Author: Feminist Majority Foundation Blog

Hundreds Of People packed the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Wednesday morning to call for the defeat of two bills that will restrict abortion access in Pennsylvania. The bills, SB 732 and SB 3, would require abortion clinics to become licensed as outpatient surgery clinics, and ban state-run health insurance providers from covering abortion care. The rally followed Tuesday’s effort by Pennsylvania Republican legislators to pass the anti-choice bills in the House.

Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal led the crowd of local feminists, physicians, patients, clergy, and reproductive health advocates. Smeal stated, “Anti-choice forces throughout the US are no longer chipping away at Roe; they are undertaking a full scale campaign to outlaw abortion through unnecessary regulation and will continue this campaign to deny women access to birth control. The bills proposed in Pennsylvania are in many ways worse than the provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act. Make no mistake – this is not about protecting women’s health – it is about controlling women’s lives.”

The new licensing requirements would close abortion clinics, drive the cost of an abortion up from $400 to over $1,000 at clinics and do nothing to increase patient safety. These bills threaten to close the doors of low-cost, affordable clinics that provide comprehensive reproductive health care, including annual exams, pap smears, breast cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment. If the clinics are closed, preventative health care, including birth control, would become inaccessible to many uninsured and poor women in the state.

Sen. Jane Orie (R-Allegheny) described the anti-abortion legislation at the Capitol news conference as “paramount” to the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s anti-abortion rights “Pro-Life Caucus.”

Yesterday Tina Tchen, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, John P. Holdren, policy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, and National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Subra Suresh announced their new initiative to promote work place flexibility to women and men involved in research careers. Tina Tchen stated, “Jump-starting girls’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math – the so-called STEM subjects – and boosting the percentage of women employed in science and engineering is not just the right thing to do but is also the smart thing to do for America’s future and the economy.”

The “NSF Career-Life Balance Initiative” includes a provision that will enable parents to delay their grants for up to one year to fulfill family obligations, such as caring for a newborn or newly adopted child. First Lady Michelle Obama remarked in a press conference yesterday, “If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, we’ve got to open doors for everyone. We need all hands on deck, and that means clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering and math.”

Currently, 41 percent of doctoral degrees in STEM field are earned by women, but women only hold 28 percent of tenure track jobs in those fields. This is the first foundation-wide NSF initiative aimed to enable postdoctoral fellows and faculty members who are at the beginning of their career to balance work and family obligations.

At Arlington Community High School in Indianapolis, public school officials are separating male and female students even in the hallways, cafeterias, and on buses, in what they claim to be an effort to boost academic performance. Students say that they rarely see those of the opposite sex on school property.

According to the Indiana Department of Education, no other public school in the country has segregated students by gender to such an extent. Other schools, including one in Vermillion Parish, Louisiana, and one in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, have suspended or abandoned single sex education programs this year. The Vermillion Parish school board decision came after a court found, in a case argued by the ACLU, inadequate justification for segregating students by sex and other violations of Title IX, a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all levels of education. Similarly, the Lancaster school district rescinded the pilot program after “blistering” criticism of the blatant segregation and racial stereotyping.

Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal, stated, “Such extreme restrictions are reminiscent of the separation of the sexes in Saudi Arabia and in Taliban-like regimes. These restrictions are clearly in violation of Title IX and have nothing to do with academic performance.”

The Feminist Majority Foundation is currently working to rescind the 2006 Bush-era Title IX regulations that make it significantly easier to allow single-sex classrooms in public schools (pdf). Research studies indicate that such rigid separation of sexes leads to sex discrimination and sex stereotyping to the detriment of academic learning. Even the Bush administration’s examination of academic performance studies found the results to be “equivocal.” Where there are performance differences, they can be attributed to increased resources, smaller class sizes and additional teacher training, rather than sex segregation. Moreover, public single-sex classes or schools are rarely comparable for both sexes and can lead to gross violations of Title IX.

The segregation of students by sex in disadvantaged and predominantly African American schools could also include violations of the civil rights of students based on race, since white-dominated suburban schools are rarely, if ever, segregated on the basis of sex and generally have higher academic performance. Co-ed schools in the suburbs show that sex-segregation has nothing to do with academic performance, rather economic status does. Poor students inadequately fed and housed have a more difficult time staying in and performing in school because they are preoccupied with searching for employment and economic survival. Recent poverty studies show that in the United States, African American children are twice as likely to be living in poverty as their white counterparts. Thirty-nine percent of African American children and thirty-five percent of Latino children are living in poverty.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court heard arguments concerning whether ProtectMarriage, supporters of Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage in California, have standing to represent the state by defending the law in the pending case in the US Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court. ProtectMarriage has requested the standing to challenge Federal District Judge Vaughn 2010 ruling that Proposition 8 violates the federal constitutional rights of lesbians and gays because neither Governor Jerry Brown (D) nor Attorney General Kamala Harris will defend the law in the appeal.

Within 90 days, the seven members of the California Supreme Court will issue a decision regarding whether it will permit ProtectMarriage to represent the state in the Proposition 8 case. If the judges find that the challenging groups have standing, the court will then rule on the constitutionality of Proposition 8. However, if the California Supreme Court does not allow Proposition 8’s proponents to defend the law, same-sex marriages would be considered legal in California.

Roland Palencia, Executive Director of Equality California, stated, “Extremists that backed Proposition 8 want the court to grant them special authority to trump the decision of the Governor and the Attorney General. This request is not only ridiculous, it’s outrageous. Anti-equality individuals and organizations are not official representatives of the State and, despite their claims, they will not experience harm if same-sex couples once again have the freedom to marry. In fact, it is gay and lesbian couples and their families who are harmed every day that they are denied access to the fundamental right to marry.”

Judge Walker’s decision overturned a 6 to 1 ruling by the California Supreme Court which upheld the measure in May 2009. In 2008, Proposition 8 was passed by voters in an electoral referendum.

On Saturday, the Vatican issued a 24 page statement denying accusations made in an Irish government-mandated investigation, the Cloyn report, that the Vatican had thwarted the efforts of Irish bishops to protect children from sexual abuse. The Cloyn report states that the Vatican “effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and support to those who…dissented from the stated official church policy.”

The Vatican’s defense comes after Prime Minster Enda Kenny and the Irish Parliament publically decried the Vatican in July for allegedly thwarting attempts of Irish bishops to report cases of child abuse to the police. Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore stated, “The sense of betrayal which was felt by the Irish people about this matter, and which was clearly expressed by [Kenny], came about not only because of the nature of child abuse itself but also because of the unique position which the Catholic Church enjoyed in this country, manifested in many ways, over many decades.”

Republican groups have spent approximately $800,000 on the special election in Nevada’s second district, to be held on September 13, to retain Republican control of the seat formerly held by Dean Heller, who will replace former US Senator John Ensign. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $528,000 and American Crossroads added $250,000 in support of Republican candidate Mark Amodei in his race against Democrat Kate Marshall.

Following her nomination by the Democratic party to run in the special election, Marshall stated, “I am honored to receive this nomination, Nevadans deserve a voice in Congress that will fight for middle class families, and that’s what I intend to do. I’ll work every day to create jobs in northern Nevada.” Before serving as the state Treasurer, Marshall in the worked in the Department of Justice Anti-Trust Division and as the Senior Deputy Attorney General for Nevada.

Emily’s List, which focuses on getting pro-choice Democratic women elected to office, the National Alliance for Retired Americans, and the Feminist Majority have endorsed Marshall.

In Ghana, approximately 70 midwifery leaders met to participate in a workshop focusing on improving access to midwife services throughout the African continent. The workshop is organized by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and will last for five days. Throughout the workshop, the leaders will work to develop plans to promote midwife education. According to UNFPA, approximately 358,000 women die annually from preventable complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and 90 percent of these deaths occur in developing nations.

ICM President Frances Day-Stirk stated, “Evidence shows that access to competent, educated midwives and high-quality midwifery services significantly reduces the number of women and babies who die in pregnancy and childbirth. As a result of ICM’s work, midwives now have global standards against which countries can assess their competencies, education and regulation of their workforce and save lives.”

In September, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank released a report stating that although maternal mortality rates have decreased by 34 percent since 1990, the decline in the rate of pregnancy-related deaths is not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal target for 2015. Currently, there are approximately 1,000 maternal deaths per day caused by easily preventable conditions that include severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders, and unsafe abortion.

Today, the 91st anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote, is Women’s Equality Day. In recognition of Women’s Equality Day on August 26, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the anniversary of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, the women’s groups have launched the HERvotes effort with the release of a list of the top ten historic advances for women that are now at risk of being weakened, cut, or eliminated, including the Social Security Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Title X (the National Family Planning Program), and the Equal Pay Act. President Obama urged the nation to “celebrate the achievements of women and recommit ourselves to the goal of gender equality in this country.”

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis remarked in a statement, “It has been a long journey, but each day brings America closer to the kind of true equality that our heroines like Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul imagined for us when they led the fight for women’s suffrage generations ago.Our accomplishments are undeniable, but the fight for full equality endures.”

Currently, 23.5 percent of state legislators are women, but women are more likely to earn college degrees than men. Women are essential half of the US paid workforce. Moreover, according to the Department of Labor, the number of women in the workforce has more than doubled in the past four decades and businesses that are owned by women are growing at a rate of four times that of their male counterparts.

The Virginia Department of Health will post draft regulations for abortion clinics by 5pm this evening, which will impose unnecessary and onerous regulations on abortion providers and restrict women’s access to reproductive health services. In March, Republican Governor Bob McDonnell signed a bill requiring that clinics that perform first trimester abortions meet the Board of Health regulations on hospitals and comply with the regulations for ambulatory surgery centers, which are far more stringent than the current regulations on clinics and physician’s offices. The Virginia Senate and House voted to pass the bill in February.

The Virginia Board of Health is scheduled to vote on the regulations on September 15. Governor McDonnell, an opponent of abortion rights, has appointed eight of the fifteen-member Board of Health. Elizabeth Nash, public policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, stated, “These really have nothing to do with patients and everything to do with making it harder to provide abortion services.”

The new regulations may cause as many as 17 of the state’s 21 women’s health clinics that perform abortions and provide necessary women’s reproductive health services, such as STI testing, cancer screenings, and family planning, to shut down as a result of the cost to implement the required changes. Reproductive rights groups, including the Feminist Majority Foundation, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Organization for Women, and the American Civil Liberties Union are opposing the law.