Author: Feminist Majority Foundation Blog

Yesterday, President Barack Obama was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. Vice President Joe Biden also took the oath of office alongside the president.

In his inauguration speech, President Obama called for a progressive platform that featured climate change, women’s rights, LBGTQ rights, immigration reform, protection of voter rights, and more. President Obama highlighted the greatest civil rights movements in United States history as a call to new action.

“We, the people” he proclaimed, “declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.”

While public attention was focused on the inauguration of President Obama, the Virginia state Senate quickly passed a redistricting measure that could give Republicans a majority in the state senate in 2015. The measure was passed on a 20 to 19 party-line vote while one Democratic state senator was in Washington, D.C., for the Inauguration ceremonies.

“We talk about the dangers of legislating on the fly. Well, this is the ultimate in danger,” Senator Don McEachin of Henrico (D) said about the measure. “The public has no idea what we’re about to do adopting this substitute, nor would they know in the next three days that it would take for this bill to ultimately pass.”

Governor Bob McDonnell (R) had yet to read the legislation when it was passed. A spokesperson for the governor’s office told reporters “The Governor was very surprised to learn that a redistricting bill would be voted on by the Senate today… He has not seen this legislation. If the bill gets to his desk he will review it in great detail at that time as he did with prior redistricting legislation.”

The redistricting would potentially eliminate one democratic seat in the Virginia senate by creating one district that is predominantly minorities, and in doing so allowing Republicans to gain control of nearby districts. Democratic Leader Richard Saslow (D-Fairfax) says that Democrats will challenge the measure in court if it passes the House. “If this plan stands, there will be litigation, you can be sure of that,” he told reporters. “The Virginia Constitution says that the Virginia General Assembly shall redistrict in 2011 and every 10 years thereafter. This will be struck down. The collateral damage from this thing will be immeasurable. This isn’t the last we’ve heard of this.”

Rush Limbaugh responded to a caller who brought up abortion during a conversation about gun control by saying, “You know how to stop abortion? Require that each one occur with a gun.” during his show on Wednesday.

Rush Limbaugh is known for his inflammatory and ultra-conservative comments. Last year, Limbaugh entered the birth control debate with his vitriolic remarks against then-Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. Limbaugh remarked on his radio show, “What does it say about the college [sic] co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.” The national criticism of Limbaugh’s remarks forced over 150 businesses to pull advertisements from The Rush Limbaugh show.

A Virginia State Senate committee blocked a bill that would have repealed two anti-abortion laws Thursday on a party line vote.

In a vote of 8 – 7, the Senate Health and Education Committee struck down an attempt to repeal a law requiring mandatory ultrasounds before having an abortion as well as a TRAP law that requires clinics to meet the same regulations as hospitals. State Senator Ralph Northam (D) who sponsored the bill to repeal the mandatory ultrasound law, told the committee he was “giving you the opportunity to right the wrong committed last year.” State Senator Mark Herring (D), the sponsor of the TRAP law repeal told Huffington Post on Thursday “I think the votes today indicate that Republicans still have an extreme agenda, and they’re intent on reducing access to women’s health care.”

In a press statement Tarina Keene, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, said “Once again, we see Virginia’s anti-choice lawmakers playing politics with women’s health by rejecting commonsense proposals that expand access to care… Today, tomorrow, and every day, women in Virginia have to jump through outrageous and unprecedented hoops in order to access what is a safe and common medical procedure, not to mention a constitutional right.”

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell certified the new TRAP laws on Friday, December 28th, 2012. The second highest number of anti-choice provisions enacted in a year on record were enacted in 2012. The highest was in 2011, when 93 provisions restricting abortion access were enacted. However, these totals reflect provisions enacted during a calendar year, not legislative session. When considering the 2011-2012 legislative session, 136 anti-choice provisions were enacted.

Pauline Friedman Phillips, the original writer for the advice column “Dear Abby” and a fierce women’s rights activist, died on Wednesday in Minneapolis. The popular columnist was 94 years old.

Pauline Friedman Phillips started her career by helping her twin sister respond to letters for an advice column in Chicago Sun-Times. In 1956, Phillips started her own advice column with the San Francisco Chronicle. She would write for Dear Abby for over 40 years, until her daughter Jeanne Phillips assumed the position in 2002. Jeanne Phillips not only continues her mother’s tradition, but is also a strong supporter of women’s rights and reproductive choice.

While best known for her column, Phillips was also very supportive of women’s rights. She campaigned for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, including making a television ad for Iowa. In 1997, the column ran a letter by Mavis Leno, the Feminist Majority Foundation Chair of the Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid, about the Taliban treatment of Afghan women and girls with the contact information for the organization. The piece generated enough calls from readers to crash the Feminist Majority Foundation phone system and that of a women-owned call center brought on to help handle the response.

Phillips also organized around AIDS treatment and awareness, birth control access, and abortion access. She also featured letters from women facing domestic violence, rape, incest, and drug abuse. Jeanne Phillips who continues her mother’s tradition and is also a strong supporter of women’s rights and reproductive choice.

A new public opinion poll released by the Pew Research Center on Wednesday found that the majority of Americans believe that the historic Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, Roe v.Wade, should not be overturned.

The poll conducted [PDF] between January 9th and January 13th of 2013, found that 63% of those interviewed believed that Roe v. Wade should not be completely overturned compared to 29% who favored overturning the ruling. Support for Roe v.Wade was highest among adults 50 – 64 years of age (69%) and those 18 – 29 years of age (68%). Pew Research Center also found that the majority of white mainline Protestants, black Protestants, and white Catholics believed that Roe v.Wade should not be overturned (76%, 65%, and 63% respectively).

The findings released on Wednesday show little change in public opinion from similar surveys conducted by Pew in 2003 and 1992. Michael Dimock, director of the Pew Research Council, remarked that the lack of change is “kind of interesting, because a lot of other social issues have changed a lot – gay marriage being the most notable example.” Tarek Rizek, the communications director for NARAL, was not concerned about the lack of change. “This poll is a reminder that the public clearly agrees, and has done so for decades,” she told Reuters.

The poll interviewed a national sample of 1,502 adults over the age of 18 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.9%.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama publicly announced a comprehensive plan for addressing gun violence in the United States. In a press conference, President Obama announced that he will use the full extent of his executive power to curb gun violence in the United States, and called on Congress to take legislative action increasing gun control.

In his speech he announced that he would immediately take executive action to increase resource officers in schools, strengthen existing background check systems, and permit the Center for Disease Control to research the causes of gun violence, including the effects of violent video games. He announced that he will sign 23 executive orders to achieve these goals and signed three of the proposed orders at the press conference. The three memorandums signed include measures to expand the use of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), authorize the CDC to begin research on the causes of gun violence, and strengthen firearms tracing.

President Obama also urged Congress to require backgrounds checks for all firearms purchases and to ban military-style assault weapons. He also urged Congress to confirm Todd Jones to become the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The bureau has not had an official director in over six years.

“While there is no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence completely, no piece of legislation that will prevent every tragedy, every act of evil, if there is even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there is even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try,” President Obama affirmed.

According to the CDC, firearms were responsible for 31,672 deaths (including suicides) in 2010. Data featuring trends in firearm deaths compiled by Bloomberg predict that by 2015, death related to firearms will surpass automobile deaths.

Yesterday, the state of New York passed the first piece of gun control legislation since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly signed the bill into law.

The New York legislation is considered one of the strictest gun control measures in the country. The new legislation expands the definition of what is considered an assault weapon, mandates a police registry of assault weapons and a state registry of all private gun sales, bans the internet sale of assault weapons, and restricts magazines to seven bullets. In addition, under the new law a therapist who believes that a patient has made a legitimate threat to use a gun for illegal reasons must report the threat to a mental health director who will then report threats to the state.

New York state Senator Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx) told reporters on Monday “This is not about taking anyone’s rights away. It’s about a safe society … we are setting the mark for the rest of the county to do what’s right.” Governor Cuomo said right before signing the legislation into law “You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and common sense.”

In addition to restricting reproductive health care access, anti-choice legislation has been increasingly used to deny pregnant women of their rights including the right to physical liberty, according to a new study released in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law on Tuesday. The study “Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973-2005: Implications for Women’s Legal Status and Public Health” also considers what implications so-called “personhood” legislation would have for pregnant women.

The study comprehensively looks at 413 cases of arrests, detentions and other challenges to the physical liberties of women from when Roe v Wade was decided in 1973 to 2005. The authors of the study, Lynn M Platrow and Jeanne Flavin, found that in most cases, anti-choice legislation was used to incarcerate pregnant women and forcibly prevent them from obtaining certain medical services or undergo involuntary medical care. Such cases included women who were refused certain gestational tests, had miscarried or had a stillbirth, and women who were in drug treatment programs during their pregnancy. The authors of the study have also identified over 250 similar incidents since they concluded their study in 2005.

Platrow and Flavin came to the conclusion that “if passed, so called ‘personhood’ measures would: 1) provide the basis for arresting pregnant women who have abortions; and 2) provide state actors with the authority to subject all pregnant women to surveillance, arrest, incarceration, and other deprivations of liberty whether women seek to end a pregnancy or not.”

“Furthermore,” they continue, “the study demonstrates that there is no way to add fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses to state constitutions or to the United States Constitution without removing all pregnant women from the community of constitutional persons. These measures create a ‘Jane Crow’ system of law, establishing a separate and unequal status for all pregnant women and disproportionately punishing African-American and low-income women.”

Personhood legislation has been rejected nationwide by voters and courts alike. Despite repeated defeats, Congressman Paul Ryan recently co-sponsored the “Sanctity of Human Life Act” which would grant full personhood rights to any “one-celled human embryo.”

Conservative Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), along with 16 other representatives, have co-sponsored the “Sanctity of Human Life Act,” which would give full person rights to a human embryo.

The “Sanctity of Human Life Act” was originally introduced in 2011 by Representative Paul Broun (R-GA). Broun reintroduced the bill early in the new congressional session. The bill establishes that “the life of each human being begins with fertilization, … at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” The bill extends this protection even to any “one-celled human embryo.”

Ryan, who as Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential running mate, has a congressional record of supporting anti-women legislation. He co-sponsored a bill that would have defined “forcible rape” with then-Congressman Todd Akin, who destroyed his bid for the U.S. Senate from MO after saying women can avoid pregnancy when it is “legitimate rape.” Ryan is also becoming the national champion of personhood legislation, and has been suggested as the keynote speaker for the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List’s Campaign for Life Gala.

Personhood legislation has been rejected nationwide by voters and courts alike. In 2011, Mississippi voters defeated a state personhood initiative in a vote of 58% against to 42% in favor. Oklahoma courts rejected a 2012 personhood initiative on the grounds that it interfered with a woman’s legal right to have an abortion.

On Monday, President Barack Obama announced that he will be revealing a proposal of new gun control policies and is willing to take executive actions if necessary. Currently, the President is considering up to 19 different executive orders that he could take to effect stricter gun control without having to wait for approval from Congress. “I’m confident there are some steps that we can take that don’t require legislation and that are within my authority as president,” Obama said in his press conference. “And where you get a step that has the opportunity to reduce the possibility of gun violence, then I want to go ahead and take it.”

In addition to action at the federal level, the state Senate of New Yorkapproved the first piece of legislation regulate guns since the Sandy Hook shooting. The bill, which would be the strictest in the nation, expands the definition of what is considered a banned assault weapon, increases penalties for criminal gun possession, and creates a database of submitted gun permits. N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters that the New York Senate “made a bold statement, coming together in a bipartisan, collaborative manner to meet the challenges that face our state and our nation, as we have seen far too many senseless acts of gun violence.”

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association (NRA) launched a new smartphone and tablet app that includes a game simulating shooting practice approved for children as young as four. “NRA: Practice Range” includes access to the NRA new, educational materials, and online resources along with the shooting practice game which features nine firearms, targets in the shape of coffins, and some guns that be upgraded for $0.99.

A Texas judge denied Planned Parenthood’s request to be included in the state’s new women’s health program on Friday. The program, now known as the Texas Women’s Health Program, provides funding for preventive health care services for low-income women. Previously, the program was a Medicaid program in which the federal government had provided 90% of the program’s budget. According to Reuters, federal funding was withdrawn at the end of 2012 because the state decided to enforce a law preventing this type of funding for abortion providers and their affiliates. A nearly identical state funded program was launched January 1.

In the ruling, Judge Stephen Yelenosky wrote “If, as plaintiffs argue, a successor program must be Medicaid-funded then the only legal remedy would be for this court to shut down the state-funded women’s health program, not to order the inclusion of Planned Parenthood,” reported CNN.

Regina Rogoff, Executive Director of the People’s Community Clinic in Austin did not have her funding cut by the program because her clinic is an independent family planning clinic that does not provide abortions. However, Rogoff told ABC, “The idea the state is putting a gag order on what physicians can say to a patient is just offensive…We are sorely tempted to entirely withdraw from this program to avoid giving the appearance that we support it.” Rogoff was referring to the fact that Texas has been targeting any clinic that may assist a patient in setting up an appointment or making any arrangements for the patient to obtain abortion services.

In an episode aired on Thursday night, NBC’s prime-time television show “Parenthood” highlighted the decision of two characters who decide to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

In the episode, a teenage couple is confronted with an unintended pregnancy and the woman decides to have an abortion. While her male partner is reluctant to terminate the pregnancy, he supports the decision and accompanies her to the appointments at Planned Parenthood. As part of the episode, the couple is featured in a consultation where a representative of Planned Parenthood discusses the various options: parenting, adoption, and abortion.

Chris Weigant, a blogger on Huffington Post, described the episode “In less than two weeks, the Supreme Court decision in the landmark Roe v. Wade case will be 40 years old. Four decades later, the debate over abortion still rages. But it is a debate that is largely silent on the small screen. Even last night, abortion did not really dare to speak its name.” He continues “Forty years [after Roe v. Wade], however, abortion has not made the same leap toward acceptability on television [as same sex marriage, for example]. Even in a show whose plot focuses on abortion, the word itself is not (or only barely, or partially) even heard. Abortion is referenced less often than even birth control (another subject still mostly in television’s taboo closet).”

The first television character to have an abortion was Maude in 1972. Since then few shows have shown a main or supporting characters choosing an abortion as a key element of the plot development of the show. The majority of characters depicted facing an unwanted pregnancy miscarry the pregnancy or choose to raise the child.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court upheld a Massachusetts law establishing a protest-free “buffer zone” around abortion clinics.

The 1st U.S. district Court of Appeals determined that a 2007 law establishing a 35-foot “buffer zone” around abortion clinic entrances, exits and driveways did not violate the First Amendment rights of anti-abortion protesters. Protesters claimed that the buffer zone prevents them from conversing with patients in a close proximity. The plaintiffs plan to appeal the court’s decision.

“The nation is sharply divided about the morality of the practice and its place in a caring society. But the right of the state to take reasonable steps to ensure the safe passage of persons wishing to enter health care facilities cannot seriously be questioned,” the court stated in its ruling. “The Massachusetts statute at issue here is a content-neutral, narrowly tailored time-place-manner regulation that protects the rights of prospective patients and clinic employees without offending the First Amendment rights of others.”

The 2007 law has been challenged in court repeatedly. An earlier version of the law was ruled constitutional in 2001 and 2004 by the same court. When the law was revised in 2007, it was appealed and upheld in 2009.

On Tuesday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the Bronx Trespass Affidavit Program’s (TAP) “stop-and-frisk” practices when performed without reasonable suspicion.

Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Federal Court District of Manhattan ruled that aspects of the stop-and-frisks used by the New York Police Department were unconstitutional because officers were stopping individuals outside of residential buildings without sufficient suspicion that they were trespassing. Scheindlin also issued an injunction against stop-and-frisks by officers unless there is substantial evidence that an individual is trespassing. She is also considering ordering the NYPD to adopt a written policy that defines the limited cases in which an individual may be stopped as part of TAP.

“While it may be difficult to say where, precisely, to draw the line between constitutional and unconstitutional police encounters, such a line exists, and the NYPD has systematically crossed it when making trespass stops” Scheindlin wrote in her decision. “The evidence of numerous unlawful stops at the hearing strengthens the conclusion that the NYPD’s inaccurate training has taught officers the following lesson: stop and question first, develop suspicions later.”

As part of the TAP program, property managers authorized the NYPD to patrol inside residential buildings and arrest those they find trespassing. However, Judge Scheindlin found that officers were frisking individuals that were only seen entering or leaving the building even if the individuals were guests or residents who did not have their identification.

“For those of us who do not fear being stopped as we approach or leave our own homes or those of our friends and families, it is difficult to believe that residents of one of our boroughs live under such a threat. In light of the evidence presented at the hearing, however, I am compelled to conclude that this [is unconstitutional],” concluded Scheindlin.