"Michigan Politician on H.B. 5711: "This Isn't about Protecting Women, It's about Protecting Fetuses!"

From RHRealityCheck.org H.B. 5711, the Michigan omnibus anti-abortion "super bill" passed last week during the lame duck session of the state legislature, is a hefty 80-odd pages worth of restrictions and regulations on abortions, providers, clinics, and medical practices. It was overwhelmingly passed by both chambers of the legislature, but how many even knew what they were actually voting for? Emily Magner of Social Work Advocacy Coalition of Michigan, shares a story on Eclectablog of her late November meeting with one local legislator, state Senator Howard Walker, who voted in favor of the bill. A bill which as of the end of November he couldn't even be bothered to read.

We went on to talk specifically about how this bill will harm Michigan women, disproportionately women living in rural areas like ours. After we brought up a few of these points he put up his hands and said that he couldn’t really speak to those topics … he had not read the bill. In front of him was a one paragraph synopsis I assume was from the Right to Life special interest organization who drafted the bill. Howard Walker had not even bothered to read it. We spoke with him for 20 minutes, the whole time he was dismissive, misinformed, and rude. When his handler told him, “5 more minutes,” I told him that I would never ask him to change his beliefs on abortion, I would protect his right to believe whatever he wanted, but I did want him to consider the harmful implications that this legislation would have on women and consider his ethical obligation to his field to leave his personal views at the door. Before I could finish my sentence, he waved his hand dismissively and interrupted, “THIS ISN’T ABOUT WOMEN! THIS IS ABOUT PROTECTING FETUSES!”

Republican Governor Rick Snyder has less than two weeks to decide whether he is just as dismissive of women as Senator Walker is or whether he will veto the bill.

Reva Siegel delivering Harris Lecture Sept 27 @ noon

Yale professor to deliver Harris Lecture at IU Maurer School of Law BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A distinguished constitutional law scholar will deliver the Harris Lecture at the IU Maurer School of Law on Thursday, Sept. 27. Reva Siegel, the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale University, will speak on "The Woman Question: From Suffrage to Abortion and Beyond." She will discuss how the discourse by proponents and opponents of abortion rights in the late 20th century has become a debate about the question of women's roles and helped shape current constitutional law.

Siegel's writing draws on legal history to explore questions of law and inequality and to analyze how courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution. She is currently writing on the role of social movement conflict in guiding constitutional change, addressing this question in recent articles on the enforcement of Brown v. Board of Education, originalism and the Second Amendment, the "de facto ERA" and reproductive rights.

Siegel received her Bachelor of Arts, Master of Philosophy and Juris Doctor from Yale University, clerked for Judge Spottswood Robinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and began her teaching career at the University of California-Berkeley. Established in 1946 by a trust from the bequest of India Crago Harris in the name of her husband, Addison C. Harris, the Harris Lecture Series brings prominent scholars to the Maurer School of Law. Harris was an Indiana lawyer and president of the old Indiana Law School. He was appointed minister to Austria-Hungary by President William McKinley.

Past Harris lecturers have included Derrick Bell, Robert Bork, Guido Calabresi, Jules Coleman, Owen Fiss, Laurence Tribe and Elizabeth Warren. From 1956, the Harris Lectures have been published in the Indiana Law Journal. The first lecture to be published was given by Chief Justice Earl Warren, who delivered the keynote address at the dedication ceremonies for the new Law School building.

The Harris Lecture will begin at 12:00 noon in the Law School's Moot Court Room. It is free and open to the public. One hour of Indiana continuing legal education credit will be awarded.

80th Anniversary Celebration with Ashley Judd

Planned Parenthood of Indiana has been "Daring to Care since 1932."  Join us to reflect on the past and toast our next 80 years of quality care, education and advocacy. EVENT DETAILS   Saturday, December 1, 2012 Downtown Indianapolis 4:30 p.m. General and VIP Receptions 5:45 p.m. Program Begins Heavy Hors D'oeuvres Cash Bar Purchase your ticket online. HERITAGE SPONSOR - $1,500 Includes four VIP tickets and admission to VIP reception with Ms. Judd, complimentary wine service and VIP seating during the program. EVENT TICKET - $80 Includes general reception with heavy hors d'oeuvres, cash bar and theater-style seating during the program. Group Pack - $720 (includes ten event tickets) Under 30? Pay just $30 for your event ticket! Tickets available while they last. Ticket sales end November 27. We hope you will join us for a fantastic evening with Ashley Judd as we celebrate our first 80 years and kick off the next 80 years of daring to care!

League of Women Voters Forum - Indy - Sept. 6th

The League of Women Voters is hosting their first Indiana General Assembly Candidate Forum and I’d love to see you all there! It’s a great opportunity to meet candidates for our legislature, make your positions known and exercise your advocate energy. We hope those of you in the area will attend one of the forums.  Please let me know if you have questions.

 

The first forum is as follows:

September 6, 2012

Big Car Service Center

3819 Lafayette Road, 46254

7:00pm

Birth Control Saves Women's Lives

Meeting the global need for contraception could cut maternal mortality by
an additional 29%.

Family planning prevents maternal deaths due to pregnancy complications
(including unsafe abortion, which accounts for 13% of maternal deaths
worldwide). Each year, 50 million women seek pregnancy termination, which
remains illegal and unsafe in many countries. To estimate the effect of
satisfying the unmet need for contraception, information from the Maternal
Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group database, the UN World
Contraceptive Use 2010 database, and the UN World Population Prospects 2010
database was used to model maternal deaths averted by contraceptive use in
172 countries. The researchers then modeled the number of additional
maternal deaths that could be averted if the global need for contraception
were met.

These models estimate that the current level of contraceptive use averted
272,040 premature maternal deaths worldwide in 2008. Without contraceptive
use, maternal mortality would have been 1.8 times higher. The models also
suggest that satisfying the unmet need for contraception could prevent an
additional 104,000 maternal deaths annually, a 29% reduction from the
current rate.

Comment: Although many people have long recognized family planning as a
cornerstone of global health and development, international commitment to
funding for these essential health services has remained limited. This is
unfortunate, as investments in contraception are estimated to save up to
US$7 for every dollar invested (Am J Public Health 2009; 99:446). As
Melinda Gates has said, there should be "no controversy in contraception."

-- Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, MD, MS

Published in Journal Watch Women's Health August 16, 2012 Citation(s):

Ahmed S et al. Maternal deaths averted by contraceptive use: An analysis of
172 countries. Lancet 2012 Jul 14; 380:111. 

More on the GOP Platform

GOP approves platform banning abortion, gay marriages

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Republicans emphatically approved a toughly worded party platform at their national convention Tuesday that would ban all abortions and gay marriages, reshape Medicare into a voucher-like program and cut taxes...

The party states that "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed." It opposes using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or to fund organizations that perform or advocate abortions. It says the party will not fund or subsidize health care that includes abortion coverage...

The platform pledges to move both Medicare and Medicaid away from "the current unsustainable defined-benefit entitlement model to a fiscally sound defined-contribution model." It supports a Medicare transition to a premium-support model with an income-adjusted contribution toward a health plan of the enrollee's choice. Age eligibility in Medicare must be made more realistic in light of longer life spans.

Medicaid services for low income people would be transformed into a block grant program in which the states would be given the flexibility to determine the best programs for their residents...

It states that a Republican president on his first day in office would use his waiver authority to halt progress in carrying out the health care act pushed through by President Barack Obama and that Republican victories in November would guarantee that the act is never implemented. It proposes a Republican plan based on improving health care quality and lowering costs and a system that promotes the free market and gives consumers more choice...

It says Republicans renew their call for replacing family planning programs for teens "with abstinence education which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and respected standard of behavior."

Six Ways The GOP Platform Is Bad News For Women's Bottom Lineby Bryce Covert (Forbes.com)

1. Repealing ObamaCare (ObamaCare creates gender equity, provides for access to contraception, among other things)

2. Controlling Your Fertility (disallows women to make decisions for selves)

3. “Reforming” Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security (Social Security is the only income for app. 1/3 of women over 65 - The GOP plan puts many women at risk)

4. More welfare reform (c. 90% adult beneficiaries of TANF are women)

5. Reducing government payrolls, including teachers

6. Single mothers = bad   (no help - just vilification)

See article for more details

From Planned Parenthood Advocates of Indiana

Stay energized and involved! Check out some upcoming events! See the complete calendar Protest Against Mitt Romney and Budget Cuts Who's on the Chopping Block? Veterans? Workers? Retirees? Students? All of them and add women, families, and animals to that chopping block....we all need to run for our lives and head out to protest the Romney/Ryan Budget Cuts.

Mitt Romney is speaking at the Indianapolis Convention Center on Wednesday. Lets show Romney that Hoosiers don't believe in the budget cuts he's proposing & he isn't the key to rebuilding America or the Middle Class. Indiana Convention Center (Corner of Capitol & Maryland), Indianapolis IN Wednesday, August 29 2:30-3:30pm RSVP at the event page

51% Club Phone Bank Hundreds of thousands of Hoosier women who voted in the 2008 Democratic Primary did not vote in 2010. It is the goal of the 51% Club to bring those women back to the polls this November. Help us reach them. Join us for our weekly Marion County phone bank. 2601 East 46th St. Indianapolis, IN 46205 Wednesdays, from 5:30-8pm RSVP to Katie Blair at 51percent@indems.org

Miracle Mile Festival  Join us in honoring Hoosier legends at the Miracle Mile Festival! Madison Avenue, Indianapolis IN Saturday, September 1 11am-3pm RSVP to Katie Blair at 51percent@indems.org

Indiana AIDS Walk This year's Indiana AIDS Walk will be a "Walk Around the Block," a roughly one-mile walk through beautiful Herron Morton Place neighborhood, with entertainment and activities along the route. First 200 walkers get free BBQ! Must be over 21 or older to enter. 16th & Alabama St, Indianapolis IN Saturday, September 29 4-7pm Register here! If you are an advocate who wants to be more involved, contact advocates@ppin.org for volunteer opportunities!

Republicans alienating women with their cluelessness

Rep. Todd Akin, (R-MO) Senate Candidate from Missouri told a local television station that “legitimate rape” rarely produces pregnancy because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Akin cited conversations with unnamed doctors for the bizarre claim. 

Tom Smith, a Tea Party-endorsed candidate running against Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania suggested that having a child out of wedlock (from a positive relationship) was analogous to having a child from a rape.

Paul Ryan, (R-WI) Vice presidential candidate, says that he believes that rape is just another “method of conception” and not an excuse to allow abortions.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), co-sponsored a bill with Akin that sought to restrict federal assistance to rape victims unless they suffered what Akin and Ryan called “forcible rape.” 

Clearly these men do not take rape seriously. Their laws would give rapists control over a woman and her body - not just for however long the rape lasts - but potentially for the next 9 months, and the rest of her life. And they have stupid ideas about some rapes being more "legitimate" than others.

 GOP Approves ‘Most Conservative Platform In Modern History’

Including:

• NO ABORTION IN CASES OF RAPE OR INCEST. The proposal for a “human life amendment” passed without a hitch — and without any exceptions for rape or incest. The committee didn’t stop there; they also adopted language that would ban drugs that end pregnancy after conception, which could potentially include Plan B, the “morning after pill.”
• SALUTE TO MANDATORY ULTRASOUNDS. The GOP officially praises states’ “informed consent” laws that force women to undergo unnecessary procedures, require waiting periods and endure other measures meant to discourage them from getting an abortion. One such law receiving a “salute” was crafted by committee head McDonnell, who passed a notorious mandatory ultrasound requirement after he signed an unsuccessful bill to require an even more invasive transvaginal probe ultrasound during an abortion consultation.

Republicans at all levels of government are a problem for women, and everyone who has to live with their policies.

Legitimate Rape (Video) by the Renegade Raging Grannies

http://youtu.be/Anc_gP2_QeI

"The Renegade Raging Grannies let Todd Akin know what they think of his Neanderthal concepts about how women's bodies work. See full lyrics at www.raginggrannies.net"

"Young Women are Watching in 2012"

This is a great short video from Planned Parenthood Action Fund.  Watch it.  You'll like it. 

"Infographic: Women's Preventive Services Now Covered Under Obamacare"

From the Center for American Progress:

Summer Solidarity Rally 7-28-2012 11am-3pm

Unions Plan Solidarity Rally 

with Teachers at Military Park

Indiana AFL-CIO will sponsor a summer solidarity rally, Saturday, June 28, at Military Park in Indianapolis, 11 am-3 pm., soutrhwest corner of New York and West streets.

Music, food, family fun and taking back our state. 

This is going on now.

Youth Organizing & Policy Institute - Planned Parenthood

The location for our region is Ann Arbor, at the University of Michigan. The dates are August 24-26.


Click HERE for registration page.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is proud to announce the 2012 Youth Organizing and Policy Institutes (YOPI’s) to be held in 8 states across the country this fall in partnership with local affiliates. This year, the toughest battles we’re fighting and the real threats to sexual and reproductive health and rights aren’t just in DC, they are happening where we live. If you're between the ages of 18 and 24, this series of trainings is for you! You will learn the hard skills of organizing and prepare to mobilize communities around the country! 

Each Regional YOPI will engage you in 3 days of skills and issue based trainings. In addition, participants will have the opportunity, on a volunteer basis, to engage in advocacy efforts sponsored by a local Planned Parenthood organization immediately following the training. The regional focus of the trainings will give you the opportunity to best learn skills to develop as leaders and to support Planned Parenthood in the current environment while highlighting organizing challenges specific to each region. We know that the importance of young people to our movement cannot be overstated and we're thrilled to have this opportunity to activate young people across the country to truly show our power. 

Review the schedule of events tab and sign up today for the training nearest you! If you have questions about the Institutes, please send an email toppfa.youth@gmail.com. Let us know how we can help you through the registration process. We look forward to seeing you at the Institutes this Fall.

-PPFA Youth Organizing Team



**Planned Parenthood Federation of America reserves the right to refund registration fees and rescind admission to the Youth Organizing & Policy Institutes (YOPI) for any reason. All YOPI participants are expected to contribute positively to the space. Video recording and intentional disruption of the events will not be permitted,** -PPFA Youth Organizing Team


**Planned Parenthood Federation of America reserves the right to refund registration fees and rescind admission to the Youth Organizing & Policy Institutes (YOPI) for any reason. All YOPI participants are expected to contribute positively to the space. Video recording and intentional disruption of the events will not be permitted,**

More info HERE.

Anti-Planned Parenthood (Indiana) Law blocked

From July 9th, 2012 - as posted in Think Progress:

A 2011 Indiana law, which would have prevented Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds, has been blocked by a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrative ruling. An initial CMS ruling, made in June, found the law unacceptable, and Indiana asked the agency to reconsider. The CMS administrator blocked the law on the grounds that it denies women the freedom to choose their health care providers. 

The law would have made Indiana the first state to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood funds for general health screenings. According to one estimate, 9,300 Indiana women rely on Planned Parenthood for their health care, which includes cancer screenings, STD testing, and birth control. Indiana is trying to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood because they also perform abortions: 

Indiana had argued that Medicaid funds intended to help groups like Planned Parenthood provide general health care would indirectly subsidize abortions. The Hyde Amendment, a 1976 provision named after the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., bans all federal funds for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk. 

The state also said Planned Parenthood could continue to receive Medicaid funding if it established separate fiscal entities for abortion and other health care. But CMS said such an option was premature. 

Hearing officer Benjamin Cohen wrote that the Indiana law violated the federal requirement that individuals must have the freedom to obtain care from any qualified provider. Restricting that choice just because a care provider also offers non-covered care isn’t allowed, he wrote. 

The law is being challenged on parallel tracks, both administratively at CMS and in federal court. The challenge in federal court is ongoing, but a lower court ruling agreed with CMS that Indiana is likely to lose the challenge. 

--------

And from Reuters (Tue Jul 17, 2012) - 

Planned Parenthood on Monday sued the state of Arizona in an effort to overturn a law that blocks funding for its health clinics because the organization also performs abortions. 

The law, signed by Governor Jan Brewer in May, is part of a national campaign against Planned Parenthood orchestrated by conservatives Republican lawmakers who oppose abortions. In the past two years, 13 states have taken steps to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, and the organization has filed lawsuits in six of them, including Arizona.Planned Parenthood says abortions account for only 3 percent of its services, which include cancer screening and birth control. 

"It is wrong for the state to tell Arizonans who they can and cannot see for their healthcare. The men and women of this state have the right to see the healthcare provider they deem is best for them," said Bryan Howard, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood Arizona.... 

"We're in court and in legislatures in almost every state in the country," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "It has just gotten crazy. This is what I hear from women -- Republican women, independent women all over the country: They cannot believe that the Republican Party leadership is on a crusade to end birth-control access in America." 

....Anti-abortion advocates have long wanted to target Planned Parenthood, but until recently it was not politically feasible, said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a Washington, D.C., group that works to elect anti-abortion candidates. 

"No one wanted to be perceived as being against family planning," said Dannenfelser, who said her group co-wrote model state legislation that was the basis for the Arizona law. "Any effort to defund (Planned Parenthood) was doomed to fail." 

That changed in 2010, after anti-abortion Republicans swept federal and state elections. Richards said Planned Parenthood's state and federal battles stem from a proposal by U.S. Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who last year spearheaded an unsuccessful effort to strip funding for Planned Parenthood from the federal budget. Pence is the Republican nominee for governor of Indiana in the November election... 

Pence's campaign made it politically acceptable to attack Planned Parenthood, Dannenfelser said... 

At the end of May, Planned Parenthood Action Fund announced its endorsement of Obama and said it would spend more than $1.4 million on an anti-Romney ad campaign."We're going to make sure every woman in America knows where candidates stand," Richards said. "What we have seen consistently is that when a politician says they're going to get rid of Planned Parenthood, women don't support them."

"The Sacredness of Life and Liberty"

Article about framing the 'pro-liberty', 'pro-family', 'development prevention' & birth control debate by George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling - as seen in Common Dreams.


snips:

The NY Times, on June 5, 2012, reported that so-called “morning-after pills” work by preventing women’s eggs from being fertilized, and not by preventing fertilized eggs from being implanted in the womb. The latest scientific findings show that “the pills delay ovulation, the release of eggs from ovaries that occurs before eggs are fertilized, and some pills also thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble swimming.” 

In short, morning-after pills do not operate on fertilized eggs at all. Why should this matter? Because many conservative Republicans, as well as the official Catholic Church, believe the metaphor that Fertilized Eggs Are People, and that preventing such egg-people from being implanted in the womb constitutes “abortion,” and hence, in their view, baby-killing. The Times article correctly reports that “it turns out that the politically charged debate over morning-after pills and abortion, a divisive issue in this election year, is probably rooted in outdated or incorrect scientific guesses about how the pills work.”

That’s the truth. Does the truth matter?

...

 
Women seeking freedom have always, and will always, seek to control development of life within their bodies. Where there have been laws against this, there have always been back-alley abortions, which are dangerous and have led to the maiming and death of women. 

Furthermore, protecting human life is a real issue in the United States. Protecting human life is one of the moral mandates of government. The lives and health of infants, children, and mothers – as well as all other Americans – should be protected through accessible and improved health care, pre- and post-natal care, a ban on poisonous food and environmental pollution, a renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, and so on. Even in Texas.  

"BIRTHRIGHT"

Article about Planned Parenthood as the movement against it was heating up - from November 14, 2011 - by Jill Lepore -  in the New Yorker


snips:

"The fury over Planned Parenthood is two political passions—opposition to abortion and opposition to government programs for the poor—acting as one. So far, it has nearly led to the shutdown of the federal government, required Republican Presidential nominees to swear their fealty to the pro-life lobby, tied up legislatures and courts in more than half a dozen states, launched a congressional investigation, and helped cripple the Democratic Party. What’s next?"  ...

If a fertilized egg has constitutional rights, women cannot have equal rights with men. This, however, is exactly what no one wants to talk about, because it’s complicated, and it’s proved surprisingly easy to use the issue to political advantage.... 

The first birth-control clinic in the United States opened on October 16, 1916, on Amboy Street in Brooklyn. There were two rooms, and three employees: Ethel Byrne, a nurse; Fania Mindell, a receptionist who was fluent in Yiddish; and Byrne’s sister, Margaret Sanger, a thirty-seven-year-old nurse and mother. Sanger and her sister came from a family of eleven children, one of whom Sanger helped deliver when she was eight years old. When Sanger began nursing poor immigrant women living in tenements on New York’s Lower East Side, she found that they were desperate for information about how to avoid pregnancy. These “doomed women implored me to reveal the ‘secret’ rich people had,” Sanger wrote in her autobiography. (A study conducted in New York at the time found that forty-one per cent of women who received medical care through clinics operated by the city’s department of health had never used contraception and, of those, more than half had had at least one abortion; they averaged almost two apiece.) 

Between 1912 and 1913, Sanger wrote a twelve-part series for The Call, the socialist daily, titled “What Every Girl Should Know.” Because any discussion of venereal matters violated the Comstock law, Sanger’s final essay, “Some Consequences of Ignorance and Silence,” was banned on the ground of obscenity. By way of protest, The Call ran, in place of the essay, an announcement: “ ‘What Every Girl Should Know’—NOTHING!” ... 

At Sanger’s trial, during which the judge waved a cervical cap from the bench, Sanger hoped to argue that the law preventing the distribution of contraception was unconstitutional: exposing women, against their will, to the danger of dying in childbirth violated a woman’s right to life. But the judge ruled that no woman had “the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.” In other words, if a woman wasn’t willing to die in childbirth, she shouldn’t have sex. Sanger went to Queens County Penitentiary. She was sentenced to thirty days. 

…Senator James Reed, of Missouri, told the lobbyists that “Birth Control is chipping away the very foundation of our civilization,” that “women should have many children and that poverty is no handicap but rather an asset.”...
During the Second World War, Planned Parenthood touted controlling family size as part of the war effort. Birth control continued to gain religious support. In 1946, more than thirty-two hundred Jewish and Protestant clergy signed a resolution in support of Planned Parenthood. In the nineteen-fifties, the organization was run primarily by men interested in population control. Barry Goldwater was an active supporter of Planned Parenthood, and his wife served on the board in Phoenix.... 

Here is where we are. Republicans established the very federal family-planning programs that Republican members of Congress and the G.O.P.’s Presidential candidates are this year pledging so vigorously to dismantle. Republicans made abortion a partisan issue—contorted the G.O.P. to mold itself around this issue—but Democrats allowed their party to be defined by it. And, as long as Planned Parenthood hitches itself to the Democratic Party, and it’s hard to see what choice it has, its fortunes will rise and fall—its clinic doors will open and shut—with the power of the Party. Much of the left, reduced to a state of timidity in the terrible, violent wake of Roe, has stopped talking about rights, poverty, decency, equality, sex, and even history, thereby ceding talk of those things to the right. Planned Parenthood, a health-care provider, has good reason to talk about women’s health. But, even outside this struggle, “health” has become the proxy for a liberal set of values about our common humanity. And it is entirely insufficient.

Read the whole thing: 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_lepore#ixzz20wLv6Fek

Carol Gilligan and Moral Dilemmas

Go to link at the Big Think

In 2002, Carol Gilligan became University Professor at New York University, with affiliations in the School of Law, the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She is currently teaching a seminar at the Law School on Resisting Injustice and an advanced research seminar on The Listening Guide Method of Psychological Inquiry. She is a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge affiliated with the Centre for Gender Studies and with Jesus College.  

She received an A.B. in English literature from Swarthmore College, a masters degree in clinical psychology from Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. Her landmark book In A Different Voice (1982) is described by Harvard University Press as "the little book that started a revolution."  Following In A Different Voice, she initiated the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development and co-authored or edited 5 books with her students.

Interesting way of approaching complex questions, especially questions relating to abortion.

National Feminist Action Events this Summer

From the Feminist Peace Network:

July 1rst Occupy Feminist General Assembly  in Philadelphia.

The We are Women March on Washington DC will take place on August 18.  See this for more details.

Defend Women’s Rights, events nationwide on August 26th, details here.

Recent Activism Near and Far

WOMAN DRESSED IN GIANT BIRTH CONTROL COSTUME WILL FOLLOW ROMNEY ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL 
| Planned Parenthood’s action fund is sending a costumed package of birth control dubbed “Pillamina” out on the campaign trail to highlight Mitt Romney’s opposition to President Obama’s birth control coverage provision. In a statement introducing Pillamina, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards noted that her organization wants to emphasize the fact that birth control is “an economic issue for women — period. That’s something that President Obama clearly understands, and that Mitt Romney simply doesn’t.” Romney has said that he opposes requiring insurers to offer birth control coverage without additional co-pays. Image via Planned Parenthood:

Massive Crowd Gathers For Reading Of Vagina Monologues At Michigan Capitol

By Judd Legum on Jun 18, 2012

After two female legislators were banned from the Michigan House floor last week after saying “vagina” during a debate about an anti-abortion measure, a massive crowd has gathered at the state capitol for a reading of “The Vagina Monologues.” There are an estimated 5,000 people in attendance.

Picture via @eclectablog:

From Think Progress