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I write about pieces of legislation often. I recognize it can be tiring, as well as an endless alphabet soup (DOMA, ENDA, CEDAW, etc.). But I think it's important to know about these types of legislation, and I think it's especially telling that these kinds of bills often get introduced and then ... nothing, which is why I always urge people to contact their representatives in Congress and ask them to support or vote for said legislation. Today is no different.

At the end of April/early May, U.S. Sen. John Kerry and U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas introduced the Defense Sexual Trauma Response, Oversight and Good Governance Act (The Defense STRONG Act). This is so important. This legislation deals specifically with sexual assault in the military, and if you're unfamiliar with how big of a problem that is, consider this: "surveys of women veterans indicate that as many as 1 in 3 women leaving military service have been sexually assaulted." (For more reading: The Department of Defense released a study in March about sexual assault in the military, which you can see here, but I'll warn you it's a big PDF file. 500-plus pages. The New York Times has an article about the report here.) The sexual assaults alone aren't the only problem; the reporting process and the ensuing (if any) prosecution are also problematic in that confidentiality can be compromised, among other things (more on that here).

According to Kerry's and Tsongas' press releases:

The Defense STRONG Act strengthens the systems in place to prevent sexual assaults and provide support and guidance for victims that do report an incident. The bill enables victims to access a military lawyer so that they understand their legal options. Conversations with Victim Advocates would also be made confidential and immune from discovery if the case goes to court, as they typically are in the civilian world.

The Defense STRONG Act also standardizes the training of service members, commanding officers, Victim Advocates, and Sexual Assault Response Coordinators around prevention and response. It requires that all service members are trained as they move up in the military structure, and prohibits DOD contractors from fulfilling the Victim Advocate and Sexual Assault Response Coordinator roles.

Ultimately, of course, we would all want a world free of rape and sexual assault, civilian and military. But at the least, women and men in the military who are sexually assaulted should have every right and every resource to report and deal with what happened to them. And this legislation could play a role in that. Let your representatives know they should support the Defense STRONG Act.

More reading:

• You can read the Defense STRONG Act legislation here.
• Veterans for Peace
• Women Make News: "Responding to Military Sexual Trauma – Still A Long Way to Go."
• New York Times magazine: "The Women's War." This article is from 2007 and is lengthy, but worth reading.

photo source

Looks like gay marriage is one step closer to becoming a reality in Argentina. The next big step is for the legislation to be considered in the Senate.

The House of Deputies approved same-sex marriage by an ample margin Wednesday and sent the legislation for consideration in the Senate. President Cristina Fernandez has promised not to veto the measure if it reaches her desk.

Gay rights activist Esteban Paulon calls it historic — the first time a gay marriage initiative has been debated in a national legislature in Latin America.

Five gay and lesbian couples already have been married by Argentine judges who say the country’s constitution supports freedom of choice for couples. But other judges have overturned some of those marriages as illegal.

The Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes the legislation.

The week of March 14 saw several states passing anti-choice laws, and a potential 2010 ballot initiative in Colorado.

In Kentucky, a bill that would require in-person counseling 24 hours and an ultrasound prior to an abortion stalled in the House. The state Senate voted in favor of the bill in late January; last month, the measure received a tie vote in the House’s Health and Welfare Committee, marking the fourth time the bill had failed to move out of a House committee. Pro-choice advocates are concerned that the requirement will create additional burdens to accessing abortion care.

Idaho’s House of Representatives approved a “conscience bill,” which would allow health care professionals to refuse access to contraception, abortion, and end-of-life treatment. Written by abortion opponents and sponsored in the House by Rep. Tom Loertscher (R-Iona), the measure has already been passed by the Senate and now goes to Governor C.L. Otter for final approval. The measure’s opponents fear that the bill would intrude into private decisions, as well as conflict with current laws regarding medical treatment.

Idaho politicians also decided to follow in the steps of anti-choice legislators in Georgia, introducing a bill that would ban race- or sex-selective abortions. Rep. Steve Kren introduced the bill, saying, “It’s not something that I know of that is a problem, but it is something I feel we should protect against.” Arizona, Mississippi, and New Jersey are considering similar legislations. Opponents of the bill contend that it violates both individual clinics’ First Amendment rights and a woman’s right to privacy, as well as placing an undue burden on providers.

After several days of back-and-forth, the South Carolina House passed an amendment to the state budget that bars the state health insurance plan from paying for abortions except to save a woman’s life. The amendment had originally failed, but after pressure from anti-choice groups, the House voted the amendment through.

Finally, Personhood Colorado claims that it has enough signatures to put a measure on the 2010 ballot that seeks to end abortions in the state. The initiative would grant unborn fetuses human rights in the state constitution; Personhood USA is trying to place similar measures on ballots in 40 other states. In 2008, Colorado voters rejected a similar ballot initiative.

As Kristen reported last week, the Statistical Reporting of Abortions Act, (passed in Oklahoma last spring) is being challenged in court on the grounds that it covers more than one subject and, thus, is a violation of the state constitution. Since Kristin already did such a great job summarizing the bill, I won’t bore you with those details—check out her post if you want to read more!  We at FFC sincerely hope this challenge (as well as any others that come forward) is successful and that this horrible piece of legislation meets its end before it can be implemented.

Given the particularly heinous nature of this bill and the potential it has to do long-term harm to the rights of women all over the country, plus the fact that it is really only one example of the shenanigans state elected officials will pull in order to ensure that I am not the one to control the destiny of my uterus, I think it makes sense to subject it to all sorts of scrutiny, courtesy of the blogosphere.

And since I am all about karmic justice, I decided that the idiots behind this colossal piece of crap should be subject to an equal level of scrutiny as well as varying forms of public ridicule.  Sadly, it isn’t within my power to cart them off to the town square and place them in a pillory everyone to mock.  I will just have to settle for posting their profiles here.  Including their phone numbers and email addresses.  All of this is public information, of course.  But I thought it might be interesting to see how they feel about having the details of their personal lives uploaded to the web for all to see.

Unfortunately the list of folks who supported this bill is fairly long, so I won’t be able to do all of my pseudo-pillorying in one post.  I’ll have to drag it out a little.  I thought, for a few minutes, I would just list them alphabetically—fairly democratic, I feel.  But not as fun as starting with the initial author of the bill, then moving on to the list of co-authors and, finally, ending with the “little people”—a.k.a., the asshats who voted for it, but didn’t breed it.

*Drum Roll Please* And the OKLAHOMA’S TOP ENEMY OF CHOICE AND WOMEN EVERYWHERE award goes to…

OKLAHOMA STATE SENATOR TODD LAMB (R), DISTRICT 47

Senator Lamb was elected to the State Senate in 2004 and continues to serve today.  He is currently the Majority Floor Leader, but has much higher aspirations.  The good senator, you see, announced his candidacy for Lt. Governor of Oklahoma in August of this year.   His campaign website is pretty darn droll, but it is clear that our Mr. Lamb has set his political sites on bigger and better things than being a State Senator.

A quick little whitepages.com search (its easy, anyone can do it!) turns up Mr. Lamb’s home address and phone number.  Ordinarily, I am staunchly on the side of privacy protection.  In this case though, Mr. Lamb is willing to force women seeking abortion services to furnish the details of their private lives and have them published on the ODHS web site, so it seems fair to expect that he will be OK with his info being published to the web too.  Of course, he’s not seeking an abortion.  But he is seeking elected office.

I humbly urge FFC readers to call, write and email Mr. Todd.  Do let him know exactly how you feel about his efforts to ensure that the women of Oklahoma do not have access to safe, legal and affordable abortion services—as well as his work to make sure that the private medical decisions of women are subject to review and made public by the Oklahoma Department of Health Services.  And be sure to point out that the pro-choice community, both in and outside the state, intends to fight his bid for the post of Lt. Governor of Oklahoma.

Mr. Todd’s home address and home phone number are:

801 Glenlake Dr.

Edmond, OK 73103-1811

(405) 752-5262

lamb@oksenate.gov

Do be civil people. My intent is not to encourage anyone to threaten, harass or intimidate Senator Todd or his family.  Do not call their house at all hours of the night; in fact, be as polite as possible—just as you would if you were calling the Oklahoma capital switchboard.  Do not fill his email box with spam or  his snail mail box with junk; simply offer your opinion of his policies and of this bill.

The point is to voice our opposition to his work and to convince Senator Todd of the error of his ways.  Bringing this pressure to bear in a way that is intended to demonstrate the importance of personal privacy is simply a method.  Sure, its a method fraught with irony and karmic justice—but it is still only a method.

For any of you interested in the CI-102 petition, Montana Cowgirl over at Left In the West has posted some very interesting and potentially disturbing info about the folks behind CI-102.  Please check out her post.

Well, it appears that the hardcore anti-abortionists are at it again.  They want to define a person as a human at any stage of life or development, from the fertilization of the egg onward.  Specifically they’re going after the Due Process clause of the Montana State Constitution.

The full text of the CI-102 Ballot Initiative can be read here.

First, the definition of person in this initiative:  “CI-102 amends the due process section of the Montana Constitution to define “person” as used in that section to include every human being regardless of age, health, function, physical or mental dependency, or method of reproduction, from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.“

Section 17 of the MT Constitution reads: “Due process of law. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

In searching for a good definition or explanation of Due Process I’ve discovered that it’s fairly vague, but seems to boil down to fairness.  A simple explanation can be found here, though it is not specific to Montana.

So if a fertilized egg is a person, it cannot be deprived of life (or liberty or property, but we’ll come back to that) without due process of law.  Does that mean that anyone wishing to have an abortion would have to request legal permission to proceed?

It certainly does. That’s exactly what these folks want to accomplish. If they cannot outlaw abortion outright they will continue to seek to  make it as difficult and burdensome as possible.  That this directly conflicts with a woman’s right to privacy is of no consequence to them.  And what happens when the rights of the mother and fetus are in conflict?  In those instances where the continuation of the pregnancy could kill the mother, how does the law decide which “person’s” rights to uphold?

Beyond the obvious, this amendment could have some pretty drastic consequences.  Planned Parenthood of Montana has posted about the issue here, focusing on privacy rights. And really, this isn’t all that different than 2008′s CI-100, which failed to gather enough signatures to make it to the ballot.  You can read a really well titled 4and20BlackBirds post on that initiative here.

Many of the same issues that could be seen with CI-100 also apply to CI-102.  If a person cannot be deprived of life without due process, and legal personhood begins at the moment of fertilization, what happens when a woman has an ectopic pregnancy?  Or a miscarriage?  Would miscarriages have to be investigated? Could charges be filed if a woman was found to have been less than perfect in nurturing her unborn child?

And moving on to the rest of the wording. Would fetuses be able to own property?  And what about liberty?  What exactly constitutes liberty when still inside the womb?

The proposed amendment is dangerous and more than a little potentially ridiculous.

I truly hope that Montanans will decline to sign this petition when they are presented with it.  Please spread the word and remember to always ask for the details of whatever petition you’re being asked to sign.  Petition gatherers can be fairly creative in finding ways to make their petition sound like the sort of thing any sensible person would support.

Remember, miscarriage is NOT murder.

You may or may not know, dear readers, that the term hysterectomy literally means “to remove hysteria” — it was thought, way back, during the beginning of the development of modern medicine, that girl parts (the uterus, in particular) made women hysterical and by removing them men would be saved from the bane of female insanity.

What, you ask, does this have to do with the NJ woman who, against the advice of her physician, refused to have a c-section and, as a result, lost custody of her child (who, incidentally, was born healthy, despite her insistence on a natural birth)?

The notion behind surgically removing hysteria from women has EVERYTHING to do with the NJ case. The decision to remove VM’s child from her care was made based on her refusal to undergo a c-section and on her “erratic” behavior during the labor process. It also has everything to do with abortion and reproductive choice. I’ll get to that part shortly, I promise.

Excuse me? I’ve experienced the..um…pleasure of childbirth and I can tell you that erratic behavior is, well, normal. At one point, I sat straight up in the bed and ripped all of my clothes off, while also attempting to rip out my IV tube. And I was the rational one. My (now ex) husband was the hysterical one of us that night. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that he didn’t keep his head together very well during the whole thing.

Anyone who has experienced the effects of childbirth, either as an observer or as a participant will tell you that rational behavior during the event is not always easy to accomplish, regardless of the gender of the person involved.

But we live in a culture that views men as rational and women as irrational. As recently as the 2008 elections, people questioned whether or not Hillary Clinton could handle being president. I am sure everyone heard, in the guise of humor, of course, speculation as to what would happen if she had PMS and had to decide whether or not to go to war.

You see, all of these things are related. There is a perception in our culture that women are not rational. And at times we aren’t. But men aren’t always the most rational beings either. The irrational behavior of women is just more visible. When men do irrational things, it is considered a fluke rather than the norm. When women behave irrationally, it is just our nature.

The court’s decision to remove VM’s child from her care, in part, because she acted irrationally during the childbirth process, was not accidental or coincidental. The reality is that courts are made up of people–people who are susceptible to the same biases that everyday folks experience, and to a large degree, buy into.

What, you might ask, does any of this have to do with choice? Put simply: Anytime the notion that women are hysterical by nature goes unchallenged, those that oppose women’s rights, reproductive or otherwise, are given a leg up in the fight.

Think, for a moment, about the types of laws some states have passed to restrict abortion access. Three varieties come immediately to mind:

So-called “Informed Consent” laws. You know, the ones that are supposedly passed so that women seeking abortions can fully understand what they are doing. “Informed Consent” statutes require abortion clinics to show women ultrasound images of their “baby” before they are allowed to have an abortion.

Waiting Periods–legislation that requires women seeking abortion services to show up at the clinic, register, then wait 24 or more hours before actually having the abortion (usually after seeing the ultrasound images also forced upon her).

Parental Consent–legislation that requires one (or worse, both) parents of a pregnant minor to consent to their daughter’s abortion.

Each of these restrictions is based on a central premise: A pregnant woman (or teen) could not possibly know enough at the moment she walks into an abortion clinic to make this decision for herself. The State (or Mommy & Daddy) must protect her from making choices on her own behalf. Oh, and since she is pregnant, her hormones must be raging which means she is totally off her rocker, plus women are, by virtue of their girl parts, totally hysterical anyway, well, it’s our duty to save them from themselves and make sure that they really, really, really do want to do this thing.

Despite the long term psychological and emotional effects giving a child up for adoption has on many of the women who do it, we don’t make women who chose to give their babies up for adoption subject to a mandatory waiting period nor do we force them to look at their babies–actual born, living breathing human beings–before we let them hand them to strangers. Obviously, adoption is the sane option so we don’t need to protect women who want that from themselves (nor from a predatory industry that allows wealthy people to purchase the children of the poor).

Abortion may not be the right option for all women. Neither is adoption right for all women. Nor, obviously, might keeping an unwanted child be the best option for all women. But we allow the State to regulate each of these decisions in different ways, and to a lesser or greater extent than we do others. That, ladies and gents, means that the State gets to decide what is and is not rational or is or is not in women’s best interests in all cases. In no case, however, do women get to decide for themselves. Irrational, hysterical, hormonal creatures that we are.

I have it on good authority that HB 228 aka Kerns Crazy Gun Bill, is being amended & approved by the Senate and will be heading back to the House.  I’m not sure when.  4and20Blackbirds posts about it here.

Please get in touch with your legislators.  Here’s my set of links for finding & contacting them again.

1. You need to know your full zip code, which you can find here.
2. Using that zip code, the folks at Project Vote Smart will tell you who your Senator and Representatives are (scroll down).
3. Once you have that info you can go here to use the handy online form to contact your representatives. OR
3a. Between sessions you can go here to find their direct e-mail addresses.

According to the National Organization for Women (NOW), paid parental leave legislation is being reintroduced to Congress.  It is believed that this bill will finally be able to pass with both a Democrat majority and Obama who would likely sign it into law.  This is the third iteration of the bill and the passing of this legislation would guaranteee 4 weeks of paid leave for parents (both mother and father) from work after having a child.  This would allow both parents to be able to spend the first four weeks of their child’s life with their child.

Click the above article link to support this legislation.