In This Week in the War on Women, there is lots to think about, lots to talk about, and lots of links, but not much writing. I look forward to exchanging views .
In the law:
Congress debated H.R. 7, a bill which might lead to victims of rape having to recount the facts of their rapes to employees of the IRS.
http://thomas.loc.gov/...
In Texas, on Monday, a Federal Appeals panel heard an appeal to the Texas law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. This law meant that hundreds of women were turned away the day after a three judge panel, all appointed by George W. Bush, issued a temporary order reinstating the law about two months ago. The panel who heard the case on the merits on Monday, was slightly different than the one who issue the temporary order, but it did include Jennifer Walker Elrod and Catharina Haynes, who were part of the previous panel. Also on the panel for this hearing was Judge Edith Jones, who has quite a history of conservative opinions. Please read through the link for more information on those opinions.
http://thinkprogress.org/...
Also in Texas, the family of the young woman, Marlise Machado Munoz, who is both brain dead and pregnant, have announced that they will be suing the hospital who is keeping her on life support, against her wishes and against their wishes.
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/...
http://www.rawstory.com/...
http://thinkprogress.org/...
http://www.nytimes.com/...
In Wisconsin, a wealthy donor to Republicans, Michael Eisenga, and his lawyer, William Smiley, helped with the writing of a bill which would allow high-income parents to pay less child support to their children. The bill would cap the income used to determine the payments at $150,000 a year, and would remove the parents assets from the calculation.
[I believe this is part of the War on Women because so many custodial parents are women. I say this as the widow of a father who had primary custody of two of his kids, and the family member of another father who has primary physical custody of his son.]
http://host.madison.com/...
In the Military:
Charges of abusive sexual contact and making false statements filed against Naval Academy Midshipman Eric Graham have been dropped. His statements were found to be inadmissible because he had not been read his rights before he was questioned. According to the Navy, this meant there were, “no reasonable grounds” to prove a crime had been committed. One of the victim’s lawyers, Susan L. Burke, countered that, “we are outraged. The prosecutors confronted a situation that confronts many criminal prosecutors – your evidence gets botched.” Burke added that there was “substantial other evidence” which could have been used bring the charges to trial.
The decision means that only Joshua Tate, who is charged with aggravated sexual assault and making false statements, may be, at this point, held to legal account for the sexual assault of a female midshipman at a party off campus in 1992. Another midshipman who was also accused of assaulting the victim as part of the incident has never been charged.
[In my opinion, this is one of the reasons why police officers have to be well chosen and well-trained, and well-supervised. Allowing these kinds of things to happen hurts all of us. Both the civilian and the military law enforcement and justice systems must be not only just and fair, they must be seen to be just and fair.]
The problem of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military was further underlined by the release of the annual report on these crimes in the three military academies, the details of which are at the link.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
In Punditry:
On January 8th, the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of the War on Poverty, John Stossel’s Libertarian attitude lead him to declare the government’s efforts to combat poverty taught women to become dependent on the government.
“They taught women , ‘better not to have a man in your house because
you’ll get more money if there’s no guy there.’ And so people adjusted
their behavior. And now they want more handouts – what didn’t work,
the handouts – they want to do more of.”
And my point is that you’re going to get income inequality when people
are free. Some people will do much better than others, and that’s okay
because under that System the poor do better too.”
Here is the link to the video: http://samuel-warde.com/...
On the internet:
The chilling and very scary account of a woman being cyber-stalked.
http://www.psmag.com/...
Lots to think about.
Lots to talk about.
Let’s talk !