On Tuesday, National Coming Out Day, one of the leading activists in the gay rights movement, Frank Kameny, died in his home at the age of 86. Kameny, who earned is PhD from Harvard in astronomy, was fired in the 1950s from a federal position for being openly gay. Kameny worked tirelessly to help homosexuals […]
California Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill, sponsored by state Senators Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica), and Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), that will mandate that hospitals develop policies to promote breastfeeding among new mothers. The law will go into effect January 2014. Senator de León stated, “In my district with high rates of poverty, […]
Yesterday US District Court Judge Thomas Marten ruled that the Dodge City Family Planning Clinic was permitted to join a lawsuit, filed by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri (PPKM), challenging a Kansas law that prevents both organizations from receiving Title X family planning. Judge Marten indicated that PPKM and the Dodge City Medical Clinic […]
By Desiree Hoffman YWCA USA Director of Advocacy and Policy March 23, 2011, marked the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Yet polls show that less than 47% of Americans know how it affects them.1 Lack of understanding was highest among low-income households and the uninsured. When asked, “Do you feel you have […]
by Kelly Blanchard, Ibis Reproductive Health Contraception is a critical preventive health care tool for women and families. Contraception allows women (and their partners) to plan their pregnancies and avoid pregnancy when they don’t want to have a baby, and planned pregnancies are healthier for women and children. Women with planned pregnancies are more likely […]
by Lisa Bennett, NOW Communications Director A factually-challenged email is making the rounds, scaring people into thinking that Medicare premiums are going to start rising next year due to provisions in the 2010 health care reform law. My well-meaning aunt forwarded this email to friends and family, not wanting them to get caught off guard […]
by Thao Nguyen, National Women’s Law Center Greater protections against insurance company abuses: NO MORE RESCISSIONS: Insurance companies are prohibited from dropping your coverage if you become sick. NO MORE LIFETIME LIMITS: Insurance companies are prohibited from limiting the amount of money they will pay for your benefits over your lifetime. NO MORE ANNUAL CAPS: […]
Welcome to the third #HERVotes Blog Carnival! This time, the focus is on women and health care. The blog posts below share personal stories and details about the new benefits from the health care reform law, while also offering original insights on what’s at stake for women and health care. You’ll also find personal stories […]
Now entering its third week, what began in New York with a few hundred activists has fast spread throughout the country, with over 1,300 cities or towns currently taking part in occupations. Occupy Wall Street, a movement that has given a voice to the growing discontent with corporatism and militarism in the U.S., has grown […]
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate announced Monday that petitioning in favor of a recall election for their Governor Rick Scott would begin on November 15. The move comes after Governor Scott was elected in November 2010 and came under heavy scrutiny for anti-labor rights laws he supported earlier this year. According to the Government […]
On Thursday, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted to pass an amendment as part of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act that would “encourage companies with over $100 million in gross global receipts to post on their websites what policies they have in place to ensure their supply chains are free of slavery and […]
Yesterday, California Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed sign the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, allowing farmworkers to privately fill out state-issued ballots for union elections. The bill passed both houses of the California Legislature in August and will dramatically increase the rights of California’s approximately 400,000 farmworkers. United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez […]
On Friday, the Nobel Committee announced plans to award its annual Peace Prize to three women activists from Africa and the Arab world, declaring that women’s rights are an important component of world peace. The three women – Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkol Karman, a pro-democracy campaigner from Yemen, and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of […]
On Thursday, hundreds converged on Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. to begin an ongoing nonviolent presence, with the aim of ending corporatism and militarism, among other issues. The organizing group, called October 2011: Stop the Machine, has been organizing the event since February. The start of the event marks the 10 year anniversary of the […]
On September 8, the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office in Topeka, Kansas announced that it would no longer be prosecuting domestic violence cases. Prosecutors for the county told city officials that they will no longer be prosecuting any misdemeanor cases, including domestic violence, in an effort to cope with a 10 percent budget cut. The […]
Yesterday the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted along party lines to pass a bill to defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The vote was 23 to 17, with all 23 Republicans present voting to block US funding to UNFPA and all of the Democrats voting against the measure. Such cuts would be detrimental to […]
On Wednesday, Nobuko Horibe, director of the Asia and Pacific Regional Office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) issued a statement before the International Workshop on Prenatal Sex Selection describing the UNFPA’s renewed commitment to ending gender-based sex selection and discrimination against women and girls. Horibe pointed out that that gender imbalances contribute to […]
A study published on Monday called into question the benefits of injectable hormones, the most popular form of contraception used in Southern and Eastern Africa, and identified a link between the contraception and HIV transmission. The study appeared in a front page, above the fold article in Tuesday’s New York Times, attracting attention to the […]
On Thursday, 20 House Democrats, led by Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), called for an ethics investigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for allegedly failing to report that his wife was paid $700,000 for her work at the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007. The Democrats issued a letter requesting that the Judicial Conference determine […]
According to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Washington, published in the Lancet Infections Diseases, women who used contraceptive injections were twice as likely to contract and spread HIV. The researchers studied 3,790 couples in which one partner was HIV positive in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Ungada, and Zambia. Isobel […]
