Technical Sergeant Jaime Rodriguez was sentenced Friday to 27 years in prison for sexually assaulting over 20 women during his 13-year tenure in the Air Force.
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Indian Women’s Rights Activists Arrested
Police arrested and detained 13 women’s rights activists Thursday after anti-rape protests swelled in West Bengal, India. The protests were centered on two recent high-profile rape cases in the state. The Indian National Crime Records Bureau released statistics Thursday related to crime against women, spotlighting West Bengal as having the highest concentration of such crime […]
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Women of Senate Vow to Continue Fight Against Military Sexual Assault
Speaking to MSNBC Wednesday, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said, “You know, for 20 long years, various secretaries of defense have said these words: ‘We have zero tolerance for this kind of activity in the military and were not going to allow it.’ And every single secretary of defense never made the changes. We have to make the changes.”
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Teacher Fired for Being a Survivor of Domestic Violence
Second-grade teacher Carie Charlesworth was fired by Holy Trinity School in San Diego because of the events that followed her reporting her husband’s domestic abuse. Her termination, which took full effect in April, has prompted her to speak out against the district’s decision.
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Virginia Healthcare Center Challenges State’s TRAP Laws
Falls Church Healthcare Center filed an appeal Monday against the Virginia Board of Health, the Department of Health, and Virginia State Health Commissioner Cynthia Romer over the TRAP regulations that were approved in April requiring clinics performing over five abortions a year to meet new building regulations.
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WI Senate Advances Transvaginal Ultrasound, TRAP Bill
After intense but brief debate, the Wisconsin state Senate approved a bill that could mandate transvaginal ultrasounds before an abortion and impose unnecessary regulations on abortion clinics. The bill, SB 206 [PDF] was approved in a vote of 17 to 15 along party lines.
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House Committee Advances Nationwide Abortion Ban
Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 20 to 12 along party lines to approve a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks nationwide. The bill now goes before the full House of Representatives, and could be brought up for debate as early as next week.
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Russian Lower Parliament Approves Ban On “Gay Propaganda”
On Tuesday, Russia’s Lower Parliament called the Duma unanimously passed a bill outlawing the distribution of LGBT “propaganda” to minors, essentially banning any form of support for LGBT rights in the country. 436 deputies voted in favor the bill, only one deputy abstained from the vote. The bill bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” from […]
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Senate Armed Services Committee Removes Provision Challenging Military Sexual Assault
Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) announced that he will remove a provision from the defense spending bill that would take military sexual assault cases out of the chain of command.
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Planned Parenthood, ACLU File Lawsuit Against AL TRAP Law
On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit to prevent an anti-abortion law that could threaten to close three out of the five clinics in the state from going into effect July 1.
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Women’s Rights Advocate Wins Virginia Primary
Dr. Ralph Northam from Norfolk, Virginia, has won the Democratic primary for the Virginia Lieutenant Governor race with 56% of the vote.
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Plan B One-Step To Be Sold Over-The-Counter Without Age Restrictions
The Obama administration Monday officially ended its opposition to over-the-counter sales of “Plan B One-Step,” also known as the morning-after pill.
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Challenges to Unlawful Single-Sex Education Programs Advance
The Birmingham City School District has promised to end their single-sex classes at the end of the Spring 2013 semester after signing an official agreement last week with the Office for Civil Rights
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Afghan Police Accused of Violence Against Women
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission accused the police of violence against women in a recently released report, attributing close to 15 percent of honor killings and sexual assaults in the region to the police force. The report follows over two years of data collection by the commission, in which they documented 163 sexual assault […]
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50th Anniversary of Equal Pay Act
Fifty years ago today, in 1963, President John F. Kennedy, Jr. signed into law the Equal Pay Act, banning gender-based wage discrimination in the workplace. Yet on the anniversary of the historical legislation, women continue to face substantial pay inequity in the workforce.
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Immigration Bills in the Works in Congress
An immigration overhaul coming from a bipartisan coalition within the Senate now faces three weeks of debate on the floor. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) expects that it will come to a vote prior to the July 4 session break. If all 54 Democrats in the Senate vote for the bill, which is unlikely, […]
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Pussy Riot Documentary Premieres Tonight
The story of Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot will come to life tonight in the HBO documentary “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer.” It will air at 9 PM EST. Three Pussy Riot members were charged in August of 2012 with “hooliganism” and sentenced to two years in prison for a performance protesting Vladimir Putin’s […]
House Armed Services Committee Takes on Sexual Assault In Annual Military Spending Bill
The epidemic of sexual assault across the armed forces was also the subject of a nearly eight-hour hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week.
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Scott Roeder Disciplined For In-Prison Comments
Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion extremist who murdered Dr. George Tiller in 2009, will be disciplined for threatening comments made against a clinic owner from prison. According to state officials, Roeder will spend 45 days in isolation for 23 hours a day. Roeder will only have one hour a day for exercise. In addition, he will […]
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OH Senate Passes Anti-Abortion State Budget
Thursday evening, the Ohio state Senate passed a $61.7 billion state budget that partially defunds Planned Parenthood and could close abortion clinics across the state. The Senate budget bill is scheduled to go to the House for a vote next week. The budget, passed by the Senate along party lines in a vote of 23 […]