Crist Pulls Through for Florida Women

A woman's right to choose without stipulations prevailed in Florida when on Friday June 11, Governor Charlie Crist vetoed HB 1143. Proposed and passed in the Florida state legislature by an overwhelming amount of House Republicans, the bill would have required women seeking a first-trimester abortion to pay for an ultrasound exam that ranges in cost from $200 to $1000. Upon receiving the ultrasound, the patient would then be required to view the ultrasound and listen to her doctor describe the fetus.

Had the unnecessary legislation been passed, women would have faced excessively intrusive government intervention when making a personal decision that is constitutionally protected. The keyword being personal. As a dissenter of HB1143, I personally detested the bill for a variety of reasons, including because I believe it cruelly intended to afflict an emotional burden on women during their most fragile moments. On a personal level, I am a Florida resident and I have feared how much the bill could have potentially affected my future reproductive decisions and the choices of my fellow Floridians, including my family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and classmates.

Despite criticisms from Marco Rubio, his conservative opponent for Florida Senate, who slammed Crist for "[putting] politics ahead of principled policy-making," Crist expressed that he could not pass a bill that "would violate a woman's right to privacy." Some Crist cynics claimed he signed the bill to sway voters in the fall 2010 Senate election.

Regardless of his potential political intentions, I am proud of Charlie Crist for ignoring criticisms from Republicans and coercing from anti abortion groups. While reading his veto memo, I deduced that Crist just "gets it" when it comes to the constitutionality of a woman's right to choose. He seems to understand that the right to choose is more than a feminist issue, a women's issue or a political platform; it is essential to preserving the sanctity of the constitutionally ensured right to privacy.

Photo credit to: freddthompson on flickr.com

Fight Back Against Stupak

Letter from Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal. Keep checking back to our blog for more steps you can take.

Dear feminist activists,

The last 4 days have been an emotional roller coaster! We have fought and continue to fight the hideous Bart Stupak (D-MI)/Joe Pitts (R-PA) Amendment to the House of Representative's Affordable Health Care for America Act. This amendment virtually bans abortion coverage for both the public option and private plans in the to-be-created national health insurance exchange. Women would not even be able to purchase coverage with their own dollars. We lost round one, but this fight is far from over.

We must make it loud and clear to Congress that the Stupak Amendment is not acceptable and must not be used to derail critically needed health care reform.

How quickly joy can turn to outrage.

Women should have had a lot to cheer about Saturday night when the House passed the historic Affordable Health Care Act. Among other major reforms in health insurance, it would eliminate "gender rating" in insurance pricing and unequal taxation of domestic partner benefits, ban discrimination based on preexisting conditions, eliminate exclusion of maternity coverage, stop the practice of dropping or capping coverage for sick people, and extend coverage to 96% of uninsured people.

But our celebration turned to outrage because of the horrific Stupak amendment.

This amendment is a deplorable denial of choice to women, dictated behind the scenes by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and their army of lobbyists. Millions of poor and middle-class women would be denied abortion coverage and millions more would lose the coverage they already have, since 85 percent of private plans now cover abortion. Far from being abortion-neutral, the Stupak amendment is a giant step backward for women's right to choose. It's unacceptable. Let your Senators and members of Congress know.

We are not alone in this fight. Already, more than 40 members of the House, led by Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO), have signed a pledge that they will not vote yes on final passage of the Act if Stupak is not stripped from the bill. Now, as the legislation proceeds to the Senate, Senators and more Representatives must join us in the fight. Every Republican member of the House, except one, and 64 Democrats voted for the Stupak amendment. We must tell them we deplore their opposition to women's rights, obstruction of health reform, and negative politics.

This amendment can be stripped from the Act in conference committee and is currently not on the Senate Act. We can win.

We must stop vitally needed federal legislation from being used as a vehicle to cut back reproductive rights. Young women's lives cannot continue to be a political football. We must free this historic Act of abortion politics--and then we can really celebrate.

For Women's Lives,

Eleanor Smeal
President
Feminist Majority

Criminalizing abortion doesn't decrease numbers!

Remember when I told you that the level of a country’s women’s health care directly correlates to its feminist movement (yet another handy factoid learned at the Feminist Majority’s Women, Money, Power Summit?) Well, it seems as if our panelists were onto something because the theme proves true yet again.

For quite some time, the Guttmacher Institute has been researching the relation in a country's abortion rights and its number of abortions.

This week, the results were set. The data showed that the legal status doesn’t change numbers; roughly the same amount of women was getting the procedure under both liberal and heavy restrictions. The big variable was women's access to contraception and family planning.

So, giving women the tools to decide when and if they want children affects the number of unwanted pregnancies. Funny how it works out like that, huh?!?

This is not to say that the legal status of abortion doesn’t change anything. We have seen time and time again those countries with heavy abortion restrictions (40% of the world’s women!) tend to be developing countries, where illegal and unsafe abortions aren’t hard to find, but the difference in the care and health of the woman before and after the procedure is immense.

Because women try to seek alternatives through unsafe abortions, 700,000 deaths occur each year. Also, consider the other five million who are left with medical complications after the fact.

The Guttmacher Institute walks out from their research with three areas of improvement: increased access to modern family planning, access to legal and safe abortions and access to post-abortion care.

photo credits: willem_velthoven from flickr.com

Health Care Gurus Give Us the Info!

Did you know that a country’s level of women’s health care correlates to the strength of its feminist movement? The Feminst Majority brought home the correlation between health care, feminism, money and power with their first-ever Women, Money, Power Summit, which screamed from rooftops that HEALTH CARE REFORM IS A WOMEN’S ISSUE AND THAT WOMEN’S RIGHTS CANNOT BE USED AS A TOOL TO UNDERMINE CHANGE!

At the interactive workshop, “Impact of Health Insurance Reform on Women,” four gurus of health insurance reform (Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, Cynthia Pearson, Judy Waxman and Susan Wood, Ph.D.) were called in to answer all of our burning questions. Here’s a run-down on some of the topics they discussed.

**One of the highest insurance cost drivers is women's chronic diseases (examples: heart disease, diabetes, cancers, etc…)

**Preventative care (taking care of an ailment before it gets out of hand and lifestyle changes such as healthy eating and exercise) does pay off. Women who do not have primary care physicians (with poverty being a large determinant) miss out on these preventative measures, and then go the emergency room when dire (and more expensive) conditions arise.

**A chief complaint among women is that “health insurance doesn’t care about/ is ignoring” them (especially with examples like gender biases on premiums, lifetime caps and some plans listing cesarean sections/domestic violence as “pre-existing conditions.”)

**The Capp’s Compromise will not fund elective abortion from federal Treasury accounts. The public option would be based on any other health insurance, where premiums are paid to the insurance company, not directly to the government. As an insurance provider, it must abide by the Hyde Amendment, which states that if an insurance company should choose to include abortion services in their benefit plan, they are prohibited from using federal subsidies to cover them. (It was mentioned in the panel that insurance companies often lean towards pro-reproductive rights, as birth control, the morning after pill and the abortion pill are all much cheaper than pregnancy.)

**One of the best ways to make sure the demands of women will be included in the health care reform is to voice your opinion (remember: if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu!). Getting involved with community organizations like Raising Women’s Voices is a great way to ensure things like stronger public health measures, healthcare that covers a full life-span, affordability, and equal payment plans pass. When a cause is personalized, the public relates better.

According to the National Women’s Law Center, 76% of women said “our current health care system should be reformed or radically changed.” You are not alone. Check out some of these websites to learn more and add your voice to the movement:

Feminst Majority Health Care Reform

Raising Women's Voices: Four Simple Actions You Can Take for Health Reform that Meets the Needs of Women and Families

Raising Women's Voices: From Our Kitchen Table: What Women Want (The Health Reform Edition)

Reform Matters

The Kaiser Foundation

photo credits: bortove from flickr.com

(from ACT UP, circa 1969)

IVAWA: A Human Rights Issue

The International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) was among various pieces of legislation that was discussed during the Feminist Majority’s Women, Money and Power Summit.

IVAWA seeks to address violence against women by creating an “Office for Women’s Global Initiatives,” which would be overseen by a Senate-confirmed Ambassador who reports directly to the Secretary of State. Additionally, IVAWA would create a five year strategy to prevent and respond to violence against women in ten to twenty targeted countries. It would also provide $175 million yearly budget that combats violence against women by focusing on the criminal justice system, health care, access to education for girls, economic empowerment, and public awareness campaigns. The last major initiative that IVAWA addresses is rape as a war tactic. IVAWA mandates training, reporting procedures and other measures for those working with refugees.

It is apparent that IVAWA is not just a woman’s rights issue, but it is also a human rights issue. What is less obvious, although equally important to IVAWA, are the security issues that it attempts to address. War ravaged or conflict-ridden societies are indicative of increased levels of violence, which can leave women vulnerable to violence and displacement. Without legislation such as this that addresses the needs of women, economic development in these countries is difficult to sustain. Without economic development various societies cannot become stabilized nations.

Knowledge is Power: theme proves true worldwide

The first day of Feminist Majority’s Women, Money and Power Summit came to a mind-blowing end at The General Assembly on Women and Power. With moderator Amy Brenneman (long-time activist, but also known for roles on “Judging Amy,” and “Private Practice,”) FM’s president Ellie Smeal, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and three Afghan women scholars; the room was filled with such courage and life experience. A somewhat chatty person like myself couldn’t help but leave speechless.

The point was clear as day: Women’s rights should be assumed, just like any other human right. These rights are not only essential to the individual woman’s quality of life, but also a country’s development. As Amy Brenneman expressed: the more a country utilizes 50% of its population, the better (for areas of economics, ecology, education, security, community development, etc…) Above all, the birth place of a woman should not determine her rights or safety.

FM then personalized these ideas with the case study of Afghanistan. Between Amy, Ellie and the three scholars (each who had lived in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, but moved to the United States for the right to education,) personal stories were shared. Stories of both passive resistance, like teachers taking class attendance and then dismissing the girls, of aggressive resistance, like protesters throwing acid at young women on their way to school: No matter the circumstance, each time, the Afghan women would keep returning, keep pushing on. One Afghan scholar told us that when she was kept back from school, because of the Taliban, she begged and pleaded with people to secretly teach her. When that fell through, she trained herself through old textbooks. Each of the three expressed a yearning to go back or work towards a better Afghanistan, either through teaching, politics or medicine. The stories were harsh, but the courage and the passion these girls have is so beautiful.

Congresswoman Sanchez reiterated this message of global solidarity by showing that women’s safety is one of her great priorities, particularly human-trafficking (something that is so often brushed under the rug for later.) Sanchez also pushes other females on the hill to dive deeper on global relations, leading trips of newer employees to conflict areas like Iraq so that they can have a realistic perspective when voting.

All in all, Ellie Smeal said, we must do everything within our means: we cannot abandon our Afghan/ global sisters.

After this panel, I can’t help, but want to divide into two: one person to go to the hill to speak out, one to go the library to absorb all like a sponge.

photo credits: United Nations Photo from flickr.com