Fox “News” Tackles Women’s Health

Posted: August 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, Reproductive Health, Surreality, Team Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

I’m so glad Think Progress watches Fox News so I don’t have to! Apparently the TV voice of right wing craziness has been in an uproar this week because the Obama administration finally did something positive for women.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that health insurers will be required to cover contraception and other reproductive health care services without additional cost sharing, accepting most of the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations. The administration did add an additional caveat that would allow “religious institutions that offer insurance to their employees the choice of whether or not to cover contraception services.” “This regulation is modeled on the most common accommodation for churches available in the majority of the 28 states that already require insurance companies to cover contraception,” the agency notes. The services will include:

– well-woman visits;
– screening for gestational diabetes;
– human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older;
– sexually-transmitted infection counseling;
– human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling;
– FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling;
– breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling; and
– domestic violence screening and counseling.

This decision was based on recommendations by scientists at the Institute of Medicine.

But that isn’t good enough for Fox “News,” which invited a so-called “expert” (actually a fanatical wingnut), Sandy Rios of Family Pac Federal, to debate the decision with Jehmu Greene, former president of the Women’s Media Center.

Greene offered the facts that support greater access to birth control. Namely, “50 percent of pregnancies in this country are unintended pregnancies” –the leading reason why women seek abortions — which costs the U.S. over $11 billion a year. Noting that contraception not only allows women to space out their pregnancies and commit to parenting, but also reduces the number of abortions, Greene determined the new policy to be a “text-book definition of win-win.”

Fox’s anti-birth control “expert,” Family PAC Federal Vice President Sandy Rios, however, found her own reasons to lambast the policy as “ridiculous.” Telling Greene that she lives in “la la land,” Rios offered the following “arguments” against the new policy and a woman’s right to use birth control, which are so ludicrous they’re worth listing:

– “Is the White House out of their mind? Does the West Wing not know what the left wing is doing? We’re $14 trillion in debt and now we’re going to cover birth control, breast pumps, counseling for abuse? Are we going to do pedicures and manicures as well?”

Watch it:

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According to Rios, providing counseling for women who have been beaten by their partners is analogous to paying for manicures and pedicures? WTF?!

But that’s not the worst of it. Jemu Greene also appeared on Sean Hannity’s show to debate the issue. According to Hannity, providing birth control for women is an outrage, but paying for Viagra for men is OK, because it’s a “medical problem.”

Piling on to the conservative apoplexia over the Obama administration’s recent ruling that insurance companies should cover birth control without co-pays, Fox News host Sean Hannity slammed the policy last night for encouraging “screwing around,” but defended coverage of Viagra. Taking a bold stance again reason, Hannity said, “I don’t care about the scientists” who recommended the move and insisted that the birth control is “not a women’s health issue.” Asked how he felt about insurance companies covering male enhancement medication, Hannity strongly defended the practice, saying, “That is a medical problem!”

Check it out:

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I’m speechless.

Fox News Consultant Comes Out for Enslaving Pregnant Women

Posted: July 31, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, Violence against women, Women's Rights | 20 Comments

h/t to ECHIDNE of the snakes

We’re headed back to property status ladies.  Keith Ablow argues for forced pregnancy. Why do these nuts think it’s okay to deregulate banks but consider women’s bodies their personal property?

The abortion debate has left one issue largely off the table: The proper rights of men to prevent the abortion of their children.
I believe that in those cases in which a man can make a credible claim that he is the father of a developing child in utero, in which he could be a proper custodian of that child, and in which he is willing to take full custody of that child upon its delivery, that the pregnant woman involved should not have the option to abort and should be civilly liable, and possibly criminally liable, for psychological suffering and wrongful death should she proceed to do so.

…

Allow men who want to be fathers, and who could be good parents, to compel the women they impregnate to bring their children to term.

From ECHIDNE:

I love the language. Men “impregnate” women and then “compel” them to bring “their” children to term. Ablow notes, as a quick aside, that his proposal has certain negative consequences for women:

I understand that adopting social policy that gives fathers the right to veto abortions would lead to presently unknown psychological consequences for women forced to carry babies to term. But I don’t know that those consequences are greater than those suffered by men forced to end the lives of their unborn children.


In Ablow’s world no woman can die or become seriously ill from pregnancy or from giving birth! There are only “unknown psychological consequences,” probably minor, from being forced to bring to term the child of any man who has successfully impregnated her! The pregnancy does not happen inside her body, the stakes in the pregnancy are identical for both men and women, and, honestly, pregnancy has no physical health risks whatsoever!

But this is one of those chilling and cold-blooded arguments you will get once you define a fertilized egg as a child. The woman has become an incubator for a child and the man has parental rights from the minute the egg and sperm unite. Inside the woman’s body. Which means that he has rights to endanger that body if he so wishes.

Indeed, all our Keith thinks a man needs to make is a credible claim that it is his sperm! Any woman can then be forced to give birth. Perhaps even by a rapist, say? Ablow is unclear on that point.

This is outrageous. It’s hard to believe that a major media outlet would give a platform to an argument for forced servitude. This is beyond the pale.

Strauss-Kahn Accuser’s Words “Misrepresented” in Leaks to Media

Posted: July 28, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Violence against women, Women's Rights, worker rights | Tags: , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Nafissatou Diallo

Just a short time ago, the woman who accused former IMF head Dominque Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her spoke briefly at press conference at a Brooklyn church.

“I’m here because I had people call me a lot of bad names,” Ms. Diallo said softly at the Christian Cultural Center on Flatlands Avenue. “A lot of things they said about me was not true.”

Before being introduced by Rev. A.R. Bernard, senior pastor at the center, Ms. Diallo, 32, dressed in a dark suit, rubbed her fingers together slowly, blinking often as she gazed out the windows of the lobby, past the bank of cameras and reporters.
“Me and my family, we are going through a lot,” she said. “We cry every day.”

She spoke for less than five minutes and was escorted from the podium when she finished without taking any questions; her lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, and other supporters remained at the microphone and spoke with reporters.

Diallo’s attorney says that the Manhattan DA’s office either mistranslated or deliberately misinterpreted taped conversations she had with an Arizona prison inmate.

Ms. Diallo and her lead lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, spent much of Wednesday at the district attorney’s office in Manhattan, where they listened to a recording of conversations Ms. Diallo had with a fellow African immigrant in an Arizona jail after she said she was attacked. Law enforcement officials told Mr. Thompson and The New York Times last month that Ms. Diallo could be heard saying on the tape “words to the effect of: ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing.’ ”

But after listening to the recording on Wednesday, Mr. Thompson told reporters at a news conference that Ms. Diallo’s statements had been mischaracterized. He said that at no point did she raise the issue of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s wealth or status in the way that prosecutors had described it. Rather, he said, the man she was speaking with, who initiated the calls to Ms. Diallo, remarked during one conversation that Ms. Diallo could stand to gain money from the case, but she quickly dismissed the idea and said it was a matter for her lawyer.

Thompson also noted that in the first phone call, Diallo’s description of what happened with Strauss-Kahn was

consistent with what she told investigators a day earlier. In sexual-assault cases, people who hear an early account of an attack are called “outcry witnesses,” and are often used to buttress the credibility of a person making an accusation.

“She told the guy that someone tried to rape her at her job,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview after his news conference. “She said: ‘I didn’t know who he was. We fought each other. Because he wasn’t able to take off my clothes, he put his penis in my mouth. He touched me. They took me to the hospital, and they arrested him.’ ”

The DA’s office said they could not comment on evidence in an ongoing investigation. But didn’t they already have quite a bit to say? Someone leaked negative information about Diallo to the media, resulting in Strauss-Kahn being released on bail while his accuser was treated like a liar and money-grubber. From CNN Justice:

The hotel maid who has accused the then-head of the International Monetary Fund of sexually assaulting her met Wednesday with prosecutors for at least seven hours….

Prior meetings between the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, and prosecutors who are deciding whether to pursue charges against French financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn ended abruptly last month after Thompson accused Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance of “abandoning” her.

Prosecutors had disclosed credibility issues with Diallo, who is from Guinea.

[….]

Diallo’s attorney said the Sofitel New York employee wants to tell a jury what happened to her. “I want justice. I want him to go to jail,” Diallo told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview that aired this week.

I give Diallo a lot of credit for coming forward publicly and revealing her identity. I hope Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance will let her have her day in court.

Saturday: “Hillaryben” and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Saris

Posted: July 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Hillary Clinton, morning reads, Women's Rights | 30 Comments

Hillary, wheels down in the land of my heritage, surrounded by vibrant power-saris instead of being the only bright corner in a sea of gray suits, as so often is the case, especially here in the US. (July 18, 2011/State Dept/Public Domain) ... CLICK PHOTO TO READ A TRANSCRIPT OF HILLARY'S REMARKS AT THE OPENING SESSION OF THE US-INDIA STRATEGIC DIALOGUE (July 19, 2011)

Morning, news junkies. This Saturday’s roundup is really more like two posts in one. It’s going to be top-heavy with news about Hillary’s current travels, so if you’re interested in other items about women’s issues, in particular news about Hillary protege Kirsten Gillibrand, please be sure to click after the jump for part 2! (There’s a bit more Hillary stuff in Part II, as well, not related to her current traveling per se.)

Alright, I’m going to start off part I with a mini-photo bomb of sorts (you can click on each photo to get more details about Madam Secretary’s travels):

First up, above to the right… Secretary Clinton arrived in New Delhi, India July 18 for the second round of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue. She was met by Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao. (July 18, 2011 STATE DEPT/PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Next, below to the left: BJP Party leader Sushma Swaraj speaks with Secretary Clinton at her residence ini New Delhi. (July 19, 2011 STATE DEPT/PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Second pic below to the left: All India Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi greets Secretary Clinton at her residence in New Delhi. (July 19, 2011/STATE DEPT/PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Third pic below to the left: Secretary Clinton arrives in Bali and Is Greeted By Indonesian Director for Protocol Kandou, Indonesian foreign Ministry Protocol Liaisons Novita and Moniaga, and Ambassador Carden. (July 21, 2011/STATE DEPT/PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Powerful woman pow wow, the Hillary and Sushma edition! (July 19, 2011/State Dept/Public Domain) ... CLICK PHOTO TO VIEW A CANDID SHOT OF HILLARY AND SUSHMA WALKING HAND-IN-HAND.

As epic as it gets...Hillary Clinton and Sonia Gandhi! (July 19, 2011/State Dept./Public Domain)... CLICK PHOTO TO VIEW A NICE SLIDESHOW OF HILLARY MEETING INDIAN LEADERS (including more pictures of Hillary with Sushma and Sonia.)

Hillary, wheels down in Bali! (July 21, 2011/State Dept/Public Domain) ... CLICK PHOTO TO SEE A SLIDESHOW OF MORE AT STILL4HILL'S BLOG.

Here’s a really great read to go along with these pictures, from the Telegraph, Kolkota’s KP Nayar: RARE OPPORTUNITIES – Hillary Clinton’s commitment to India remains undiminished. The “Hillaryben” mention below, in discussing Hillary’s earlier trip to Mumbai, pulls on my heartstrings twice–one time for the Desi factor and another for the sisterhood factor (Hillaryben means “sister Hillary”):

Vegetable vendors and embroidery workers from Gujarat, typically ordinary Indians, made her feel at home in Mumbai, when they unhesitatingly called her “Hillaryben” and reminded her that she was among one of her kind, a woman, wife and working mother, not the most powerful lady in the world, arguably.

I’ve only teased just a tiny portion here. Please click over to the Kolkata Telegraph to read this all in context. It’s the kind of article about Hillary you’d be hard-pressed to find examples of in American media.

PTI has a report of Hillary’s visit with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa… Jaya is a great personality: Hillary. There’s a cute pic of the two women (Jaya and Hillary) together at the link.

Now for a read that is just plain fun. Via the Hindustan Times: Clinton hit the bar, had tandoori murg. On the menu for Hillary and what the article describes as “her 100-strong entourage”:

On her platter were a choice of dishes like seekh kebab, tandoori gobhi, chholey, daal makhni, aloo jeera, rajma masala and fresh mango lassi.

In Indian meats, there was tandoori murg, murg biryani, khushk raan, barra biryani and murg tariwala. Staple consisted of assorted naan, roti and jeera pulao, and for dessert, there were Indian mithais.

Another fun one…it’s a PTI report via IBN (CNN’s sister network in India)… Cultural fare dazzles Hillary:

Chennai, Jul 20 (PTI) It was an enthralled Hillary Clinton this evening as the young faculty and students of a local cultural group brought on some captivating music and dance performance, prompting her to say she “was honoured” to be a part of the moment. […] Clinton said though she had witnessed some of these dances earlier, this was the first time she watched a performance so close that she “could see every muscle (of the dancers) move.”

You can see some fantastic PTI-copyrighted photographs of a bedazzled Hillary enjoying all this “cultural fare” here (via Sify).

And, here’s a very lovely picture of Hillary “sharing a lighter moment” with some women dancers (via the Deccan Herald, which has some interesting reporting about Hillary’s stay in India at the link). In the photo, you can see the tikka/bindi her Indian hosts put on her forehead, along with the garland. You can also see a big warm smile on Hillary’s face. Which reminds me of this great closeup of just Hillary from that night, via Getty Images. (I don’t know how long that link at DayLife will last for, so if you can’t see the photo there, let me know.)

Also, Dipnote has a picture up of Hillary with the dancers on a post about her meeting with the Working Women’s Forum. Oddly enough, they didn’t put a picture of her at the actual forum, but not to worry, sisters of the traveling stateswoman! Still4Hill has got the Hillary goodies on this one, all in one place.

Click to see S4H’s slideshow of Hillary at the Working Women’s Forum, as well as a transcript of Hillary’s remarks–if you love Hillary and her campaign for women, YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THESE PICS!

Toward the end of her remarks to the Working Women’s Forum, Hillary talked about the cookstove initiative (I’m quoting the latter half of what she said):

And so we will work with people around the world to help develop clean cookstoves, help to manufacture them so they are affordable for you to buy them, and we are delighted that we have partners right here with the Working Women’s Forum, with the Confederation of Indian Industries, and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, who have joined the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, to make your lives and the lives of your children better and healthier. (Applause.)

Here’s a small sampling of the news coverage on this:

Clinton takes “clean cookstove” drive to India (nice pic at the link of Hillary looking completely in her element as she addresses the crowd)…

(Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed one of her simplest but potentially most transformative diplomatic priorities in India on Wednesday: clean cooking stoves.

Huffpo/AP… Clean Cookstoves: Hillary Clinton Fights Cooking Deaths In Developing World. Check out the photo Huffpo ran of Hillary. It’s almost…*gasp*…flattering (for Huffpo anyway). My, my… it seems like just yesterday that Arianna and her editors found the most distorted pictures of Hillary that they could and blasted them on their front page 24/7. What a difference three years makes!

Here’s a silly item about Hillary’s visit to Greece earlier in the week, with some fun photos: Hillary Clinton: What is a Greek “Frappe”? It’s tabloidesque, but not particularly the kind where you regret giving the story a click. The author makes a punchline at the end about Hillary enjoying her non-frappe, American-style warm coffee and “[leaving] for India to reveal the secrets of a good, ice-cold Lashi.” (Hopefully the first secret Hillary revealed is that it’s spelled “lassi.” And, bless the EVOO queen Racheal Ray who has concocted her own lassi recipe for her show before, but it’s not pronounced like the dog “Lassie” either. It’s “lus-see,” i.e. rhymes with hussy.)

But I digress! Back to Hillary in Greece.

I personally love this AFP shot of Hillary walking past the Acropolis (as she leaves a signing ceremony for a Cultural MOU on import restrictions for archaeological finds between the US and Greece.) H/T S4H, who has more pics+video/transcript of Hillary at the Acropolis Museum here.

Also if you missed the CNN-Turkey Coffee Break with Hillary from last Saturday, Stacy at SecyClintonBlog has all your video, transcript, and photo needs covered at the link, so be sure to check it out.

These are just some Hillary highlights I took away from this week–this really isn’t a comprehensive review of Hillary’s world tour in terms of all the important diplomatic and development work she’s doing. (For that, I suggest you keep an eye out for Dipnote‘s Sunday week-in-review tomorrow.) As much as I’d love to keep blogging about Hillary’s travels this week, I’m afraid the post would become way too long, even for me! And, I actually have a laundry list of other items I’d like to link to before I wrap up and get to the women’s history trivia for this Saturday.

So here goes… your Saturday: Part II link dump…. you can go grab another cuppa first or save this for reading later this weekend, but whenever you’re ready… Click to continue… Read the rest of this entry »

A Violent Date Rape; A Troubling Outcome.

Posted: July 20, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

How do prosecutors decide which rapes to take to court? Is the deck already stacked against some rape victims? These are two of the questions Anna North tries to answer in her fine two-part article at Jezabel about a young graduate student at the University of Iowa. Rebecca Epstein turned to North to tell her story, because a prosecutor refused to give her a chance to face her rapist in court. Epstein insisted that her real name be used in the article.

Warning: Please be aware that some of the material discussed below may be disturbing to some.

In part 1, “How a Rape Case Went Off the Rails,” describes the crime and its consequences:

Epstein…told me she was violently anally raped on the night of February 16, by a man she had been on a date with, in his apartment. She stayed at the apartment for about an hour afterward, fearful that he might hurt her further if she left. During this time, she had vaginal intercourse with him, which she describes as nonconsensual but nonviolent. When she felt it was safe to leave, she went to a hospital and had a rape kit done. The next day, she filed a police report. She says detectives were largely respectful in their treatment of the case.

Now here comes the really creepy part. The man who raped Epstein wrote a letter to her not long after the crime. The letter is in some ways even more disturbing than the violent crime the writer committed. In the letter, he tries to justify what he did by implying that he’s really a nice guy who respects women. He says that Epstein should have told him ahead of time that if she said no it really meant NO. He tells her she didn’t fight hard enough, so he didn’t realize she didn’t want it. You can read lengthy quotes from this disturbing letter at the link, but here’s one shocking quote:

Of the alleged rape, he writes, “Clearly, you did not enjoy it […] But you must believe that I believed with all my heart and soul at the time that you were overcoming your reluctance, and trying to get into it.” He adds,

I hope intensely that this letter has made you see that I am not malicious or misogynistic, and that I’ve strived earnestly to respond to your needs and desires. It may be too late for me, but I hope that in the future, when playing rough with a guy, these explanations might guide better behavior. For example, we should have agreed at the very beginning upon a safety word that would mean explicitly: “this no does not mean you can keep trying or that I’m reluctant, it means you better shut it the fuck down.” If we had such a word, and you used it, there would be no confusion and I would never, ever have violated it.

WTF?! I wonder how many times this guy pulled this with women? He even suggests the possibility that they could get together and “play again.”

Epstein says this man “choked” her and “pinned [her] down.” In addition, she said “my ribs are all fucked up, possibly broken, my ankle is sprained, i hurt all over, i’m bloody.”

But a month after the attack, Epstein was told by Asst. County Attorney Anne Lahey that she was not going to have the rapist arrested or prosecuted. There is disagreement between Epstein and Lahey as to why and how this decision was reached. Epstein has bipolar disorder and she claims that was one factor. The fact that she stayed in the rapist’s apartment afterward was another.

Says Epstein,

She said that an Iowa jury would see my behavior as too promiscuous and crazy, and they would judge me and side with the defendant. She also said she didn’t think there was a very good chance I would win, so she was trying to protect me by not putting me through it, and I indicated that I would rather go through it and lose than not be able to face him in court.

Lahey was unconvinced. Epstein says she finally asked, “so you’re saying that because I have a mental illness, anyone who rapes me basically gets a free pass?” She says Lahey replied, “Yes.”

Lahey claims that Epstein’s psychological disorder was not a factor in the decision, but would not say what the alternative reasons were.

In part 2 of the Jezabel article, North investigated whether in fact women with psychological disorders were less likely to receive justice after being raped.
 A number of experts confirmed that this may be the case. For example:

I talked to Karla Miller, Executive Director of the Rape Victim Advocacy Program. She told me that county attorneys can be reluctant to prosecute rape cases in which the victim has mental illness, due to concerns that the jury won’t see the victim as credible. If that’s the case, she said that victims can be “revictimized” by defense attorneys who make their illness — and any other vulnerabilities they can think of — an issue in the trial. Miller explained that if an attorney felt such revictimization might occur, it could be a good decision not to prosecute, but that this decision was “case-dependent.” She added that it was “absolutely not” fair that people with mental illnesses had a harder time getting justice.

Miller also noted, chillingly, that some rapists actually target people with mental illnesses or other disabilities, because they know victims with these conditions will have a harder time taking them to court.

It is definitely true that rapists, who are predators, choose potential victims who are vulnerable. They tend to attack smaller, weaker women and women they sense are psychologically troubled.

I just want to say that I don’t like the terms “mental illness” and “mentally ill.” In the field, the term is “psychological disorder.” There is no illness that is strictly physical or “mental,” including cancer and heart disease.

Some psychological disorders are very serious–like schizophrenia, some don’t interfere that much with a person’s life once she gets help from medication and/or therapy. Bipolar disorder is a very manageable issue, and people with this disorder usually are not out of touch with reality. They simply have wider mood swings than a typical person.

Juries need to be educated about rape and about psychological disorders. I realize that defense attorneys will use anything to discredit a victim, but Rebecca Epstein wanted to face her attacker in court and tell her story. I think it’s very likely that the prosecutor in this case was fearful that a jury would be biased against Epstein not only because this was a date rape, but also because she suffers from bipolar disorder.

That is just plain wrong. Now the man who raped Epstein will continue to behave as he did with Epstein. He now knows he can get away with rape, especially if he chooses a victim with psychological issues. He will rape more women. Every women who comes in contact with him is in danger. And his name is a secret so far.

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