A diverse coalition of religious leaders and people of faith called on the Bush Administration Tuesday to release the $34 million in funding which he has withheld under pressure from anti-choice Congressional forces. The ad-hoc coalition of 136 leaders from 31 countries sent a letter to President Bush this week stating, “As a UN agency, […]
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) rejected new attempts Tuesday by Representative Henry Hyde (R-IL) to undermine the Senate-passed version of the bankruptcy bill. Hyde’s proposal comes on the heels of a long line of attempts by anti-choice House members to undermine the abortion-related language in the Senate version of the bill, which would bar anti-abortion extremists […]
Mexico’s legislators approved a bill Tuesday requiring that women comprise at least 30 percent of each political party’s nominations. At present, women account for 17 percent of Mexico’s Congressional seats. The bill, approved by the Senate and the lower Chamber of Deputies, applies the quota for women candidates at all levels, including the proportionally allotted […]
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce will vote today on reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), which is intended to help low-income families secure child care services. Currently, only $2.21 billion has been appropriated for discretionary spending. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), however, is calling on the House […]
Opening the National Center for Women and Policing’s (NCWP) 7th Annual Conference, Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, warned of the growing backlash to women in policing. The number of women in police agencies of 100 or more sworn officers decreased from 14.3 percent in 1999 to 12.7 percent in 2001, according to […]
In the May/June issue of Mother Jones, Evelyn Nieves takes an in depth look at the murdered women of Juarez, Mexico and the women’s rights groups that are pressuring the Mexican government to find the killer(s) responsible for the deaths of nearly 270 women in this border city, across from El Paso, Texas, since 1993. […]
Members of the House and Senate are no farther along in reaching a compromise on bankruptcy legislation that is stalled in conference. At issue is abortion-related language in the Senate version of the bill, which would bar anti-abortion extremists from using bankruptcy to avoid paying civil damages incurred from anti-abortion clinic violence. Congressman Henry Hyde […]
The Feminist Majority Foundation and the Rachel Carson Institute have invited experts in the field of environmental justice and women’s rights to chat with students and feminists around the globe. The first chat will take place on May 1 and will feature the co-editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment and Development, Professor […]
The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof joins women’s rights organizations throughout the United States in urging President Bush to release $34 million appropriated to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) by Congress. In an Op/Ed last week, Kristof noted that he wished Bush could “visit the women whose lives are thus devastated” by the U.S. […]
After September 11, the connections between the far right and Islamic fundamentalists are making themselves more apparent. According to the Washington Post, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, writings by American William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, the book after which Timothy McVeigh modeled the Oklahoma City bombing, was found on the Hezbollah website. Pierce […]
Many of the brightest women stars in film, television, and music gathered on the set of host Whoopi Goldberg’s “Hollywood Squares” game show to tape a week’s worth of programs to benefit the Feminist Majority Foundation’s (FMF) Campaign to Help Afghan Women and Girls. The shows, which highlight the needs of women and girls in […]
A new report conducted by Population Action International (PAI) found that young people in the US are in need of more reproductive health services and information. The report, “In This Generation: Sexual and Reproductive Health Policies for a Youthful World,” focused on seven countries, the US, Iran, the Netherlands, Mexico, India, Ghana, and Mali, and […]
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, passed by a voice vote in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The act would protect gay and lesbian workers from discrimination in hiring, firing, and salaries or wages. The act would pertain to most business, but the military and […]
An article in this week’s issue of The Nation highlights the grossly sub par medical care received by many women in US prisons. With few monitoring the quality of care given to female inmates, many prison medical services are uncoordinated, underfunded, and unaccountable to anyone. Women inmates have complained of delayed medical attention, diagnosis, and […]
The US House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, addressed accusations this week concerning sex trafficking and child sex abuse committed by peacekeepers and relief workers. Specifically, at issue were allegations that peacekeepers were taking part in the trafficking of Eastern European women in the Balkans during the conflict there in […]
A House Committee voted yesterday to renew $50 million in funding for abstinence-only sex education over the next 5 years. Committee Democrats attempted to include provisions that would have funded abstinence only programs that were 1) medically accurate, 2) included discussion of other means of birth control and contraception, and 3) had proven effectiveness. All […]
Thursday, April 25th marks the tenth anniversary of Take Our Daughters to Work Day, an innovative program coordinated by the Ms. Foundation for Women that pairs girls with parents or other adult role models for a day of career education and inspiration. The Ms. Foundation’s recent research project with RoperASW shows that Take Our Daughters […]
Despite pressure from House Representatives, U.S. Senators are holding firm in their opposition to dropping language from the pending bankruptcy bill that would bars perpetrators of abortion clinic-related violence from avoiding payment of legal judgments by declaring bankruptcy. Negotiators from both houses met this week to try to iron out differences in the two version […]
A panel of 121 experts from the medical community convened at a conference last year sponsored by the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology to discuss treatment guidelines for women with abnormal pap smears. Their results, which may hasten diagnosis of the human papillomavirus (HPV), appear in today’s issue of the Journal of the […]
The United Nations will hold its Child Summit May 8-10 in New York, but already the Bush Administration is plotting to change language in the Summit declaration that would exclude support for abortion counseling and services. The Bush Administration had already made clear its view that the phrase “reproductive health services” in the document was […]
