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grrrly news 03/30

March 30, 2004 07:09 PM posted by lisa : track it (0)

Medical Student Being Failed at University of Manitoba for Not Providing Abortion Option
A medical student in his last year at the University of Manitoba Medical School will be denied his degree for his unwillingness to partake in any abortion-related activity. The Christian student, who wishes to remain unnamed, received a failing grade in an Obstetrics and Gynecology portion of his program for refusing to perform or refer for any abortive procedure. Three separate appeals to the Medical School have all failed to correct the matter.

Northern exposure for 'It Girl'
A friend of former President Bill Clinton will find out this week whether she will get to lead Canada's Conservative Party. Her name is Belinda Stronach, and she's been dubbed the "It Girl" of Canadian politics.

Vigilantes Troll for Pedophiles
Perverted Justice has made more than 600 such busts since it was formed in July 2002. The group's volunteers pose as kids in chat rooms, and when an adult engages them in sexual banter, they publish the person's personal data on the site so the group's supporters can harass the adult by phone and e-mail.
The group says it's protecting children from sexual predators, but critics say its aggressive tactics seldom lead to convictions

Delaware gay rights bill stalled in Senate
The Delaware Senate is less likely to consider a bill this year that would extend the state's anti-discrimination protections to gay people because of the national furor over same-sex marriage, legislators and bill supporters said.

Special clinic set up for gay patients
Shenzhen will set up the country's first homosexual special outpatient department this year.
Cheng Jinquan, president of Shenzhen Municipal Hospital of Epidemic Diseases, said the new special outpatient department is aimed to help prevent sexual transmission diseases (STD) and AIDS from spreading in the southern metropolis, through offering special medical service to the city's growing number homosexuals.

House Passes Bill To Notify Parents of Abortion on Minors
State lawmakers would have leeway in the future to require parents be notified when their minor daughters seek abortions under a measure the House passed Tuesday.

Druggists opposing abortion could be shielded
Pharmacists in Missouri who oppose abortion could refuse to fill prescriptions for "morning-after" birth control without risking their jobs, under a bill that many say signals a new battleground in the fight over reproductive rights.

Department of Justice barred from aiding Scouts
A federal judge has denied the U.S. Justice Department's request to be heard on whether the Boy Scouts should lose their lease in a San Diego park because they discriminate against atheists and gays.
The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division submitted a friend-of-the-court brief earlier this month supporting the Scouts in a 4-year-old court fight over the group's lease on Fiesta Island, a public park where the organization runs a youth aquatic center

Village Finds Ways to Make Marriage Affordable
The Saudi village of Al-Yanfu says it has no unmarried women because its elders have limited bride-prices to SR10 ($2.7) and banned all extravagant spending and displays associated with traditional Arab weddings.

Woman's gun may have saved her life
Four years ago, she was helpless as a man robbed her at gunpoint. On Friday, legally armed with a handgun, she may have saved her life.
And Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer, who dreaded a change in the law in 2001 to make it easier to receive a concealed weapons permit, admits that he's changing his mind about that law.

University Sued for Discrimination Against Christian Group
Attorneys for the Center for Law and Religious Freedom recently filed suit in federal court on behalf of an Ohio State University Christian student club that has been threatened with being stripped of its status as a recognized student organization. The Christian Legal Society has refused to accept non-Christians and practicing homosexuals as club members and officers.

Backers of constitutional gay marriage ban change it to allow states to recognize civil unions
Congressional supporters of a constitutional ban on gay marriage unveiled a change in their proposal Monday that they said would leave state legislatures with the unambiguous right to recognize civil unions.
The deletion of five words did nothing to lessen the opposition of Democratic critics of the proposed constitutional amendment. They responded by seeking an indefinite delay in a hearing set for Tuesday

Lawsuit grilling awaits governor
judge on Monday ordered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to answer written questions about an election-eve e-mail his campaign distributed that falsely suggested a woman accusing him of sexual misconduct was a convicted prostitute.
Superior Court Judge Robert L. Hess, in his first major ruling in the defamation suit filed by former movie stuntwoman Rhonda Miller, said Schwarzenegger didn't have to give sworn testimony in a pretrial deposition yet.

Single-Sex Schools Score Big Victory
The Bush administration is following through on a promise to make it easier for school districts across the country to operate girls-only and boys-only schools, drawing praise from advocates who say parents will now have more choices for improving their children's education

Family sues over sex assault victim's file
The family of a 14-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted in a darkened schoolroom is suing the Pinckney School District for putting a “gross sexual indecency” statement in the girl’s permanent file.
While the indecency charge follows her as she struggles to move on, the criminal record of the 17-year-old boy who assaulted her is sealed from public view and could be expunged if he stays out of trouble.

Political Correctness Suppresses Education
Renowned historian and educator Diane Ravitch made quite a splash with her 2003 book, "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict what students learn." The book described a public school textbook and test publishing industry inundated by insidious notions of "political correctness."
Ravitch described an "elaborate, well-established protocol of benefit censorship, quietly endorsed and broadly implemented by test publishers, textbook publishers, states, and the federal government." In other words, the content of educational materials used by our children is being censored to reflect the prejudices of political correctness; to screen out topics and ideas that might be considered traditional or controversial or offensive

Martha Stewart and the Feminists
Where are the Feminists in the Martha Stewart dust-up? Why aren't they standing behind her and glorifying her achievements? Making her their poster girl?
Didn't the Feminists come into existence on the philosophy that women are as good as men? Deserving of equal pay? Equal opportunities? And therefore, would achieve EQUAL RESULTS of they only had the equal opportunities?

Ruling on hearsay evidence guts cases
One of the most defense-friendly U.S. Supreme Court decisions in years, underscoring the right to cross-examine witnesses, could severely thwart the ability of prosecutors to try certain sensitive cases of domestic abuse and child abuse.
Legal authorities were scrambling to decide the extent of Monday's ruling but said Wednesday that it could gut prosecution of cases in which victims often refuse to testify at trial -- domestic violence being a prime example -- and limit the use of co-defendants' statements in the prosecution of other cases.

The failures of abstinence-only
OVER THE PAST year, Planned Parenthood's educators have been hearing a frightening new question from Massachusetts high school students: Why bother using condoms when you have sex, since they don't work anyway?
We teach sex education classes in more than 50 of the Commonwealth's high schools every year, so we are used to answering tough questions. We are used to combating myths. But we are not used to students challenging established scientific facts about the effectiveness of condoms.

Homeschoolers keep the faith
Homeschooling gives parents the opportunity to transmit values and political beliefs to their children to a degree that public schools generally cannot. Class schedules for homeschoolers are also more flexible, allowing time for students and parents to volunteer for political and social causes.

Dowry Practice Challenged in Pakistan's Northwest
A powerful religious party in Pakistan's conservative Northwest Frontier Province has organized a mass wedding in protest of the widespread custom of parents of brides being compelled to provide ever higher dowries

Many Women See Social Insecurity in Tax Cuts
Tax-cut policies--not aging baby boomers--are what really threaten Social Security and Medicare. That's what many women's groups argue and they are invoking last week's annual reports by the trustees of both programs to bolster their case.

African American Women's Vote Key in 2004
Black women tend to vote Democratic, but as presidential election politics heat up, Republicans are hoping to make inroads in this key voting bloc

Czech Republic, Germany Battle Over Sex Traffic
As the May deadline for the Czech Republic's European Union entry approaches, the issue of girls and prostitution along the border between Germany and the Czech Republic has become a source of controversy

Career Climb Slow for Female Firefighters
In the past decade, female firefighters have grown to just over 2 percent of the nation's career firefighters and the fiercely male culture makes it difficult to recruit and advance women.

Join Us in Washington April 25 to Save Roe v. Wade
Reproductive rights are the lynchpin that upholds access to employment, education and justice, says Lenora Lapidus. That's why the director of the ACLU Women's Rights Project invites you to join the march in Washington on April 25.

Female Cagers Tops; Fetuses Given Legal Status
A new study has revealed remarkable graduation rates among women's student basketball teams that are part of the Sweet 16 tournament of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The study, "Keeping Score When It Counts: Graduation Rates and Diversity in Campus Leadership for 2004 Women's Sweet 16 Teams," indicated that the women's teams had much higher graduation rates than that of their male counterparts. The study also found that 5 of the final 16 teams in the women's Division I tournament graduated 100 percent of their African American players, reported the Los Angeles Times. The study was released this week and conducted by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
The Senate approved legislation this week making the harming of a fetus a separate federal offense in a violent crime against a pregnant woman.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act was passed on Thursday, clearing the Senate with a 61-38 vote, reports The Associated Press. Supporters of the bill claim that the law is a step closer to recognizing the value of all human life. Opponents say the bill is an attempt to undermine the value of the pregnant woman's life and provide legal protections to fetuses from the moment of conception--separate from those of pregnant women.

'Real women' replace air-brushed models for beauty ad!
Manufacturer Lever Faberge has chosen six ordinary women to advertise the new Dove Firming product. According to The Mirror, Joanna Cook, 25, Coralie Rose, 23, Stella Page, 28, Linda di Maria, 23, Syleste Molyneaux, 27, and Emma Darwish, 25, will soon appear in the billboard and TV ads. These six 'real' women will star in a beauty advertisement to combat criticism of the slender models. They were plucked off the streets to promote an anti-cellulite product after research revealed that women want to see curvier and realistic figures in ad campaigns

In the driver's seat: Volvo turns to an untapped perspective for inspiration

But now comes Volvo, introducing at the Geneva International Auto Show this week a concept car -- Your Concept Car -- designed by a team of women.

Yet Volvo -- unlike what might well have been the case with American and Asian manufacturers -- did not have to reach outside its own ranks to put together a female team of engineers, marketers, and designers to produce the car. In fact, these women came to leadership from within the company's ranks, telling Volvo honchos in Sweden that they wanted to design a car from their perspective, a car that offers easy access, an airy interior, multipurpose storage, everything in reach, better lines of vision, and easy maintenance.

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