Feminist writer Barbara Ehrenreich will receive the fourth annual Puffin/Nation Prize on December 1. She is receiving this honor because of her significant work for social justice, most notably for “exposing truths largely ignored by the media,” such as “the day-to-day indignities endured by the nation’s working poorÉ” Ehrenreich is the author of the best-selling […]
A state appeals court struck down Florida’s 1999 voucher law, marking the third court decision finding the voucher program unconstitutional. The full 1st District Court of Appeals rules that the voucher law violates Florida’s constitution by allowing public funds to be spent on religious schools. “This is a big win for the people of Florida […]
Three United Nations election workers, two women and a man, were freed unharmed this morning after being abducted from a United Nations vehicle last month in Afghanistan. Shqipe Hebibi from Kosova, Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, and Angelito Nayan, a Filipino diplomat, were kidnapped on a busy street in Kabul by armed men on October […]
An anti-abortion provision with potentially widespread impact will remain intact as part of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill for 2005, in spite of efforts by pro-choice Senators to block the measure. President Bush is expected to sign the omnibus spending bill. On Friday, nine female Senators, including Olympia Snowe (R-ME), […]
San Diego City Councilwoman Donna Frye (D), a write-in candidate for mayor, is only 2,205 votes behind incumbent Mayor Dick Murphy (R). Though Murphy declared victory on Friday, a lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters is calling for a count of all write-in ballots, even those in which the bubble next to the […]
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) earned the endorsement of his Republican colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee to be the committee’s chair last Thursday after he released a formal statement saying he would support all of President Bush’s judicial nominees, guaranteeing them prompt hearings and floor action. Over the past several weeks, Specter has gone to […]
According to a study recently released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), women are still generations away from reaching full equality with men in the United States. The study, The Status of Women in the States, was released last Tuesday and rates the progress of women in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. […]
Despite years of scientific study which repeatedly proved mifepristone to be safe and effect for medical abortion, Republican Congressman and Senator-elect Jim DeMint of South Carolina is planning on reintroducing a bill to suspend the sale of Mifepristone and allow the General Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate the process the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) […]
A recent report on pregnancy rates among Canadian women shows increasing numbers of women are postponing having children until their 30s while pregnancy rates among teens and women in their 20s have been declining. Statistics Canada has issued reports documenting that the percentage of teenage pregnancies dropped from 14% in 1974 to 8% in 2001. […]
Despite opposition from the Catholic Church and conservative groups, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos signed the “Chilean Marriage Law” granting Chileans the legal right to divorce. Chile was the last country in South America where divorce was still illegal. According to the Santiago Times, under the new law, couples can divorce after being separated for one […]
The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics recently announced that the number of women prisoners in state and federal prisons is at an all time high and growing at nearly twice the pace of male prisoners. The Chicago Tribune reports that total number of women prisoners has increased 48 percent since 1995 to more than […]
The United Nations Human Rights Committee recently criticized Poland’s strict abortion laws. According to Kaisernetwork, Poland’s laws “puts women’s lives at risk by encouraging them to seek illegal abortions, sometimes from untrained practitioners.” Women on Waves, the Dutch organization that traveled to Portugal last year to bring attention to the nation’s punitive abortion policies, estimates […]
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Monday that Mifepristone’s label will be changed to acknowledge that there are risks associated with any abortion, and that physicians prescribing the drug should instruct their patients to contact them if they experience excessive bleeding or bacterial infection. The FDA maintains that these adverse affects could […]
A North Carolina public radio station refused to run an underwriting announcement as it was submitted by Ipas, an international women’s rights and health organization, because it contained the phrase “reproductive rights.” Citing fear of being fined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the radio station, WUNC-FM, maintained that use of the phrase could be […]
Margaret Hassan, the humanitarian aid worker who was kidnapped last month in Iraq, is believed to have been killed. According to the Associated Press, a video was sent to Al-Jazeera television that showed a hooded person shooting a blindfolded woman, believed to be Hassan, in the head. Hassan was born in Ireland, married an Iraqi, […]
Lupe Valdez, a Democratic, Latina, openly gay woman, won the election for sheriff in Dallas County, Texas. The New York Times explains that she defeated her opponent, Danny Chandler, a former chief deputy, by 17,000 votes. Valdez is the first female sheriff to be elected in Dallas County, as well as the first Hispanic sheriff […]
Iraqi women continue to be targets of Islamic extremism. According to the Washington Times, women have been threatened and in some cases killed for working outside of the home and for refusing to cover themselves with the black abaya. Heather Coyne of the United States Institute of Peace reports that she knows of cases where […]
A spokesperson for Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals has announced that a state brochure containing false information about a link between abortion and breast cancer will be corrected. “It’s incumbent on us as the health agency to make sure any information is factually correct,” Bob Johannessen told the Associated Press. “We don’t want to […]
Several dozen foreign women were raped in the Ivory Coast over the past week as a result of recent anti-French riots. According to Agence France-Presse, the top French solider stationed in the Ivory Coast has confirmed the rapes. France’s Foreign Minister, Michel Barnier, said French authorities would prosecute anyone found guilty of rape, reports the […]
In an unorthodox move, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) scheduled a hearing next week for the confirmation of Thomas Griffith during Congress’ lame-duck session. Griffith, an outspoken critic of Title IX, was nominated by President Bush last May to the DC Circuit Court of appeals, considered the second most powerful […]
