The Annenberg Public Policy Center's Political Fact Check.org reports that The Economic Freedom Fund (aka, front-group where the Texas real estate developer who sponsored the Swiftboat ads questioning Sen. John Kerry's patriotism, and for ads defending ex-Majority Leader Tom Delay is putting his money) is planning to spend even more money in this election cycle. Already they have been active with automated phone calls suggesting that Indiana House candidate Baron Hill "votes to allow the sale of a broad range of violent and sexually explicit materials to minors," according to Annenberg. The blog Taking Down Words, first reported (and offers a recording!) the calls.
Editor's note: Some of the links in this post are audio clips; click on them to listen to Allan Carlson in a new window.
[img_assist|nid=598|title=Special Series|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=67]Welcome back to Rewire's series about the emerging war on contraception. In this episode, I will analyze Allan Carlson's presentation on "The Emptied Quiver: The Protestant Embrace of Contraception." As the daughter of two Lutheran ministers, I found Carlson's narrow take on Christianity, Martin Luther and the burden of families on clergy particularly interesting. His anti-feminist lecture examined Protestant roots against contraception and celibacy and their departure from that position, ending with an appeal for Protestants to return to their original opinion.
Congress has gone home to campaign, the Supreme Court is in session and issues of sexual and reproductive health and responsibility are at the forefront. But there is a sense that sexual and reproductive health issues are not on the minds of Americans and that perhaps candidates should avoid them.
What with the increased threats we face as a result of an administration taking its eye off the war on terror to wage war in Iraq, mounting deficits and a scandal-plagued President and Congress, people could choose to focus on "more important" issues. Americans may not list reproductive health issues as "what they are most likely to consider when choosing a candidate" but the issues serve another important role in the political dynamic this election year.
Last week, Andrea wrote an excellent post that pointed to the vulnerability of poor populations-particularly women-when natural disasters force them out of their homes. She reminded us not only to about the limp response of the international community that had just reached into their pockets for victims of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. She also noted the hole in disaster relief: when communities around the world donate housing and supplies to the displaced, these "care packages" generally do not include reproductive health supplies.
I was particularly pleased to see this post because Ipas has just released the second issue of A-the abortion magazine, and our focus for this issue is reproductive health for refugees and displaced women.
[img_assist|nid=598|title=Special Series|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=67]Two speakers at the "Contraception Is Not the Answer" conference used religion as their main argument against contraception. They used religion as a weapon to attempt to manipulate people into following their narrow beliefs. But it is important to remember that they do not represent the majority of conservatives, nor of Christians. This reality check is for the right and the left.
As of the time of writing for this blog, Focus on the Family has said nothing on its website, and Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America both issued only cursory and confusing statements late this afternoon about Congressman Mark Foley's sexually explicit communications with young boys who worked in his office.
The Senate’s last vote before it headed home to campaign was an effort to push through legislation to limit young women’s access to abortion.But the procedural motion that required 60 votes failed by a vote of 57-42.Now, what surprised me is that the House had a chance last week to pass the Senate version of the bill, which would have sent it right off to President Bush to sign into law.They would have won.Case closed.But instead House leadership would only accept their own slightly more egregious bill than the Senate’s – forcing another vote in the Senate.
Naina Dhingra is the Director of International Policy at Advocates for Youth and serves on the Developed Country NGO Board Delegation of the Global Fund.
There is no doubt that the outcome of the upcoming U.S. Congressional elections will have a major impact on the sexual and reproductive health of women and youth worldwide. Consequently, policy advocates are closely watching each race.
But these are not the only elections that will determine the future of sexual and reproductive health. Two of the most important international public health jobs are currently in the midst of highly-political selection processes: the Director-General (DG) of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and malaria.
Last Thursday night I had the privilege of celebrating the sixteenth anniversary of the September 28th Campaign to Decriminalize Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean side by side with members of the Nicaraguan women's movement, who were gathered at the Rotonda de la Plaza Inter here in Managua for a candlelight vigil. The September 28th Campaign was born in Argentina in 1990 at the Fifth Latin American and Caribbean Feminist meeting, out of an urgent need to shed light on the public health crisis of unsafe abortion in Latin America. The campaign's rotating headquarters are currently located here in Nicaragua, where sex ed is practically non-existent, access to contraception is scarce, and the women's movement is in the midst of fighting a total ban on abortion.
Editor's note: Some of the links in this post are audio clips; click on them to listen to Lionel Tiger in a new window.
[img_assist|nid=598|title=Special Series|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=67]At "Contraception Is Not the Answer", Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League introduced Lionel Tiger (his real name, I swear) as "an honest scientist" who was NOT coming from a religious conservative perspective. Every other speaker at the anti-contraception conference was from a conservative group or religious institution and obviously pushing an ideological agenda. But Lionel Tiger (and bears - oh my!) is the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He was there because of his book "The Decline of Males", which Amazon describes as a counterpart to feminism ("masculinism") that chronicles the decline of men and the ascendancy of women - due to reproductive technology.
