Today an uncountable number of women and men are participating in the One Billion Rising V-Day Movement, a women’s rights effort organized to highlight the fact that violence against women persists to a saddening degree. Playwright Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) has called for a revolution today and passionate people worldwide have responded. Flash mobs and interpretive dances abound, choreographed to original... [Read More]
In 2012, getting pregnant can still cost you your job. Thanks to a gap courts have opened between discrimination and disability laws, employers in other states are refusing to accommodate even simple requests that help workers maintain a healthy pregnancy. For example, thanks to the pregnancy loophole, a retail sales associate in Salina, Kansas was fired for drinking water while working because it violated store policy. ... [Read More]
On March 24, 2011 Governor Brown signed several budget bills, enacting severe cuts and major policy changes to health care and human services programs. Cuts to these programs comprise over 52% of the total proposed spending reductions, and have direct and devastating consequences for women as workers, mothers, patients and health care providers of last resort for dependent children and elderly parents. Cuts to Human Services Aid... [Read More]
HR217 would amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from providing any federal family planning assistance to any entity unless that entity certifies that it will not perform abortions or provide funds to any other entity that performs abortions. Sponsored by Mike Pence (R-IN), the bill would eliminate needed medical services for millions of women who use family... [Read More]
H.R.3 – No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act H.R.3, if passed into law, would require that “No funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law, shall be expended for any abortion.” Further, it would allow for an exemption only “if the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of an act... [Read More]
H.R.1 proposes appropriations for the Department of Defense and other departments and agencies of the federal government for fiscal year ending September 30, 2011. Introduced by Harold Rogers (R-KY), the bill is currently being debated by committee in the House of Representatives. This bill would eliminate many essential programs, including the nation’s family planning program, Title IX, a program which has provided... [Read More]