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WOMEN'S ISSUES

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 4 months ago

Hi Women,

 It’s not every day that you’re going to receive an email like this. I’m offering you a rare opportunity to strut your stuff AND support your sisters in trouble.

 V Day is all about stopping violence against women. Performing Eve Ensler’s play “Vagina Monologues” is directly related to this cause. The ‘Monologues are performed all over the world in different venues and always within two weeks of Valentine’s Day – “V Day.”

 If you are interested in auditioning for a part in the play “Vagina Monologues,” which we will be performing here in Green Valley in February, please contact the director D.D. Jay at ddjay1@cox.net. This is our fundraiser for The Brewster Center which provides programs and services to victims and survivors of domestic violence, including residents of Green Valley.

 

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If Roe Falls, States Ready to Curb or Ban Abortion

    By Juliette Terzieff

    Women's eNews   http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/printer_110907WA.shtml

 

    Friday 09 November 2007

The Center for Reproductive Rights studied what would happen if Roe v. Wade fell and protection for abortion was left up to the states. In a report issued Thursday, the group finds a majority of states would ban the procedure.

    Women in a majority of U.S. states risk losing the right to obtain an abortion due to changes on the Supreme Court bench and the proliferation of abortion bans - some enacted, some in waiting - the Center for Reproductive Rights said yesterday in its "What If Roe Fell?" report.

    A reversal of Roe v. Wade - the 1973 Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion - would mean that abortion law falls to the states, where anti-choice activists are pursuing a steady, two-front attack against abortion rights.

    On one front, activists are pushing contentious legislation challenging Roe that is designed to be fought up to the Supreme Court. In the last three years, 27 such abortion bans have been introduced in 14 states, including Colorado, Georgia, Missouri and West Virginia.

    Other states - such as Alabama, Delaware, Massachusetts and Michigan - enacted bans prior to the Roe decision that are still on the books. Many of the pre-Roe bans have been overturned or at least not been enforced since 1973 but could be revived. Many include exceptions to protect the life or health of the woman.

    On the second front, activists are introducing "abortion bans-in-waiting," or laws that would be enacted by a Roe reversal. Because these state-level bans are not yet law, it is not possible for pro-choice groups to mount legal challenges against them.

    "Hard to Galvanize Public Response"

    "It's a good strategy ... a way for them to silently lay a foundation largely without public knowledge," says Katherine Grainger, state program director for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. "Because they don't immediately go into effect now, it's hard to galvanize a public response."

    There were no abortion-bans-in-waiting laws in 2004, the center's report notes, but by 2007 four states - Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota - had passed them. Another five states - Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah - have already considered or are currently considering them.

    Authors of the report - including Grainger and other legal researchers - estimate as many as 30 states - including Ohio, Michigan, Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma and Texas - could pass legislation to restrict or altogether ban abortions in the wake of a Roe reversal.

    Alaska, California, Florida, Maine, Vermont and New York are among the 20 where abortion is not expected to face immediate legal challenge.

    Changes on the Bench

    As state activism pressures Roe from below, Roe is also vulnerable from above. Authors say changes on the Supreme Court - in particular the July 2005 retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, her replacement by Justice Samuel Alito and the appointment of Chief Justice John Roberts - have shifted the balance.

    The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision last April in Gonzales v. Carhart upheld a federal law that banned a specific abortion procedure used after 12 weeks of pregnancy and eliminated the precedent that legal restrictions placed on abortion must include an exception to protect the health of the woman.

    "I remember when abortion was illegal, the days of coat-hanger abortions," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said at the report's launch. "I'm very worried a Supreme Court decision now would take us back there. It is time to mobilize women to fight."

    Sixty-three percent of 1,000 registered voters surveyed agreed that Roe v. Wade is vulnerable, and 42 percent said they opposed leaving the matter up to the states rather than the Supreme Court, in a poll conducted by Lake Research Partners that accompanies the report. Seven in 10 respondents said the government should not interfere with abortions that are medically necessary.

    The Center for Reproductive Rights, which promotes reproductive rights nationally and internationally, issued a similar report in 2004.

    Flagging a Quiet Effort

    President Nancy Northup said the group updated the report to flag a quiet but "dramatic and frightening attempt to create a post-Roe world."

    Legislative opposition to abortion rights is underway in 17 states and the report's authors say the goal is to get a case to the Supreme Court where a reversal of Roe v. Wade is now possible.

    The year following O'Connor's departure a dozen states passed or attempted to pass laws to limit abortion rights. By 2007, the number of such bills that were introduced skyrocketed to 38 in 17 states. It was the most concerted legislative challenge since the early 1990s, when a 1992 Supreme Court decision - in Planned Parenthood v. Casey - held that a state could enact laws to affect access to abortion in the first trimester as long as exceptions to protect the health of the woman were secure.

    The only states where abortion rights would be preserved are those that have protections established in their state constitutions, or where state laws are already in place, the report finds. "Given the variations in law and political climates in the 50 states, the overturning of Roe would result in a patchwork of rights in which women seeking abortions would be strongly protected in some states and completely denied the right in others, with different levels of protection in between."

    Low-income women in particular would be affected, the report finds, because they already struggle to find and pay for a local, legal abortion.

    "If Roe is overturned, there is a strong possibility that a clandestine, illegal underground will again emerge to meet the need for abortions, a need that virtually no one believes will disappear," the report warns, noting that seven of the 10 poorest states in the country are considered likely to ban abortions within a year of reversing Roe.

    Pro-choice activists call for counter-activism to repeal existing legislation, preparation to battle new state restrictions and support for the Freedom of Choice Act, now being lobbied in Congress and some states.

    Introduced last April by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the bill provides protection for women to make decisions regarding their individual reproductive health needs without any government interference, even if Roe v. Wade is reversed.

 

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A New Front in the Abortion Wars

By Robert D. Novak  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102402345.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Thursday, October 25, 2007; A25

 

National antiabortion leaders put the finishing touches yesterday on a letter to be sent to all members of Congress, urging suspension of more than $300 million in federal funding of Planned Parenthood until a massive criminal case brought in Kansas against the abortion rights organization is settled. That launches an attack against the nation's largest purveyor of "reproductive health care" -- including abortions.

On Oct. 17, Johnson County District Judge James F. Vano in suburban Kansas City spent eight hours reviewing a 107-count grand jury indictment against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. He decided there was "probable cause" to proceed. Allegations of unlawful late-term abortions and other abortion-connected crimes were brought by Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline, a pro-life hero nationally who is viewed as a fanatic by advocates of abortion rights. The prosecution alleges violation of state and federal laws and falsification of documents to justify those acts.

This opens a new front in the endless abortion wars. No change in the status quo had seemed possible for pro-lifers. The 5 to 4 Supreme Court advantage for abortion is frozen, and a Democratic-controlled Congress will not pass new antiabortion legislation, much less a constitutional amendment. The offensive against abortion now takes dead aim at Planned Parenthood and attempts to expand a Kansas criminal prosecution into a nationwide assault.

"Bloody Kansas" was the battleground between pro- and anti-slavery forces nearly 150 years ago, and today it is a center of abortion conflict. Though polls show that 60 percent of Kansas voters are pro-life, antiabortion activists call the state "the abortion capital of the world" -- mainly because of George Tiller. At his Wichita clinic, Tiller is one of the few doctors still performing late-term abortions in this country.

The struggle has ripped asunder Kansas's dominant Republican Party, with Kline at the heart of it. He won passage of antiabortion legislation during eight years in the state House of Representatives, before his narrow 2002 election as state attorney general. Kline's vigorous prosecution of alleged abortion offenses made him the principal national target of the abortion industry.

That industry pumped an estimated $1.5 million into the 2006 campaign of Paul Morrison, the pro-choice Republican Johnson County district attorney who turned Democratic to run against Kline for attorney general. Tiller contributed $121,000 to his own ProKanDo PAC, which spent $322,680 in the campaign. An affiliated nonprofit group, Kansans for Consumer Privacy Protection, spent more than $400,000 on "educational mailings" obviously targeting Kline. Badly outspent, Kline relied on an old-fashioned handshaking campaign and was swamped at the polls.

Then came a bizarre event worthy of Shakespeare. Since Morrison had been elected district attorney as a Republican, under state law his replacement was selected by the GOP's precinct committeemen. They chose Kline. The abortion lobby's campaign against him had made him unelectable to any office, ruling out election to a full term as district attorney next year. With time short, he immediately set to work.

His 107 charges against Planned Parenthood include allegations of "unlawful late-term abortions," "unlawful failure to determine viability for late-term abortion," "making false information" and "unlawful failure to maintain records." Antiabortion activists see Kline's prosecution as the springboard for a national campaign. Forty other states have abortion laws similar to the Kansas statute that says abortion is legal only when the fetus cannot live independently outside the mother's womb -- that is, when it is not "viable."

Whether or not prosecutors can be found to seek Kline-type indictments around the country, antiabortion strategists are targeting Planned Parenthood and its 860 facilities nationwide. Concerned Women for America and other pro-life organizations signed this week's letter to Congress asking for suspension of the federal funding that amounts to about one-third of the organization's budget: "We urge you to act to ensure that our tax dollars are not subsidizing abortion clinics that perform possibly illegal abortions."

While the Democratic-controlled Congress surely will not defund Planned Parenthood, it will be pressed to fulfill its oversight responsibility with hearings. Yesterday the socially conservative Family Research Council called for a Justice Department investigation. And Republican presidential candidates -- who proceed gingerly on abortion -- will be called on to fight in this war.

¿ 2007 Creators Syndicate Inc.

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