The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights

[Okiebug61]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04...-memorial-day/

[Toughy]

Some might say this article belongs in a different thread, however I think there is a correlation.

http://start.toshiba.com/news/recomm...7bb2e3c9fb36be

Most US States Are Ignoring The World's Fastest Growing Criminal Enterprise

Eric Goldschein
February 3, 2012

Business Insider

Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world—but you wouldn't know it based on the laws in most U.S. states.

By CIA estimates, there are 45,000-50,000 victims of sex slavery and trafficking each year in the U.S. alone.

City and state involvement are seen as critical in stopping the crime, around half of which is organized by local pimps, according to a study several years ago by the Justice Department.

Yet despite a call to action by the Department of Defense, and President Obama naming January "National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month," most states remain woefully behind in their response to the problem. <snip>

and this outlines state laws:

http://www.sharedhope.org/WhatWeDo/B...iative.aspx#nv

[Kobi]

“‘Arrest Grandma’ Act Would Insert Government into Difficult Family Decisions”


We all know families that have experienced difficult situations.

When a young woman faces an unintended pregnancy, she will have to make one of the most difficult and personal decisions of her life. Fortunately, the majority of young women do turn to their parents for support during these tough times.

But what about young women who aren’t able to turn to their parents? Some teens come from homes where there’s abuse or violence.

It’s important that a young woman in this situation be able to turn to another responsible adult for support—say, a loving grandparent, close aunt, or trusted clergy member.

The last thing anyone—whether pro-choice or not—should want is a young woman being forced to make this decision alone, with no support at all. Above all, our communities’ first priority should be to keep our teens safe, not isolated and scared.

That’s why a bill moving through the U.S. House of Representatives is so deeply troubling.

The bill’s backers call it the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). We call it the “Arrest Grandma” Act because of what it would do.

The “Arrest Grandma” Act would make it a federal crime for anyone other than a parent—such as a loving grandmother, aunt, or clergy member—to accompany a young woman to another state for abortion care. It also would force doctors to learn and enforce 9 other states’ parental-involvement laws—under the threat of fines and prison sentences.

Is it really the role of government to inject itself into difficult family situations? I don’t think so.

Last month, the Very Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale spoke out against the bill in a House committee hearing.

She told the story of one young woman who came from a home where she feared abuse and was pregnant as the result of rape. The young woman chose to seek abortion care, but was unable to turn to her parents for support. Rev. Ragsdale was there to offer counsel and support so that she would not have to face her decision alone.

Under the “Arrest Grandma” Act, young women in similar situations could find themselves unable to turn to any trusted adult.

“Please don’t outlaw the very help we want our children to have,” Rev. Ragsdale pleaded.

We all care about young women’s wellbeing and safety. Think of your daughters, sisters, friends, or neighbors. If a young woman in your life was desperate for your help, you wouldn’t turn her away.

Government has no business forcing itself into difficult family decisions. Threatening caring grandmothers and clergy members with jail time does nothing to help young women in dire situations. It only puts their health and safety in further danger. And that’s exactly what the “Arrest Grandma” Act would do.

Our elected representatives should stop pushing this dangerous bill. Please contact your lawmakers and urge them to oppose this bill.

http://blog.latinovations.com/2012/0...ily-decisions/

[Apocalipstic]

Is is frightening how quickly the rights of women are being eroded.

It makes me relieved not to have a uterus.

[Kobi]

CONCORD, N.H.—Activist Ellen Kolb remembers epic losses in the New Hampshire House over the past three decades in trying to win limits on abortions for adults, but this year she has not one, but five major reasons to celebrate.

This year for the first time, the New Hampshire chamber -- known for its staunch defense of abortion rights over the decades -- has passed bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks, ban so- called "partial-birth" abortions, and require a 24-hour waiting period for abortions. Lawmakers also banned government funding to any health provider performing elective abortions and allowed employers to not provide contraceptive coverage such as the morning-after pill, considered by some to be chemical abortion because it ends a possible pregnancy.

The House also has passed bills to study how to collect abortion statistics and to give judges more time to rule in cases where pregnant minors don't want to notify their parents before getting an abortion. Another bill would include the death of a fetus in the murder statutes.

Kolb, legislative affairs director of Cornerstone Action, says while persistence
paid off, she doesn't expect all the bills to survive the Senate or a possible gubernatorial veto. Most of the bills did not pass the House with enough support to ensure a veto override.

The voting balance could shift in the next election just as it shifted in her favor in 2010.

"If it is something very close in votes, it is something that can go back and forth," she said.

New Hampshire's House has thwarted dozens of efforts to pass similar legislation since Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. New Hampshire had no laws regulating abortion on its books from 1997 to 2003 after abortion rights supporters succeeded in repealing three 1848 criminal abortion laws under then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, and a more moderate Republican Legislature. The state has consistently had agency rules in place banning most publicly funded abortions for poor women.

The one exception made by the House over the years was enactment -- under a Republican governor and Legislature -- of a parental notification law for minors in 2003. The measure was never implemented and was later repealed by Democrats.

Republicans overrode Democratic Gov. John Lynch's veto of a similar notification law last year and it took effect in January. Lynch, who supports abortion rights, has not said if he would veto the latest bills.

Kolb remembers the first time the Legislature passed a bill to repeal the 1848 criminal abortion laws under former Republican Gov. Judd Gregg, who had been unclear on his position. Gregg vetoed bills to repeal the laws in 1989, 1990 and 1992.

"That was a shock to me," Kolb said.

Gregg also vetoed legislation in 1990 to allow abortions after the Roe v. Wade decision. That fight was so emotional that one of the sponsors was told she no longer was welcome at the church where she was baptized and married.

The vetoes did not stop a prominent Republican state representative and member of the National Abortion Rights Action League's national board from endorsing Gregg's re-election over a pro-abortion rights Democrat.

Laura Thibault, interim executive director of the local NARAL Pro-Choice America group, believes women's rights were not as threatened then as they are now. She said what has happened this year caught many by surprise.

"I think for a lot of people, the issue of reproductive rights is one they think is safe," she said.

At a Senate hearing Thursday on four of the bills, 83-year-old former state Rep. Hilda Sokol pleaded with senators not to return to a time of back-alley abortions.

"After 50 years of having had the right to make decisions about having children, I'm disturbed at the backlash," she said.

Abortion-rights activists credit Republican House Speaker William O'Brien with the turnaround in the House by helping elect enough conservative Republicans opposed to abortion. Usually a speaker only votes to change the outcome of a bill, but O'Brien has voted for abortion bills from the speaker's podium. His efforts also led to passage of the bill to block funding to hospitals and other health providers offering elective abortions despite a House committee's recommendation that it be killed.

O'Brien, who calls abortion repugnant, declined a request for an interview on the issue.

"This group of Republicans ran on jobs and the economy and as we have seen on their focus on a social agenda, they really swindled the voters. I think there are some people out there happy with it but that is a small group," said House Democratic Leader Terie Norelli, a former NARAL board member.

Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said state polls have shown for years that New Hampshire has consistently supported abortion rights. While Smith believes pocketbook issues will be the issue voters look to in making candidate decisions in November, Democrats could use the House's action to fire up supporters.

Abortion-rights activists hope to capitalize on rising anger among women who feel their rights are being threatened, said Jennifer Frizzell, senior policy adviser for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Her organization has gotten perhaps 5,000 calls from people offering to help over the past six months, she said.

"I think women up and down the ballot will determine the outcome of the election (in 2012)," she said.

At Thursday's hearing, Sokol, part of a new group called Seniors Defending Women's Health, gave the Senate committee a petition signed by 100 people opposing the bills.

And Lisa Gerrish, a consultant from Bow, says she felt tricked by the House over how it presented the bills as improvements to women's health instead of limiting their rights. She has begun working against their passage instead of just complaining and said it's time for women to be angry "and let people
know."

Kolb says her side is ready and remains committed to keep fighting for a society where abortion is unthinkable.

"This is not going away anytime soon," she said.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new...ons/?page=full

[Kobi]

It could be the latest front in the so-called war on women.

On Tuesday, the Tennessee state senate passed legislation that extends murder and assault laws to cover the early stages of pregnancy: before six weeks, when the fetus is still technically considered an embryo. Supporters say the measure is to ensure that additional charges can be brought against someone who harms a pregnant woman.

But some worry that the law lays a legal foundation that could, if extended to its logical conclusion, eventually be used to ban abortion — and, as highlighted in the New York Times Magazine this week, would considerably limit the rights of women in the process.

Criminal charges are now being brought against women in Alabama for “chemical endangerment of a child” which has been utilized to penalize mothers who use drugs during their pregnancy and has a mandatory sentence of 10 years to life (if the baby dies). Since the 2006 enactment of the statute, 60 new mothers in the state have been prosecuted. But now, groups like Planned Parenthood, the A.C.L.U. and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are taking an interest in whether the law sets a dangerous precedent.

Originally enacted to protect children from meth labs, the law prohibits a “responsible person” from:

“exposing a child to an environment in which he or she…knowingly, recklessly or intentionally causes or permits a child to be exposed to, to ingest or inhale, or to have contact with a controlled substance, chemical substance or drug paraphernalia.”

But using the law to target pregnant women for drug use is criminalizing a health concern, an issue that was also argued this week before British legislators by comedian Russell Brand.

As Dr. Deborah Frank, a pediatrician and director of Boston Medical Center’s Grow Clinic for Children, said to the Times magazine, “to simplify a complex medical and psychological issue into a criminal issue is really just like using a hammer to play the piano.” The law could scare pregnant drug users away from getting treatment for their addiction and perhaps push them to have abortions, rather than receive severe legal punishment for their use.

Although the chemical-endangerment law seems unique to Alabama, the law would lend considerable support to the “fetal personhood” argument. Keith Mason, founder of Personhood USA, which seeks to establish a fetus’s right to live as equal to that of the mother’s, told the Times that personhood is the “rallying point” for the anti-abortion movement because it is the “crux of the issue.” Attempts to define fetuses as persons have failed in any state in which they have been introduced, but Mason believes the chemical-endangerment law, and laws like it, could get the anti-abortion movement where it wants to go.

But Emma Ketteringham, the director of legal advocacy at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, said that applying the chemical-endangerment law to pregnant women violates constitutional guarantees of liberty, privacy, equality, due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. “It starts with the use of an illegal drug, but what happens as a consequence of that precedent is that everything a women does whiles she’s pregnant becomes subject to state regulation,” she said, adding that the chemical-endangerment law is essentially a “personhood measure in disguise.”

“We can value the unborn as a matter of religion, ethics, or experience,” Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, told the Times. “But we can’t do that as a matter of law, and still value pregnant women.”



Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/26/...#ixzz1tDGH7sWl

[Toughy]

I thought Roe v Wade was very clear. During the first 20 weeks abortion is a right.....period. The states cannot make abortion in the first 20 weeks illegal.

Has menopause ruined my brain for real????

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I thought Roe v Wade was very clear. During the first 20 weeks abortion is a right.....period. The states cannot make abortion in the first 20 weeks illegal.

Has menopause ruined my brain for real????

Roe vs Wade is very clear about the first 20 weeks.

This is not stopping the GOP agenda to circumvent it and undermine it using whatever means might work.

Let's hope women will harness their voting power in the upcoming election and stop the nonsense.

Your brain is fine. It is the uterus they seem to have a problem with.