tech football players, and centers on the civil rights statute of VAWA, which allows victims of gender-based violence to sue for damages in federal court.

This morning’s rally was organized by the National Organization for Women and supported by NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, the American Association of University Women, and the Feminist Majority Foundation. NOW LDEF is representing Brzonkala in the current case. FMF Field Representative Amanda Silver called the rally “inspiring,” and was pleased to note a high media presence covering the event. Silver also noted a small counterprotest of 5-10 individuals, organized by a father’s rights group, and reported that their attempts to co-opt the pro-woman cheers were “very unsuccessful.” This morning, feminists communicated a clear message: violence against women is wrong, and its victims should have access to the federal court system.

The Clinton Administration, along with 36 states, sided with Brzonkala, and want the civil rights statute reinstated. A ruling in the case is expected by July.

Tension runs high in South Carolina as local residents and state officials engage in fiery debate about the confederate flag that currently sits atop the Statehouse. But no statements enraged the public like Sen. Arthur Ravenel’s (R) inflammatory comment at a pro-flag rally; Ravenel argued that lawmakers should not bow to the “National Association for Retarded People” (his name for the NAACP) by removing the flag from the Statehouse’s dome. His comment follows the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) recent imposition of a tourism boycott on South Carolina, in answer to the state’s celebration of the Confederate symbol. When confronted about his comment, Ravenel promptly “apologized to the retarded folks of the world for equating them with the NAACP,” but offered no other apology.

Sen. Darrell Jackson (D) recently promoted ads featuring the Statehouse and its flag juxtaposed with the image of a hooded Ku Klux Klan member. 57% of South Carolinians support Jackson’s and the NAACP’s opposition to the flag’s prominent placement, a weekend poll suggests. However, Southern heritage groups still argue that “men died for the banner,” and believe that merits its position at the Statehouse.

The American Cancer Society reports the troubling fact that “between 60 and 80 percent of American women with newly diagnosed invasive cervical cancer have not had a Pap smear in the past five years and may have never had one.” The National Cervical Cancer Coalition notes that recent studies have demonstrated a disproportionate number of cervical cancer cases in Latina women, Asian-Americans, African Americans, older women, and recent immigrants. The National Cervical Cancer Coalition has announced a campaign to offer free Pap smears on January 14 to women who have not been tested in three years or more. Backed by the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Office of Population Affairs, the campaign is part of National Cervical Health Awareness Month and targets at-risk groups.

For more information, call (818)909-3849 or email ncccak@nccc-online.org