April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

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Back Up Your Birth Control Day

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Today is Back Up Your Birth Control Day in America. This action is to draw attention to these facts among others;

– Most teenagers in the U.S. don’t have access to EC over-the-counter (but they do in areas of Alaska, California, Vermont, Hawaii, Washington, Maine, New Hampshire and New Mexico)

– Despite the over-the-counter status, low-income and immigrant women still have issues of access to emergency contraception

– More than 60% of voters say they do not know about EC or any product that has been proven effective in preventing pregnancy when used within days after unprotected sex

You can read Biting Beavers’ story of trying to get EC here

or this story

The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn’t want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.

I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we’re starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.

The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy — but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. As we’re both in our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren’t planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn’t result in a pregnancy.

The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend — and the end of the 72-hour window — was approaching.

Or read the empathy and understanding for a rape victim

To add insult to injury, here’s what Dr. Joe Kearns, former medical director of Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, had to say:

“People drive to Reading to buy jeans. Even if that were the case, that you had to drive to Reading to get this [prescription], to me that does not rise to a compulsion that you have to pass laws that [doctors] have to do something.”

I am struggling to understand how a woman–who has just been raped!–would find a trip to Reading to get a prescription for emergency contraception (EC) similar to a road trip she might take with her girlfriends to buy a new pair of jeans.

Although legally women in Canada are allowed to buy EC OTC there are many instances of pharmacies not carrying it or pharmacists exercising “freedom of conscience”.

And our current fundamentalist friendly government who have already shown themselves ready to turn back the clock with cuts to SWC and removal of equality from the mandate, would be only too happy to partner with these same groups to deny women reproductive choice.

8th Circuit US Court of Appeals uses Anatole France as precedent!

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The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole France

The 8th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that Union Pacific Railroad’s exclusion of birth control from its health plan does not constitute discrimination against women under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In a 2-1 ruling, the majority wrote that “Union Pacific’s health plans do not cover any contraception used by women such as birth control, sponges, diaphragms, intrauterine devices or tubal ligations or any contraception used by men such as condoms and vasectomies… Therefore, the coverage provided to women is not less favorable than that provided to men.”

The court obviously believes the exclusions to be far as it prevents both women and men equally from obtaining through their healthcare plan medications that would keep them from becoming pregnant.

Though just as the rich are unlikely to be found sleeping under bridges, men are unlikely to be found looking like this Male Pregnancy

There was at least one sensible judge who opined:

Because men cannot become pregnant, it makes sense that the health care plan does not cover pregnancy prevention for men. Therefore, Judge Bye found that while the policy might be “officially gender neutral,” it is still discriminatory

To further the discriminatory nature of this ruling medications such as Rogaine and Viagra are covered.

Of course we all know preventing baldness is far more important that preventing pregnancy.

It continues to be his-story

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Comfort Women

The story of Pak Kumjoo
excerpts from a translation by Caroline Berndt

— Whether it was morning or night, once one soldier left, the next soldier came. Twenty men would come in one day…
— We would try to talk each other out of committing suicide, but even with that, women still did. There were women who stole opium and took it. If they took a lot of it, they would vomit blood and die. There were people who died after gulping medicine whose name they didn’t even know. There were also people who hanged themselves with their clothing when inside the toilet. Because there were people who tried to kill themselves even if they only had some string, we tried to hide string from each other…
— Then, about six months after I was made a “military comfort woman,” I told a colonel in the army, “Do you think we are your maids and your prostitutes? How can you be a human being after making us do such things? We came because we were told we were going to a factory, and we didn’t come knowing we would be prostituted.” I spat in his face.
— From there, that soldier said, “It is the command of the army. The country’s order is the Emperor’s order. If you have something to say, you can say it to the Emperor.” Then he beat me. I was in a coma for three days. Even when I regained consciousness, I couldn’t move. Even now I feel pain from that time, and scars remain.

[Read more…] about It continues to be his-story

“Microcredit”=What the IMF offers women

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Women’s ENews has a very informative commentary on the IMF and it’s value to women.

(WOMENSENEWS)–Earlier this month President Bush, in a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, opined that microcredit has “been very successful.”

Bush went on to say, “If you’re a rural farmer scratching out a subsistence living, would you want to be able to sell your goods to new markets overseas?” Don’t you “want to be able to sell into a larger universe?”

Apparently Bush and others believe that rural farmers will successfully exit subsistence agriculture and start competing for market share side by side with multinational powerhouses like ConAgra, General Foods and Nestle.

This equates the activities of the world’s largest corporations with the activities of peasants–mostly women–bartering in rural fairs. Yeah, right.

One expects Bush to endorse policies popular at the World Bank. But when the Nobel Prize Committee, the United Nations and hundreds of international development agencies join the celebration of microcredit as the key to reducing female poverty via women’s economic empowerment we have an obligation to probe their underlying premises.

Powerful policy makers–at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Federal Reserve and the White House–share the view that markets (specifically the individual exchanges that occur in markets) will save the world’s poor.

This view is an article of faith for neo-liberals since they adhere to the economic philosophy that holds that capitalism and unfettered markets will cure the world’s ills. It assumes that poverty is a problem of individual behavior.

In this article the authors contrasts the IMF approach with SEWA (SELF EMPLOYED WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION) approach. [Read more…] about “Microcredit”=What the IMF offers women

Enquiring minds sorta want to know

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There has been alot of talk about the NDP being dead, no longer with us, nailed to the perch….

So why then the constant flapping of silly gums about various ads, who said what to whom about dirty dancing…er merging with what party et bloody boring cetra.

If the NPD is dead and no threat why bother with the Minister Ministry of Silly Walk Talk about them?

Seems to me time would be better spent finding a way to get Harper de-elected.

Once more with feeling

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Psychols has a post today wondering if PB members are willing to put the progressive where their mouth is, so to speak.

I’ve been wondering the same thing.

PB membership is well over 300. I’ve posted about the petition to save the Community Access Program and currently sigs stand at 73. This is from a wide range of places.

So do people like to talk about progressive more than they like to act upon it?

Perhaps you need a reason to vote. Well if you are a social democratic (philosophy not party) you can go to the site and read about the success stories of various CAPS centers. Then vote so there can be more.

If you are a partisan of any party other than the conservatives you can consider it a vote against Harper.

If you are a partisan Liberal consider it a vote to save a Liberal program from the ravages of Harper government.

I’m putting my faith in you to act upon your progressive values and help save a low cost, extremely important program.

Website here

Petition here

Please pass this link on to all your contacts!

Lets build upon the momentum of success through perseverance that Verbena and liberal catnip have shown us.