On Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI diverged from the Roman Catholic Church’s traditional stance against condoms and indicated to a German journalist that condom use might be acceptable in certain circumstances. Pope Benedict stated that although he still opposes condoms as form of contraception, he acknowledged their importance in disease prevention. The example he gave was […]
A report on maternal mortality released in mid October by UN public health experts revealed the US ranks 41 out of the 171 countries studied and trails far behind other industrialized nations. The study cites women’s lack of guaranteed access to health care as the primary reason for the high mortality rates among pregnant women. […]
Over 250 people stood in line to enter the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law Hearing on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Chair of the Subcommittee, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) instructed an additional room to be opened to handle the overflow […]
The family of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman who committed suicide in September, has granted Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) permission to use Clementi’s name on a piece of proposed federal legislation. The Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act would require that federally funded schools instate policies to prohibit the harassment of any student. Joe […]
President Obama met with women leaders in the White House immediately after all Republican senators voted to block the Paycheck Fairness Act from moving to the Senate floor for a vote. The measure to stop the filibuster failed by just two votes with 57 Democrats and one Independent in the Democratic Caucus voting to bring […]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced yesterday that he would bring the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes an amendment that repeals the so-called policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” to the Senate floor for a vote in December following the release of the Pentagon report on how it would implement the repeal. The report is […]
The Paycheck Fairness Act cloture vote to end the Republican filibuster is this morning in the US Senate. Women’s groups, including Feminist Majority, the National Organization for Women (NOW), the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), and the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO), have been working hard to […]
On a vote of 58-41, with one Senator not voting, the Paycheck Fairness Act was blocked from coming to the Senate floor for an up or down vote this morning. The so-called moderate Republican Senators from New England – Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts – voted with their […]
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law will hold a hearing for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) tomorrow at 2:00. Dick Durbin (D-IL) will chair the hearing. Melanne Verveer, the United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, actor Geena Davis, who […]
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) is suing the FDA today for failing to comply with a 2009 federal court order that the FDA make Plan B, or the morning after pill, available to 17 year olds and to consider making it available to all women without a prescription. The FDA in 2006 had restricted […]
Nasrin Sotoudeh went to trial yesterday at Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. Sotoudeh faced charges of acting against state security, assembling, and collusion with intent to disrupt national security, and working with the Center for Human Rights Defenders, which was founded by Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi. Judge Pir-Abbasi announced that he will reconsider the […]
A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey of over 7,000 women revealed that many women, despite their desire to avoid pregnancy, fail to use birth control or do so improperly and ineffectively. The CDC reports that approximately 50 percent of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended. Though oral contraception is […]
Iranian authorities arrested three women Iranian human rights lawyers on Saturday for so-called security related offenses. Maryam Kianersi, Maryam Karbasi, and Sara Sabaghian were taken into custody as they returned to the nation from Turkey. Sara Sabaghian is known to have represented Hossein Ronaghi in court after his arrest for blog posts which criticized the […]
A draft of the Pentagon report, leaked yesterday, reveals that a repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy would not be detrimental to the military. The report includes surveys of hundreds of thousands of active-duty military service members and their families and posits that most soldiers are not against gay and lesbians serving openly, […]
The husband, sister and brother of the imprisoned Iranian lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, visited her yesterday at Evin Prison in Tehran for ten minutes. Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband, who had not seen his wife for over two and a half months, said that she ended her dry hunger strike on advice of her friends and lawyers but […]
Deficit Commission Co-Chairs Alan Simpson and Erksine Bowles proposal to reduce the deficit was immediately opposed by leading Democrats, women’s rights groups, and labor. Immediately upon release, both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Commissioner and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued scathing dismissals. Pelosi simply said the proposal was “unacceptable” and Schakowsky called it a […]
Women Members of Congress will increase by 1 percent when the new Congress convenes in January. A total of 74 women, including three non-voting delegates, will join the new House of Representatives in January, an increase of one woman over the membership in the current House. This number could increase further as two House races […]
Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue, Nebraska announced plans for the Carhart Centers for Sexual and Reproductive Health, including three new comprehensive reproductive health clinics in Maryland, Iowa, and Indiana. The first clinic is projected to open in suburban Maryland. The Centers will offer comprehensive family planning, male sexual health care, education programs, and abortion services, […]
After ending her one-month hunger strike in protest against the conditions of her imprisonment and the mishandling of her case on October 26, Nasrin Sotoudeh, human rights attorney, went on a dry (no water and no food) hunger strike this time after meeting with the Tehran General Attorney in Tehran’s Evin Prison on October 31. […]
The Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed two lawsuits today challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The plaintiffs in both cases claim to have been denied federal programs and benefits available to heterosexual married couples. In Pedersen et al. v. Office of […]
