The New York Times has a piece this morning about the Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations that the Bush administration is planning to slip onto the books before he leaves office - you know, the one that would prevent family planning clinics from "discriminating" against employees who are opposed to abortion on "religious or moral grounds," even if they're working at an abortion clinic, and even if they believe birth control is abortion.
With the final version of the regulations (which may very well pass) to be released in a matter of days, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights issued a joint letter to the U.S. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said, "It's unconscionable that the Bush administration, while promising a smooth transition, would take a final opportunity to politicize women's health." The regulations will hit low-income women seeking reproductive health care the worst, allowing pharmacists to refuse birth control to Medicaid recipients and literally undo state laws that require hospitals to dispense EC to rape survivors.
This is all despite the 200,000 plus comments sent to HHS opposing the rule. While Obama is opposed to the regulations and his aides say he will try to rescind the rule, the process could take up to 6 months. And assuming Obama would be able to rescind it in the end, that's still plenty of time to make plenty an impact.
I'm going to echo Kate's sentiments and ask Helen Mirren - for the love of all things good - to stop talking about rape.
Back in September the actress said in an interview that she didn't think that women should bring date rape cases to court and now she's said that female jurors on rape cases are "sexually jealous" of the victims. Seriously.
"Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don't know.
...But other women on a rape case would say she was asking for it. The only reason I can think of is that they're sexually jealous."
Just two months after we found out that the New York City MTA had agreed to post anti-harassment ads in the subway, I was thrilled to see them up and just had to share. Big ups to MTA and, once again, to the organizations who helped make this happen.
The message, which began circulating widely on the Internet last week, had one more instruction: request that the personalized thank-you card from Planned Parenthood be sent to Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee and a vocal opponent of abortion, at the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters in Virginia.
So far, the scheme seems to be getting a strong response. As of Friday, Planned Parenthood had taken in $802,678 in donations from 31,313 people, said a spokesman for the organization, Tait Sye. More than two-thirds of the individuals are first-time donors to Planned Parenthood, Mr. Sye said, and money came in from all 50 states.
Some thought this was actually counter-productive. What are your thoughts? I find it really interesting that more than two-thirds of the donors had never donated to Planned Parenthood before. And while this wasn't a campaign of Planned Parenthood's and despite your possibly adverse feelings about it, the concept itself has the kind of clever wit that mobilized people to act. We should learn from this.
Planned Parenthood is sending out the thank you cards this week. In the meantime, they have a take action component to send Palin a letter telling her that she's not your candidate.
Louisiana state Rep. John LaBruzzo, the charming dude who wants to pay low-income women $1,000 apiece to get sterilized, is speaking out not only to defend his suggestion - but also to complain about the media glomming onto the story. Boo-fucking-hoo.
Watching this guy is painful (and infuriating) but it's worth it, and interviewer Kyra Phillips is decent at taking him to task.
Extra Credit: Drink every time he says "these people." Seriously, he's like a caricature of racism.
The shit hath officially hit the fan. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released their proposed regulations (you can read them here) to allow health care providers to refuse to perform abortions, or refer women to others who might.
While we've been anticipating this, that doesn't make it any less upsetting. The title of the HHS release is enough to make one fume: "Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination." That's right - Discrimination. And though the regulations don't define contraception as abortion, the ACLU thinks there could be some wiggle room.
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt also blogged about the release yesterday as well, saying:
"This became a topical matter when the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued guidelines that could shape board certification requirements and necessitate a doctor to perform abortions to be considered competent."
Which is actually anything but the truth - ACOG actually doesn't have the power to take away board certifications. But the HHS is using this to create the illusion that providers' rights are under vicious attack, when in reality the regulations are the offense, blatantly threatening our reproductive freedoms - particularly for uninsured and low-income women. Louise Melling, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project made a statement in their press release:
"For years, federal law has carefully balanced protections for individual religious liberty and patients' access to reproductive health care. The proposed regulations appear to take patients' health needs out of the equation.
"At a time when more and more Americans are either uninsured or struggling with the soaring costs of health care, the federal government should be expanding, not hampering access to important health services."
Amen to that. Take action on these regulations by telling HHS and your members of Congress that women's access to reproductive health shouldn't be compromised.
Community blogger MaraJ3791 covered this a couple of days ago, and thankfully some good news has come out of this heinousness.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) attempts to mitigate violent crimes in the UK by giving victims reparations. But in their most recent case, a 25-year old woman who was raped was told the £11,000 she was to be given was actually going to be reduced by 25% because she was drinking on the night she was assaulted. She received a letter saying that, "the evidence shows that your excessive consumption of alcohol was a contributing factor in the incident."
"It was just so cruel and unthinking and so wrong because there is nothing you can do to prevent yourself being raped. It is not illegal to go out and have a drink, it is illegal to rape somebody," said the survivor.
The good news is that after some pushing, the decision has been overturned. But unfortunately, this is too little too late for others. The CICA also acknowledged that they had already cut reparations for 14 other rape victims this year, but refused to review the past cases to potentially right their wrong.
"If an applicant accepts our decision then that case is finalised and closed," the CICA said. "If they wish to ask for a review they must do this themselves, in writing."
The fact that these people can be so smug after admitting guilty to blatant injustice through victim-blaming is beyond me. Let the CICA know that they should take responsibility for their shameful actions and give the 14 women their reviews; they certainly shouldn't have ask for it.
Note: In our recent Feministing retreat, we decided that some back and forth dialogue between editors would be a cool thing, so every once in a while you may see a post title with "re:" in it - that's how you'll know it's us doing some good old fashioned feminist debating.
I have to say, though, that it really bothers me when MichFest is framed as a feminist "controversy" rather than straight up discrimination. This isn't a controversy - it's deliberate exclusion and it's shameful.
I also find the "Oh, but we're not doing genital checks"(!) just as offensive as a stated and enforced womyn-born-womyn policy. There doesn't have to be a written policy on the website for the discrimination to still be there. If MichFest wants to do the right thing, they'll be proactive and have a statement denouncing their womyn-born-womyn policy and stop hiding behind their silence on the issue.
I personally think the festival should be open to people who identify as women (or womyn), and if there are issues with safety or harrassment (which seems to be a fear) then they should be dealt with directly, not via discriminatory policies.
I totally agree, though I wanted to just point one thing out. I find the "safety" issue really uncompelling - as did Carasande in comments. Not only because it's not just penises* that rape women, but also because it uses rhetoric of the Right. As thebeatles11 noted on the Community blog, the latest anti-trans campaign (tellingly called "Not in My Shower") cites the fear that women will be assaulted as the reasoning behind their discrimination. Feminists shouldn't resort to the language (or actions!) of fear and discrimination - we're better than that!
You mentioned Julia Serano--who I think is probably the most brilliant feminist writing today--and I think that no one talks about trans woman exclusion better than she does. So I thought it fitting to end my post (though hopefully not the discussion!) with her words:
*Because the fear here does seem to be about penises, rather than "men."
