Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt has promised that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will make its decision about the over-the-counter status of emergency contraception by September 1, 2005. Leavitt’s announcement comes after a series of delays on Barr Laboratories’ application for the sale of Plan B, a brand of emergency contraception, […]
Nineteen members of Congress have sent a leader to President Bush asking him to clarify his position on contraception. Led by Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), they seek an answer to a question White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan refused to answer on May 26. At the press briefing, when asked […]
In a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Michael Leavitt, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) strongly criticized a government website for providing inaccurate and biased information to parents about how to talk with their children about sex and relationships. The letter details the findings of a panel of experts in the fields of reproductive […]
The Alaska State Medical Board is proposing a regulation that requires women to obtain a physical exam and doctor’s prescription before receiving emergency contraception (EC). Women would have to pay $200 for the exam on top of the $40 cost of the medicine. The Medical Board, appointed by the governor, has the power to write […]
A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released today found that three out of four Americans want President Bush to name a woman to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. The poll also found that 68 percent of Americans don’t want Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case legalizing abortion, overturned. “The American people, and […]
Fourteen doctors who provided or helped women access abortion before it was legalized in the US issued a joint statement this week calling for a pro-choice justice to replace former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The joint statement was issued in by Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. The organization has also created a […]
Two Portuguese women were acquitted Monday of illegally terminating their pregnancies, in a case that dates back to 1999. The exoneration resulted from the prosecution’s lack of evidence against the women, following the judge’s dismissal of police wiretap evidence, reported Agence France Presse (AFP). The two women were arrested and charged after paying a nurse […]
The all-female village of Umoja, Kenya is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year as a prosperous community after ten years of struggle and opposition. Umoja, meaning “unity” in Swahili, was founded ten years ago by a group of homeless women who had been left by their husbands because they were raped. The husbands claimed that […]
Today’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery marks a return to space for shuttle commander Eileen Collins, as well as for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which has not launched a shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster in 2003. According to Women’s eNews, Collins became the first female shuttle pilot at NASA in […]
Judy Mann, longtime feminist columnist at the Washington Post, died of breast cancer Friday at the age of 61. In her column, which ran in the Post more than 23 years, Mann wrote about national and international women’s issues, feminist politics, and her own experiences as a mother. Leonard Downie, JR., executive editor of the […]
In a win for victims of clergy abuse, the Archdiocese of San Francisco reached a settlement Friday in the case against Joseph Pritchard for abuse committed while he was a priest at St. Martin of Tours in San Jose. The archdiocese will pay $16 million to 12 people who were sexually abused by Pritchard in […]
Church of England officials voted on Monday to begin the process of allowing women to become bishops. Fourteen of the 38 provinces of the Anglican church already allow women to be bishops, reports the Times, and women have served as bishops in the US and Canada. Though less divisive than the debate in the Church […]
In an interview on NBC’s “Today Show,” Laura Bush said that she hoped a woman would fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “I would really like him (President Bush) to name another woman,” she said, according to the Washington Post. At a Ms. Community Journalist Forum yesterday […]
Virginia Delegate Robert Marshall (R) has asked the state’s candidates for governor and lieutenant governor if they would support a state law making abortion illegal. Marshall is advocating for the reinstatement of a Virginia law prohibiting abortion if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion […]
In Chiniot, Pakistan, five men have been arrested for the gang-rape of Fauzia Altaf. Eight men kidnapped and gang-raped Altaf for two days to punish her cousin for having an affair with a woman whose father did not approve. The father was among the arrested suspects. One suspect fled, another was released on bail, and […]
Ms. magazine convened a panel of women leaders, writers, and activists to participate in a community forum today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on women’s issues and the Supreme Court. The discussion coincides with the publication of Ms.‘ Summer 2005 issue, which includes an urgent report on the issues at stake for […]
In an important abortion rights win, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a lower court decision that declared the so-called “Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003” unconstitutional. Signed into law by President Bush in 2003, this abortion procedure ban has since been ruled unconstitutional by three federal judges for failing to […]
Anti-abortion extremist Clayton Waagner was sentenced to 19 years in prison without parole for sending fake anthrax mailings to over women’s health clinics and reproductive rights organizations at the height of the anthrax scare following September 11, 2001. The threatening letters that accompanied the anthrax hoax mailings were signed by the Army of God, the […]
In the past two weeks, district courts have issued temporary injunctions against laws that would restrict abortion access in South Dakota and Idaho. The South Dakota law required doctors to inform women of the risks, consequences and alternatives to abortion at least two hours before the procedure, and the law specifically required women hear that […]
Several Iraqi women have been burned by acid attacks during recent weeks in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. Acid attacks are a form of violence against women where acid is thrown at or sprayed on women’s faces, legs, or other exposed body parts, in order to punish women in this case for not […]
