Women News: July 7, 2009

Joan: Not exactly late breaking, but I think we need to say a word about Sarah Palin's recent surprise resignation as governor of Alaska.There has been a lot of speculation as to what is going on: will she run for president in 2012? Is she about to be investigated for criminal charges? Is she just plain exhausted? Well, I hope it is not a health issue. My personal guess today, based on nothing is that she has had a religious calling and will go that direction. And really that would be a more appropriate forum for what I see as her message.

Jane: From the Feminist Daily Newswire we have a report that The Planned Parenthood in El Paso, Texas,is closing after 72 years due to financial difficulties. The closure will affect six offices in El Paso that service more than 12,000 women. Their concern now is negotiating a smooth transfer for all their patients. A month ago they had to discontinue services for HIV/AIDS patients, also due to funding issues. In response to the complete closure of the Planned Parenthood clinics, other local healthcare providers are preparing for a huge influx of new patients.

Joan: That closing may seem far away in rural Texas,but it points to a serious worry which is the funding of women's health care clinics, particularly reproductive health care clinics. It seems our legislators tend to think reproductive health care is a separate category from women's health care. So, for example, when a man goes to a doctor, he has access to all the medical care available, but a woman may go and find her reproductive system separated from the rest of her body. In a recent letter to the editor of the Bradenton Herald Barbara Zdravecky, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central stressed that health care reform for women must include women's reproductive health care. I think the problem is the issue around funding health care centers that give advice on certain kinds of contraception, including abortion. According to Barbara Zdravecky, six in 10patients who receive care at a women's health center consider it their primary source of health care .In fact, going to a women's health center for contraception is often the first time women enter the health care world as adults. One in six women who obtain a Pap test or a breast exam does so at a women's health center, as do one-third of women who receive counseling, testing or treatment for STDs, including HIV and one fourth of the women who receive contraceptive care. And while they are there they have access to preventive care including immunizations and cancer screening. According to the Zdravecky letter, more than 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood health centers do is preventive and primary care. Obviously, these clinics are critical to women's health.

Jane: Here's some good news: On Friday Vice President Joe Biden announced the appointment of the first ever White House Advisor on Violence Against Women Friday. She is Lynn Rosenthal, currently the Executive Director for the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence, described by Vice President Biden as someone with a passion for helping victims of domestic violence. He said that "the worst imprisonment in the whole world is to be imprisoned in your own home...the most vicious of all crimes are domestic crimes." Rosenthal is a previous Executive Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence and of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The Violence Against Women Act, authored by then-senator Biden, was first passed by Congress in 1994. It provides for federal funding and protections for the prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault, and it provides for assistance to victims. The bill also includes critical provisions for improvements in law enforcement and judicial response to violence against women. Of course, domestic violence is right at the front of our minds after the murder in Venice of Maureen Modlin and a male  friend by a former boyfriend of Modlin's who had been stalking her. She had had a restraining order against him, but the judge refused to renew it. Unfortunately, many restraining orders are violated and thus do not provide protection. This emphasizes the need for the creation of this White House Advisor on Violence Against Women.

Joan: It is good to have someone at the top to organize an all-out attack on domestic violence! Meanwhile, white men fared well in the past week as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of white firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut on a Title VII race case that many say could have a far reaching impact on race, sex, and ethnicity employment cases. It was a very close decision, a typical 5-4 decision with what is referred to as the liberal wing dissenting. The case dealt with a promotion exam taken by the firefighters in 2003. When no African-Americans ranked high enough on the test to be promoted, the City of New Haven said that indicated an underlying racial bias in the test, a bias which is not permissible under the law,specifically Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; so they threw out the results.Eighteen white firefighters didn't like that, called it a racial bias, in this case in favor of the minorities, and they sued.

Jane: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissent and felt so strongly about it she read it from the bench. She expressed sympathy for the white male fire fighters who might have to undergo further testing, but she also pointed out that the Court's majority opinion ignored the promise of the law that groups long denied equal opportunity would not be held back by tests "fair in form, but discriminatory in operation."

Joan: To me that is so important in explaining why we need diversity in every aspect of our government,particularly our courts. But here's the upbeat news of it: Justice Ginsburg stated in her dissent, "the Court's order and opinion, I anticipate, will not have staying power." And Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority said, " Remember Ginsburg's dissent in the Lilly Ledbetter wage discrimination case is now the law of the land.

Jane: A happier result from the US Supreme Court: Last week the Supreme Court ruled that the strip-search of the13-year old student at her Arizona public school was unconstitutional. The girl was accused by another student of having prescription-strength ibuprofen, a substance banned under the school's drug policy. When Vice Principal Kerry Wilson found no pills in Redding's outer clothes or backpack, he sent her to the nurse's office where she was stripped down to her bra and underpants. In an 8-1 decision, the Court ruled that her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by the school officials that ordered the search.
Joan: In Florida, it was another white people's victory, but we have to give Governor Crist a lot of credit for trying. You may recall that Governor Crist was given a slate of nominees from which he was to select someone to fill a position in the Fifth District Court of Appeals. The people he was given to select from were all white as are all the members oft his particular District Court of Appeals. So he sent it back to the nominating committee and asked for a more diverse slate. The retiring judge that he was supposed to replace filed suit to make Crist fill the position as he was supposed to do under the state's constitution. The Florida Supreme Court, while praising Crist's efforts, ruled unanimously that he has to fill that position from the slate he was given. The decision was unanimous. There is one woman on that Appellate Court.

Jane: Women in Nambia are standing up for their rights. At least fifteen HIV-positive women in Nambia who were forcibly sterilized are now suing their government. According to the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (or the ICW), these cases represent a group of at least forty Nambian women who have been made infertile against their will. Cases documented by the ICW indicate that the women were coerced into signing documents consenting to their sterilization. They often were asked to sign the forms just minutes prior to giving birth. Namibian ICWcoordinator Jennifer Gatsi-Mallet said, "They were in pain, they were told to sign, they didn't know what it was. They thought that it was part of their HIV treatment. None of the women knew what sterilization was, including those from urban areas, because it was never explained to them." The ICW,partnering with the Legal Assistance Centre, plans to bring at least two of the cases to trial by the end of the year

Joan: On a sad note, the world has lost a woman leader. Neera Desai, PhD, a pioneer of women's studies in India, died of cancer at age 84 last week. Dr. Desai founded India's first women's studies program, the Research Center for Women's Studies at SNDT Women's University in Mumbai. She was a member of the Status of Women in India Committee, which published the Towards Equality Report in1974.She published several books and research reports on women's issues,including Women in Modern India, Feminism as Experience, and Feminism in Western India. Said Professor Vibhuti Patel, who worked with Desai at theuniversity, "She started work in this field in the early 50s and for over two decades fought a lone battle to raise awareness about it till the 70s when she began garnering support from several quarters." She worked on women's issues across the social categories of tribe, caste and class. Dr. Neera Desai, pioneer of women's studies in India.

Jane: And another brave woman speaks out: Iranian Nobel laureate and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi met with European Union Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering on Wednesday and urged him to respond to the post-election violence that continues in Iran.  Ebadi, who earlier called for the Iranian government to hold new elections and pay reparations for protester casualties, is asking the EU and other international bodies to "express their protest" over police violence Ebadi servedas  the first female judge in Iran's courts until the 1979 revolution, when the new regime forbade women from holding judgeships. She was awarded the 2003Nobel Peace Prize for her work as a lawyer and activist supporting the rights of political dissidents, women, and children. She is a cofounder of theTehran-based Defenders of Human Rights Center, which was shut down by the Iranian government in December. Pöttering responded that the EU is prepared to take action.

Joan: And there is another effort toquiet down those "uppity women." This one from the Vatican. The Vatican isconducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns some of whom fear theyare the targets of a doctrinal inquisition, this according to an article byLaurie Goodstein in the New York Times. Since the reforms of the Second VaticanCouncil 40 years ago, many American nuns stopped wearing religious habits andleft convents to live independently. Some have gone into social and politicaladvocacy and grass-roots organizations that serve the poor. A few nuns havealso been active in organizations that advocate changes in the church likeordaining women and allowing married men as priests. Sister Sandra M. Schneiders,professor emerita of New Testament and spirituality at the Jesuit School ofTheology at Berkeley, in California explains, "[W]e are religious, we'reliving the life of total dedication to Christ, and out of that flows a profoundconcern for the good of all humanity.." That's kind of inspiring to me,but the men don't seem to like In a speech in Massachusetts last year, CardinalFranc Rodé, who ordered the investigation offered barbed criticism of someAmerican nuns who, as he put it, " have opted for ways that take themoutside" the church. And Cardinal Levada ordered an assessment of a groupcalled the Leadership Conference of Religious Women, because, he said appearedthat the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that ithad failed to "promote" the church's teachings on three issues: themale-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman CatholicChurch as the means to salvation.