Tag Archives: Iowa

For Women’s Equality Day, A Call to Use Your Right to Vote

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On August 18, 1920, Congress ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and on August 26, 1920, it was certified: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

It had taken 72 years: In 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott convened the first women’s rights convention in U.S. history at Seneca Falls, this resolution was passed: “Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.”

People in power would not be trying so hard to keep us from voting if our votes weren’t powerful. We must not give up that power.

Of 12 resolutions, it was the only one that was not passed unanimously. Although leaders such as Sojourner Truth, Mary McClintock, Susan B. Anthony, and Frederick Douglass supported a resolution demanding women’s right to vote, many other attendees thought such a resolution might be a bridge too far. But by 1920, after women had marched, rallied, and faced abuse and arrest, several states had already adopted women’s suffrage.

In 1971, the newly elected Rep. Bella Abzug proposed observing August 26 as Women’s Equality Day to commemorate women’s suffrage, and a joint resolution of Congress made it so. But getting the right to vote cannot be considered a victory if we do not exercise that right. In the 2016 election, only 58 percent of registered voters actually cast a ballot. Although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes, she trailed President Obama’s 2008 votes by 3.4 million. Continue reading →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • The Congressional Budget Office just released its scoring of “Trumpcare.” As anyone with half a wit about them presumed, it’s not favorable. And it’s not a good look for the GOP. Twenty-three million Americans stand to lose their health care coverage over a 10-year period. Others, with chronic illnesses and preexisting conditions, would pay much, much more for health care OR lose it altogether. But hey, at least rich, healthy people would be OK and premiums for some will drop in price simply because the plans cover less. Tell me again how this is a win for the majority of Americans? The health and welfare of MILLIONS of people are being sacrificed so the wealthy can have even MORE of a financial advantage? (WaPo)
  • Also in the headlines re: “Trumpcare Is Astronomically Bad”: “GOP health-care bill could cost women $1,000 more per month for ‘maternity’ insurance coverage — and even more when they have kids.” And again I’ll remind you, this is all being done so rich people can be more rich. Please don’t ever forget that important fact. (CNBC)
  • Not only should the left NOT abandon so-called “identity politics,” women of color should lead the identity politics movement. OUR issues represent the future direction of progressive politics! (Salon)
  • Why does the gender pay gap persist? Motherhood. (NY Times)
  • Planned Parenthood Arizona allowed an Allure Magazine writer to spend three days following staff and patients at our Maryvale clinic in Phoenix serving Title X and Medicaid patients. Women’s stories are so powerful. (Allure)
  • Meanwhile, Iowa has cut Planned Parenthood off from federal Medicaid reimbursements and we are being forced to close four clinics there. So disappointing and disheartening for the people who rely on our care. (Mother Jones)
  • If you thought 45’s administration couldn’t get any crueler, buckle up. The budget he released earlier this week would cut off food for poor people who have too many kids. So let’s put this into perspective. They want to make it harder to prevent pregnancy by eliminating poor people’s access to Planned Parenthood by cutting us off from federal Medicaid dollars. They want to make it impossible to abort a pregnancy a woman does not want or cannot afford. And then if you have the misfortune of being economically disadvantaged but have multiple children, they want to starve them to death. Wow. Could these people BE any more pro-life? (WaPo)
  • The administration is cool with wasting $277 million on abstinence-only education though — despite tons of evidence it’s ineffective! (Bustle)
  • There’s Been a Huge Increase in Campus Sex Assaults. Why?! (The Daily Beast)
  • Danielle Ofri, a physician at Bellevue Hospital in New York, wrote a terrific piece for Slate about the history of our broken health care system and how times and opinions about health care being a basic human right in this country are a’changing. Universal health care, here we come? (Slate)
  • The GOP attacks on Planned Parenthood in Iowa are hitting low-income women especially hard. (Salon)
  • For more than 10 years, women around the world have had access to online abortion. It’s time for the U.S. to catch up. (HuffPo)
  • We’ve said it a million times and we’re going to continue to say it as the evidence mounts: Federally qualified health centers CANNOT step in seamlessly to provide the care Planned Parenthood does. Our absence would harm millions of people for the foreseeable future. To quote the great Beyonce, we are IRREPLACEABLE.  (Guttmacher)
  • Even in a state as “blue” as California, abortion can be hard to come by for many women. (Rewire)
  • 45’s administration has done everything under the sun to wage war against women’s health, our economic livelihoods, and our futures. (WaPo)
  • Let’s end this on a funny note. An anonymous “fetus” wrote a letter to Mick Mulvaney — 45’s penny-pinching budget director who thinks the rich should get to pay obscenely low taxes while “the poors” suffer without medical care and food stamps. Nothing like satire from the unborn! Ha! (Slate XX Factor)

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • Our smarmy Vice President Mike Pence was all too eager to cast the tie-breaking Senate vote to advance legislation allowing states the right to block Title X funds from going to Planned Parenthood. In case you missed my January analysis of his anti-life legislative record, this guy is the absolute worst. He’s PLINO — “pro-life in name ONLY” — as he backs policies that do nothing to help the well-being of children or families. This move will only hurt the scores of low-income women who depend on us for care. (Politico)
  • The horrendous “born alive” bill I covered in the last rundown was passed by our wretched legislators. It now heads to Gov. Ducey’s desk. (AZ Central)
  • Planned Parenthood has a real asset in our president, Cecile Richards. She’s calling out Ivanka Trump bigly in a recent interview. By the way — Ms. Richards will be at our annual luncheon in Phoenix on April 13! (Buzzfeed)
  • North Carolina’s preposterously cruel “bathroom bill” continues to make news. The law stands to cost the state a cool $3.76 billion in revenue. And, according to this article, “that number will increase by hundreds of millions of dollars if the NCAA follows through on the threat it made last week to block the state from hosting any events through 2022. The NCAA is making those placement decisions this week.” Lawmakers there have apparently reached a deal to repeal it, but the LGBTQ community has valid concerns about the initiative doubling down on discrimination and not protecting people from discrimination until 2020. (HuffPo)
  • Trumpcare may have gone down in a blaze of not-glory last week, but here are seven ways the Trump Administration could make the Affordable Care Act “explode.” Ugh. (NBC News)
  • But hey, maybe there’s a possibility we could achieve the dream of a single-payer/universal health care system soon? (NYT)
  • Just a reminder: SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch has an ABYSMAL record on women’s issues. (NBC News)
  • No Baby Should Be Born With HIV. What Will It Take to Save Them All? (Time)
  • The question I constantly ask myself: Why has it become so hard to get an abortion??? (The New Yorker)
  • In 105 counties, Planned Parenthood is the only full-service birth control clinic! (Vox)
  • Women’s Health has a great post on how to communicate your STD status to a potential partner. (Women’s Health)
  • Lifehacker has a very informative post on individual state laws that is a MUST for bookmarking to keep up with the kajillion harebrained schemes being plotted by lawmakers nationwide. (Lifehacker)
  • Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is sooooo pro-life he hasn’t bothered to adopt or foster ANY children in need, has signed new legislation that forces doctors to “investigate” the backgrounds of their patients seeking abortions. If doctors fail at this oppressive task, they could face prison. (Bustle)
  • Surprise, surprise — states with the most Planned Parenthood clinics have lower rates of teen births and STDs. (Glamour)
  • The two yahoos who tried to destroy Planned Parenthood with unlawfully recorded, heavily edited recordings are facing 15 felony charges. Hope they follow the yellow brick road right to prison! (Rewire)
  • Get a load of this bulls****: The state of Iowa was considering a bill that would allow the parents of INDEPENDENT, SINGLE, ADULT WOMEN to make medical decisions for them with regard to abortion. (Raw Story)
  • Forced-birth advocate, opponent of the ACA’s zero-copay birth control requirement, and first-class dummy John Fleming has been tapped as deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Fleming, who is also sooooo pro-life he hasn’t bothered to adopt or foster ANY children in need (according to my research), was duped by an Onion satire article that reported Planned Parenthood was opening an $8 billion “abortion-plex” complete with a theater and water slide. (Jezebel)
  • Another awful appointment to the Department of Health and Human Services? Roger Severino — an anti-LGBTQ activist who’s spoken out against protections for LGBTQ individuals. He’ll now be comfy and cozy in the department’s Office of Civil Rights. #FacePalm (LGBTQ Nation)
  • If you’ve taken comfort in the fact that you have private health insurance and may not be affected by some of the nonsense going on with the ACA, please take discomfort in the fact that the GOP wants to restrict private insurance from covering abortion too. (Guttmacher)
  • I really appreciated this post via Cosmo that expounds upon why there is no economic justice for women without abortion rights. We can never really be whole, autonomous, independent, upwardly mobile persons without the right to control our own bodies, and it is NOT a coincidence that women and children are more likely to suffer from poverty than men. Our fates are inextricably linked to our reproductive choices, and the lack thereof. (Cosmopolitan)
  • I’ll leave you with a laugh, Dear Readers. A recent survey showed that 52 percent of men don’t believe women’s affordable access to birth control has EVER affected their lives. HAHAHA! Ninety-nine percent of women have used birth control, correct? So, what planet are these imbeciles living on??? Aren’t most of these respondents heterosexual, non-virgin men??? Ladies, try to resist the urge to call up all your male exes to demand a THANK YOU ON BEHALF OF YOUR BIRTH CONTROL for not making them fathers. Or, on second thought … maybe we should have a nationwide phone bank to do just that! The turnout would be bigger than the Women’s March. #DialMeIn (HuffPo)

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • It goes without saying that these are uncertain, uneasy times for many of us living in America right now. We have an unstable, habitually dishonest, temperamentally unfit egomaniac in the Oval Office intent on decimating women’s reproductive rights and the American health care system as we know it. The future of Planned Parenthood and our patients, many of whom have no other health care options, is at grave risk right now — more than ever. (Buzzfeed)

  • Thank you to Lisa Patrick, a writer at The Good Men Project, for making the moral case for keeping Planned Parenthood funded. (The Good Men Project)
  • Women across America to Republican dolt Steve King, who recently and ironically lamented government’s role in regulating the bodies of citizens: “Welcome to our world, hypocrite!” (Raw Story)
  • Headline: “California’s “Trust Women” License Plates to Help Pay for Reproductive Care in Trump Era”. Can we get these in Arizona??? (Rewire)
  • Iowa is taking a stab at “personhood,” which has failed in literally every other state that has attempted to legally designate eggs as “persons.” Were this initiative to pass, it would represent a serious danger to women’s access to birth control as almost every method of contraception could be wrongly construed as “abortifacients.” (Iowa Gazette)
  • Birth control failure rates are lower than ever! (NPR)
  • After Texas suffered a major loss in their battle to defund Planned Parenthood, Rewire ponders: “What’s next?” (Rewire)
  • Sadly, women in our military have a very difficult time getting access to birth control. And, ironically, most of them are seeking birth control as a means to control their menstrual cycles during times of deployment — not to prevent pregnancy. (The Atlantic)
  • With birth control being so effective and so very vital to so many women’s lives, it’s incredibly disheartening to know that the Trump Administration could quickly and easily weaken or even eliminate the provision for full coverage of contraception in the Affordable Care Act. (Think Progress)
  • Congratulations, Colorado, on becoming the third state to allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control!! (Pharmacy Times)
  • Missouri House Republican Mike Moon is infamous for trying to pass as much anti-choice, forced-birth legislation as he can. Moon, who is so pro-life he has no history (that I can locate) of adopting or fostering children in need, is now trying to pass HB 1014, aka the “Never Again Act.” Moon wants to make an abortion museum exhibit that would feature abortion tools throughout the ages and their effects on “abortion victims.” Cluelessly, he also conflates abortion with slavery and the Nazi holocaust. Sure, Mike — making choices about one’s own body is exactly the same as forced enslavement, torture, and brutalization of human beings based on race and is also totally equivalent to burning people alive in ovens due to differing religious practices! (Romper)
  • The new president really is a moron of colossal proportions. He actually gave the quote “Nobody Knew Health Care Could Be So Complicated.” Um, excuse me, Stupid, but literally everyone knew that. Literally everyone. PLEASE WALK AWAY FROM THIS JOB! PLEASE! (NY Mag)
  • Republicans have no idea what the hell they’re doing with regard to the Affordable Care Act, but rest assured, it will leave more people uninsured, it will screw the poor, and people with preexisting conditions (including yours truly — I have an incurable autoimmune disease) will suffer. (WaPo)

Out of Limbo: An Interview With Kent Burbank

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Kent Burbank (left) and his family

Marriage equality for same-sex couples has come about partly through court decisions finding against states that have passed laws or constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

In Arizona, the case was Majors v. Jeanes (formerly Majors v. Horne), which included seven couples and two widowed members of couples. One of the couples in the case was Kent Burbank and Vicente Talanquer, who had adopted two sons. Since Arizona did not allow two “unrelated” individuals to adopt jointly, only one of the fathers — Vicente — had been able to legally adopt. And when the couple was legally married in Iowa, that marriage was not recognized in Arizona, meaning that Kent still could not be a legal father to his sons. Only after the decision in Majors v. Jeanes on October 17, 2014, was he finally able to adopt his sons. His family is one of the first in Arizona in which both parents in a same-sex couple were legally able to adopt their children jointly.

“Vicente became the legal father. I had to, essentially, be nothing.”

Kent Burbank, who was once on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, agreed to share his experiences with the adoption process, the lawsuit, and his marriage. I was very interested in interviewing him: I am also an adoptive parent, and since I adopted as a single mom, mine was also viewed as a non-traditional adoption. As we talked, I found we had experiences in common, but that some of what we faced was quite different.

Our meeting took place at the library in downtown Tucson, on January 5, 2015.

Arizona only allowed husband and wife to adopt jointly. Is that why you got involved with the lawsuit?

Our primary purpose for joining the lawsuit, speaking just for my husband and I, was about getting the ability to have both of us recognized as legal parents. When we went through the adoption process we had to do everything that a married, heterosexual couple would have had to have done — background checks, lengthy histories on both of us, statements about why we both want to adopt — and at the very end they said, “Oh, so sorry. Arizona doesn’t allow unmarried, gay couples to adopt.” Continue reading →