From the Front Lines: A Warm Welcome in Charlotte
Last week, I went to Charlotte, North Carolina with Feminist Majority Foundation to help protect reproductive health providers from anti-abortion extremists Operation Rescue/Operation Save America during their national siege. This summer I’ve worked a great deal on with our NCAP project, and am following various anti-abortion organizations as part of my internship. Before this summer, I didn’t really know a lot about NCAP or the history of anti-abortion violence. I heard about the murder of Dr. George Tiller over a year ago, and that was about as much as I knew.
FMF’s National Clinic Access Project (NCAP) began shortly after FMF was founded and provides a great gamut of assistance to women’s health care providers targeted by anti-abortion extremists. Just to give you an idea of what we do – NCAP specializes in tracking anti-abortion extremists, works with federal, state and local law enforcement to protect abortion providers, provides grass-roots organizing support for clinics, recruits pro-bono legal help for clinics under siege, and even makes emergency grants to targeted clinics to improve security measures. So when the National Clinic Access Project heard Operation Rescue/Operation Save America announce a national siege of Charlotte-area abortion providers in July, NCAP immediately began to organize to protect the clinics, their workers, physicians and patients in advance of the OR/OSA week of harassment. Read the rest of this entry »
From the Front Lines: Charlotte, NC
Operation Rescue/Operation Save America has chosen Family Reproductive Health and other surrounding clinics in Charlotte, North Carolina as the focus of their 2010 clinic siege from July 17th to July 24th. Featuring the tagline “The King is Coming to the Queen City,” OR/OSA has put out the call that “God Himself is calling us to the battle. Join us in Charlotte, North Carolina this July 17-24, and let us storm the gates of hell together” (from their national event brochure).
The pressure has already begun. Starting in December, WANTED posters featuring the personal information, including home addresses, of two Charlotte doctors were handed out in their neighborhoods and at clinics. In the 1990’s, similar posters were seen before Dr. Gunn and Dr. Bayard Britton who were killed in Florida by anti-abortion extremists.
But we will keep Charlotte North Carolina the Queen’s city.
Since OR/OSA announced its plan for the Charlotte clinic Feminist Majority Foundation has been working with officials and community leaders in the local area to prepare for the oncoming siege. During the siege FMF will have a team of six, including their legal coordinator and Clinic Defense team, working to make sure that Charlotte clinics stay open and safe.
During the siege, an intern will be live tweeting and blogging from the front lines of the abortion battle using @feministcampus, @majorityspeaks, and @femmajority. Look for the hashtag #ClinicDef for the latest updates.
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Photo credit: respres on flickr.com
Urgent update about Mississippi clinic
We are writing to update you on the day to day struggle to keep the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, open and its doctors and workers safe. We are making progress, but we still need your help.
Last week, we told you of the imperative need to improve the clinic’s security system to help prevent invasions – the clinic had just been invaded by a anti-abortion extremist who got as far as the waiting room before being stopped. That won’t happen again.
Thanks to the generosity of many of you, we were able to fund improvements to clinics security system to stop hostile intruders. Believe me the clinic administrators, staff, and doctors are very grateful. But we must do more.
Help free Iranian feminists
Iran steps up arrests of women’s rights and human rights activists. This past weekend, on the one year anniversary of the disputed June 2009 elections, Narges Mohammadi, a feminist and vice-president for Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi’s human rights organization, was arrested. No information is known about where she is being held or the charges against her. Read the rest of this entry »
URGENT: Mississippi Clinic Threatened
Two weeks ago, an anti-abortion extremist invaded the waiting room of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Jackson, Mississippi. Law enforcement authorities were not only slow to respond when called, but once on site, chose only to talk with the aggressor instead of filing a police report. This is the only abortion provider in the entire state of Mississippi. Extremists are trying to shut down this vital women’s clinic. This clinic and its doctors need our help now. Read the rest of this entry »
Day Three: Live-Blogging Women Deliver!
It’s Day 3 of the three-day international conference Women Deliver 2010 in Washington, D.C., and Ms. Bloggers are still on the scene. The conference intends to hammer home the point that maternal and reproductive health is a global priority.
Want to do something to help? You can click here to urge President Obama to keep the U.S.’s promise to ensure women everywhere universal access to reproductive-health services, family planning, and basic education by 2015. Read the rest of this entry »
Day Two of Women Deliver: Ellie Smeal, Rachel Leigh Cook, Ali Larter
At Day 2 of the three-day international conference Women Deliver 2010 in Washington, D.C., Ms. Bloggers are there on the scene. The conference intends to hammer home the point that maternal and reproductive health is a global priority.
Want to do something to help? You can click here to urge President Obama to keep the U.S.’s promise to ensure women everywhere universal access to reproductive-health services, family planning, and basic education by 2015. Read the rest of this entry »
Day One of Women Deliver: Melinda Gates, Ban-Ki Moon, Hillary Clinton
The three-day international conference Women Deliver 2010 opened in Washington, D.C., Monday morning, and the Ms. Blog was there on the scene. The conference intends to hammer home the point that maternal and reproductive health is a global priority.
Want to do something to help? You can click here to urge President Obama to keep the U.S.’s promise to ensure women everywhere universal access to reproductive-health services, family planning, and basic education by 2015. Read the rest of this entry »
Sneak Peek at the new Spring Ms.: 5 of the 25 Gains for Women in the Health-Care Bill
By Eleanor Smeal, Ms. publisher
Feminists didn’t get everything we wanted in the historic health-insurance reform package passed in March: The lack of a public option and limits on abortion coverage were the most glaring setbacks, and a single-payer system wasn’t even considered. But bottom line, an additional 32 million Americans will gain health-care coverage—meaning that the vast majority in the U.S., some 95 percent, will be covered.
Considering the hundreds of millions spent by the health-insurance industry in federal lobbying, the intransigence of the Republican bloc in Congress and the lack of a pro-choice majority in either house, it’s a wonder that anything was achieved, let alone historic gains for millions of people, especially women.
For years, insurance companies denied discrimination against women and/or put forth bogus claims to justify it. With the passage of this reform package, the beginning of the end of health-insurance sex discrimination, in both benefits and pricing, is at hand. One attribute, for sure, of the women’s movement—we don’t take no for an answer when it comes to obtaining women’s equality. And we never give up or give in.
Here are 5 gains we can cheer:
1. The legislation essentially contains a “Title IX” for women. It states that, with a few exceptions, an individual cannot “be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any health program or activity, any part of which is receiving federal financial assistance.”
2. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “No longer will being a woman be considered a pre-existing condition.” Gender rating—charging women more than men for health insurance—is eliminated for individuals plans and for employer plans covering fewer than 100 employees. Today, in most states, women with individual plans pay as much as 48 percent higher premiums than men for the same coverage.
3. The legislation requires that insurers provide maternity coverage; currently, about 80 percent of individual insurance policies do not.
4. Companies with more than 50 employees must also provide breastfeeding mothers reasonable break time and a room to express milk.
5. The act funds support services for, and education and research on, postpartum depression.
6. … To find out the rest, you’ll need to get the new issue of Ms. on newsstands May 25—or direct to your door by becoming a Ms. Member!
Ms. Blog: 
Racialicious: 
Girl With Pen: 
Feminist Law Professors: 
Majority Speaks 