By Ann • 16 years ago

Abortion access for female inmates in Missouri

In the ongoing legal battle over whether Missouri inmates have a right to access abortion services, an appeals court panel heard arguments this week as to whether the state is required to transport incarcerated women off-site to have an abortion.
As we’ve noted before Missouri usually has from 35 to 50 pregnant inmates in any given month and surveys of incarcerated women have shown that more than 83 percent have had a history of unplanned pregnancy.
RH Reality Check sums up nicely what’s at stake here:

For more than twenty years, courts have ruled that incarcerated women retain their abortion rights, and yet for all those twenty years, jails and prisons have continued to violate those rights. ...

In the ongoing legal battle over whether Missouri inmates have a right to access abortion services, an appeals court panel heard arguments this week as to whether the state is required to transport incarcerated women ...
By Ann • 16 years ago

On young feminists and the internets

On the most recent episode of PBS’s “To the Contrary,” the panelists discuss, “Feminism Interrupted: The new push to get more Generation Y women involved in feminism.”

Host Bonnie Erbe: Jane, is the internet now the primary tool that’s drawing young women into feminism?
Jane Hamsher (of Firedoglake): Oh I believe that it is. And I believe that’s largely due to the failure of many feminist institutions to reach out to young women in a real way. Organizations like NARAL have become insider and cliquish, and are making insider mistakes like endorsing Joe Lieberman, who said it was OK for a woman who had been raped to have to go across town to get emergency contraception.

I certainly agree that the ...

On the most recent episode of PBS’s “To the Contrary,” the panelists discuss, “Feminism Interrupted: The new push to get more Generation Y women involved in feminism.”

Host Bonnie Erbe: Jane, is the internet now the primary ...
By Ann • 16 years ago

Where’s the love for Bob Herbert?

Over at TAPPED, Dana responds to the charge that NYT columnist Bob Herbert is boring (as T.A. Frank recently argued in the Washington Monthly):

Part of the problem here is how we measure influence. […]
As for blogs, it’s no surprise that the DailyKos family doesn’t link to Herbert. The majority of male netroots bloggers have proven again and again that they have little interest in domestic social justice crusades centered around identity. The civil rights and women’s rights wings of the Democratic coalition are far less important to their worldview than “muscular progressivism” in foreign policy, a stance largely calibrated to win elections. That’s not a bad thing, but it doesn’t make for a movement particularly interested in ...

Over at TAPPED, Dana responds to the charge that NYT columnist Bob Herbert is boring (as T.A. Frank recently argued in the Washington Monthly):

Part of the problem here is how we measure influence. […]
As ...
By Ann • 16 years ago

Rally for the the Aurora Planned Parenthood clinic TODAY

Attention Chicago-area readers:

Pro-Choice Rally
Tuesday, Sept. 25 (TODAY) at 5pm
Aurora City Hall, 44 E. Downer Place

Planned Parenthood will be passing out signs and T-shirts. You just have to show up.
If you’re not local or can’t make the rally, PP Aurora has ideas on other actions to take:

Donate your time, email volunteer@ppca.org for more information. E-mail the Aurora City Council E-mail a Letter to the Editor Request a “This Family Supports Planned Parenthood” yard sign If you’re further away but would still like to be involved, please consider making a donation to support Planned Parenthood.

If you go and take pictures, send them along to Cara, who is collecting photos of the rally.
For more about ...

Attention Chicago-area readers:

Pro-Choice Rally
Tuesday, Sept. 25 (TODAY) at 5pm
Aurora City Hall, 44 E. Downer Place

Planned Parenthood will be passing out signs and T-shirts. You just have to show up.
If you’re not local or can’t ...
By Samhita • 16 years ago

Quick Hit: Suicide on the train tracks in Britain.

One third of the suicides that occurred in Great Britain in the last year seemed to have been committed on the train tracks. Importantly, the part of the tracks where the majority of these suicides are happening runs through West London is a predominantly Asian community.

“Suicide on the railway is a national issue and is a terrible tragedy for all involved, including crews. First Great Western has seen a number of suicides on the main line in an area west of London. Victims may come from the communities where lines run through,” a spokesperson for the train company was quoted as saying.
According to figures, 80 out of the 240 rail suicides last year were on the lines into Paddington, ...

One third of the suicides that occurred in Great Britain in the last year seemed to have been committed on the train tracks. Importantly, the part of the tracks where the majority of these suicides are happening ...
By Samhita • 16 years ago

Um, wow.

So I guess last weeks mass mobilization of activists to free the Jena six has some vocal opponents. Some really scary vocal opponents.

No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.
First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and “drag them out of the house,” prompting an investigation by the FBI.
Then the leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor ...

So I guess last weeks mass mobilization of activists to free the Jena six has some vocal opponents. Some really scary vocal opponents.

No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town ...
By Courtney • 16 years ago

Zahra al-Azzo: Martyr for Ending Honor Killing

It was nice to see the New York Times devoting so much real estate in the Sunday magazine to the ongoing practice of honor killing. Katherine Zoepf basically takes the case of Zahra al-Azzo, which has received quite a bit of publicity, and looks at how it might be the tipping point for really changing both the culture and the law in Arab countries, like Syria, where honor killing is still widely accepted. Though statistics are almost impossible to gather accurately, The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 5,000 women die every year as a result of honor killings.
Zahra’s case has been palpable to the public because it isn’t muddled by the hot button issues of female agency ...

It was nice to see the New York Times devoting so much real estate in the Sunday magazine to the ongoing practice of honor killing. Katherine Zoepf basically takes the case of Zahra al-Azzo, which has ...
By Jessica • 16 years ago

Come see me at George Mason

Hey folks, I’m in the DC area today to speak at the Fall for the Book Festival. The fabulous Women’s Studies program at George Mason brought me here, and I’m giving an open-to-the-public talk at 1:30.
The info is here if you’d like to stop by…

Hey folks, I’m in the DC area today to speak at the Fall for the Book Festival. The fabulous Women’s Studies program at George Mason brought me here, and I’m giving an open-to-the-public talk ...

Load More