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grrrly news 6/14

June 14, 2003 01:29 PM posted by lisa : track it (0)

House Passes 'Partial Birth' Abortion Ban
The U.S. House of Representatives easily approved a ban on a procedure critics call "partial birth" abortions on Wednesday, a measure supported by President George W Bush and championed for nearly a decade by anti-abortion groups.
If the bill, approved 282-139, withstands legal challenges, it would be the first time a specific form of abortion has been criminalized since the 1973 Supreme Court Roe versus Wade ruling that upheld abortion rights.
Amid intense and graphic debate, complete with accusations of "infanticide" and sketches of sharp instruments being plunged into the base of a fetal skull, the ban has been considered in Congress repeatedly since 1995. Under the bill, a doctor could face up to two years in prison as well as civil lawsuits for performing a "partial birth" abortion.

Call to prosecute parents if children suffer sunburn
Parents who consistently fail to protect their children against sunburn should be prosecuted for "physical neglect", according to a skin expert.
Dr Rachael Morris-Jones, a dermatologist at St Thomas's Hospital in London and consultant to Vichy Laboratoires, said: "I know we risk the dangers of the 'nanny state' . . . but it is neglect to allow a child to burn severely and in extreme cases, and where it was a recurrent thing, I think I would be in favour of prosecution."

Girl raped on busy street
A 14-year-old German girl was raped in broad daylight on a busy street by a drunken stranger despite her calls for help to several passers-by, media reported on Tuesday.
The attack on Thursday in the sleepy northern town of Heide, about 350km from Berlin, made national headlines for the audacity of the crime and concerns that Germans, who have been raised on the need for "civic courage", are increasingly turning a blind eye to neighbours in need.

Lawsuit says women's shelters discriminate
A Los Angeles County man is suing 10 shelters for battered women, claiming they discriminate by refusing to help abused men.
Eldon Ray Blumhorst, backed by a national male-rights organization, alleges in the lawsuit that he sought shelter at facilities across Los Angeles County in December, but was categorically turned away because of his gender

Rebuilt girls' school burned down
Suspected Islamic fundamentalists opposed to female education have burned down a girls' school near the Afghan capital, Kabul, the latest in a series of such attacks since the fall of the Taliban regime.
The state-run Arman-e-Millie daily newspaper said the school in Maidan province, about 30 kilometres south-west of Kabul, had recently been rebuilt and equipped by the United Nations.
It blamed the attack on "enemies of science and culture" and said it was the sixth girls' school to be burned in Maidan since the Taliban was ousted by a US-led coalition in late 2001.

Newspaper editor charged with pimping
Editor Nils Olav Bruteig of sensationalist tabloid SøndagSøndag (SundaySunday) refuses to acknowledge hefty fines after authorities ruled that the publication's advertisements for massage centers and escort services are just veiled promotions for sexual services, newspaper Dagbladet reports.

How 'partial birth' bill fits into shifting abortion wars
When Republicans took the reins of Congress in January, abortion activists on both sides of the issue knew it was only a matter of time: With a sympathetic ear in the White House, major antiabortion legislation would at last become law.
For political reasons, President Bush didn't make passage of a ban on so-called partial-birth abortions his top priority. He had Iraq and tax cuts in his sights first. But, with the easy House passage of the partial-birth bill Wednesday night, the way is nearly clear for the president to satisfy a long-held dream of social conservatives, who have been fighting to outlaw the rare form of late-term abortion for eight years.

Supreme Court rules in favour of dads
Mothers who arbitrarily refuse to acknowledge the fathers of their children shouldn't be allowed sole power to name their children, Canada's highest court says.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 9-0 today to strike down British Columbia's Vital Statistics Act because it violates guaranteed equality rights.
Under the act, mothers who "unacknowledge" the father can register and name their children without the dad's input.
That's unconstitutional, the high court said. But it suspended the effect of its ruling for 12 months, allowing the province time to change its law.

Gephardt's daughter 'out of the closet,' on the trail
Chrissy Gephardt, the daughter of Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt, has declared her lesbian orientation and support for same-sex marriage on network television.
In a "coming out" on ABC's "Good Morning America," Gephardt related how she realized she was a homosexual and the difficult process of coming clean with her husband and political father.

Online fans to Martha Stewart: 'Give 'em hell, girl
It's only been a few days since Martha Stewart was indicted, but almost 42,000 of her staunchest fans have been to her Web site to vent their outrage and profess, in syrupy prose, her starchy-white innocence.

Welcome to the New Newspaper for Women
It is a newspaper for women, about women and by women. Initially a weekly, from Jan. 1 next year it will be a daily, focusing on women’s issues. Donya, the Eastern Province-based paper, hit the newsstands recently and has been received with enthusiasm across the country.
At present there are men involved both in the newspaper’s editing and administration. According to plans, however, it will eventually be run, managed and edited by women only

Gay Rights Go to Court
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule, for the second time in less than 20 years, on the constitutionality of state laws prohibiting consensual sodomy. At the same time, the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts is weighing a lawsuit that seeks to legalize same-sex marriages, claiming that marriage to the partner of one’s choice is "protected by the liberty and due process clauses of the Massachusetts Constitution." The two cases and the political response to them illustrate both the progress our culture has made toward equality for gay men and women and the hurdles that remain.

The Problem of Rape Statistics
A news article in The Daily Tar Heel April 24 contained a shocking lead: “A woman is raped every two minutes. Almost one in every four women between the ages of 18 and 24 is a survivor of sexual assault.”

No sources for this information are given — which is mildly surprising since it is published in the campus newspaper for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a UNC flagship university with a well-known school of journalism. It is not, however, unusual for any campus discussion of that particular subject.

Martha and Hillary - feminism's great divide
Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart are both driven, powerful, talented, blondish women. Both have suffered marital woes, both have one daughter. Both find their every move vivisected. With so much in common, it's odd how far apart public perceptions of them are.

Perils of State-Owned News Outlets
If the federal government suddenly announced it had acquired the New York Times and now was going to force taxpayers to subsidize it, how would you react? Furthermore, assume you were told they would keep the same left-leaning editorial personnel and practices. Most Americans would be justifiably outraged because they would understand they were being forced to pay for political propaganda they may disagree with; that the government-subsidized paper had an unfair advantage over its private sector competitors; and that the paper could be used by political authorities for their own advantage

Beware threat of political correctness
The most dangerous threat to the United States is not the threat from another country -- after all, what country can compete with our military? -- or terrorist cells or weapons of mass distraction. It is political correctness. Those two words have been used to confuse, irritate and placate Americans for years.

Handyman pleads guilty to holding sex slaves
A retired handyman pleaded guilty Tuesday to holding five women captive as sex slaves in an underground dungeon, two months after one of the victims escaped and made a frantic phone call that led to his arrest.

Four Major Pro-Choice Groups to March in April
In planning a large pro-choice demonstration for the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign, organizers are actively recruiting younger people who grew up in the era of Roe v. Wade and may be taking their reproductive freedom for granted.

Abortion-Related Violence Court Cases Reach Peak
When added to a batch of other high-profile cases, the recent arrest of suspected serial bomber Eric Rudolph might make 2003 a banner year for federal criminal and civil court activity on anti-abortion violence.

Women Complain of Sexual Harassment at U.S. Mint
Many female employees at the U.S. Mint in Denver claim they have endured unfair treatment in promotions and raises, sexual harassment, sexual propositions, smut on walls and lockers and offensive sexual e-mails, reported the Rocky Mountain News.
Thirty-two women, nearly a third of the 107 female employees working at the Denver Mint, filed a class complaint with the U.S. Treasury Department last month. The complaint does not seek punitive damages. The women are seeking a court order for the Mint to stop the discrimination and to change their complaint handling practices, said Lynn Feiger, the group's attorney.

Gender-Pay Activists Step Up the Pressure on Wal-Mart
A stepped-up campaign by NOW and a related shareholder resolution are raising the equal-pay pressure on Wal-Mart, which faces a class-action lawsuit for gender-pay discrimination by some of its female employees.

Abortion Ban Puts Women at Risk
Women are days away from losing their right to end pregnancies--not just pregnancies in their seventh, eighth and ninth months, as many believe--but pregnancies from 13 weeks onward.

Drama over Diatribe: Pro-Choice Advocates Act Out
"Words of Choice" opens in Boston June 12. The dramatization exploring the "right to choose" abortion may be particularly charged after the arrest of suspected clinic bomber Eric Rudolph and last week's House vote on so-called "partial-birth" abortion.

Whitman Resignation Tied to Politics, Not Gender
Amid mixed predictions about Christine Whitman's political future, onlookers agree that her troubles at the helm of the EPA had to do with her unfashionably moderate politics, not her gender.

Women's pro leagues struggling to find their way in troubled times
Beneath the idyllic setting, all is not well in the WUSA, which was founded in the giddy euphoria of the 1999 women's World Cup with Foudy and 16 other U.S. team players holding a small equity stake.
Now in its third year, player salaries have been slashed, TV ratings are almost nonexistent and the league is having trouble finding fans who aren't under 18 and play on a soccer team.
Things aren't much better in the WNBA, which narrowly escaped its demise this spring after NBA owners threatened to pull the plug in the absence of a new labor contract. A new deal was eventually reached that keeps salaries capped at $622,000 a team, but even so, the 14-team league will lose at least $12 million this year.

Govt To Provide Separate Sports Facilities To Special Women
Punjab Government is laying special emphasis on the provision of separate sports infrastructure for the special education of women and children on the pattern of facilities being provided to normal athletes.

Women school bus drivers hit first roadblock
Last November, a group of gritty women hit the headlines. After all, as school matador drivers, they were entering a male bastion. But the initial euphoria has nosedived with the women running out of fuel even before they have got behind the wheel. Despite obtaining driving licences, these women drivers have found no takers in any of the city’s schools

Iraqi women 'forced to veil'
UN officials in Baghdad say they are very concerned that religious extremists are intimidating women and girls into wearing the veil.

Japan a developing country in terms of gender equality
Japan still has a long way to go in terms of promoting sexual equality, as its workforce is still heavily male dominated and traditional gender role stereotypes remain deeply entrenched, according to a government report released Friday.

My crime against the lesbian state
For 12 years comedian Jackie Clune was gay - it shaped her life, was a staple of her stand-up act. Then she decided to go straight. It worked for her. So why did friends think she'd sold out?

Afghan girls get help from local teens
The idea started as a simple one — 14-year-old Elizabeth Percy, her stepsister and cousin wanted to sell Girl Scout cookies and send them to members of 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan, giving the proceeds to a charity there.
The more the trio learned about the harsh conditions facing women and young girls in Afghanistan after years of Taliban rule, the more determined they became to make their project work.

Women cope with less sleep better
A new study suggests that men are less resilient to sleep loss than women of the same age, both in terms of physical and hormonal responses.
According to polls done for the National Sleep Foundation, as many as half of American adults experience some symptoms of insomnia a few nights each week, and only 27 percent of adults under age 55 get eight hours or more of sleep each night.

Backtrack on 'lesbian dads'
The Government is promising a hasty revision of a new family bill that appears to allow a woman in a lesbian relationship to become a child's father.
The Care of Children Bill provoked an uproar in Parliament yesterday, with both National and Government support party United Future accusing Labour of social engineering.
The new bill technically allows a child to have three parents if it is the product of a sperm donor to a lesbian couple, where the donor also asks to be named as a parent.

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