Violence Against Women Office Director and former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell was nominated for a seat on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals 216 days ago. The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding up Campbell’s nomination, despite the fact that they recently approved the nominations of four males, whose names were submitted afterCampbell’s. Senators Tom […]
Sheriff John McDougall lost a Republican primary runoff in Fort Myers, Florida on October 3 after receiving criticism for his vehement anti-abortion stance. McDougall, who has been in office for 12 years, has used his position to promote his anti-abortion, conservative religious position. For example, he called an abortion doctor who was seeking police protection […]
For activists outside of the U.S., e-mail alerts are often the only way to build international solidarity from a sometimes heavily censored home base. Within the U.S., however, cyberalerts urging the recipient to sign on and save the world are assumed to have no impact, instead generating sighs or rolled eyes. One exception is an […]
One week ago the government of Italy placed the final signature required for implementation of the most important international protocol created to protect women’s rights. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) grants women and women’s rights groups who have exhausted national systems seeking redress […]
Women, immigrants, lesbians and gays applauded the adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights in Great Britain this week. Touted as the greatest advance for personal liberty supporters believe that for the first time enshrined in English law is a right to fair trial, asylum, privacy, education, family life, religion and equality particularly for […]
Many health insurance companies, including Aetna, United Healthcare and Cigna, will cover the recently approved abortion pill, RU 486. Kaiser Permanente and Humana Inc. are still deciding on whether to cover RU 486. The pill, sold as Mifeprex, will be part of insurance companies’ standard medical benefits, rather than drug benefits, because the pill is […]
The Gender Gap continues to shape Presidential polls on the eve of the first nationally televised Presidential debate at 9 p.m. (EST) on CNN, CBS, ABC, C-Span and PBS. The latest Washington Post poll reveals a massive 18 point gender gap in favor of Gore, with 55 percent of women, compared to 37 percent of […]
In its first day in session, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear Garrett v. University of Alabama, a case that calls into question the constitutionality of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The case involves a woman with breast cancer and a man with severe asthma who experienced discrimination by their employer because […]
A Catholic priest drove his car through the door of an Illinois abortion clinic on Sept. 30 and proceeded to vandalize the clinic’s front hallway with an ax. The clinic was not open at the time of the break-in and no one was injured. The building’s owner fired two shots from his shotgun into the […]
Last week, as U.S. women finally received access to mifepristone, the Italian Health Ministry approved the sale of a French-made emergency contraceptive (EC) pill. The EC, called Norlevo, will be available this month to Italian women with a doctor’s prescription. Norlevo is used within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse, and blocks implantation of a fertilized […]
Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush spoke via videotape to the Christian Coalition’s annual conference this past weekend, saying that America must put more value on “the life of the unborn.” Bush’s comments were almost identical to those he made at the Republican National Convention, sending an anti-choice message, but one craftily worded to appease […]
In the last few weeks of Olympic competition, women athletes have excelled in every way. An unprecedented number of women athletes participated in the 2000 Olympics–42 percent of competing athletes were women. Thirty-nine world records were broken at the Sydney Olympics, 23 of which women athletes shattered. Of the 664 American athletes competing in the […]
The 2000 Olympic Games have been a milestone in the woman’s movement. Twenty-three events for women were added to the Olympic lineup this year. Women are winning golds and setting world records in events thought to be too physically challenging in previous Games. Today, only boxing and wrestling do not offer an equivalent event for […]
After a 12-year campaign led by the Feminist Majority Foundation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, a pill that provides an early method of abortion. FMF President Eleanor Smeal has been debating anti-choice leaders, including Olivia Gans of the National Right to Life Committee and Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, on […]
A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that an overwhelming majority of parents in the United States want their teenagers to receive more comprehensive sex education in school. The study was based on surveys of over 4,000 students, parents, sex education teachers and school principals. Parents want more coverage of topics like birth […]
A federal judge criticized the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for alleged lax investigation into a harassment case brought by a lesbian police officer against her male colleagues. Elizabeth Bryant, who “came out” to her colleagues in the NYPD in 1997 after holding a public ceremony with her partner in Central Park, testified that […]
Cambodia’s Minister of Tourism Veng Seryvuth marked World Tourism Day by “declaring that it should no longer be seen as a destination for sex tourists. Hotels, guesthouses and nightclubs in Cambodia will be required to put up signs stating “No child sex tourism”. The United Nations estimates that at minimum, 4 million women and girls […]
More than 3,000 young girls may be mutilated each year in Britain according to findings released by researchers. Although the destructive practice is outlawed in the country a loophole in the law does not restrict families from sending young girls abroad for genital circumcision/mutilation during which young girls undergo the painful sewing of their vagina […]
Three Somali asylum seekers have presented a request to Australian immigration officials to be sent home citing “depression, trauma and anxiety and mental pressure” within Australia’s detention centers and therefore “prefer to go back to Somalia and die as innocent victims.” The asylum seekers have been kept behind barbed-wire fences at the Port Headland detention […]
During a 90-minute “Choose or Lose” presentation on MTV, Al Gore spoke with 150 college students about his platform and the issues that most concerned them. Throughout the town hall style forum, Gore repeatedly voiced his support for abortion rights and approval of mifepristone, the early abortion pill. “The Supreme Court that is picked by […]
