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By on-the-issues-magazine • 10 years ago

Forty-three years later, I am still on the front Lines

By Merle Hoffman, CEO of Choices Clinic and Editor in Chief of On The Issues Magazine.

It has been 43 years since I founded one the first legal abortion clinic in the country—2 years before Roe v. Wade.

It has been twenty-five years since I organized the first pro-choice civil disobedience. It was 1989 and Operation Rescue was riding high, defying court orders and blocking clinic entrances, racking up eight hundred arrests in New York, New Orleans, and Cincinnati. Anti-abortion restrictions were working their way up to the Supreme Court.
By on-the-issues-magazine • 11 years ago

“She Had a Heartbeat Too”: The Tragic Death of Savita Halappanavar in an Irish Hospital

Cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

By Ann Rossiter, On the Issues Special Correspondent in Dublin, Ireland.

A 17-weeks pregnant woman with severe back pain is admitted to a hospital in the west of Ireland. After an examination, she is told that her cervix is fully dilated; her amniotic fluid leaking. Her immature fetus will not survive. This is made clear to her. She is also told that once she miscarries her ordeal will be over and she can return home. But this never happens. A spontaneous abortion does not occur in the four or five hours predicted by the consultant gynecologist. The woman and her husband are informed that because the fetal heartbeat is still present, no intervention is possible. In ...

Cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

By Ann Rossiter, On the Issues Special Correspondent in Dublin, Ireland.

A 17-weeks pregnant woman with severe back pain is admitted to a hospital in the west of Ireland. After an examination, she ...
By on-the-issues-magazine • 11 years ago

“Jollywood,” Afghanistan – Teenage Girls Create And Perform Their First Play

By Sahar Muradi, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

In eastern Afghanistan under the glow of an April sun and the sweet scent of orange blossoms, a small revolution begins. Six young women, ranging in age from 13 to 19, huddle in the basement office of a local civil society organization and brainstorm ideas for a play by women about women — and for women.

Just a week earlier, they had taken their first theater workshop ever.

Welcome to Jalalabad, otherwise known as Jollywood. This is the home of Afghanistan’s burgeoning film industry. The myriad DVD shops downtown display titles such as “The Tailor’s Story,” “Faith,” — and “Talk Show,” starring local Afghan men and just-over-the-border Pakistani women.

This is also the ...

By Sahar Muradi, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

In eastern Afghanistan under the glow of an April sun and the sweet scent of orange blossoms, a small revolution begins. Six young women, ranging in age ...
By on-the-issues-magazine • 11 years ago

Silos no more: Shaping alliances for reproductive justice

By Susan Yanow, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

Every four years, reproductive justice advocates mobilize to support the presidential candidate who we hope will protect and advance our rights. Election after election, we are unable to hold those we elect accountable for promises made, and fail to achieve the gains that we need for women to exercise their full reproductive and human rights.

This year, we must work differently.

We must give up old messages that no longer resonate, move out of our organizational silos and build new alliances. We must develop an aspirational vision that includes all women and the complexities of their choices to continue or end a pregnancy, and stop compromising for the sake of political expediency. ...

By Susan Yanow, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

Every four years, reproductive justice advocates mobilize to support the presidential candidate who we hope will protect and advance our rights. Election after election, we are unable ...
By on-the-issues-magazine • 11 years ago

A crowdfunding primer: Feminist media producers engage a community of backers

By Ariel Dougherty, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

“This is what feminism looks like,” shout young women in a contemporary street demonstration in the “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” video clip on the Kickstarter crowdfunding website. Film directors/producers Mary Dore and Nancy Kennedy are in the middle of a campaign, which started October 24th and ends November 28th, to raise $75,000 towards completion funds for their documentary. It is a history of the women’s movement in the late 60s, but with ties to many of the same vital issues today. “It’s a film about activism and how when people band together they can change the world. And these women did that,” explains Dore in the video clip.

A ...

By Ariel Dougherty, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

“This is what feminism looks like,” shout young women in a contemporary street demonstration in the “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” video clip on the Kickstarter ...
By on-the-issues-magazine • 11 years ago

Victims of gender violence find solutions slipping away

By Juhu Thukral, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

What will the next president mean for the way we live and pursue safety in our daily lives? For most women, fear and apprehension of assault or domestic violence is pervasive. We all know someone who has been raped or battered, or maybe it’s happened to us: living with and negotiating the fear is a part of the daily lives of most women.

I saw a particularly ugly manifestation of gender violence when I worked with survivors of human trafficking. A common way for traffickers to lure young women into sex work against their will is to first pose as their attentive boyfriend. Once the woman is hooked, the trafficker rapes her ...

By Juhu Thukral, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

What will the next president mean for the way we live and pursue safety in our daily lives? For most women, fear and apprehension of assault or domestic ...
By on-the-issues-magazine • 11 years ago

Shulamith Firestone and Me

By Jennifer Baumgardner, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

Almost 15 years ago, I picked up my ringing phone and the voice on the other end identified herself as Shulamith Firestone. I almost dropped the receiver.

Second wave feminism had many iterations and reverberations. As readers of On The Issues Magazine no doubt know, some women, like Betty Friedan and Helen Gurley Brown, claimed space for women in previously male activities and institutions.  But the activists and thinkers who actually created the Women’s Liberation Movement didn’t want what men had; they wanted freedom from patriarchal, woman-hating culture with its pre-programmed roles and compliance with our biological destiny.

Shulamith Firestone was, briefly, the most significant producer of radical feminist theory and organizing. Between ...

By Jennifer Baumgardner, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

Almost 15 years ago, I picked up my ringing phone and the voice on the other end identified herself as Shulamith Firestone. I almost dropped the receiver.

Second wave ...
By on-the-issues-magazine • 11 years ago

In Egypt’s crisis, standing up against sexual abuse

By Chris Lombardi, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

This weekend, Egyptian voters went to the polls despite what many were calling a ‘constitutional coup.’ On June 14, the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the Parliament dissolved, three days before the scheduled presidential runoff between Mohammed Shafiq, an associate of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak, and Ahmed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood — already regarded as a Hobson’s choice by Egyptian feminists and pro-democracy activists.  By Sunday night, two things had happened: Morsi was declared the victor, and the military government issued a charter which reserved to the military the power to control the prime minister, lawmaking, the national budget and declarations of war. Left far behind: what did this all mean ...

By Chris Lombardi, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine.

This weekend, Egyptian voters went to the polls despite what many were calling a ‘constitutional coup.’ On June 14, the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the Parliament dissolved, three ...

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