October 2004 Archives

Need a reminder of how important choice really is? Take a second to think outside our borders and ponder this excerpt from Saturday's Miami Herald (registration required for full article):

"[The] debate over the always-volatile issue of abortion boiled over this week in Brazil, the world's largest Roman Catholic nation, when two justices on the country's top court challenged each other to a fight while debating whether a woman may abort a fetus developing without a brain. Brazil forbids abortion except in cases of rape and severe danger to the woman's life, leaving that determination to judges. In its decision Wednesday, the court determined that abortion was too controversial to be decided on an order from a lone justice. Abortion in Brazil is a class issue as well as a religious, moral and public-health matter. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilian women who can afford to pay obtain abortions at private clinics. Those who can't afford that facility must go through the public-health system or turn to clandestine clinics, amateur abortionists and risky drug concoctions."

We Americans are not far from a similarly dangerous Supreme Court predicament. With recent news that Rehnquist has cancer, we can be even more certain of an imminent bench opening. Bush can, and will, work to outlaw abortion in this country by appointing Justices who oppose Roe. On your way to the polls on Nov. 2, consider that if our Court, like Brazil's, is anti-abortion, hundreds of thousands of American women will also have to "turn to clandestine clinics, amateur abortionists and risky drug concoctions." This is not a third world issue. This is an issue for women everywhere. Take it seriously.

--Hannah

In a speech Kerry gave in Nevada this past Friday, he vowed to fight for equal pay for women:

"Today, for far too many women, the American dream seems a million miles away…[women are] working two jobs, three jobs, just to get by - and that's only counting the jobs they're paid for." Nice!

It’s great to see that Kerry is recognizing all of the unpaid labor that women do at home and elsewhere.

Kerry also said that he would raise the minimum wage (from $5.15 to $7 an hour), which would help nine million American women.

And please don’t forget how Kerry got shit about mentioning the wage gap in the last presidential debate. Apparently some people just don’t want to hear the truth…

Not exactly shocking, I know, but ridiculous just the same.

Beliefnet reported recently that the RNC has been employing a “Texas-based activist who believes the United States is a ‘Christian nation’ and the separation of church and state is ‘a myth.’”

Yikes! (Though it does sound right up Bush’s alley…)

David Barton, who founded Wallbuilders, an organization “dedicated to the restoration of the constitutional, moral, and religious foundation on which America was built,” has been speaking at RNC sponsored events for evangelical pastors across the country for about a year. At these events, Barton discusses “America’s Christian heritage,” and tells the pastors that they are allowed to endorse particular candidates from the pulpit. So far, Barton has pulled in $12,000 as a political consultant for the RNC.

Outside of Barton’s scary argument that the separation of church and state needs to go bye-bye, he also gets a little freaky with some education hypotheses:

Barton has said that God influenced his sense of mission. In America: To Pray Or Not To Pray? Barton writes: "In July 1987, God impressed me to do two things. First, I was to search the library and find the date that prayer had been prohibited in public schools. Second, I was to obtain a record of national SAT scores (the academic test given to prospective college-bound high school students) spanning several decades. I didn't know why, but I somehow knew that these two pieces of information would be very important."

As a result, Barton writes that he learned America has declined because of the 1962 and '63 Supreme Court rulings banning school-sponsored prayer. He believes God is angry at the country and has retaliated.

Huh. And to think all this time I thought that bad SAT scores were due to lack of education and resources. Turns out, all I had to do was pray for a high score. Silly me.

This just goes to show you how far the Bush campaign will go, and how they really feel about the separation of church and state. And if you need a friendly reminder of how Bush puts faith above reality, make sure to check out the NY Times Magazine article, Without a Doubt.

If you haven’t heard about the amazing movie Vera Drake yet, it’s about time you did. Coming from filmmaker Mike Leigh (who also did Secrets and Lies), Vera Drake is a seriously heart-wrenching movie about abortion in 1950s England. And I mean seriously—bring the tissue box.

I was lucky enough to catch a screening of the movie in New York a couple of weeks ago, where I met Mike Leigh and Imelda Staunton, who plays the title character.

Staunton plays Vera Drake as a kind, selfless, lower-middle-class mother who works as a domestic and in her spare time (for no money), “helps young girls.”

What I found most striking about this movie was its lack of in-your-face politics. It simply told the story of one woman, and through that story made the issue of choice profoundly clear.

Another incredible fact is that much of the movie was improvised:

On a Leigh set, no one knows what his or her character wouldn't know until absolutely necessary. Staunton called one seven-hour improvisation terrifying. She didn't know the police were coming for the character she had become until they arrived at the family's tiny, crowded apartment, where an engagement party for her daughter was underway.

Staunton, speaking about the movie’s political implications said, "I would hope it makes people go out and think about the moral dilemma we all face…There's no religion in the film. There's no politics in the film, per se. It just manages to look at this complex and personal and extremely difficult topic with compassion. . . . [But] the film is saying if it goes back to being illegal, this is what you'll be left with."

For reviews of Vera Drake, click here, here, and here.

You must take a peek at the inspiring article in Women's eNews about Florida's Betty Castor and the fight of her political career.

While struggling to win the seat in the U.S. Senate as the first female Democrat and second women ever to be elected by Florida, she challenges her opponent as a supporter of choice and stem-cell research. This article is a must-read!

The Associated Press reported yesterday that the same study that showed health risks for women on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) now indicates that the birth control pill is not only safe, but actually cuts women’s risk for heart disease.

The study said that women on the Pill also showed lower risk of stroke, and no increased risk of breast cancer. Nice!

This is great news for the 16 million American women who take birth control pills! The lead researcher of the study, Dr. Rahi Victory, said that for women who have ever taken birth control pills, "there's an 8 percent risk reduction of ever having cardiovascular disease,” and that “if you use oral contraceptives early on, you're probably going to be protected later in life.” Women taking the Pill also had a 7 percent lower risk of getting any form of cancer.

This good news comes from the Women’s Health Initiative, the largest women’s health study ever conducted.

Gotta say, I was mighty pleased to read this. As someone who has been on the Pill for almost 10 years—and was always a little wary about long-term risks—these results put my mind at ease a bit. What is it about Fridays that seem to bring good news?

Young women have been particularly active in mobilizing voters this election, from working with women’s organizations to creating political panties. But what about organizing for the election using just what women have traditionally been objectified for—our sexuality?

Several groups have cropped up recently that focus on getting out the vote by, well, putting out.

Votergasm.org, tells "young people everywhere to have sex with voters on Election Night, and to withhold sex from non-voters until the next presidential election," and hopes to "send 100,000 first-time 18 to 25 year old voters to polls for the 2004 elections, and to catalyze 250,000 orgasms by the morning of November 3." Way to aim high!

The group’s publicist, Michelle Collins, says in a Salon.com article today that young Americans aren’t voting enough, and aren’t fucking enough. “If there's anything that's really going to speak to America's youth, it's saying that voting is as important as sex, as fun, as American.”

Sounds sketchy as hell, but their strategy seems to be working pretty well. Since the site’s launch, they have received more than half million unique visitors, and more than 25,000 people have pledged to vote (and have sex) on election day.

Another site that is using sex as a means to political participation is FTheVote.com, a project of the Carbon Defense League (CDL), which Lauryn wrote about back in July. FTheVote’s theory is that liberals are simply hotter, and we should be using that to influence the election. Essentially, we should be having sex with conservatives in exchange for their vote:

Believe it or not, even the most seemingly deeply rooted right-wing ideologue can be manipulated by sex. As we all know, the sex drive is a powerful beast that has the potential to change people. People lie for sex, they cheat for sex, they even kill for sex - and you can be sure that they will change the way they think (and therefore vote) for sex. All you need to be armed with are your sexy progressive values, a razor-sharp wit, your genitalia, and a mindset that doesn't mind taking one for the team.

Unlike Votergasm—which actually is planning an election night party and looking for bar where people can easily have sex—FTheVote is just a joke:

The goal of the CDL is to present information and content normally filtered from a general audience's view through satire, humor, and trickery.

Another joke site that I found last month is little more vulgar (if you can imagine that), called Porn for Progress, which put out a Porn for Kerry DVD. I won’t even go into the actors’ fake names…

I’m at the point where I’ll take what I can get in terms of folks organizing against the current administration. And I’m all for fun, funny, types of activism. But I know that these actions also have the potential to piss people off and make a good majority of folks not take our voices seriously.

So do websites like these—jokes or not—reinforce the idea that the only thing women have to offer in politics (or in general) is their sexuality? Or is this just a fun, harmless way to get people involved in a process that they might not otherwise engage in?

Let’s hear it…

Check out the article in the Guardian Unlimited today about how Bush’s supposed allies are beginning to turn on his ass.

In an interview with CNN, Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition, said that George W. Bush had blatantly brushed off the idea of U.S. casualties from a war in Iraq. Robertson says he had a conversation with Bush prior to the war:

"I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties,'". Robertson stated that Bush had replied: "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

Should we be surprised?

Although Robertson had always had apprehension about the war, speaking out publicly in this way may seriously screw Bush’s expectations of the evangelical Christians’ vote.

Six relatives of Bush have also created a website, BushRelativesForKerry.com. They also accuse Bush of failing to live up to Christian values. “Because blood is thinner than oil.” it says on the homepage. “Please don’t vote for our cousin.” Awesome.

It's so refreshing to see young women taking on reproductive rights and the Bush administration's continued assault on our bodies and choices.

Opinion editor Jill Filipovic at the New York University newspaper, Washington Sqaure News, has written a great piece on the recent threat of "conscience clause" laws.

So make sure to check out the article, and to let Jill know how much you value young women making their voices heard!

It’s about time that the polls and the media caught up with um…oh yeah, the truth.

The NY Times reported today that as of Sunday, the NYT/CBS News poll puts Kerry ahead with women at 50 percent to Bush’s 40 percent. The article points out that the Kerry’s lead is smaller in other polls, but is ahead nonetheless.

This news comes after a whole bunch of bullshit about Bush doing well with women because of security moms—a demographic recently shown to be fictitious.