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By trustwomen • 13 years ago

This Is Not Your Mother’s Reproductive Rights Movement

The pro-choice movement in the United States is at a critical crossroads. A new reproductive justice movement is emerging from the hardships endured by women in this country, one that will challenge the heated, sometimes violent suppression of women’s dignity and human rights. This year, more legislation to limit women’s access to abortion and to legally separate fetuses from the pregnant women who sustain them was introduced in state legislatures than ever before – over 350 bills. Less commonly known is the fact that these laws also undermine the rights and health of pregnant women who wish to continue their pregnancies. According to Amnesty International, the United States spends more than any other country on health care, yet women here have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy-related complications than women in 40 other countries. Poverty, geography, religion, politics all play a dominant role in determining who can and cannot get birth control, maternal health care and abortion services in the United States. Maternal care and abortion rights are intertwined–more than 60% of women who have abortions are already mothers. Despite this, a woman’s human rights–her right to make medical decisions, right to religious freedom, right to personal dignity are all increasingly taking a back seat to efforts to re-criminalize abortion. It’s harder to end a pregnancy than it was 20 years ago due to the barriers women must overcome and the fact that reproductive health clinics continue to close. In states across the U.S., ...

By trustwomen • 13 years ago

Stopping Anti-Choice Terrorism: Where Do We Go From Here?

Last week, anti-choice zealot and violence enthusiast Justin Carl Moose was arrested in North Carolina for providing information to create explosives designed to blow up an abortion clinic. Thankfully, he was caught before any harm was done to the clinic, staff, and patients, but if it wasn’t for Facebook, he might have gone unnoticed.

A week or two ago, I received what I thought was an innocent instant message: a friend asking for quick advice. Thinking it was going to be about roommate drama or boy issues, I said yes and expected to get back to my own work in a few minutes. What I didn’t anticipate was that my friend, who works at a prominent pro-choice organization, was dealing with ...

By trustwomen • 13 years ago

Red State Round-Up: Kansas

Written by Diane Wahto of Wichita, Kansas

Kansas liberals have their work cut out for them after a legislative session in which Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson vetoed bills that tightened abortion restrictions, denied federal family planning money intended for Planned Parenthood, and funneled money intended for Public Broadcasting to the Kansas Commission on Veterans Affairs. Additionally, conservatives have mounted a campaign to remove Kansas Supreme Court Justice Carol Bier from office and to change the way judges are selected.

These events take place against the backdrop of Dr. George Tiller’s murder a little more than a year ago and the pending prosecution by the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts of Dr. Ann Kris Neuhaus, the doctor who signed off on the documents ...

Written by Diane Wahto of Wichita, Kansas

By trustwomen • 13 years ago

Red State Round-Up: Oklahoma

Written by Kathleen Wallace, Attorney in Oklahoma City, OK, Crossposted

I. The Oklahoma Legislature Passes 8 Anti-Choice Bills in 2010

On May 28, 2010, the Oklahoma legislature adjourned for the session without overriding Governor Brad Henry’s veto of an abortion insurance bill. This was the only veto (of 4) that escaped over-ride. Among other things, the legislation would have banned insurers planning to participate in the new federal insurance exchange from offering abortion coverage. There were eight abortion restriction passed by the legislature this session.

Two of the most offensive bills were specifically targeted by our lobbying efforts: The ultrasound requirement (HB 2780) and the reporting requirements bills (HB 3284). The ultrasound requirement bill forces a woman seeking an abortion to ...

Written by Kathleen Wallace, Attorney in Oklahoma City, OK, Crossposted

I. The Oklahoma Legislature Passes 8 Anti-Choice Bills in 2010

On May 28, 2010, the Oklahoma legislature adjourned for the session without overriding Governor Brad Henry’s veto ...

By trustwomen • 13 years ago

Introducing the Red State Round-Up

As a pro-choice supporter, you’ve seen too often the wrath of the anti-choice movement on women’s rights in Midwestern and Southern states. These states have been an intense breeding ground for right-wing extremists. Women and families suffer the consequences of an anti-choice climate, as it undermines a woman’s individual rights.

Each week, Trust Women PAC will publish a “Red State Round Up” on our blog. We’ll highlight political races, proposed legislation and advocates’ work at the state-level in order to underscore the plight of some of our most politically fragile areas. In this part of the country, which is often referred to as “The Bible Belt,” the rights of women have been hard fought and all too often disregarded ...

By trustwomen • 13 years ago

Why Trust Women PAC?

For over 30 years, Dr. George Tiller and his dedicated staff kept the doors of Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita, Kansas open despite constant harassment from anti- choice activists and politicians and routine violence from anti-choice terrorists.

Two primary factors made this possible. The first was Dr. Tiller’s own immense personal courage and commitment, and that of his staff, to providing women and families with the best, most respectful medical care possible. The second was ProKanDo PAC, which Dr. Tiller founded in 2002, and which Julie Burkhart, its CEO and the doctor’s top political advisor, turned into the state’s largest, most powerful political action committee.

Together, in league with its supporters, ProKanDo built a targeted political machine in Kansas that recruited, trained, funded, and elected pro-choice candidates. ProKanDo ...

Two primary ...

By trustwomen • 14 years ago

What you can do about the Nebraska abortion ban that just passed

Today, in a blatant bid to shut down late-term provider Dr. Leroy Carhart, the Nebraska Legislature overwhelmingly passed a virtual ban on all abortions beyond 20 weeks. The so-called “Pain Capable Unborn Child Act,” LB 1103 does not only affect women and families from Nebraska. (Nor is it really about fetal pain, a concept that both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologist disavow as a possibility this early in fetal development.)
As Speaker Mike Flood, who introduced LB1103, and anti-choice organizations like National Right to Life have made clear, passing LB1103 in Nebraska is part of a calculated bid. The intention of its supporters is to bring an abortion rights challenge before the United ...

By trustwomen • 14 years ago

Dr. George Tiller Was A Hero

This past Thursday night Judge Warren Wilbert gave Scott Roeder the maximum sentence for murdering my mentor, Dr. George Tiller last May: life in prison with the possibility of parole after 50 years, when Roeder will be 102.

The "Hard 50," as it’s known in Kansas, is the right sentence. But Roeder spending his life in jail doesn’t stop the continuing acts of terrorism against providers and their staffs. It also doesn’t bring back one of the most compassionate, caring men I’ve ever known. I worked side by side with Dr. Tiller as his top political adviser for nearly a decade. The walls of his office were covered with thank you notes from the women and families who were grateful ...