Bolstered by signatures gathered by religious and anti-abortion groups, the Michigan legislature voted yesterday to override Governor Jennifer Granholm’s (D) veto of a Legal Birth Definition Act (LBDA) that would define birth from the moment any part of a “living” fetus was outside a woman’s body. The act defines fetus life as exhibiting just one […]
Douglas Meester, the Air Force cadet accused of rape last year, settled his case with a reprimand and a fine of $2000 on Tuesday. As part of the plea deal, the original charges of rape, forcible sodomy, indecent assault and conduct unbecoming an officer for providing alcohol to minors were dismissed, reported the Colorado Gazette. […]
Yesterday, gunmen killed an Afghan guard and 11 Chinese road workers as they slept in the Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan. The Associated Press reports that yesterday’s brutal attack was the deadliest on foreign civilians since the Taliban lost power. Four other Chinese workers who were injured in the attack are listed in stable condition. […]
In a meeting at the Vatican last week, Pope John Paul II praised President Bush for his leadership against abortion rights in the United States. The Pope lauded “his commitment to the promotion of moral values in American Society, particularly with regard to respect for life and the family,” according to the New York Times. […]
New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson (R) on Monday vetoed a bill that would have allowed women to obtain emergency contraception directly from pharmacists. The bill would only have allowed emergency contraception (EC) to be accessible from pharmacists for women whose doctors agreed to the arrangement in advance, according to the Nashua Telegraph. State Sen. Lou […]
Seven Kenyan clinics that provide post-abortion care and support safe abortion have been forced to close due to United States funding withdrawal. According to Nairobi’s The Nation, the Bush Administration withdrew approximately $1 million to the Family Planning Association of Kenya and to Marie Stopes International-Kenya for supporting international family planning services and the rights […]
An amendment that would reduce the penalties for churches that engage in partisan politics has been tacked on to a major corporate tax-relief bill being fast-tracked in the House of Representatives. Current law allows churches and other tax-exempt 501(c)3 groups to speak out only on political issues and lead non-partisan voter registration drives, but if […]
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, recently appointed Assistant Secretary Carolyn McAskie as his special representative to the South African country Burundi. According to UN Wire, special representatives are almost never women. To remedy this, the United Nations passed UN Resolution 1325, which urges the Secretary General to appoint more women as […]
Fifty-eight US Senators sent a letter to President Bush last Friday urging him to loosen federal restrictions on stem cell research. The letter, dated Friday, was signed by 42 Democrats, one Independent, and 15 Republicans. “This issue is especially poignant given President Reagan’s passing,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, one of the five Senators who organized […]
NAACP President Kweisi Mfume has denounced The Catholic University of America’s (CUA) decision to block student efforts to create a chapter of the NAACP on campus. At a rally on campus on Friday, Mfume called the CUA rejection “outright discrimination and intolerance all rolled into one,” and has threatened to sue if an agreement cannot […]
During the Global Health Council’s (GHC) annual conference, a leading Afghan women’s rights and human rights advocate received the 2004 Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. Dr. Sima Samar, Chair of the Independent Human Rights Commission in Afghanistan, is a physician who defied Taliban edicts and provided Afghan women and girls with […]
Michigan is on the verge of passing a ban on abortion procedures similar to the current federal law that was just declared unconstitutional by a US District Court judge in San Francisco. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm vetoed the bill banning so-called “partial-birth” abortion, but proponents of the bill collected enough petitions to allow the state […]
A leading human rights organization issued a report criticizing the Turkish government and judiciary for failing to protect women from violence. According to Amnesty International, at least a third and possibly up to one-half of Turkish women are victims of violence within their own families. The report states that “violence against women by family members […]
An internal Army report released yesterday acknowledged the alarming increase in numbers of rapes and sexual assaults within its ranks and indicated that these crimes may have been facilitated by faults and oversights within the system. According to The New York Times, the Army found that reported cases of sexual assault within the Army rose […]
Five humanitarian aid workers were killed a few months before the first elections in Afghanistan are to take place. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the murders. According to Reuters, three foreign and two Afghan staff members of Doctors Without Borders were killed in the northwestern province of Badghis on Wednesday. The attacks bring the […]
At yesterday’s House International Relations Committee hearing on US policy in Afghanistan, several Representatives pressed for more security and reconstruction funding in Afghanistan. Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA), ranking Democrat on the committee, fears that “we may be on the verge of losing the battle for a peaceful and democratic Afghanistan due to the lack of […]
Iraq’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, earlier this week announced the names of the US-backed interim government that will begin June 30. The new government includes 33 ministers, of whom only six are women, making up 18 percent of Iraq’s caretaker government. Iraq’s Transitional Administration Law (TAL), however, has established a target of 25 […]
Stephanie Herseth last night won a special election to fill South Dakota’s vacant US House of Representatives seat, bringing the total number of women in the House up to 63. Herseth, a Democrat, was running to temporarily fill the seat of former Rep. Bill Janklow (R), who resigned his seat before going to jail for […]
Women leaders from around the world convened in Seoul, South Korea last week for a three-day summit on increasing the economic power of women worldwide. Organized by GlobalWomen.com, a US non-profit linking women in business globally, over 800 women from 84 countries are taking part in the summit, including businesswomen, government leaders, and representatives from […]
An anti-affirmative action campaign in Michigan has experienced so many setbacks that it will now push back its plans by two years. The so-called Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, led by affirmative action opponent Ward Connerly, had attempted to gather enough signatures to place an anti-affirmative action initiative on the November 2004 ballot. However, “because of […]
