Planned Parenthood could help patients seeking medical abortions with telemedicine.

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Retailers have turned Donald Trump’s “nasty woman” comment into tangible pieces of merchandise that hold a surprisingly empowering place in presidential debate history.

Donald Trump once again proved that making it through a 90-minute debate without looking like a complete douchebag is akin to spitting into the wind, where the stupid rhetoric he spews is only going to come back and smack him. Right.In.The.Face.

During the third and final presidential debate, Trump initially proclaimed that no one respected women more than him, only to go on to call opponent Hillary Clinton, “such a nasty woman.” (Queue the horrified gasps and looks of utter disbelief.)

As soon as Americans collected their jaws off the floor, and regained their composure, they did what this country does best. This condescending and defamatory vitriol was turned from the most tart, lip-pursing lemon you’ve ever tasted, into the sweetest, go-f*ck-yourself glass of lemonade.

Aaaah, so refreshing.

“Nasty woman,” a blow that Trump spouted out in his signature careless manner, has now become fodder for the masses, and pure motivational gold for female voters. As if you needed any before this happened.

Capitalizing on his cantankerous remarks, retailers have made it possible for you to wear this message like a badge of honor — because, let’s be real, that’s exactly what it is. Whether you choose to wear a t-shirt to the polls for early voting, or decide to incorporate the decor at home for the celebratory party you throw after Clinton smokes his ass, this is merchandise worth springing for. Girl, it’s time to treat yo self!

For all of the nasty women, otherwise known as the strong, beautiful females (yes, all of you) who not only get shit done, but who also vote, and secretly plot to take over the world in their spare time — this is for you.

1. T-Shirt

You watched, you cringed, now buy the t-shirt. Nasty Woman + Co. pioneered the #NastyWoman merchandise movement just one day after the debate, and offer #DumpTrump supporters the opportunity to purchase a stylish tee emblazoned with the message. Whether you want to be the original nasty woman, a nasty woman who gets shit done, or a nasty woman who votes, they’ve got your bases covered. The best part? Proceeds, aside from the cost of making, printing, and packing and shipping the shirts, go to Planned Parenthood (20k raised so far) and RAINN (5k raised so far).  

2. Button

Accessorize any outfit with a dash of nasty woman attitude with this wear-anywhere button. It’s cute, it’s affordable, and 50 percent of the proceeds from this purchase will be donated to Planned Parenthood. Here’s an idea — buy a bunch for your girlfriends and make a day of voting together. Definite #squadgoals.

3. Wall Art

If you need a reminder that you’re a nasty woman, then hang this print in your home office, or even your cubicle. Use it as inspiration for those times when you might be feeling unsure, or need that extra confidence booster. It’s a great way to remember that women can do anything, even in the face of adversity.

4. Pillowcases

If you ask me, there couldn’t be a better way to bring politics into the bedroom, especially if you’re nasty. Whether you relate this to your love life, or the words of affirmation you desire before drifting off to sleep, it just goes to show that no place is off limits when it comes to getting what you want.

5. Mug

Everyone knows that nasty women get even more shit done after their morning cup of coffee or tea. Remember to slay the day each and every morning by pouring your favorite caffeinated brew into a mug just like this one.

6. Embroidery

Dotted with the perfect amount of patriotism, this red, white, and blue piece of embroidered empowerment would be a welcome piece of decor in any feminist’s house. Display it alone, or next to your homemade dartboard featuring Donald Trump’s face. Bullseye!

7. Tank

Sweat it out at the gym, and turn heads at the same time in this tank that shows the boys who’s really next in line for becoming leader of the free world. This is the perfect motivational tool for pumping iron in the mirror, or simply stepping out for some errands in your athleisure.

The message that’s been spun from this blunder is a great one, don’t get me wrong, but even more important than buying the merch is getting your nasty self down to the voting polls. I’ve already cast mine, and suggest you do the same. As always, let us know what you think of this #nastywoman loot on the EcoSalon Facebook page!

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Image of Mug via Aceti Design Co.

The post We Get Our Sh*t Done With Lots of ‘Nasty Woman’ Loot, ‘Cause that’s How We Roll appeared first on EcoSalon.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, recently shared her thoughts on the Republican presidential candidates’ views about abortion. That discussion resulted in one of the best quotes of all time.

The quote? “I’m so sick of men telling us what to do with our bodies.”

Hell yeah, Richards.

See what else she had to say at the 2016 Women in the World Summit by watching the video below.

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ColumnWomen should have access to safe and easy-to-find abortion services: period. Sadly, there are a lot of people who don’t think that should be the case. Two recent examples –the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting and an increase in self-administered abortions–happen when people try to stop women from getting abortions.

First up, the recent Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. Robert Dear, the accused Planned Parenthood shooter, attacked the Colorado Planned Parenthood. During the attack, Dear shot and killed three people and wounded nine others with a semiautomatic rifle, The New York Times reports.

After the attack, many reports have surfaced about Dear’s past. Basically, Dear was a violent man who abused women, while touting devout religious beliefs — we call that the bullshit, jerkface combo special. But all name-calling aside (sort of), Dear’s attack was completely hate-based and meant to target people who support, or who were having, abortions. While it was assumed that Dear was targeting Planned Parenthood rather than a single person when the attack first happened, the intention of his attack was confirmed when it was released that after his arrest, Dear said “no more baby parts” to investigators.

Dear’s attack is heartbreaking because (1) he took lives (2) he was misinformed — Planned Parenthood doesn’t take “baby parts” and (3) he’s not alone. There are many Americans who do think Planned Parenthood is a terrible place and that anyone who has ever stepped foot into one shouldn’t be alive, you know, except for the fertilized eggs that may or may not be in a woman’s body.

Now that we’ve discussed Dear’s attack, we want to tell you about the 100,000 women in Texas who have attempted self-induced abortions. Yes, that’s 100,000. This information was revealed by the University of Texas’ Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP). The TxPEP’s 2012 study found that “7 percent of abortion-seeking patients in Texas had attempted to end their own pregnancies before coming to the clinic, compared to less than 2 percent in the country at large in 2008,” Slate reports. “The study released [on Nov. 17, 2015] shows that between 1.7 and 4.1 percent of all Texas women aged 18 to 49 have tried to induce an abortion at home. In other words, between 100,000 and 240,000 women in Texas have attempted to terminate a pregnancy by using herbs, teas, vitamins, caffeine, alcohol, drugs, abdominal trauma, or a medical abortion pill (misoprostol) obtained on the black market or from a Mexican pharmacy.”

While all of this information is incredibly difficult to stomach, it’s even more heartbreaking that the report found that most of the women, not surprisingly, would have rather had a clinical abortion than a self-induced one. These women didn’t choose this option, though, because the procedure was “inaccessible because of finical barriers or lack of nearby facilities.”

It’s hard to end this post on a positive note, but that’s what I’m going to do because, honestly, positivity is all we’ve got. My hope is that we can educate the people who hate women who have abortions. No one deserves to die a terrible death via an attacker or because of a botched abortion just because she made a choice that concerns her body. In time, I hope all the hateful rhetoric can cease and that education will lead people to choose tolerance over violence.

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The post Self Abortions and Planned Parenthood Shootings… Just Another Day in America: #NowWhat appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnPlanned Parenthood has had a pretty crappy summer and if many House Republicans get their way, the organization could have an even worse year ahead.

In July, the family planning organization was accused of selling fetal tissue for profit. And just last week, the House of Representatives voted to defund the organization.

“In a 241-187 vote, nearly all Republicans and two Democrats approved legislation that would block Planned Parenthood’s federal funding for one year, giving time for Congress to fully investigate claims of wrongdoing by the provider,” reports The Hill.

As of publishing time, the Senate had yet to vote on defunding Planned Parenthood, but depending on how the bill ends up shaking out, we could see another government shutdown. (According to US News, “some conservatives want to use the must-pass funding bill” to lead the government to shutdown if the Senate votes to keep Panned Parenthood funded.) Currently, the family planning organization gets almost “$500 million a year from the government for providing health services at almost 700 clinics across the country.”

Abortion has always been a hot button issue, but it’s not political, even though it is: The issue is obviously medical (and personal as hell), but it’s still tinged with all sorts of political emotions. And it’s those emotions that make people go absolutely bananas over the issue. The sad truth is that Planned Parenthood is not a one-stop abortion shop. The organization provides an incredible amount of reproductive health services for women. If the organization does end up getting defunded, it could affect the healthcare of tens of thousands of women, in the U.S.

This past July, the organization was blasted because of a video that showed Planned Parenthood employees talking about what the organization gets monetarily for harvesting fetal tissue from, yes, abortions. While the video is reported to be heavily edited (the full, unedited video shows a Planned Parenthood executive repeatedly saying its clinics want to cover their costs, not make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research, reports FactCheck.org), Republicans have had a field day saying that the organization is trading in fetal tissue to make a dirty, bloody profit.

The deep-seated need politicians have (most of whom overwhelmingly seem to be male, BTW) to control a woman’s access to an abortion is upsetting. Planned Parenthood provides cancer screenings, breast exams, UTI and STI treatment, birth control services, and more. It’s hard to fathom how any politician could actually vote to take away such life-saving services.

And while the most unsettling thing about the ongoing Planned Parenthood debate is that women are the ones who will suffer most, it’s also disappointing this whole scuff up is marring fetal tissue research.

Yes–those abortions aren’t in vain.

Fetal tissue is used for a lot of medical research and can be donated to help other living beings, too. Some in the medical field say fetal tissue is no longer needed for research, but others strongly disagree: “Several high-profile researchers have taken different stances on the need for fetal tissue in the wake of the videos. Many have argued that fetal tissue is a crucial way to study diseases and develop new treatments. Hundreds of universities use fetal tissue research in some way, many with funding from the federal government,” The Hill reports.

So, what’s going to happen when the bill goes to the Senate? So far, no one’s quite sure. Just this Tuesday, the Senate voted “down a bill that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks.” That’s good news. And most Senate Republicans think this current fight to defund Planned Parenthood should end. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been quoted as saying this vote would be “an exercise in futility.” But the thing is, House Republicans are saying they won’t sign a budget that doesn’t defund Planned Parenthood, and this belligerent battle over women’s rights to safe and legal health care, is what could lead to a government shutdown. (Good thing it won’t defund ulcer medications.)

The fight Planned Parenthood wages everyday to keep affordable healthcare accessible to women may never be over. But is it possible that someday the organization’s opponents cool their jets and realize all their hemming and hawing isn’t saving lives, it’s hurting women? Is that too much to ask?

Better yet, how about our esteemed congressmen and women  try to work on something that really matters, you know, like keeping our planet from bursting into a giant ball of flames.

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Jemima Kirke, of HBO’s “Girls” recently shared her abortion story with the Center for Reproductive Rights. Kirke’s story is similar to many women’s abortion stories as it was very difficult for her to afford the procedure. As she said: It wasn’t totally unavailable, and that’s the tricky part — there are many hurdles a woman has to still go through to get this procedure.

She recorded the message to help end the stigma about getting an abortion. Watch the moving video below.

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The next four years could be like a bad episode of ‘Mad Men.’

I’ll admit it: prior to attending the Democratic National Convention earlier this month, I knew very little about what was at stake for women’s health this election season. Sure, I had heard rumblings about Republican Sen. Todd Akin’s legitimate rape blunder, rolled my eyes when hearing about Republican Rep. Mike Callton’s squeamishness over the v-word, and laughed at the ridiculous conservative notion that women can technically become pregnant two weeks before even doing the deed.

But by the end of DNC, it was very clear that the rights I have taken for granted my whole life are at risk. November 6 doesn’t just present a choice between Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan. It presents a choice about women’s rights, particularly those involving our health.

Throughout the three-day convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, women took center stage, both figuratively and literally. During the televised speeches at the Time Warner Arena, nearly every major speaker forcefully advocated for women’s rights, to raucous applause. Down the street, enthusiastic cheers from the over-capacity Women’s Caucus meetings echoed through the Charlotte Convention Center. There were panel discussions and workshops, mixers and meetings. On the city streets, pink-shirted Planned Parenthood volunteers, male and female, distributed condoms that read: “Protect Yourself from Romney & Ryan.”

“I never thought I’d see a week when men and women hit the stage time after time and talked about women’s issues,” said Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, at a Women’s Caucus meeting on the last day of the convention. The crowd went wild.

In 2012, as in 2008, women voters will decide this election. Women make up approximately 51 percent of the nation’s electorate, reports CNN. Plus, we vote in greater numbers than men. In 2008, 65.7 percent of women turned out to the polls, compared with 61.5 percent of men, says USA Today.

That still leaves more than one-third of women who don’t vote. With so much at stake, that’s simply unacceptable. Here are some of the most resounding women’s health battle cries from the DNC, which will hopefully convince those undecided few of the need to stand up and vote.

“We can’t see a reversal of Roe v. Wade.”

The historic piece of pro-choice legislation has set the tone for the abortion debate in America since 1973. But if recent Republican-led initiatives are any indication, this may not always be the case.

The official GOP platform states that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed” and supports a strict ban on abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, and when the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. According to The Guardian, a staggering number of Republican-led state initiatives have attempted to further restrict abortion rights over the past year. Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill,” for instance, would ban abortion at as early as five weeks, while Mississippi’s “Personhood” initiative would outlaw abortion, the morning-after pill, hormonal contraception like the pill and the IUD, and even in vitro fertilization.

Such attempts to revoke a woman’s right to choose aren’t just archaic and regressive – they’re downright scary. “It’s like we woke up in a bad episode of Mad Men,” said Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on night two of the convention.

“Birth control decisions should be left to women, not to the government or their employers.”

President Obama’s Affordable Care Act makes it mandatory for health insurance providers to cover all forms of birth control, without co-pays or deductibles. Previously, birth control coverage was a decision made by state agencies or individual employers.

In comparison, Republican efforts to shut down Planned Parenthood and abolish sex education are aiming to restrict information and access to basic reproductive health services.

Unsurprisingly, men are at the helm of these efforts. In a Republican hearing on contraception earlier this year, not a single woman was included on the panel. The Democrats, who were allowed one witness, chose to present student activist Sandra Fluke. She was dismissed for being “unqualified,” then famously called a slut and prostitute by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Politicians across party lines, including President Obama, sprung to Fluke’s defense. Romney was notably silent.

“During this campaign, we’ve heard about the two profoundly different futures that could await women – and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete relic of our past,” Fluke said on day two of the convention. “Warnings of that future are not distractions. They’re not imagined. That future could be real.” 

Richards echoed that notion at a Women’s Caucus meeting. “This is 2012 and we are still actually arguing over whether women should have the right to birth control in America. That is absolutely unbelievable.” She shared a story of meeting older women who had participated in the women’s rights movement while on the campaign trail. “They carried signs that said: ‘I can’t believe I have to fight this shit again.’”

“Being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.”

Before the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies could deny health coverage to women because of “pre-existing conditions” like having breast cancer, being pregnant, or surviving domestic violence, according to Slate. Insurance companies were also able to drop women’s coverage due to pregnancy or sickness, and charge women more for coverage solely because of gender.

“Under Obamacare, insurance companies can no longer discriminate against women,” said Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on the first night of the convention.

 Before, some wouldn’t cover women’s most basic needs, like contraception and maternity care, but would still charge us up to 50 percent more than men—for a worse plan. They said women who had C-sections or survived breast cancer or even domestic violence had “pre-existing conditions” and would deny them coverage. But this president made it illegal to discriminate against women and ended the practice of insurance companies charging women higher premiums than men for the same coverage. This president ensured women’s free access to preventive services like breast cancer screenings. Being a mother is no longer a liability, and being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition! That’s what change looks like.

“We need a president who respects women.”

Many are familiar with the famous Ms. Magazine cover featuring a Photoshopped President Obama wearing a t-shirt that reads: “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like.” Judging from actions and remarks made over the past several months, it’s obvious that his opponents have a long way to go.

Sebelius hit the nail on the head when she voiced her observations on the Republican National Convention.

I must say I wouldn’t have known it unless they told me over and over again that they love women. That’s what they said: ‘We love women.’ That their mothers were women, that they’re married to women, their sisters are women. But if you watch what they do, they don’t like women very much, they don’t respect women very much and they’re not looking out for us very much.

According to Fluke, “that’s not the America we should be.”

We’ve also seen another future we could choose. First of all, we’d have the right to choose. It’s an America in which no one can charge us more than men for the exact same health insurance; in which no one can deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our lives; in which we decide when to start our families. An America in which our president, when he hears a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters—not his delegates or donors—and stands with all women.

Again, the crowd – male and female – went wild.

Election Day is November 6. Click here to learn how you can register to vote.

Images: Jessica Marati

The post DNC Dispatch: What’s At Stake For Women’s Health This Election Season appeared first on EcoSalon.

No War on Women? Here are 13 bills and laws that say otherwise, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

In 1912, women all over the United States marched for their right to vote. In 2012, we’re marching against state and federal laws that restrict our freedom to make decisions about our own bodies, make it easy for abusers to get away with physically assaulting us and fail to grant us the equal pay that we deserve.

Why are we still fighting this hard 100 years later? Because efforts to keep us “in our place” haven’t stopped. The official Republican party line on the War on Women is that it isn’t happening. It’s all in our heads. But there are bills popping up all over the nation like the heads of a hydra that prove otherwise. Sometimes, the bills don’t pass. But when they don’t, those same legislators – or successors with the same ideals – are ready to try to ram them through again… and again… and again. Here are 13 of the most egregious examples.

1. GOP Attempts to Redefine Rape for the Purposes of Abortion Law

Was it “rape rape” or just “kinda rape” because House Republicans draw a distinction, claiming that “real rape” involves the use of force. All those other kinds of rape – as in date rape, statutory rape, rapes of women with limited mental capacity or any sexual assault in which a woman is not fully conscious – don’t count as reasons to get an abortion using federal funds in the GOP’s “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” The House Republican Majority really, seriously tried to redefine rape to rule out federal assistance for abortions in many cases. Mother Jones provides an example of how this could play out: say a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old man. It wasn’t forcible, but at 13, she can’t legally consent to sex – it’s rape, plain and simple. She wouldn’t qualify for Medicaid to pay for an abortion. The bill would also forbid using tax benefits to pay for abortions, so that girl’s parents wouldn’t be able to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure, either.

The House GOP ultimately stripped this controversial language from the bill, but then used a committee report to claim that the bill would not allow funding for abortions in cases of statutory rape. The bill passed the House in May 2011, but is not expected to pass in the Senate, if it even comes up for a vote.

2. United States Violence Against Women Act Fails LGBT, Native Women

Democrats and Republicans in the United States Congress have at least been able to agree that women should be protected from abuse. But which women? That’s the question that has held up the Violence Against Women Act for months. In April, the Senate passed the Democrat version of the bill, which extends protection to LGBT, Native American and illegal immigrant women, all of whose complaints about violence often get overlooked. But House Republicans stripped these protections from their own version of the bill, and now the two branches of government are at an impasse. Republicans are actually claiming that protecting all women from violence is an election year stunt, singling out specific groups for special treatment.

3. United States House of Representatives Votes to Let Women Die

They called it the Protect Life Act, but the bill that was passed in November 2011 bans the use of federal funds to cover the costs of any health plan that covers abortion – even in life-threatening situations. This simple fact led opponents of the bill to give it the far more appropriate nickname of the “Let Women Die” bill. The bilk obtains a provision that would allow hospitals receiving federal subsidies to refuse to treat women seeking abortions, no matter the circumstances. During the House of Representatives floor debate, Rep. Jackie Speier of California described in detail her own painful experience, demonstrating why abortions should be covered. “I was pregnant, I was miscarrying, I was bleeding… if I had to go from one hospital to the next trying to find one emergency room that would take me in, who knows if I would even be here today.”

What makes this even more frustrating is the fact that President Obama’s Affordable Care Act already keeps public federal funds separate from the private funds that cover abortion. What this bill is attempting to do is prevent women from buying private health insurance that includes abortion coverage through a state health care exchange. The bill is unlikely to pass in the Senate however, and President Obama has said that he’ll veto it if it ever reaches his desk.

4. Arizona Outlaws Abortion After 20 Weeks

Well, if the United States Government doesn’t succeed in letting women die, then by golly, Arizona will do it for them, at least on a state-wide scale. Arizona’s federal court upheld the most extreme abortion ban in the country in July 2012, criminalizing virtually all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, forcing physicians to wait until women are actually dying before they can offer life-saving care. It even bans abortions in cases where the fetus will not survive after birth, prolonging agony by forcing parents to carry pregnancies to full term and then literally watch their babies die.

The law flouts a Supreme Court ruling that states can’t ban abortion before viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, which is about 24 weeks gestation. And another problem is the fact that many severe fetal abnormalities and risks to a woman’s life don’t occur until beyond that point. Judge James Teilborg gave in to the totally non-scientific assertion that 20-week fetuses can feel pain, ignoring the obvious fact that women can feel pain, and plenty of it.

And here’s the bitter icing on the cake: the bill considers the starting point of pregnancy to begin on the first day of the mother’s last menstrual period, before life is even scientifically possible. That means women hitting the 20-week mark are actually only 18 weeks pregnant.

5. GOP Cuts Crucial Services for Low-Income Women and Children

House Republicans voted for a new budget that would drastically cut food, shelter and health care services for millions of struggling families, singling out low-income women in particular. $3.3 million would be cut from low-income programs over 10 years, which would lead to states dumping an estimated 14 million to 28 million people from Medicaid rosters. The bill, which Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney called “a bold and exciting effort,” would also either disqualify 8 million of the 47 million people in the food stamp program or cut the benefits for all of them, leading to a loss of about $90 worth of food per month for a family of four. Small victory for common sense: the bill was rejected by the Senate in May.

6. Repeated Attempts to Ban Federal Funding of Planned Parenthood

Whew. That didn’t pass, so everything is okay, right? Of course not. Congress is still battling against a women’s right to make decisions about her own health – including use of contraception, something that should be a complete non-issue in 21st century America. Republicans in Congress repeatedly attempt to defund or eliminate Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide low-cost health care to millions of low-income women around the world. Paternalistic religious imperatives to restrict abortion and birth control are having a very direct, real-life effect: women are being deprived of cancer screenings, AIDS/HIV testing, family planning information and other education services that could reduce health care problems and prevent unplanned pregnancies from occurring in the first place. 76% of Planned Parenthood’s clients have incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. And when Congress doesn’t succeed, states are ready to take up the cause in their stead.

7. South Dakota Forces Doctors to Claim that Abortion Increases Suicide Rates

In July, an appeals court upheld a South Dakota law that requires doctors to recite anti-abortion propaganda to patients seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Doctors are forced to tell women that abortions are linked to higher suicide rates – information that’s not based on reliable research. A 2008 John Hopkins review of the studies that claim the link between abortion and suicide concluded that even the highest quality studies on the subject showed no discernible differences in the mental health of women who’d had abortions and those who had not.

Women who want an abortion in South Dakota also face the longest waiting period in the nation (3 days), and are forced to undergo counseling at pregnancy centers that discourage abortions. But wait – it gets worse. South Dakota nearly made it legal to kill abortion doctors. State legislators sought to modify a “justifiable homicide” law to include killings that aimed to prevent harm to an unborn child, a provision that would have basically enabled people to murder abortion providers and get away with it. That bill was, thankfully, struck down.

8. Colorado Permits Private Businesses to Withhold Contraception

In Colorado, a small manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment decided that providing its employees with health insurance plans that cover contraception – as required by the Obama administration’s new healthcare laws – violated its religious liberty. As in, its “right” to discriminate against women in the name of the owners’ religion. Sounds like an outrageous request that goes against the United States Constitution, does it not? But a federal court in Colorado disagrees. An exception was made for this business, Hercules Industries, that could pave the way for employers all over the country to impose their religious views on their employees.

Hercules Industries, owned by Catholics, was granted a three-month temporary injunction allowing for further legal review of the case. Two similar lawsuits have been filed in Michigan and Missouri. The companies all claim that the law forces the owners to go against their religious beliefs forbidding the use of contraceptives. But as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) points out, this could pave the way for employers making decisions about health procedures like vaccinations and blood transfusions based on their own personal religious beliefs.

Mitt Romney, by the way, cheered for this ruling as well, in typically chilling privileged-conservative-male fashion. “Today’s injunction preventing the federal government from forcing one family business from having to choose between keeping its doors open and violating its faith is a step in the right direction. But it is only a step, not the end of the struggle. We must ensure that the same freedom to live according to one’s faith is available to all Americans.”

9. Wisconsin Equal Pay Enforcement Act Repealed

Think women don’t deserve to be paid less than men simply by virtue of being born female? Oh, you silly little lady (or radically feminized man, i.e. traitor). How wrong you are – according to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who quietly repealed his state’s equal pay law in April 2012. The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act gave women more avenues through which to press charges against employers for gender-based pay discrimination. In Wisconsin, women earn 75 cents for every dollar that men make (compared to the national average of 77 cents, which obviously isn’t much better.) A bill to roll back the provision passed Republican-controlled chambers of the state government before Walker put his signature on it, without informing the public of his actions.

10. Senate Republicans Block Paycheck Fairness Act

On the federal level, an effort by Senate Democrats to strengthen the 45-year-old Equal Pay Act failed in June 2012. The Paycheck Fairness Act would have required employers to show that wage differences between the sexes are job-related, not gender-based. It would also protect women from retaliation from their employers when seeking equal pay. The bill was previously defeated in 2010 by solid Republican opposition.

11. Virginia Requires Invasive Vaginal Ultrasounds Before Abortion

So you want an abortion, citizen of Virginia? Well, we’re going to have to violate you with an unwanted, medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasound just to make sure. That’s the message that Virginia Republicans sent to women when they attempted to pass a law requiring transvaginal ultrasounds prior to obtaining an abortion, an amazing invasion of women’s bodies (literally) that aimed to shame them out of their decision. The state’s Republican Governor, Bob McDonnell, originally supported the measure, an ironic position given his squeamishness over TSA pat-downs in airports. Ultimately, he backed down – sort of. While women are still required to have an ultrasound procedure before an abortion, they can choose an abdominal ultrasound over the dildo-like transvaginal apparatus.

12. House GOP Tries to Block Abortions ‘Motivated by Racism or Sexism’

But wait, there’s more! Alabama and Pennsylvania are both considering similar ultrasound requirements, and the U.S. House GOP tried to pass a bill that would have allowed a woman’s spouse to obtain a court-ordered block against having an abortion by accusing her of wanting to end her pregnancy due to racism or sexism. Because all of those smug white guys in Congress are so concerned about sexism.

13. Alabama Personhood Bill Declares Fertilized Eggs to be People

So let’s get this straight: fertilized eggs, according to Alabama legislators, are people with rights. But women – over half the population of actual people in the world – are being stripped of their own rights in favor of bits of biological matter that are not, scientifically people. Alabama is actually just one of many states including Nevada, Oklahoma, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Mississippi that have introduced bills attempting to define the start of human life. The Alabama bill defines life as beginning at the moment of conception, a concept that would not only make all abortion illegal even when the pregnancy threatens a woman’s life, but would also outlaw contraceptives like birth control pills and IUDs. This bill, along with another that would allow the state to opt out of providing health insurance for abortions under the new federal health care law, is currently stalled in committee. The personhood initiatives in most of the other states have failed, but classifying a fertilized egg as a person will be up for vote in Colorado in the November election.

Photo: ProgressOhio

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In mainstream media stories about women’s issues, men are quoted much more than women or even relevant organizations.

The past year has been a politically turbulent one for women’s issues with restrictive legislation over women’s health being proposed and passed in many states. The presidential election is heating up and print and online media is filled with news about all of these changes. With all of the debate, it would seem important to get women’s perspective on issues related to abortion, birth control and Planned Parenthood, yet a recent study shows that men are dominating the conversation in the mainstream media, with very little input from women or even the impacted organizations.

The 4th Estate studied the 2012 election coverage from November 1, 2011 to May 1, 2012, for a total of 2,750 print articles and TV segments that contained 50,754 quotes. And the numbers show that women’s voices are very, very faint, if they’re heard at all. The study reviewed 35 major national publications, including USA Today and the New York Times, and when talking about abortion, men owned 81 percent of the quotes, with women at 12 percent and organizations at 7 percent.

The numbers are only slightly better for stories about birth control (men 75, women 19, orgs 6), Planned Parenthood (men 67, women 26, orgs 7) and women’s rights (men 52, women 31, orgs 17), but overall women are extremely underrepresented in national media on issues about women. From this, it’s easy to see how so many of these measures are being not only proposed, but pushed through.

In Michigan, where some of the most restrictive birth control/abortion legislation is making its way through the legislative process, many women and organizations that came to the legislative session to ask questions and participate were not allowed to speak or ask anything. Two female Democrat Representatives were banned from speaking after they protested the bill and Rep. Lisa Brown said, ““I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”

Although women are all but missing from those venues, there have been a few victories. In February, during the time the 4th Estate was studying election coverage, women did manage to make themselves heard when the Susan G. Komen Foundation tried to quietly sever ties with Planned Parenthood. The resulting uproar caused the charity to quickly reverse itself. While an overwhelming number of new legislative measures impacting women have passed in many states, some have been defeated.

Since men clearly control the conversation about women’s issues in the media, it’s no surprise that they control the conversation about other election topics, as well, including the economy and foreign policy. On general topics, men had 76 percent of the quotes in USA Today, 67 percent in the Washington Post and 65 percent in the New York Times. Major media has similar ratios and top TV news shows snubbed women even more with Hardball listening to men talk 81 percent of the time and Fox News, 77 percent.

Another study, The OpEd Project, found that out of 7,000 columns it reviewed from September 15, 2011 to December 7, 2011, women penned 33 percent of online opinion columns, 20 percent of print columns and 38 percent of college publication columns. The good news is that female authors are gaining ground. The study reports, “Overall we have seen approximately a 6 percentage point increase in some of the nation’s top commentary outlets in traditional media. This represents a 40 percent increase for women compared to women’s representation six years ago.”

If women aren’t represented in national media and our female lawmakers are punished like schoolchildren, what chance do women have? Brands understand that social media is a formidable tool for expressing opinions, and have learned to listen to consumers (which include women). Maybe politicians (especially those who use new media tools) will learn to listen, too. When the government ground to a halt over Planned Parenthood funding, women took to Twitter. And, while they don’t have a traditional national media platform, independent female bloggers/writers, especially mothers, are a huge presence on the internet.

In this election year, with so much at stake, women must be heard not only on women’s issues, but all issues to present all sides. Women make the majority of household purchasing decisions, we are more than half of college graduates and are half the workforce. We’ve shown that we do have an opinion (Komen), but now we need to work harder than ever to be heard through smaller channels, social media, and any other method at our disposal. Only then can the conversation include everyone, and decisions be made with the input of all citizens.

 The 4th Estate

Image: UMWomen, SMirk, Leader Nancy Pelosi

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Tips on making the most out of your pre-pre-natal status.

You already knew that your most recent menstrual cycle is considered a pre-assembled bundle of joy under the recent Arizona law, which recognizes fetal personhood two weeks before conception. This is because Governor Jan Brewer has developed a unique form of time travel that is both retroactive and womb-specific (and they say America doesn’t invest in science anymore).

At any rate, it’s better to be pregnant than sorry, as the old chestnut goes. Congratulations! You’re (mostly) already a mother. How wonderful – and may I add, on a personal note, that you’re absolutely (hypothetically) glowing? Here are a few bits of pre-prenatal advice we’d like to offer our newly pregnant readers.

• If you’re not sure where to start, why not try naming your tampons, just in case? “We call this one Harper. She’s got her father’s absorbency but I think she takes after my mother’s side of the family – she expands radially just like my mother’s sister Abigail.”
• Worried about early preschool cutoff dates? Now that proto-Edwick is a whole two weeks older, you’ve got that much more of an edge on your Brentwood School application. Your slutty neighbor who got knocked up before H.B. 2036 passed is going to have to wait an entire year before she gets another chance. Edwick will already be fluent in Mandarin calculus engineering by then!
• Don’t forget, however, that early admission also means early student loan repayment – your ante-blastula may already have exceeded the maximum number of uterine deferrals. Does your womb have space for debt collectors?
• What does your icipient embryo think about Lena Dunham’s Girls? Do you want your progeny to be the only one in the maternity ward without an opinion? It’s never too early for a longform thinkpiece about a television show that’s aired exactly one episode, so plan ahead.
• Are proto-zygotes growing up too fast and having sex before they even start to exist?
• Why not take this expansive, futurist approach to the rest of your life? Shake things up a little! Divorce your spouse before your relationship falls apart! Quit your job before you retire! Stop breathing before you die! Don’t think of it as overweening and self-defeating presumption. Think of it as maximizing your life-cycle efficiency. Sure, you’ll die earlier, but we live in fast-paced times! Who wants to sit around waiting for their body to stop working before ceasing to exist?

Alternately, of course, you could use those two weeks to get the hell out of Arizona and into a state with sane, compassionate reproductive laws. Like Nevada – wait. New Mexico, then. Or not. Utah doesn’t look much better, does it? Colorado? …Oh.

Image: Josh Parrish

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