Republicans In Tennessee Try To Criminalize Miscarriages. The abortion wars aren’t ending anytime soon in Tennessee where last week the state House of Representatives approved a bill allowing homicide and assault prosecutions in the death of embryos in the earliest stages of development. As Robin Marty reports, the bill exposes women for possible prosecution if she miscarries or even has a period. Tennessee law has long allowed prosecutors to bring two charges when a person kills or assaults a pregnant woman. The second charge of harming a fetus can be brought only as a second charge to harming the pregnant woman as well.
The law further limited prosecutions to harming a “viable fetus” until last year when the law was amended to apply to any fetus. The new bill would change all that. To begin with the new law would embrace the idea that embryos can be crime victims, implicitly accepting as a matter of law the idea of embryonic personhood. But of course, the war on women is all a fiction, right? Related Stories: 40 Days of Life Performing Exorcisms At Ohio Abortion Clinic. The national anti-abortion network 40 Days for Life has decided to transition from prayer vigils outside an Ohio abortion clinic to something a little more spiritually aggressive. According to reports the group held an exorcism at the clinic this Sunday. The group first sought the permission of the Rev. Steve J. Angi, chancellor of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati before organizing the satanic purge.
Ruth Reddens, an organizer with the 40 Days for Life campaign explained the group would be holding a “exorcism of locality” which is designed to drive evil out of a place rather than a person. Rick Pender, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, which refers local women for abortions and performs abortions at a clinic in Cincinnati, said, “This is America — people have a right to free speech. The event included a reading of the Prayer to St. Believe it or not this is not the first time anti-choice activists have turned to exorcism. Related Stories: Dispatches From The War On Women: A Military Rape Scandal. Dispatches From The War On Women: All Eyes On Health Care Reform. War on Women on a Kids' Show: Care2 Member Speaks Out.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As we launched our new Dispatchs from the War on Women, we asked for story suggestions. This letter from Ed Farkas was interesting. The show has been on and off the air, but the experience of watching it with a ten-year-old is provocative. What do you think? There is a TV show called “Total Drama Island.” It is a cartoon show and may be related to so-called reality shows where a group of young adults is stranded on an island.
I was sitting with my grandson on a couple of occasions while he watched this show. After I saw portions of two episodes of this show, my wife and I issued a new rule for visits by the grandson: No TV! In the first show I saw, the cartoon characters were playing dodge ball. Then the show continued and one of the young women was hit repeatedly in the face. Then the young woman tries to smile as she limps away on the arm of a man. No one else was shown as injured, only the woman. But another man came running up and scared away the first man. Arizona De-Funds Planned Parenthood. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law HB 2800, a bill that strips funding from women’s health care provider Planned Parenthood. Despite the fact that the use of public funds for abortions is already restricted, this latest funding ban prohibits money from going to any health care providers that provide abortions at all, thereby insuring money doesn’t “indirectly” go toward supporting abortion services.
The funding cuts will impact approximately 20,000 women and will endanger other health services like preventative cancer screens and family planning services. Planned Parenthood is considering challenging the law after recently winning a temporary reprieve from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in an identical case in Texas. Related Stories: Federal Appeals Court Says Planned Parenthood Stays Funded While Suite Proceeds Arizona Senate Passes Planned Parenthood Funding Ban. War on Women Thwarts Earth Day Goals. By Diane MacEachern, Big Green Purse, Author, Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World The recent attacks on women’s access to safe and affordable contraception and other reproductive health options may not seem like they have much in common with the environment. But twenty years after the first Earth Summit occurred in Rio de Janeiro, a key obstacle to achieving sustainable development has emerged: global discrimination against women.
While researching a report on women and sustainability for the United Nations Development Programme, I was shocked at the degree to which gender discrimination in developed and developing nations alike prevents millions of women from leading more sustainable lives. Gender inequalities also prevent society as a whole from adopting widespread practices that would create a healthier environment. Here’s what I found: Women are more inclined than men to favor sustainability as a lifestyle choice. New Report Backs Bias As Cause For Pay Gap For Women. Contrary to some popular “wisdom” on women and the pay gap, women do ask for raises and promotions as often as men. They are just given less for their request then their male counterparts. The conclusion is just one drawn in The Myth of the Ideal Worker, a Catalyst report that looks studied gender issues in business.
The research focused on the career paths of high-potential men and women, sampling from thousands of MBA graduates from top schools across the globe and found that, among those who had moved on from their first post-MBA job there was no real difference in the proportion of women and men who asked for a raise or a promotion. That is, men and women were asking for raises and promotions at the same rate. They just weren’t receiving them at the same rate. Women who initiated the conversations about pay or promotions and changed jobs post MBA actually experienced slower compensation growth then the women who did not switch jobs. But for women, there is simply no catching up.
McCain: We Need To Let Go Of The Contraception Issue. Arizona Senator John McCain thinks that it’s time for the Republican party to get back to focusing on jobs. Speaking on Meet The Press, the former Republican presidential candidate says the party is coming off as “hostile to women,” and that they need to shift their attention if they want to win in 2012. It’s a noble calling, but it’s unfortunate that McCain doesn’t take his own advice. After all, he voted in favor of the Blunt Amendment that would let any employer opt out of contraceptive coverage — or any health care coverage he or she decided was “morally objectionable” — just a few weeks ago.
So what has caused this about-face? Likely, it’s the freedom of not being up for reelection in 2012. The same freedom that allows him to call this election the “nastiest” GOP nomination yet. Tennessee Wants To Publish Abortion Patient Information. Tennessee Republicans are pushing forward a bill in the state House of Representatives that would require the state to publish the names of each doctor who performs an abortion and detailed statistics about the woman having the procedure.
It’s a dangerous step toward an eradication of any privacy or doctor/patient confidentiality and one that can threaten the lives of both women and medical providers. The Life Defense Act of 2012 is sponsored by Rep. Matthew Hill (R-Jonesborough) and mandates that the Tennessee Department of Health make detailed demographic information about every woman who has an abortion available to the public.
The information that would be published includes her age, race, county, marital status, education level, number of children, the location of the procedure and how many times she has been pregnant. Each report would also identify the doctor who performed the procedure. Related Stories: Planned Parenthood Sues Tennessee To Restore Grant Funding/a> Health Care Discrimination Costs Women One Billion Dollars A Year [Video]
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next week over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. On the eve of those arguments, the National Women’s Law Center issued a report and video highlighting the gains for women under health care reform and the fact that discrimination in health care costs women over $1 billion a year. Thanks to health care reform over 20 million women with private insurance have received at least one preventative health care service without a co-pay or deductible; over 39 million women no longer face lifetime limits on coverage and approximately 2.5 million young adults gained health coverage because they can now stay on their parents’ plans longer.
Opponents of health care reform are trying to undo these gains and take away common-sense protections to literally millions of Americans. But we let them know that protecting women’s health care is critical to ensuring economic success for families all across this country. Related Stories: Dispatches From The War On Women: Is Monitored Menstruation Next?