Posts Tagged: legislation
Thanks, Obama: My Christmas Present from POTUS
After eight full years of the Obama administration, December 2016 marked the last full month of Obama as the POTUS. In his last weeks, his desire to pass as much protective legislation has been in overdrive. Protections for woman’s health, DAPL, and sexual assault survivors have been on the list of protections, all of which bring a small amount of security in a time of uncertain future. An amendment that brought a special amount of holiday joy was attached to the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, which outlines foreign policy in regards to religious persecution outside of the United States. The amendment clarifies and added specific language to not only protect different theistic religions, but also protect nontheistic religions and the lack of religion as well. This provides… Read more »
Sooner Rather than Later: Your Guide to Early Voting
The horse is dead. It has not only been beaten to death but rather beaten, revived, and then beaten again. And that horse is people telling you to vote. Yet, even though the horse no longer exists it leaves in its afterlife a new horse, early voting. While the feeling of voting on the ever-exciting Election Day can perhaps never be replicated it is important to acknowledge the many downfalls to waiting until November 8th to vote. There are always the possible accidental flat tires or sick days which could prevent you from voting but there are also the possible restrictions imposed by nasty voter id laws that could impact you on the big day. Nothing would be more annoying and possibly devastating than standing in the huge lines at… Read more »
Human Trafficking and Abortion Care
Human trafficking is one of the largest systems of organized criminal activity. It is frequently considered in the realm of international human rights. Because of lack of media coverage and education on human trafficking in the United States, I was recently surprised to learn that Lorain County, where my school is located, has one of the highest human trafficking rates in the United States. As a county with three major interstate highways running through it, Lorain is an epicenter for exchange. In Ohio, almost 1,100 minors are trafficked each year. Organizations such as Project Unbound and the Human Trafficking Collaborative of Lorain County are working to stop the epidemic, get people who are in hostage situations to safety, and provide care to survivors. Many of the projects to get help… Read more »
California’s Cruel Policy that Keeps Families in Poverty
At the end of last month SB 23 passed its first committee in the California Legislature. For those of you who don’t know, SB 23 is a bill that seeks to repeal the CalWORKs Maximum Family Grant Rule (MFG) which bars families from receiving additional aid for any child born during the time that family is already receiving CalWORKs aid. A family receiving CalWORKs is a family who is struggling. How can a state say that they are not willing to provide assistance to any additional children knowing that children who grow up in poverty end up with poorer health, have behavioral and emotional problems, and are at higher risk of unintended pregnancy in their teen years? This is inhumane. What’s worse is that the rule applies to every member of… Read more »
Public Assistance is Reproductive Justice
Recently, my home state of Kansas passed a law that places several restrictions on the usage of benefits received from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF), commonly referred to as welfare. Among other things, the bill prohibits TANF benefits from being used at swimming pools, movie theaters, cruise ships, and tattoo parlors. Also, the bill limits ATM withdrawals from the TANF account to $25 per day. On top of these new restrictions, Kansas also requires recipients of TANF benefits to be working or looking for work, and has instituted a drug testing policy for those who qualify. And Kansas isn’t the only state to be fighting this “problem” of the luxury of being poor. Missouri lawmakers have been pushing for a bill greatly restricting what type of groceries… Read more »
Flyover States Matter
With all of the recent news coverage of Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law and the imprisonment of Purvi Patel for having a miscarriage, we have an opportunity to look at how people across the country view Reproductive Justice in the Midwest. Unfortunately, the conversation has been going in the same direction we usually see when problematic things happen in a red state. This scenario leads us to a discussion about flyover states, what it means to work for change in them, and how national organizations can support people on the ground. Too often we run into the problem of local organizations not having the funding or resources to handle these fights alone. However, national organizations in some cases are either unwilling or unable to offer the support that is needed… Read more »
Purvi Patel’s Imprisonment and the Implications of Anti-Choice Laws
Yesterday, thirty-three year old Purvi Patel of Indiana was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment on the charges of feticide and neglect. Patel was sentenced with thirty years of jail time on charges of neglect, six years for infanticide (to be served at the same time as the neglect charges), and is likely to spend five years time on probation post-prison. RH Reality Check coverage of the news described Patel as an Indian American who, “lived in a conservative Hindu household in which it was expected that she would not engage in premarital sex, and wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret from her parents.” Purvi Patel sought medical care at St. Joseph Hospital, a Catholic organization, after she was experiencing bleeding. According to the Vatican’s Catechism 2270, the Catholic Church… Read more »
Hey Congress, We See You
This week it looked like Congress was poised to pass a bipartisan bill, the Justice for Trafficking Victims Act (JVTA). However, after the bill made it out of the Judiciary Committee and before the Senate could vote on the bill it became clear that it included a prohibition on funding for abortion services. There has been a lot of finger pointing from both sides of the aisle about who is at fault for not acknowledging this harmful language. What we do know is that the bill from the last Congress did not include the language prohibiting funding for abortion services. Democrats claim that Republicans added the language and negotiated in bad faith. Regardless of where the blame lies, what we do know is that no bill is safe from unfair… Read more »
Student Activists Lobby in Texas for Trust, Respect and Access
Young Texas students learned how to call upon their government representatives when they took to the state Capitol to lobby for a package of reproductive healthcare bills. Activists from all over Texas gathered at the Capitol February 26 to speak out against a set of proposed bills that would severely limit a person’s access to sex education, abortion and other healthcare needs. Armed with a new campaign aimed at putting trust, respect, and access back into the hands of Texans, students met individually with state senators and representatives to inform them of the policies regarding reproductive rights. The tiered campaign has three elements, the first one being trust; trusting Texans to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions, including the time and spacing of their children. Under the trust tier also… Read more »
5 Things I Learned From Lobbying at the Capitol
Yesterday I did something I wouldn’t have expected myself to do in a million years. I went to my Texas State Capitol and lobbied for a package of reproductive healthcare bills under the ‘Trust. Respect. Access.’ campaign. We had bills that addressed the need for comprehensive sex education in schools, to bills that addressed the state-mandated 24-hour waiting period for abortions. But all the bills really simply fit into the platform of ‘Trust. Respect. Access.’ which means that we: Trust Texans to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions Respect the knowledge of healthcare professionals and their medical and ethical judgement about the care each patient needs. guarantee that everyone in Texas, if so chooses, gets Access to a safe, compassionate, and timely abortion. I learned so much from the training before… Read more »
