This week, Congress is expected to take up the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM) of 2009.The DREAM Act, introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in 2001, would give eligible immigrants conditional permanent resident status and the opportunity to attend college or join the military. Those eligible must […]
On Monday, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Wal-Mart’s appeal of an April decision by the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the lawsuit to receive class-action status. Plaintiffs in the case allege that Wal-Mart systematically discriminated through lower wages and fewer promotions for women employees. The Supreme Court will not rule on […]
Anti-choice organizations staged a demonstration and press conference at the Reproductive Health Services clinic in Germantown, Maryland, where prominent abortion provider Dr. LeRoy Carhart began practicing today. Protesters included the Christian Defense Coalition, Family Research Council, Operation Rescue, Concerned Women for America, Students for Life, and the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. Montgomery County police and […]
A three-judge panel of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear an appeal today in the ongoing Proposition 8 legal battle. The appeal challenges District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s August 2010 ruling that California’s Proposition 8 violates the federal constitutional rights of lesbians and gays. Walker’s decision overturned a 6 to 1 ruling […]
Anti-choice organizations staged a demonstration and press conference at the Reproductive Health Services clinic in Germantown, Maryland, where prominent abortion provider Dr. LeRoy Carhart began practicing today. Protestors included the Christian Defense Coalition, Family Research Council, Operation Rescue, Concerned Women for America, Students for Life, and the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. Montgomery County police and […]
The bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform voted this morning on a plan to reduce the federal deficit by $828 billion or cutting it in half by the year 2015. Eleven of 18 members or 61 percent voted yes on the plan, which fell short of the 14 votes required for the proposal […]
Late Wednesday night, the Senate voted unanimously to pass the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act. Sponsored by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the bill aims to protect women and girls in developing countries from entering into child marriages. If passed, the bill would require that […]
San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris claimed her victory on Tuesday in the November 2 race for California State Attorney General. She is not only the first woman to be elected to this position in California, but also the first Indian American and African American. Harris defeated her opponent, Republican Steve Cooley, by a narrow […]
Yesterday, the Illinois Senate passed the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act. The bill allows same-sex couples to enter into civil unions and attain some of the same benefits enjoyed by married couples, such as the right to visit a partner in the hospital and the right to make decisions about the partner’s […]
Don’t believe anything you might have read to the contrary: The gender gap was alive and well in the 2010 midterm elections. That gap—the measurable difference between the way women and men vote—showed clearly in 25 of 26 U.S. Senate races and 17 of 18 gubernatorial races for which exit polls were conducted. (There were […]
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen released the Pentagon study on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) yesterday. The study, which included a comprehensive survey of military service personnel and their spouses on their views of gays and lesbians openly serving in the military, found that the […]
Federal unemployment insurance benefits expired last night after Congress failed to pass an extension for the upcoming year, cutting over two million people off from benefits in December alone and a predicted seven million in the next 12 months. Moreover, if the unemployment insurance benefits are not extended, 750,000 women will lose their coverage in […]
Minnesota State Representative Tom Hackbarth (R), who has a zero rating from NARAL and a 100 percent rating from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, was stopped by police after a Planned Parenthood security guard called the police because he noticed a man had parked his car in the Planned Parenthood parking lot and walked down […]
Carol Johnson, Superintendent of Boston Schools, announced her decision late last week to reevaluate her earlier decision to establish public single-sex academies in Boston city schools. Johnson stated she wanted more time that she wanted to evaluate the data about single-sex education. Recent studies have debunked the myth that single-sex education will solve public education […]
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to vote on the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) tomorrow. Even though the content of IVAWA does not deal with abortion, this widely supported bill has been held up by anti-abortion politics. There is a possibility that anti-abortion Senators will introduce abortion amendments when the bill is […]
Last Wednesday, Afghan officials announced the final results for the parliamentary election held on September 18. Women won 69 of the 249 open seats or 28 percent in the lower house. Women won more than 25 percent of lower house seats set aside for them by the constitution. A record number of women ran for […]
Pope Benedict XVI clarified today that his comment that condom use might be acceptable in certain circumstances was applicable to women as well as men. On Saturday, Pope Benedict indicated that when used to prevent diseases like AIDS, condoms “can be a first step in the direction of moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.” However, […]
On Monday, the New Jersey Assembly voted in favor of allocating $5 million in funding to the state’s family planning clinics. The bill transfers $5 million from unused funds originally allocated to county prisons for housing state prisoners to family planning clinics and passed 44 to 25 in the House, with ten representatives not voting. […]
A survey by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology revealed that one-third of the 1,200 doctors studied required that women seeking birth control undergo a pelvic exam, regardless of guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) which do not mandate a pelvic exam for women […]
Late last week, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon appointed Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin as the Executive Director of the href= “http://www.unfpa.org/public/home/news/pid/6942” target= “_blank”>United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), which focuses on reproductive health, gender equality and population and development strategies. Dr. Osotimehin of Nigeria is currently a Professor of Medicine at the University of Ibadan, […]
