Author: Feminist Majority Foundation Blog

In Illinois, a bill requiring sex education teachers to instruct students about both contraception and abstinence fell short by one vote in the state Senate yesterday. Conservative groups protested a provision in the bill that would require the information presented in sex education to be age appropriate and “medically accurate,” claiming that pre-marital sex should not be taught in the classroom. The legislation would not have required schools to teach sex education.

Comprehensive family planning services, like those funded by Title X, are not only based in medically accurate information but are proven to prevent unintended pregnancies and limit the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), while they save taxpayers’ money.

In honor of Mother’s Day, Save the Children released its 12th annual Mothers Index report,“Champions for Children: Why Investing in Maternal and Child Health in Developing Countries is Good for America,” which rated 164 countries to determine the best countries in which to be a mother. The rating was based on maternal and child mortality rates, women’s life expectancy, maternity leave, and women’s education. It found Norway to be the best place to be a mother and Afghanistan the worst.

In Afghanistan, women have an average life expectancy of 45 and approximately 1 out of every 11 (which was 1 out of 8) women dies during childbirth. Moreover, Afghan women are 200 more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than from bombings or bullets. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, stated, “Thirty years of war in Afghanistan has destroyed the health care system. Plus there is an acute shortage of clear water and sanitation and adequate nutrition in Afghanistan.”

Mary Beth Powers, chief of Save the Children’s Newborn and Child Survival Campaign, stated, “In many countries, vaccines, antibiotics, and care during pregnancy are hard to reach and as a result child and maternal death rates are very high. This Mother’s Day, world leaders should honor mothers everywhere by ensuring they can celebrate what they want most- healthy children. That means helping all families, moms and babies be within reach of a trained health worker.”

The United States placed 31st out of the 44 industrialized countries that were rated, primarily due to its higher maternal and infant mortality and morbidity rate in its highly populated inner city areas. According to the report, women in the US are 7 times more likely to die during childbirth, especially women of color, than women in Italy or Ireland. In addition, 8 out of every 1,000 children born in the US die before reaching age 5. Current maternity leave in Europe, which is paid, far surpasses the Family and Medical Leave Act in the US, which only provides for 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

A U.S. District Court judge ruled last week in favor of a woman who was shackled while giving birth at a Tennessee jail in 2008. Juana Villegas had been arrested and charged with careless driving and driving without insurance in July of 2008 when her immigration status showed that she had a prior deportation order to her native Mexico. She was taken into custody and went into labor two days later.

Villegas sued the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office after being shackled by the arms and legs throughout giving birth, including the final stages of labor and directly after. She was not allowed to have a breast pump or cream for lactating mothers in her cell, and was separated from her newborn son for two days. The judge ruled in her favor, saying that shackling Villega during the final stages of her labor violated her civil rights, and noting that she was “neither a risk of flight nor a danger to anyone.”

In their effort to combat the lawsuit, Davidson County sheriff’s office justified her shackling by citing testimony on the “danger of illegal immigrants fleeing and engaging in illegal activities.” Davidson County participates in a controversial program 278(g), which deputizes local police to investigate the immigration status of people they’ve arrested. Villegas’ attorney, Elliot Ozmet, said that typically when someone is unable to produce a driver’s license, they are given a citation, but in this particular case the officer decided to take her into custody.

“I was in jail when my water broke,” Villegas recalled. “They took me in an ambulance and cuffed my hands and feet. When we got to the hospital, they moved me to the bed and cuffed this hand and foot to the bed.” The medical staff requested that she not be restrained at all, warning that she may get blood clots from the leg irons, but the officers refused.

The National Women’s Law Center released a report in 2010 on the status of mothers in prison, and reported that 36 states fail to comprehensively limit, or limit at all, the use of restraints on pregnant women during transportation, delivery and postpartum recuperation. Only ten states have laws that address shackling. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention currently has no prohibitions on shackling pregnant detainees. Amnesty International and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights are leading nationwide efforts to end the practice of shackling pregnant women during labor.

Although Villegas has won her case, she has been denied a request to stay in the U.S. by the 6th Court of Appeals, so she once again faces the threat of deportation.

HR 3, the “No Tax Payer Funding for Abortion Act,” will go to the House floor for a vote this afternoon. The bill, which purports to prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions and ensure that healthcare reform law does not cover the cost of abortions, is misleading and dangerous. HR 3 goes way beyond the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited federal funding of abortion since 1976.

Donna Crane, policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, stated, “The statement about ‘no taxpayer funding’ is a complete nonsequitur. Public funding sadly is not available for women today for abortion care, period. No piece of legislation could make it more banned than it already is.”

If passed, the bill would permanently ban women in the military from obtaining an abortion in a military hospital overseas, even if they pay for it with their own (not federal) money. Moreover, Americans who have private insurance plans that include abortion coverage would have to pay tax penalties, and federal workers who pay their own insurance premiums out of pocket would nonetheless be prohibited from having abortion coverage in their insurance. HR 3 would take the premium assistance promised by health reform away from people who choose a private insurance plan with abortion coverage.

NARAL Pro-Choice America states that approximately 13.5 million women who get health coverage through Medicaid and other federally sponsored programs would lose access to abortion services if this act would become law.

On Friday night, Ms. magazine was awarded the Maggie Award for Best Feature Article/Consumer from the Western Publishing Association, which represents the publishing industry west of the Mississippi River. The feature was chosen from among 10 finalists in the category.

The award was given for the article in the Spring 2010 issue of the magazine, “Not a Lone Wolf,” written by Amanda Robb. The article lays out in detail the interconnection between Scott Roeder, who murdered Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in 2009, and a network of anti-abortion extremists.

Robb has a personal connection to the topic: her own uncle, abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian, was murdered by anti-abortion extremist James Kopp in 1998. In addition to multiple in-person and telephonic interviews of Roeder, Robb’s article utilizes a wealth of research gathered over the years by the Feminist Majority Foundation about the network of extremists who promote the murder of doctors and their use of violence against abortion providers.

In accepting the award, Ms. Executive Editor Katherine Spillar, noted the impact the article has had on the way news media reports on anti-abortion violence and the interconnection between anti-abortion extremists.

Yesterday, the Texas state Senate passed a bill (SB 16) that would require women to have a sonogram within 24 hours prior to having an abortion. The woman would then be required to listen to her doctor’s description of the fetus, which would include information about which organs have developed; however, she could choose not to view the sonogram or listen to the fetal heartbeat. Following the sonogram, women, except those living over 100 miles from an abortion provider, must then undergo a 24 hour waiting period.

The Texas Medical Associate stated in a letter to the Chairman Robert Duncan (R-TX) of the Senate Committee on State Affairs, “TMA is concerned about the dangerous precedent SB 16, and related legislation, would set for health care in Texas – a precedent that would lay the foundation for future lawmakers to establish the details of the interaction between physicians and patients, and allow non-physicians to mandate what tests, procedures, or medicines must be provided to patients and in what timeframe.”

The bill makes exceptions in the cases of rape and incest. It will now go to the state House for a vote.

In honor of International Day of the Midwife on May 5, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released a statement highlighting the important role of midwives during childbirth and noting the shortage of approximately 350,000 professional midwives worldwide. According to the UNFPA, more than one in every three women in developing nations gives birth either alone or with only the help of a family member.

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA, stated, “I commend the important work of midwives. Midwives deliver – and not only babies. They save lives and promote good health in societies as a whole. They are an essential workforce in an effective healthcare system.” In June, the UNFPA is scheduled to release the first-ever report on the State of the World’s Midwifery.

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.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced late last week that a revision of the Equal Opportunity policy now ensures protections of federal government employees based on gender identity and pregnancy. Both protections have been added under sex discrimination, and will apply to hiring, disciplinary action, and promotion for agency employees.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis updated policies on gender discrimination as part of an annual requirement for a written policy statement expressing its commitment to equal opportunity in employment. “I am expressing my personal commitment to ensure that the U.S. Department of Labor is a model workplace, free from unlawful discrimination and harassment, which fosters a work environment that fully utilizes the capabilities of every employee,” said Secretary Solis. “It is my goal that we achieve and maintain a high-quality, diverse workforce at all organizational levels throughout the department.”

Masen Davis, Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center, said “We applaud Secretary Solis for acting with fairness and equity for its employees. We look forward to continuing to work with the administration to respond to the employment-related needs of all Americans – including transgender Americans – and ensure equal access to federal employment programs for everyone.”

According to the Department of Labor, these policies will be distributed to all current employees and will be available to all new employees.

Today the White House is hosting the first-ever meeting to focus specifically on transgender issues. The Office of Public Engagement (OPE) will meet with transgender activists and leaders to discuss federal policy on trans issues. Topics to be discussed include employment policy, access to health care, military policy, and immigration detention standards.

Some activists have expressed concern in the past week that the meeting was to be held behind closed doors and without any press invited to cover the event, though OPE pointed out that most stakeholder meetings are off the record. Still, advocates are happy to be able to address the issues facing the transgender community. Michael Silver, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, said “At this point, employment is the top priority of the community. A recent survey showed 47% of transgender people have been denied a job or a promotion – or fired from a job – just because of who they are.”

The National Center for Transgender Equality was among the groups invited to attend the meeting. Executive director Mara Keisling noted the historical nature of the meeting. “This is the first president who has allowed trans people – really allowed LGBT people – to bring forward problems and then advocate for them,” she said.

Indiana may become the first state in the nation to defund Planned Parenthood. Following a state Senate vote earlier this month, the House voted Wednesday to cut off about $2 million in federal money that goes to Planned Parenthood, much of which is for Medicaid services. The bill also calls for a ban on all abortions after 20 weeks, which would make Indiana fifth state to do so based on the “fetal pain” argument.

If signed into law by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, the state risks losing all $4 million in federal grants for family planning services. According to the Associated Press, Daniels may sign the bill in order to gain the support of ardent social conservatives in his possible bid for presidency. Planned Parenthood officials are urging Daniels to veto the measure and say if he does not, they will go to court to challenge the law.

Lawmakers in Kansas and North Carolina are attempting to pass similar legislation that would take away all funding for Planned Parenthood, and are expected to vote on their proposed budgets in the coming weeks.

In February, U.S. House Republicans, led by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), voted for a Continuing Resolution that would prohibit any federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood, even in reimbursement for services rendered. In spite of Republican claims that the Pence amendment would prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions, such spending is already prohibited by federal law.

Planned Parenthood health centers across the country provide contraception and basic health care, including family planning, cancer screenings, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections to approximately 2.5 million women per year, including over one million cervical cancer screenings and 830,000 breast exams.

The Florida Legislature passed six abortion-restricting bills on Wednesday after facing 18 bills, many of which are the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the nation.

One bill passed will require women to both undergo and pay for an ultrasound before having an abortion. They may decline to view the image, but they are still required to hear a description of the ultrasound and pay for the procedure. Victims of sexual abuse can opt out of the requirement but must provide documentation such as a police report, medical record, or restraining order.

Opponents say that the bill will further traumatize women who have been sexually assaulted but have not reported the incident to the police. Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orlando) voiced this opinion, saying “Now we’re going to mandate that when that woman comes in, unless she’s gone to the police and filed a police report, she’s going to have to undergo a procedure that’s invasive and possibly traumatic for her.”

The House spent much of Wednesday debating over other measures relating to abortion rights. One, HB 97, would prohibit insurance companies and health plans that use public funds from paying for abortion under the new health care reforms. Another, HB 1397, requires abortion clinics to be owned by a physician, which would cause the majority of clinics that offer abortion to close; of 68 clinics in Florida, only one is owned by a doctor. In HB 1247, minors are prohibited from requesting permission from a judge to obtain an abortion without parental consent. The House also passed a measure that expands the ban on third-trimester abortions to include viability of the fetus.

“Every bill attacks women differently,” said Stephanie Kunkel, executive director of Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. “Ultimately, they will severely restrict women’s access to reproductive health care.”

The Senate began action on two of the six abortion-related measures passed by the House and is scheduled to vote on them today.

A New York Times report released earlier this week uncovered the deception of many athletic programs in schools regarding gender equity in sports, distorting the numbers in order to comply with the requirements of Title IX.

Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in any federally financed education program, has largely drawn attention to and been labeled as solution for the unequal treatment of male and female athletes. In 1972, when Title IX was passed, there were fewer than 30,000 women participating in college sports, and today there are over 186,000 women a year – an increase in over 500%.

The report found that some athletic programs are filling their numbers by counting athletes who no longer play on the team, enlisting women as team members who do not participate in the games, or by counting their male players as women. Other programs are manipulating their numbers by trimming the rosters of mens teams, eliminating mens sports rather than increasing womens in order to reach the standards of gender parity.

An example of roster manipulation comes from the University of South Florida, where in the last academic year, 71 women were reported as members of the school’s cross-country team, yet only 43 students ever ran in a competition. According to the report, double- and triple-counting women has allowed nearly 50 Division I universities to hide the fact that they have fewer female athletes.

Quinnipiac University was sued in a class action lawsuit last August for failing to adhere to Title IX regulations, manipulating numbers in the list of male athletes and replacing the women’s volleyball team with competitive cheerleading in order to build the roster of female athletes.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic swimmer and the senior director of advocacy at the Women’s Sports Foundation, told The New York Times “The fraud is disheartening. Intercollegiate athletics are rare educational opportunities, subsidized with our tax dollars, which deliver superior lifelong returns on investment. When an athletic department engineers itself to produce only the appearance of fairness, they flout the law and cheat women.”

A group of nuns based in Boston are suing their archbishop after years of trying to withdraw from the Archdiocese pension plan to start their own, which they claim would provide a better standard of living in retirement. The nuns say they have also not been given their own portion of the fund, despite several applications. The group, Daughters of St. Paul, is taking an unprecedented step in bringing a lawsuit against a cardinal.

The nuns are seeking a ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that would order the Boston archbishop and other pension plan trustees to release them from the pension plan and to provide them with a full accounting of the nuns’ portion of the fund. The Daughters claim they are owed $1.37 million.

The Daughters of St. Paul is an international order, with about 60 members living in Boston. Part of their mission includes running a multimedia publishing house, Pauline Books and Media, which publishes Catholic books and other materials.

American nuns have played a role in women’s rights since the 1970s, with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 90% of U.S. nuns, calling for the ordination of women.

Sophia Deboick writes in the Guardian, “There is something alarming about the treatment of these women – the Daughters have been driven to recourse to the law simply to get their voices heard. Is it that nuns are still seen by some as servants of the church who should be seen and not heard?”

U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) introduced legislation last week that would address the rising incidences of sexual assault and violence on college campuses. The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, or SaVE Act, would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 and expand the 1990 Jeanne Clery Act to “improve education and prevention related to campus sexual violence, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.”

Co-sponsored by Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the SaVE Act (S. 835) would expand the framework of sexual assault education and victims’ rights to include domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking, and addresses the issue of how to define consent in sexual relationships. Schools would be required under the act to include sexual violence statistics in their annual crime reports. Colleges and universities would also be required to explain how to obtain protective orders and other victims’ rights whenever a student reports being a victim of sexual violence.

Senator Casey, who also introduced a resolution last week that would recognize April as Sexual Assault Awareness month, said “Sexual violence is a tragic and harsh reality on college campuses throughout the country,” said Senator Casey.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately 20-25% of female students will experience some form of sexual assault during college. In the vast majority of sexual assaults, 85-90%, the perpetrator and victim know each other. It is estimated that less than 5% of rapes or attempted rapes of female students in college are reported to campus authorities or law enforcement.

The SaVE Act seeks to address these alarming statistics by implementing policies to prevent and respond to sexual violence through education, programming, and awareness about sexual assault and other intimate partner violence in collaboration with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education. If passed by Congress and signed by the President this year, SaVE would go into effect in 2012.

Congressman Allen West (R-FL) addressed a conservative women’s group, Women Impacting Nation, last week and accused Planned Parenthood, Code Pink, and other liberal women’s groups of “neutering American men,” causing “weakness,” implicating them in the growth of the United States debt.

Specifically, West said, “We need you to come in and lock shields, and strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you. To let these other women know on the other side – these planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness – to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That’s what we need you to do. Because if you don’t, then the debt will continue to grow…deficits will continue to grow?.” (watch video)

“Allen West has it all wrong. We don’t want dominance, we want equality,” said Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal.

The so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would forbid educators in Tennessee from mentioning homosexuality to students, advanced out of the state Senate’s Education Committee on a 6 to 3 party line vote last Wednesday and will move to the Senate floor.

The bill (see PDF) states that “no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.” An amendment to the bill (see PDF) allows for the adoption of this clause only after a review by the state board of education of “the current curriculum standards for the teaching of sex education or for the teaching of other subjects in which the discussion of human sexuality may occur incidental to the subject.” State Senator Stacey Campfield, Chief Sponsor of the bill, has been pushing similar legislation for 6 years, originally in the state House.

In Tennessee, it is already illegal to teach sex education that is outside of the State Board of ducation’s “family life curriculum,” which excludes any reference to homosexuality.

Ben Byers, spokesman for the Tennessee Equality Project, told On Top Magazine that the measure “limits what teachers and students are able to discuss in the classroom…It means they can’t talk about gay issues or sexuality even with students who may be gay or have [a] gay family.”

Representative John LaBruzzo of Louisiana (R-Metairie) has filed legislation that would ban all abortions in the state. The bill would subject both a woman who has an abortion and her doctor to charges of feticide. Penalties range from 5 to 15 years in prison.

LaBruzzo claims the bill is designed to take on Roe v Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion. He said he does not think the proposal is controversial. “When it comes to abortion and guns, even the Democrats are on the same page with the Republicans,” he said. In 2008, LaBruzzo proposed paying poor women $1000 each to have their Fallopian tubes tied. He also suggested providing tax incentives to higher-income couples to have more children.

Julie Mickelberry, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast said, “It is time for elected officials to stop playing politics; we don’t need laws that threaten women’s health.”

House Bill 587 is scheduled to be addressed during the regular session which begins today. It is assigned to the House Committee on Health and Welfare.

A transgender woman was beaten by two women in a Maryland McDonalds after using the restaurant’s women’s bathroom. Chrissy Polis said that no employees intervened when the women began pulling her by the hair, throwing her to the floor, and kicking her repeatedly. The incident was recorded on tape, and police have arrested the young women. Transgender activists have scheduled a rally tonight outside of the McDonalds where the incident occurred to show support for the victim.

“This is precisely the kind of hatred and bigotry that transgender women and men deal with on a daily basis,” said Caroline Temmerand of the GLBT Community Center of Central Maryland.

A 2011 national report on transgender Americans found that 53% of respondents “reported being verbally harassed or disrespected in a place of public accommodation,” with 3% of respondents reporting physical assault in a retail store and 2% reporting assault in a hotel or restaurant.

Earlier this month, the Maryland state Senate killed a bill, called the Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act, which would have outlawed discrimination against trans people in housing, employment, and public accommodation.

There are currently 11 states with hate crime laws which protect people victimized on the basis of gender identity or expression. In 2009, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act in the FY2010 Defense Authorization Bill, which was the first federal law to recognize and provide civil rights protections for transgender people.

Iowa Republican Governor Terry Branstad declared the month of April “Abortion Recovery Month” yesterday to “promote abortion recovery programs and awareness of post-abortion stress syndrome.” Minnesota and Texas governors have made similar proclamations in their states in the last year.

Branstad was joined at the signing ceremony by representatives from anti-choice organizations and crisis pregnancy centers (CPC). CPCs often post as comprehensive health centers, while coercing and intimidating women out of considering abortion as an option, and preventing women from receiving neutral and comprehensive medical advice.

The concept of post-abortion “recovery” is controversial, as the term is often used by anti-choice organizations but has not been accepted or recognized by the American Psychiatric Association or the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA released a report in 2008 which found that there is no evidence that abortion causes any mental distress in women.

Gail B. Williams, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Texas notes that women’s real-life responses to abortion are “complex, and are associated with a mixture of feelings.” Dana Dovitch, a psychotherapist and author of The Healing Choice, says, “Women are hypersensitive to the sociopolitical climate and how it affects their feelings. This is the only medical procedure you can’t talk about.” She has noticed that emotional issues, especially feelings of guilt, begin to rise along with anti-choice efforts to restrict abortion.

The Iowa House recently passed a bill banning all abortion procedures after 20 weeks. The bill is currently awaiting action in the Senate.

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has introduced the Violence Against Women Health Initiative Act as part of her effort to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which she co-authored in 1994. The bill is designed to strengthen the ability of health care providers to recognize victims of domestic violence and prevent them from being victimized in the future.

“Domestic and sexual violence is all too common in the United States. Nearly one in four women report experiencing violence in their life which is a tragedy,” said Slaughter, “The health care system is uniquely positioned to take a leading role in fighting and responding to intimate partner violence.”

The bill would focus on training doctors and nurses in spotting signs of domestic violence and in providing counsel to victims in an effort to prevent future assaults. Slaughter’s office estimates that measures to prevent situations of domestic violence by intervening earlier would save the health care system upwards of $8.3 billion per year.

It is estimated that every nine seconds, a woman is abused in the United States and nearly one-third of women in the United States report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend some time in their lives.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is due to expire at the end of this year. Since its passage, the rate of intimate partner violence had dropped by 53 percent. The Republican proposal for the fiscal year 2011 would dramatically cut funding to VAWA by an estimated $170 million.