17 Apr 2012
by mhasegawa
in 2012 Election, Health Care Reform, Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: 2012 Election, Democrats, Health Care, Jane Swift, Joan Vennochi, Massachusetts politics, Mitt Romney, Politics, Republicans, Shannon O'Brien
Whether you are going to vote for him or not, Mitt Romney has kinda a nice but clueless rich guy image. Don’t let that fool you. Joan Vennochi reminds us of his history here in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts is where Romney first showed his appetite for running over any candidate who stands between him and political office. Here, it happened to be women.
When Romney decided to run against Ted Kennedy in 1994, Republican Janet Jeghelian, a former talk radio host, was in the race. Once Romney jumped in, he and the state GOP kept her off the primary ballot.
Jeghelian wasn’t a strong candidate, but she was a prescient one. After she was forced out, she predicted he would waffle on abortion rights. It took awhile, but he did.
Seven years later, Romney muscled out acting Governor Jane Swift, who had his pledge that he would not challenge her for the nomination. But fresh from running the winter Olympics, Romney jumped in, and without so much as a courtesy phone call, pushed out the politically weak Swift.
Realizing the delicacy of kicking aside the Bay State’s first female chief executive, Romney recruited another woman, Kerry Healey, to run as his lieutenant governor and vouch for his pro-choice credentials. Once elected, he relegated Healey to back channel roles, but she remains loyal and supports his presidential bid.
These tactics should be familiar to Rick Santorum and the other Republican candidates only there he did it with his super Pac and advertising.
Joan’s point is that all of this leads to a lack of trust which hurts him particularly among women. And while he has flip-flopped on a number of issues two matter to women. The first is his support of abortion rights during his Massachusetts Senate campaign. And he has done a major flop on Massachusetts health care reform.
As Shannon O’Brien, the Democrat he defeated in 2002, points out, “The choice issue is just one glaring reason why women can’t trust Mr. Romney. The broader, more profound issue is about what he will do to protect and preserve family health care across the country. Where he had such promise as governor, setting the stage for using Massachusetts as a national model, now he’s saying he didn’t mean it, never said it, doesn’t want it. That’s the biggest flip-flop-flip that women should be concerned about.’’
Massachusetts Democrats are gleefully reminding voters of Romney’s singular role in health care reform. He pushed for the individual mandate. He personally escorted the first woman who signed up for Romneycare. At his request, his official State House portrait, which hangs in the reception area of the governor’s office, includes the artist’s rendition of Romney’s wife, Ann, and a stack of papers representing the state’s health care law.
Will he have his portrait replaced next?
Men and women run against each other with regularity these days. Look at President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton. The point is that Mitt doesn’t seem to care about the niceties. He could have run in a primary against both Swift and Jeghelian and maybe he would have won. Maybe it is just coincidence that the two candidates he ran over were women and we will never know whether he would have jumped in if they had been men. I think he just would have competed in the primary and blasted his opponent with negative advertising.
So all of you fellow Obama supporters take heed: this is not a nice guy and brace yourself for a negative campaign and he tries desperately to recapture the women’s vote he needs to win. Luckily, I don’t think he can flip again on either abortion or health care as that flip will cost him his Republican support.
We can only hope he stays perplexed.
29 Mar 2012
by mhasegawa
in Civil Rights, Culture, Women's Rights
Tags: "stand your ground" laws, Castle doctrine, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin
The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. I think that is the one thing most of us can agree on. But the facts about what happened that night are murky, in part clouded by what appears to be an unprofessional investigation, a Florida law that goes beyond the doctrine of protecting your home when it and your family are threatened, and poor judgement on the part of the chief of police in Stanford and the State’s Attorney. So how did it come to this?
Cora Curry writing in Alter-Net says
Still, in not arresting Zimmerman, local officials have pointed to Florida’s wide definition of self-defense. In 2005, Florida became the first state to explicitly expand a person’s right to use deadly force for self-defense. Deadly force is justified if a person is gravely threatened, in the home or “any other place where he or she has a right to be.”
In Florida, once self-defense is invoked, the burden is on the prosecution to disprove the claim.
Most states have long allowed the use of reasonable force, sometimes including deadly force, to protect oneself inside one’s home — the so-called Castle Doctrine. Outside the home, people generally still have a “duty to retreat” from an attacker, if possible, to avoid confrontation. In other words, if you can get away and you shoot anyway, you can be prosecuted. In Florida, there is no duty to retreat. You can “stand your ground” outside your home, too.
Florida is not alone. Twenty-three other states now allow people to stand their ground. Most of these laws were passed after Florida’s. (A few states never had a duty to retreat to begin with.)
…
Many of the laws were originally advocated as a way to address domestic abuse cases — how could a battered wife retreat if she was attacked in her own home? Such legislation also has been recently pushed by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.
So stand your ground was a way to address domestic violence. Interesting. unfortunately it has gone beyond that now. According to CBS Miami,
As some state lawmakers are calling for a re-thinking of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows people to defend themselves from danger without the need to first try to get away, an analysis of state data shows deaths due to self defense are up over 200 percent since the law took effect.
The shooting death of Trayvon Martin by an armed, self-appointed Central Florida crime watch volunteer who claimed he shot in self defense has sparked a national debate about Florida’s law, technically known as the Castle doctrine.
…
According to state crime stats, Florida averaged 12 “justifiable homicide” deaths a year from 2000-2004. After “Stand your Ground” was passed in 2005, the number of “justifiable” deaths has almost tripled to an average of 35 a year, an increase of 283% from 2005-2010.
I wonder who those victims of “justifiable” homicide were and why no one is investigating those deaths. And what are the statistics from the other states? Have they had a similar increase? Massachusetts is considering a “Stand Your Ground” law. The legislature should look into these questions before they do anything. The Washington Post has some of the answers in their editorial published today.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Florida experienced an average of 34 “justifiable homicides” before 2005; two years after the Stand Your Ground law was enacted, the number jumped to more than 100. Similarly disturbing spikes have been found in other states with similar laws. According to an analysis of FBI data done by the office of New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), who co-chairs the 650-strong Mayors Against Illegal Guns, states that passed Stand Your Ground laws experienced a 53.5 percent increase in “justifiable homicides” in the three years following enactment; states without such laws saw a 4.2 percent increase.
The Association of Prosecuting Attorneys opposed Stand Your Ground laws, arguing that they were unnecessary and likely a danger to public safety. In a 2007 report, they foreshadowed the Trayvon Martin tragedy. “Although the spirit of the law may be to allow the public to feel safer, the expansions may instead create a sense of fear from others, particularly strangers,” the report said, concluding that enactment would have a “disproportionately negative effect on minorities, persons from lower socio-economic status, and young adults/juveniles” who are often unjustly stereotyped as suspects.
While this law might have had as one of its original purposes protecting women who are victims of domestic violence, there are other ways to do this. While we don’t know, and may never know, what happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman that night about a month ago, we can look at these laws and understand that they really protect no one. Florida Governor Scott and I don’t agree on much, but we do agree that the law should be reviewed. Perhaps some good can come from all of this.
10 Mar 2012
by mhasegawa
in Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: Bob McDonnell, Democrats, Politics, Republicans, Virginia General Assembly, Virginia politics
If the Virginia State General Assembly were a 3rd grader and had to write about what they did during the 2012 Legislative session what would they write? “I spend a lot of the 60 days talking about women’s body parts and didn’t have time to pass a budget.”
Virginia State Capitol buiding designed by Thomas Jefferson.
I was skimming through headlines on the Washington Post website yesterday when this caught my eye: “Va. Assembly will adjourn Saturday without a budget”. Of course Governor McDonnell immediately sent the Democratic caucus a letter blaming them for the failure. I guess they submitted amendments too late so now there has to be a special session which will cost money. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch
Earlier Friday, McDonnell released a letter to Senate Democrats in which he said he was disappointed that their caucus waited until the end of the session to forward additional amendments to the budget. McDonnell noted that an extended session will cost state taxpayers additional money.
McDonnell maintained that in addition to transportation, Democratic proposals would increase spending by more than $600 million over two years, and he challenged them to make corresponding amendments to reduce costs or raise revenue.
The amended House version of McDonnell’s two-year, $85 billion plan is in the Senate Finance Committee. Democratic senators — who defeated two previous budget proposals before the full chamber — have offered amendments to the latest House plan that would add approximately $450 million in spending.
Roughly $150 million would go toward public education and restoration of health services to the poor, while $300 million would go toward transportation and reducing the impact of tolls in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.
Democrats have also proposed that McDonnell abandon his bid to divert additional sales tax revenue to transportation in favor of indexing the gasoline tax to rise with inflation. They also say the state should pay for the costs of a new law that will require women to get ultrasounds before they can get an abortion
So in addition to money for public education and health services for the poor, the Virginia Democrats want the state to pay for women’s ultrasounds? Now we are getting to what the General Assembly really spent their 60 day session doing: Debating transvaginal and other types of ultrasounds for women who seek a legal medical procedure known as an abortion.
There have been many words written on the Virginia bill and many more spoken, but Andrew Rosenthal summed it up neatly in the New York Times.
The Virginia State Legislature has decided not to force pregnant women to undergo vaginal penetration in a medical office before they exercise their Supreme Court-sanctioned right to an abortion. I suppose this is a victory of sorts.
As a refresher: The Legislature was on the verge of passing a law compelling doctors to perform ultrasounds before abortions. The bill, as written, would have required many women to undergo a trans-vaginal procedure, the sort of coerced penetration that in other circumstances could be considered rape.
Gov. Bob McDonnell wanted to sign it to polish his right-wing credentials for the eventual national political bid that so many people expect him to make. But the backlash was too much for him— even in the angry, superheated national debate about abortion there are, apparently, some limits—and he prevailed on the legislature to tweak the bill.
An amended version, mandating ultrasounds while specifying that women can refuse the trans-vaginal kind, passed the House and won a 21-19 vote in the Senate on Tuesday.
Let me get this straight. The Virginia General Assembly frittered away the session talking about an unnecessary medical procedure intervenes in the relationship between a woman and her doctor while somehow not passing a budget. OK. I know it is not that simple, but having spent many years hanging around the Virginia GA I can tell you they can get things done if they want to do so. But I think the Republicans would rather impose a procedure they won’t pay for, cut health care benefits and education, than get serious about a budget that actually benefits people who live in Virginia. Both sides are using the budget to push agendas, but the budget is really the only thing the Democrats have to use. Since the Senate is tied at 20-20 and the Lt. Governor can’t vote on the budget, it is the only way Democratic members can get some sensible measures passed.
I don’t know enough about what is going on in the other budget proposals to comment, but it seems to me that if you mandate something, you need to pay for it. And the Virginia General Assembly needs to find the money to pay for those ultasounds.
09 Feb 2012
by mhasegawa
in 2012 Election, Culture, Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: Ann Telnaes, Catholic Church, Gail Collins, Guttmacher Institute, Health Care, John Boehner, President Obama
I have a book from 1996 on my shelf ”The Republican War on Women” by Tanya Melich. Melich outlines the Republican strategy to outlaw abortion, curb contraception, cut funding for child care programs and otherwise control women’s choices by limiting them. This was the start of the culture wars, code for a war on women and the poor. Now it is 2012 and the war is heating up again. There is the Komen Foundation v. Planned Parenthood. And you have Affordable Health Care and the President v. the Catholic Bishops and all the Republican Presidential Candidates. Rick Santorum who just won three primary contests is the culture war candidate who thinks the contraception is evil and would do away with it all together. All of this is being framed as an assault on regligious freedom. by the President.
Zack Beauchamp writing in the Daily Dish put it this way
2012′s great birth control debate is far from over. The Catholic Church is threatening all-out war against the Obama Administration until it caves on the decision to require contraceptives without co-pays. One popular framing of the debate is religious liberty versus women’s health, but that’s not quite right. The Administration’s requirement isn’t a threat to liberty, religious or otherwise. It’s a sally in an ongoing debate about the character of liberal rights – and one on the right side, to boot.
We usually think of religious liberty as an individual believer’s right to worship and practice freely. That’s of course not at issue here – the feds aren’t marching into Catholic bedrooms and making everyone take Plan B on Sunday morning or requiring Catholic hospital administrators to pass out free birth control in the lobby. The regulations instead require they indirectly subsidize birth control use, which several faiths believe means being forced to participate in evil. But opponents worry about a much broader problem than religious freedom. Check this from Ross Douthat last week:
Critics of the administration’s policy are framing this as a religious liberty issue, and rightly so. But what’s at stake here is bigger even than religious freedom. The Obama White House’s decision is a threat to any kind of voluntary community that doesn’t share the moral sensibilities of whichever party controls the health care bureaucracy.
Ross is arguing that government regulations “crowd out” private associations that perform valuable societal functions. Forcing members of those associations to adhere to legal rules they find repugnant puts them in a devil’s choice: do something they believe fundamentally wrong or, more likely, get out of providing public services entirely. Government thus guts the ability of private, voluntary organizations to do good. See David Brooks and Kirsten Powers for similar arguments.
The problem with this argument is, as Beauchamp goes on to point out, we are not talking about voluntary organizations but employers – often large employers who employ many persons who are not Catholic. The Guttmacher Institute posted a summary the other day. It turns out that 28 states already require insurers to cover FDA approved contraceptives. 20 of those states have some form of opt-out provision ranging from just churches to broader provisions for church affiliated institutions like universities. Interestingly among the twenty states that have exceptions those exemptions are extremely limited for hospitals.
The latest polling supports the Obama Administration regulation. The only group that does not are white evangelical.s
Finally, Think Progress has posted this story about DePaul University which offers contraception coverage.
“The employee health insurance plans include a prescription contraceptive benefit, in compliance with state and federal law,” DePaul University spokesperson Robin Florzak confirmed to ThinkProgress. “An optional insurance plan that covers such benefits is available to students, also due to previously established state and federal requirements.” The University notes, however, that it is disappointed with the Obama regulation and hopes to engage in an “effective national conversation on the appropriate conscience protections in our pluralistic country.” Other Catholic colleges and hospitals, including Georgetown and the six former Caritas Christi Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, have also admitted to offering birth control benefits.
Notice that DePaul talks about conscience protections not doing away with the requirement all together.
So who does this really hurt? It hurts a woman’s ability to control her own body. Here is Zack Beauchamp to sum up.
Birth control is for 98% of womenthe principal means of protecting a right central to their own liberty – the right to choose when to create a family. Chances are most women employed by Catholic universities and hospitals are part of the 98%. For these women, not having access to birth control renders a crucially important right meaningless.
Full insurance coverage is a critical part of the picture. Birth control is an expensive product – $81 a month is considered a steal with no contribution from your insurance, but that number still prices out many women. Even insurance plans that have copays can be prohibitively pricey. Cheaper alternatives like condoms have significant failure rates. Insurance, overwhelmingly provided by employers in the American system, that covers birth control with no copays is a woman’s best bet.
The Administration’s critics are saying that, in the currently existing health care system, protecting that right would create a grave threat to equally important rights of free association. Seems like a classic rights conflict. However, churches and institutions that serve only co-religionists are exempt from the requirement. The only institutions covered by the birth control mandate have chosen to participate in the broader market, a zone of private life governed by political rules.
I think that the Catholic Bishops, the Republican Presidential Candidates and John Boehner are really the ones who want government to interfere in the lives of women. Just because an insurer offers a benefit does not mean you have to take advantage of it.
Gail Collins puts it this way in today’s New York Times
The church is not a democracy and majority opinion really doesn’t matter. Catholic dogma holds that artificial contraception is against the law of God. The bishops have the right — a right guaranteed under the First Amendment — to preach that doctrine to the faithful. They have a right to preach it to everybody. Take out ads. Pass out leaflets. Put up billboards in the front yard.
The problem here is that they’re trying to get the government to do their work for them. They’ve lost the war at home, and they’re now demanding help from the outside.
And they don’t seem in the mood to compromise. Church leaders told The National Catholic Register that they regarded any deal that would allow them to avoid paying for contraceptives while directing their employees to other places where they could find the coverage as a nonstarter.
This new rule on contraceptive coverage is part of the health care reform law, which was designed to finally turn the United States into a country where everyone has basic health coverage. In a sane world, the government would be running the whole health care plan, the employers would be off the hook entirely and we would not be having this fight at all. But members of Congress — including many of the very same people who are howling and rending their garments over the bishops’ plight — deemed the current patchwork system untouchable.
The churches themselves don’t have to provide contraceptive coverage. Neither do organizations that are closely tied to a religion’s doctrinal mission. We are talking about places like hospitals and universities that rely heavily on government money and hire people from outside the faith.
And if you want to see what this is all about in a nutshell click on this link to the Ann Telnaes animated cartoon.
I hope the President sticks to his decision.
01 Feb 2012
by mhasegawa
in Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: Cecile Richards, Nancy Brinker, Planned Parenthood, Susan G Komen For The Cure
Full disclosure: I was a volunteer for Planned Parenthood working at a clinic where I did everything including counseling young women who were pregnant. I won an award as volunteer of the year. I still contribute money. I will be increasing that contribution. I don’t think there is anything that can convince people that Planned Parenthood does not sell abortions. Many clinics provide only women’s health care including breast exams. Clinics that provide abortions still mainly offer health care. Since abortions are legal and it can be difficult to obtain, this is, to me, a public service also. The really sad part about the Susan G. Komen Foundation decision to withdraw funding from some Planned Parenthood clinics is that it will make early detection of breast cancer difficult for many young and poor women.
Pam Belluck writes in the New York Times
The move will halt financing to 19 of Planned Parenthood’s 83 affiliates, which received nearly $700,000 from the Komen foundation last year and have been receiving similar grants since at least 2005.
Planned Parenthood contends that the Komen foundation is yielding to longstanding pressure from anti-abortion groups, which Komen denies.
Writing in the Washington Post column She the People, Lori Stahl writes
“Not about politics” is the part that even some of Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s most loyal supporters might question.The Dallas-based organization, which is the country’s biggest breast cancer charity, insisted its controversial decision to defund Planned Parenthood affiliates was made only in light of Komen’s new policy against supporting agencies that are under investigation. (The congressional investigation itself was launched by a conservative Republican and spurred by antiabortion groups.)
The decision was “not about politics,” a Komen statement insisted.
But the truth is that Komen founder Nancy Brinker has strong Republican ties and Cecile Richards, who leads Planned Parenthood, is daughter of late Texas Gov. Ann Richards and has longtime Democratic Party ties. Also worth noting: This is an election year.
Brinker, a longtime GOP donor who was ambassador to Hungary under then-President George W. Bush, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2009. She has cast Komen as above politics, saying its focus is women’s health.
But the decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood comes shortly after Komen unveiled a new partnership that strengthens its ties to the George W. Bush Institute. The institute is the policy-making arm of Bush’s presidential library, which is scheduled to open in Dallas next year.
It appears that the Komen Foundation has been co-opted by those opposing abortion even at the cost of women’s health. According to the Times
Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, said that the decision “came so abruptly in the face of a long, good, working relationship with Komen” and that the change in financing criteria “was written specifically to address the political pressure that they’ve been under.”
Ms. Richards said all of Planned Parenthood’s affiliates provided around 770,000 women with breast examinations and paid for mammograms and ultrasounds for those who needed and could not afford further diagnostic services. She said she received the news from the Komen foundation in late December and had requested a meeting with officials there to discuss the matter but was rebuffed.
“Until really recently, the Komen foundation had been praising our breast health programs as essential,” Ms. Richards said. “This really abrupt about-face was very surprising. I think that the Komen foundation has been bullied by right-wing groups.”
I don’t think I have ever advocated for contributions for a cause before on this blog, but I am today. Give money to Planned Parenthood. Give money to the new Breast Health Emergency Fund. Here is a link. And stop walking in the Komen walks and giving them money. They appear more interested in appeasing their anti-abortion supporters than promoting breast health. This is not about abortion. This is about breast cancer.
13 Jul 2011
by mhasegawa
in Culture, Women's Rights
Tags: 1977 National Women's Conference, Bella Abzug, Betty Ford, Jo Freeman, Lady Bird Johnson, Maya Angelou, Michelle Obama
It was November 1977 in Houston, Texas at the huge somewhat chaotic American celebration of International Women’s Year: The first National Women’s Conference. I was a delegate from Virginia. Things hadn’t gone well when I arrived to a lobby full of women looking for rooms only to be told that people hadn’t checked out and we had to spend one night at another hotel. For a young woman traveling on a limited budget and knowing no one in Houston except other members of my delegation who were to be my roomies (who I couldn’t find), it was pretty traumatic. If the same thing happened today, I would have demanded taxi and meal vouchers at the very least. But the next day things improved immensely. I found my room, my roommates and the Virginia caucus. I spotted famous women all over. It was hard not to be star struck. But we all had work to do. It was the first time there was an Asian women’s caucus and we ended up at a Chinese restaurant trying to hammer out a statement that accounted for the so called model Asian as well as the brand new immigrants working service jobs. It was all exhilarating. Women were on the rise. But the picture I carry with me to this day is this one.
A line up of prominent women. From L to R are: Bella Abzug, First Lady Rosalyn Carter, Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, Linda Johnson Robb, Maya Angelou, Coretta Scott King, and Judy Carter. (From Jo Freeman)
I was reminded of this moment when I saw the pictures of the First Ladies at Betty Ford’s funeral in California.
(Carter, Obama, Clinton and Reagan)
And here where you can see Charles and Linda Johnson Robb and three of the first ladies. Linda is in white in front of her husband and I think that may be Maria Shriver next to Chuck.
The news today is that the Westboro Church is going to protest at Ford’s service in Michigan. I think Mrs. Ford would be proud.
22 Mar 2010
by mhasegawa
in Congress, Health Care Reform, Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: Bart Stupak, CEDAW, Health Care, Hyde Amendment, Katha Pollitt, Pro-Choice
The House has passed both the Senate bill and “fixes” for reconciliation. Both by more than the minimum number of votes. Lindsay Beyerstein wrote today in the Nation
Last night, the House of Representatives passed comprehensive health care reform after more than a year of fierce debate. The sweeping legislation will extend coverage to 32 million Americans, curb the worst abuses of the private insurance industry, and attempt to contain spiraling health care costs.
The main bill passed the House by a vote 219 to 212, after which the House approved a package of changes to the Senate bill by a vote of 220 to 211. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama will sign the main bill into law. Then, the Senate will incorporate the House-approved changes through filibuster-proof budget reconciliation, perhaps as early as this week.
What role did women play in passage? Beyerstein explains
As tea party protests raged outside, it seemed as if abortion might derail health reform. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) insisted that he had the votes to kill the bill. At the last minute, Stupak was placated with an executive order from the president reiterating that the health care reform would not fund elective abortions.
The executive order is a red herring. It won’t impose any further restrictions, it just restates the status quo. Mike Lillis posted a copy of the order at the Washington Independent. The president might as well have reiterated a ban on federal funds for vajazzling. Health care reform was never going to fund vajazzling or abortion, but if Stupak finds the repetition soothing, so be it.
The chair of the pro-choice caucus, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) acquiesced to the Stupak compromise, describing the overall bill as a “strong foundation,” according to John Tomasic of the Colorado Independent. Pro-choice groups will be angry, but realistically, the executive order was the best possible outcome. For a while, it looked like Democrats were going to have to make substantive concessions to Stupak. In the end, he flipped his vote for a presidential proclamation of the status quo.
In a last ditch effort to derail reform, the Republicans tried to reinsert Stupak’s strict anti-abortion language into the reconciliation package. The Republicans were trying to poison the reconciliation bill in order to threaten its chances in the Senate, explains Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent. The gambit failed. When Stupak rose to speak against the motion, he was shouted down by Republican representatives. One unidentified member called Stupak a “baby killer.”
Women who want to repeal the Hyde Amendment (and I’m one of them) are split. Should health care reform have been the vehicle for repeal? Anyone who thinks it is appropriate is mistaken. I’m with the pro-choice women in Congress who voted for reform. I know that NOW and NARAL are upset that the President and Congress are “ignoring” women and “eroding” the right to choose. I don’t see it that way. As far as I’m concerned, I agree with Lindsay: nothing has changed and if Bart needed cover to vote for the bill he got it. We kept the status quo and Bart got to be called a “baby killer” and vote for the bill. Millions of women will have access to health care and being a woman will no longer be a pre-existing condition.
But I’m with Katha Pollitt. Women need something.
The way I see it, the Democratic Party and the Obama administration owe supporters of women’s rights a huge payback for cooperating on its signature issue.
Her list of suggestions includes full funding for Title X, passage of paycheck fairness, confront maternal mortality, pass CEDAW, and fully fund the Violence Against Women Act. Not a bad list. It is hard to pick which should come first, but I would fund the Violence Against Women Act and passing CEDAW. Pollit says about CEDAW
Pass CEDAW. Jimmy Carter signed it back in 1980, but the United States is one of a handful of countries that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The others? Sudan, Somalia, Iran and a few Pacific islands. Despite the fact that Congress has burdened CEDAW with no fewer than eleven reservations, nearly all of which were placed there by Jesse Helms to please Concerned Women for America and other antifeminist and Christian groups, it still hasn’t come to a vote. So pass it, already–and Helms is dead, so dump the reservations. Don’t have the votes? Vote on it anyway. American women should know which senators think we should have fewer human rights than women in nearly every other democratic country in the world.
I don’t think repeal of the Hyde Amendment is in the cards anytime soon, but I do think we should get everything on Katha’s list.
21 Mar 2010
by mhasegawa
in Congress, Health Care Reform, Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: Abortion Rights, Bart Stupak, Health Care, President Obama, Republicans
8:30 pm Sunday, March 21. I’ve been watching C-Span and MSNBC and listening to the debate. It is clear that the Democrats now have more than enough votes to pass the bill (Be grateful Stephen Lynch, maybe the fallout won’t be quite so bad.), but it is not clear that I will make it to the end. A sad occassion for this political junkie!
Some observation. First, although I don’t know why he needed confirmation what is clearly in the Senate Bill, Representative Stupak has gotten President Obama to agree to issue an Executive Order affirming that the Hyde Amendment will apply to this Health Care Reform bill. I think these two reactions as reported in the New York Times Prescription blog tell the story.
Travel notes from Senator Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee who ultimately balked at the Finance bill put forward in his chamber. Tonight, Senator Grassley tweets: “Flying bk DC Sun aftrnoon instead of Mon morn to get ahead of curve on Health/Stupak move “shocked”me I thought his stance wld hv kild bill.” In case you’re not accustomed to Mr. Grassley’s tweets or abbreviations (as well as some of ours in that 140-character limit), the Iowa senator is indicating that he’s shocked that Mr. Stupak would decide to vote for the health-care bill. Mr. Grassley anticipated that Mr. Stupak’s stance against abortion would’ve killed the bill.
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, has also issued a statement on the president’s decision to sign an executive order (designed to explicitly prohibit using federal funds for abortions).
We regret that a pro-choice president of a pro-choice nation was forced to sign an Executive Order that further codifies the proposed anti-choice language in the health care reform bill, originally proposed by Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. What the president’s executive order did not do is include the complete and total ban on private health insurance coverage for abortion that Congressman Bart Stupak (D–MI) had insisted upon. So while we regret that this proposed Executive Order has given the imprimatur of the president to Senator Nelson’s language, we are grateful that it does not include the Stupak abortion ban.“
So whatever Representative Stupak’s motivations, it has all worked out. Even though I ultimately agree with Nita Lowey.
Representative Nita Lowey, Democrat of New York, issued this statement a little while ago, reflecting the rather torn views some abortion-rights lawmakers had toward their opponents on this issue. Ms. Lowey’s statement:
“As a lifelong advocate for freedom of choice and affordable health care for all Americans, I find it outrageous that health insurance reform was held hostage in an effort to restrict women’s reproductive rights.
“The underlying health insurance reform bill contains objectionable language requiring insured women to write a check for general health insurance and a separate check for “abortion rider,” going far beyond current and continued policy preventing federal funding for abortion services.
“Although the final bill language is disappointing, the bottom line is millions more American women will receive basic care to stay healthy and prevent unintended pregnancies.”
Which brings me to the agument the Republicans are making over and over again: This bill takes away your choice. And unfortunately enough American’s seem to believe them to make the polls negative. However, they do, like Senator Grassley, want to control women and make the decisions for us. They don’t seem to mind insurance companies making health care decisions and rationing health care. They don’t worry about going to the VA which is definately government run health care. I’m sorry, I just don’t get it.
But, despite all the unhappiness about the abortion language from NOW and others who were much more negative than Planned Parenthood, the bill will pass with between 218 and 222 votes.
30 Aug 2009
by mhasegawa
in Civil Rights, Human Rights, Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: Deval Patrick, Massachusetts politics, Mission Hill, Patricia Williams, President Obama, Senator Kennedy
Now that I, like much of Massachusetts, have spent several days glued to the television or, in the case of my husband, participating in the memorial, but before we turn to the speculation about his successor, I want to post a few thoughts from Patricia Williams writing in the Sunday Guardian.
There isn’t anyone who grew up in Massachusetts who doesn’t feel personally touched by the life of Kennedy. There’s the family legacy. His maternal grandfather was the amiably colourful mayor of Boston, John Francis Fitzgerald, the child of immigrants and the first Irish Catholic to achieve such power in the then-English – or “Boston Brahmin” – dominated-political landscape of New England.
The election of “Honey Fitz”, as he was known, was significant because this was the Boston of Henry James and the Irish were very much looked down upon. I remember my grandmother describing signs in the windows of certain establishments that read: “No Irish, no coloured, no dogs.”
…
The particular struggles of the Irish in Boston is largely forgotten today; indeed, the Kennedys are often characterised as part of “the north east liberal elite”. But the origins of their family success are rooted in a fight that spans all aspects of a broader civil rights movement that stretches back to the 1800s and included not merely African Americans but Irish and Italian immigrants, the descendants of indentured servants, the poor, the labouring classes.
…
It is true that the senator’s life history was one of great human complexity. And just as the healthcare debates have been disrupted by an astonishing amount of hateful speech, so the national blogosphere is filled with bitter, ungenerous commentary about the time he cheated on an exam at Harvard; or how he called his political advisers before he called paramedics when his car plunged off a bridge on Martha’s Vineyard, leaving the body of Mary Jo Kopechne, a young campaign aide, submerged for nearly nine hours; or whetherhe drank to excess.
But here in Massachusetts, it is the political commitment that counts. It is his public service that means the most and the regional allegiance to this man crosses all partisan boundaries. The Boston Herald, a local tabloid that spilled oceans of ink denouncing him in life, remembered him with uncharacteristic mistiness.
…
As I write, President Obama is giving the eulogy at Senator Kennedy’s funeral. To African Americans, Obama is “our Kennedy”. I wept when I discovered that the funeral was to be held at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Although many in the national press cite the church as one close to the hospital where his daughter Kara was treated for lung cancer, or one that is in a neighbourhood once inhabited by Irish immigrants, it is also in the neighbourhood where I grew up. It is in what most Bostonians know as a black neighbourhood, a “dangerous” neighbourhood, a neighbourhood “in transition”.
(This is Tremont Street near Mission Church. Photograph from the New York Times.)
These days, it reflects the demographic that both Kennedy and Obama represent: a new generation of the American dream. It is a neighbourhood filled with hopeful immigrants from the Caribbean and West Africa and Bosnia and the Middle East. It is on the cusp of gentrification – a neighbourhood of college students and the underemployed, of medical technicians and starving artists.
There’s a black barbershop next door to the church, and a pizza joint and restaurant that serves Jamaican food. If some reporters were surprised when they set up the satellite feeds, those who knew anything about Ted Kennedy and the tradition from which he came were not.
There was a quote from Tennyson’s Ulysses that Senator Kennedy loved, a quote that he read at his brother Robert’s funeral, and one that is now being read as he is laid to rest: ” I am a part of all that I have met… ” begins the stanza. Senator Edward Kennedy lived his life precisely at the crossroads of all that he encountered – at the intersection of statesmanship, of history, of moral purpose, of tragedy, of compromise.
There are many who think that his passing means the end of an era. When I look at the unparalleled outpouring of those he met, whose world he touched, I am confident that the work he began lives on not only in the politics and presidency of Barack Obama, but in the dreams he ignited in so many, many others.
Some people will question the sanity of women, people of color, the poor, the disabled and the gays and lesbians wondering how we can mourn a man who in the words of one of the commentators who posted about this piece “left a woman to die in his car”. I don’t think they will ever (or perhaps can’t) understand what he did for people who were not born with his priviledges. This is why so many of us stood and watched the motorcade and were glued to the television. This is why Governor Deval Patrick could quote his mother ”I love me some Kennedy.” This is what we will miss.
09 Aug 2009
by mhasegawa
in Culture, Politics, Women's Rights
Tags: Creigh Deeds, Jeff Schapiro, Pro-Choice, Robert Holsworth, Virginia politics
(with apologies to Bob Dylan)
I spent a lot of years in Virginia as those of you who follow my blog may remember and I still try to follow the politics there as best I can from a distance. This morning I ran across an interesting story in today’s Washington Post about Creigh Deeds. So I went to the local Richmond paper and could find nothing to confirm the Post story, but did find some new poll numbers which may help explain the new Deeds tactic.
In an August 5th story, my old friend Jeff Schapiro wrote for the Richmond Times-Dispatch
For the second time in as many weeks, a published poll is showing Republican Bob McDonnell with a double-digit lead for governor over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds.
Public Policy Polling yesterday put McDonnell ahead of Deeds, 51 percent to 37 percent. Four weeks ago, the Raleigh, N.C.-based survey group reported McDonnell leading Deeds, 49 percent to 43 percent.
The poll suggests that McDonnell, a former state attorney general, is getting a lift from pushback among Virginians to President Barack Obama. Though he carried the state last year, his popularity is falling, apparently because of skittishness over the economy.
Jeff goes on to quote another old friends (and dissertation advisor), Bob Holsworth
Regardless, the new poll could stir concerns among Democrats — even in the depths of summer, when many voters aren’t focusing on politics — that Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, is in trouble, said analyst Robert D. Holsworth.
“At the moment, Republicans are far more enthusiastic about this elections than Democrats,” Holsworth wrote yesterday on his blog, VirginiaTomorrow. com.
“I still think there is plenty of time for the Dems to recover. But pulling the covers over your head and pretending that it’s still yesterday rarely works. The Democrats will have to recognize that the climate this year is vastly different than 2001, 2005 and even 2008.”
There are issues with the way the polls were conducted using the telephone push one if you are for McDonnell, two for Deeds method, but putting that aside it is what Creigh Deeds is doing to catch up that is most interesting. According to the Post
Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds will launch a campaign this week to portray his opponent’s longtime efforts to restrict abortion as out of the mainstream, a potentially risky strategy for a Democrat in the once solidly conservative state.
Deeds (Bath), a state senator who supports abortion rights, said he will join female supporters in Annandale on Monday for the first of three events across the state where he will argue that Republican Robert F. McDonnell devoted too much of his 17 years in public office working to limit access to abortions. McDonnell has said he is against abortion in every instance, including rape and incest, except when the life of the mother is in danger.
There was a time when the politcally correct thing to say about abortion rights if you were a Virginia Democrat was that abortion was legal and the decision was a personal one to be made between the woman, her family and her doctor.
The early statewide pitch by Deeds is a bold gamble that the demographics and politics of Virginia have shifted so quickly and decisively that raising a divisive issue such as abortion, which Republicans attempted to use to their advantage for much of this decade, is now favorable to Democrats. Although advocates on both sides of the issue rank Virginia as one of the more restrictive states on abortion, a Washington Post poll in September found that 60 percent of Virginia voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a number that has not changed significantly in recent years.
Deeds’s strategy is a departure from the approach that worked for the state’s past two Democratic governors, who generally played down touchy social issues and focused instead on the issues they said voters cared about more: traffic, schools and other quality-of-life issues.
Deeds said it’s important for voters to be aware of McDonnell’s deep commitment to antiabortion causes. As an example, he pointed to a speech McDonnell delivered to the National Right to Life Committee in Arlington County last year, in which the then-attorney general saluted “all you pro-life warriors for Virginia for all you’ve done to turn Virginia around and make it a pro-life state.”
I hope this works to motivate Democrats and women to vote. As Bob Holsworth says there is plenty of time. The economy is turning around and this gamble may do the trick for Deeds.
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