The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has delayed its vote on the nomination of Ellen Sauerbrey to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration at the request of Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and after ten women’s rights and health organizations announced their opposition. The coalition of women’s groups, of which the Feminist Majority […]
Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) recently reintroduced legislation allocating three years of funds to improve the military’s response to rape cases. The bill, H.R. 4077, is known as the Preventing Sexual Assaults in the Military Act of 2005. It aims to cover the costs of processing the backlog of DNA evidence, improving DNA testing procedures, providing […]
Girls still are stuck in home economics classes while boys take ‘shop’—that’s the gist of a new report released by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). The report, “Tools of the Trade,” finds that despite three decades of Title IX, girls represent the vast majority of students in “female fields” (such as cooking, sewing and […]
In the hours after President Bush’s nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, many progressive groups have announced their opposition to this far-right Supreme Court nominee. Alito has demonstrated hostility to women’s rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, separation of church and state, and privacy rights. Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal said, “Instead of […]
Beginning Sunday, the remains of Rosa Parks lay in honor in the Capital Rotunda for public viewing. By the close of viewing Sunday, more than 30,000 people had filed through the Rotunda to pay their respects, with another 20,000 expected Monday morning, according to the Washington Post. Parks is the first woman, and second African-American, […]
A poll conducted after Harriet Miers announced her withdrawal from consideration as a Supreme Court nominee found that 59 percent of Americans still feel it is important for a woman to fill Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court. “The faux nomination of Harriet Miers doesn’t count as the woman appointment to fill O’Connor’s […]
The Senate yesterday passed an appropriations bill that included an amendment sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) to require the Bureau of Labor Statistics to reinstate the collection of data on women workers. The amendment, co-sponsored by Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), was attached to the Departments of Labor, […]
More than 70 students, community members, and local politicians held a demonstration outside of Fry’s Food and Drug Store in Tucson, Arizona, yesterday to protest its refusal to fill a rape survivor’s prescription for emergency contraception (EC). The 20-year-old unnamed woman and a friend told the Arizona Daily Star that they tried calling “nearly 50” […]
Under increasing pressure to release White House documents and a conservative attack campaign being launched against her, Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court today. The progressive forces had held their fire but were proceeding with a strategy to ensure that the Senate Judiciary Committee would ask penetrating questions on Miers judicial philosophy […]
A panel of women’s rights activists met today to raise awareness of the tragic and vicious murders of nearly 2,000 women since 2001 in Guatemala, a situation that has gone largely unnoticed by the international community. While, according to Center for Legal Action on Human Rights, the murder rate for both men and women in […]
The Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General on Monday confirmed that his office is investigating the sudden resignation of former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford. Crawford served only two months as commissioner after a difficult confirmation process, mostly due to concerns over the FDA’s constant delays on over-the-counter status for emergency […]
A Springfield, Missouri, abortion clinic closed unexpectedly last week, leaving only two remaining clinics in the state. The clinic had been leading a fight to overturn a new Missouri law that would bar physicians from performing abortions more than 30 miles from the hospital where they had clinical privileges. Clinic administrator Michelle Collins told the […]
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing yesterday to consider Ellen Sauerbrey, President Bush’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), and Barack Obama (D-IL) expressed concerns and asked questions about her qualifications for the post, highlighting her disturbing record […]
Civil rights leader Rosa Parks passed away in her Detroit home on Monday evening at age 92, following a long battle with dementia. Parks is best remembered for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white man. She was arrested and fined, and her actions touched off a massive […]
Alaska’s Medical Board on Friday rejected 4-2 a proposal that would have required women to obtain a physical exam from a doctor before receiving emergency contraception (EC) from a pharmacist. The proposal also would have required women to obtain a doctor’s prescription for EC, even though Alaska has a law allowing women to obtain EC […]
The number of women in prison in the US grew by four percent between 2003 and 2004, nearly double the increase among male prisoners. The Associated Press reports that 7 percent of all inmates are now women, and women account for almost one-quarter of all arrests. Paige M. Harrison, co-author of a Bureau of Justice […]
Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the male editor of a women’s rights magazine in Afghanistan, has been sentenced to two years in jail by for criticizing punishments doled out because of interpretations of Sharia (Islamic) law. Nasab was convicted by the Primary Court in Kabul for blasphemy resulting from two articles published in the magazine critical of […]
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (D) stood up for patients’ rights by vetoing a bill last week that aimed to expand so-called ‘conscience clause’ protections for health care workers. Medical students and pharmacists who refused to participate in medical procedures or fulfill prescriptions they found objectionable would have been covered under the so-called Ôconscience clauses,’ and […]
In an effort to provide medical assistance and unemployment benefits to residents of the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Congress on Wednesday sent legislation to the president that would end Medicare and Medicaid payments for erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra. This cut alone could save the federal government about $2 billion over […]
Despite recent international attention to the problem, United Nations peacekeepers are still sexually exploiting and abusing women in the countries in which they serve, according to a report released yesterday by Refugees International. The report, “Must Boys Be Boys?,” was prepared by Sarah Martin, who visited peacekeeping missions in Haiti and Liberia. As Martin writes […]
