In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: February 2006

What Can We Do?

You asked, Molly answered.

The fact that we have to post this deeply saddens me. Every woman should have access to basic medical care from her local doctor. But as it stands, not every woman does. And the right to reproductive healthcare is eroding more and more quickly.

I don’t necessarily endorse this post, and I would urge anyone considering using these methods to seek out safe, legal care from a trained professional. If abortion is illegal or highly limited where you live, seek it out in another state. Communities of women have come together to provide housing and transportation for women crossing state lines — the Haven Coalition in New York does this, and local clinics can let you know about similar programs in other states. Other programs exist to fund procedures for low-income women. As of now, there are still options. They aren’t always great options, and they’re especially challenging if you’re poor. But they aren’t universally insurmountable.

I don’t want to be unnecessarily alarmist, but things are starting to get bad. And so what Molly has posted could be potentially helpful to a lot of women, which is why I link to it. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the post, or the safety of the procedures described therein. But I trust other feminist, pro-choice women. We will create communities, and we will help eachother, even if our government finds it acceptable to infringe on our most basic human rights to decide what does and doesn’t grow in our bodies. We did it before Roe, and we’ll do it after.

Gubernatorial Races: NY, Penn, Colorado

I *heart* Eliot Spitzer, and if you live in New York I would very much enourage you to consider him for your vote. He’s pro-choice, and a straight shooter — he doesn’t mess around with semantics trying to please everyone, and he stands up for the human rights of all people. Even better, he has now pledged to approve emergency contraception for over-the-counter dispensal in New York State, something that Gov. Pataki vetoed. The Republican gubernatorial candidates, John Fasso and Patrick Manning, both said that they would have vetoed the bill, just as Pataki did. Fasso even goes a step further in his anti-choice views by saying that he would try and bar Medicaid funding to low-income women in need of the procedure, and would veto any state budget without this restriction. Because, you know, reproductive rights are only for the rich.

And if you’re in Pennsylvania, avoid Lynn Swann. He’s running unopposed in the Republican primary, and has a decent chance of winning — which might be a problem, since he doesn’t seem to understand some basic things about our legal system and our government. He’s apparently under the impression that if Roe is overturned, abortion will be immediately illegal in all 50 states. Which, to be fair, it will be illegal and highly limited in a lot of places, but not immediately outlawed. And Swann has said that, given the opportunity, he would try and outlaw almost all abortions in Pennsylvania. So this guy is probably not someone we should be supporting.

And if you’re in Colorado, you may just be out of luck. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter is anti-choice to the extreme, favoring abortion only in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the woman’s life. He refuses to answer one way or the other when asked if, should Roe be overturned, he would sign a bill illegalizing abortion in Colorado.

Go Spitzer.

“Persecuting” the Unethical. Or, How to Spin a Story Until it Falls Off the Merry-Go-Round and Vomits Everywhere

People on the left and the right spin facts to fall in their favor. But today, Rabbi Daniel Lapin goes to new heights of stretching the truth to prove a point that, at its heart, I actually agree with. His basic assertion is that people shouldn’t be punished for expressing their views — which is generally true, but what he seems to ignore in his examples is that many of these people used their job as a platform to express their person beliefs, in ways that were sometimes unethical, irresponsible and contrary to their duties.

Austria has just sentenced an eccentric, obsessed historian to jail for three years because he expressed his opinion that Auschwitz didn’t have gas chambers. David Irving violated Austria’s law which provides for up to 10 years imprisonment for Holocaust deniers. It is ironic that many of the people cheering this suppression of free speech in Austria are the same people decrying Muslim attempts to do the same in Denmark.

Even on this side of the Atlantic, people are paying a heavy price for expressing their views. Harvard University’s president, Lawrence Summers, was just forced to resign, essentially for suggesting that it might be worth studying whether innate differences would explain why fewer women than men succeed in math and science. Professor Alan Dershowitz rightly called the affair an academic coup d’etat.

Spoken like someone who has no idea as to what went on at Harvard, and thinks it’s easier to blame the feminists than to look at the whole issue. Summers resigned because his faculty had long-standing problems with him, the least of which were his comments on gender. Perhaps there will be a post on this later, but read just about any news article and you’ll see what I mean. As for Austria’s jailing of a Holocaust denier, I agree with Lapin that such a punishment is a ridiculous infringement on free speech; I just don’t know where he got the idea that “many of the people cheering this suppression of free speech in Austria are the same people decrying Muslim attempts to do the same in Denmark.” I haven’t heard anyone cheer the suppression of free speech in Austria. But perhaps the Rabbi and I run in different crowds.

But the biggest, most egregious spin-doctoring was this:

In the Wall Street Journal, writer Dawn Eden describes how the New York Post fired her after several warnings concerning her beliefs as a Christian conservative. The paper said Miss Eden possessed “rabid anti-abortion views.”

Now, if someone was fired from the Post simply because they were a Christian, I’d be outraged. But Dawn wasn’t fired for her beliefs; she was fired because she violated the ethical responsibilities required of her position.

Read More…Read More…

The Hits Keep Coming

That port security deal? The one that sailed right through without the legally-mandated investigation? The one that will provide a nice little windfall to the Secretary of the Treasury? The one Bush angrily defended by threatening to veto any legislation that put a stop to the deal to actually, you know, perform the legally-mandated investigation?

It’s even worse than you thought.

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration secretly required a company in the United Arab Emirates to cooperate with future U.S. investigations before approving its takeover of operations at six American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. It chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

And what were those routine restrictions?

The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

Okay, this one just raises all kinds of hairs on the back of my neck. You’re going to let them operate SIX U.S. ports and not require them to keep business records on U.S. soil? Or to designate an American citizen (who would be subject to a federal court’s jurisdiction anywhere in the world) to respond to the government’s requests?

I’m involved in a big-ass fraud litigation with a defendant who’s been playing hide-the-ball with document discovery for the past five years. They just got sanctioned today for blowing off court orders to cough up documents. Getting relevant records from them has been like pulling teeth — and these records are in Connecticut, AND our client is well able to afford our fees for chasing them down. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be, say, an injured seaman trying to get discovery from a company not required to keep records in the U.S.

In addition, letting them keep records off U.S. soil and not designate an American citizen to respond to the government’s requests means that the government is going to be hindered in any investigation of the company’s operations. They could easily just refuse to comply, they could alter records, destroy them, whatever. Is that the best idea for a company charged with port security for six major U.S. ports?

But most importantly, this is a completely standard and routine requirement for foreign companies doing business in the U.S. Why was it waived in this case?