Abortion providers

Here’s what the pro-life contingent wanted (via here):
For thirty-six years, Warren Hern has been one of the few doctors in America to specialize in late abortions. George Tiller was another. And when Dr. Tiller was murdered that Sunday in church, Warren Hern became the only one left.
There is one doctor in the US who will [...]

Women of the world

The New York Times Magazine has a really good article about how aid to women might help to reduce poverty and violence:
Our interviews and perusal of the data available suggest that the poorest families in the world spend approximately 10 times as much (20 percent of their incomes on average) on a combination of alcohol, [...]

Karzai signs law that makes women second class

The updating of the infamous law for Shia women has now been published and thus is law. Human Rights Watch talks about it here:
A copy of the final law seen by Human Rights Watch shows that many regressive articles remain, which strip away women’s rights that are enshrined in Afghanistan’s constitution. The law gives a husband the [...]

Karzai and women

I found this bit in Afghanistan President Karzai’s speech about Afghanis held in American detention camps to be funny:
“The Afghan people are happy because you have paved roads, built schools, and the salaries of the government are paid by the international community and United States,’’ he told the crowd in a field before a mosque. [...]

Problems in Afghanistan

Back in March, Afghanistan passed a rule that severely restricted the rights of Shia women but a huge international outcry forced President Karzai to say he would rewrite it. The new version is out and it seems it’s not much better:

The changes, which are not yet approved by Parliament, would delete sections that said a woman [...]

Women in Afghanistan

Back in April there was a big outcry about a bill that Afghanistan had passed that severely restricted women’s rights. Because of the outcry, President Karzai said the law would be reviewed. So far nothing has happened–if Karzai was as outraged as this article says that seems a bit weird. Perhaps, this article is more [...]

Hate Crime

Jeff Jacoby has an article about Hate Crimes legislation. He shows he isn’t bad as some:
Every crime that would be covered by the bill is already a felony under state law. Each one can already be prosecuted and punished. Its name notwithstanding, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act will not prevent any hate crimes. [...]

Karzai=Taliban?

It seems that Karzai might care more about getting elected than women’s rights. One of the problems here is:
The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands’ permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor [...]

More Same Sex Classrooms

The New York Times has another article about same sex classrooms. I’ve had a few posts about this. My take-away is that any gender difference in learning is dwarfed by individual differences. And I’ve noticed that all the articles I’ve seen have comments like:
Michael Napolitano speaks to his fifth-grade class in the Morrisania section of [...]

Craziness becomes even crazier

He’s a nobody, but Colorado state Senator Dave Schultheis makes it obvious that he thinks that people should be punished for having sex:
Sexual promiscuity, we know, causes a lot of problems in our state, one of which, obviously, is the contraction of HIV. And we have other programs that deal with the negative consequences — [...]

North Dakota is a bit crazy

Amanda has a post about North Dakota’s attempt to ban abortion by declaring fetuses people (which passed their house). When I went to look for the official language, I found that there are other bills about abortion:

they want any abortion provider to put a sign with this up (this passed their senate):

“Notice: No one can force [...]

Lis Hartel

I read the obituaries because you find people who have done amazing things that you’ve never heard of. A case in point is Lis Hartel who died on February 12. She won two silver medals in the equestrian sport of dressage in 1952 and 1956 (she also won the world championship in 1954). What makes this [...]

Jacoby worries about theory

Jeff Jacoby has an interesting little column today, a conservative standby, about abortion. Here’s the big paragraph:
Taken together, Roe and Doe meant that abortion could not be barred at any stage of a pregnancy. The “attending physician” could always say that in his medical judgment, the woman’s “emotional” or “familial” health made it necessary to [...]

Ledbetter and other gender stuff

I thought there would be problems, but it seems the Lilly Ledbetter bill passed the Senate fairly easily (61-36). It now has to go back to the House (since it was passed in conjunction with another bill), but that’s just a formality and it’s now almost sure to become law. Yay.
President Obama gave out a [...]

A Couple Milestones

There was another big first last Tuesday:
New Hampshire last week voted into office a majority-female Senate, the first time any state in the country has elected a legislative chamber in which women outnumber men.
…
In addition to electing 13 women to the 24-member state Senate, voters also chose former governor Jeanne Shaheen as a US senator, unseating [...]

Larry Summers

Since it seems that Larry Summers might be up for Treasury Secretary, there is again discussion on his talk about women in science. Here is his summation at the beginning:
There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities that this conference’s papers document and have been documented before with respect to [...]

Taking Honesty Out of Roe v Wade

I’m a bit slow with this, but David Lewis Schaefer has an article ‘Putting some honesty in Roe v. Wade debate’ that takes out honesty from the debate.
It starts off ok, noting that the decision rests on what some people consider shaky grounds, a right to privacy (although this:
If the Constitution contains a right to privacy, [...]

McCain, Palin: Go By What I Say, Not What I do

Hmm,

McCain says he is working to guarantee equal rights for women:

We haven’t done enough. We have not done enough. And I’m committed to making sure that there’s equal pay for equal work. That there is equal opportunity in every aspect of our society. And that is my record and you can count on it.
but he doesn’t [...]

A Couple Crazy Items

It seems that a company can not test meat more than the government dictates (via):

Because the Agriculture Department tests only a small percentage of cows for the deadly disease, a Kansas meatpacker, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to test all of its cows, but the government says it cannot. Larger meat companies worry that if Creekstone [...]

McCain: Gov Sarah Palin for VP

So, it seems that Senator McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Palin as his VP candidate. You might think that choosing a woman would show he supports women, but I don’t. First, I agree with Kevin that this is an obviously cynical choice, but I think it goes further. Let’s look at the woman he chose:

She has [...]