Question: Is the health care reform a success? In order to secure votes from abortion opponents, Democratic leaders agreed to tighten restrictions on coverage for abortion procedures under any insurance plan that receives federal money.
If enacted, this amendment will be the greatest restriction of a woman’s right to choose to pass in our careers,” said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, one of the lawmakers who left Ms. Pelosi’s office mad.
Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said the bill’s original language barring the use of federal dollars to pay for abortions should have been sufficient for the opponents. “Abortion is a matter of conscience on both sides of the debate,” Ms. DeLauro said. “This amendment takes away that same freedom of conscience from America’s women. It prohibits them from access to an abortion even if they pay for it with their own money. It invades women’s personal decisions.
It is becoming easier under the current administration to gain asylum due to domestic violence or homophobia.
In 1994, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno ruled in a case that persecution based on sexual orientation could be potential grounds for asylum. Until recently, those grounds have rarely been used.
But now, immigrant and gay activists say, more asylum-seekers from the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean are citing sexual orientation. Activists say the asylum-seekers are escaping violence and death threats from places where homosexuality is either outlawed or strongly, socially shunned.
The domestic violence case involved a Guatemalan woman, Rody Alvarado Pena, whose husband had severely beaten her multiple times. The courts would not govern a domestic matter, so she fled to the United States in 1995, leaving behind two young children. She filed a petition for asylum, and “if the court grants Alvarado’s petition, this will set precedent, by including domestic violence victims as a ‘particular social group’ categorically protected by asylum laws.”
Amazing video of a rape survivor confronting Senator Vitter over his opposition to an amendment that would prohibit the government from working with contractors who deny sexually assaulted workers to pursue charges in court. What’s even more amazing about the video is how Vitter is able to keep his composure in light of the woman’s questioning. You know you were hoping he would make a fool of himself too.
Honduran women’s organizations present a picture of escalating sexual violence after the coup led by Roberto Micheletti. On Nov 3, a new law passed in Honduras that prohibited the morning-after pill, despite strong condemnation from women’s groups. A full list of violations presented to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission is at the link.
Nice. Students from the University of Sydney created a “pro-rape” facebook page. It’s gone now, so there’s no point in searching for it, but it was up for three months before being taken down. Binge drinking and unreported sexual assaults are flourishing on the campus, all part of a growing rape culture. It also reintroduces a commonly seen issue on facebook– where is the line between freedom of speech and blatant hateful, violent speech?
