Activists Demand Facebook Stop ‘Glorifying Violence Against Girls and Women’
A coalition of more than two dozen activists launched a campaign Tuesday demanding that Facebook, the world’s largest social media website, be more responsive to gendered threats and violent speech targeting women and girls within its communities. The activists are asking users to put pressure on the company where it will hurt the most: on the company’s advertisers.
“We are asking Facebook users to contact advertisers whose ads on Facebook appear next to content that targets women for violence, to ask these companies to withdraw from advertising until you take the above actions to ban gender-based hate speech on your site,” explained the group in an open letter.
Spearheaded by Laura Bates of the Everyday Sexism Project, Jaclyn Friedman of Women, Action, and the Media, and writer and women’s rights activist Soraya Chemaly, the campaign seeks to draw attention to the double standard of the social network, which hyper-regulates content depicting female bodies while largely ignoring the violent speech and misogyny that runs rampant in some sectors of the site.
After the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar, the 31-year-old woman who died after being denied an abortion in an Irish Catholic hospital, the fight for reproductive rights has taken on a new fervor in Ireland. Activists flooded the streets to declare that Savita’s death won’t be in vain, demanding a policy shift in the socially conservative country’s stringent abortion laws. And now, inspired by the momentum sparked by Savita’s case, pro-choice activists are risking up to 14 years in prison to spread the word about how Irish women can safely travel to Great Britain to obtain an abortion.
Under Ireland’s total abortion ban, women aren’t able to legally terminate a pregnancy unless their lives depend on it — but, as Savita’s case illustrates, doctors in the deeply Catholic country are often wary to provide abortion care even in cases of medical emergency. The rest of Europe allows for much greater reproductive freedom. On average, about 11 Irish women travel to Britain each day to terminate a pregnancy. Activists are risking jail time to disseminate information to those women, giving them more resources to help them access the care they need either abroad or online:
They are targeting cafes, pubs, clubs, gym changing rooms and public toilets with thousands of leaflets giving contact details for British abortion clinics as well as the price of terminations. The literature includes a website where Irish women can buy early abortion pills (effective up to nine weeks of pregnancy) online via womenonweb.org.
Organisers and supporters behind the campaign, which began after Savita Halappanavar’s death in Galway University Hospital last autumn, say they intend to intensify their leaflet blitz after the government approved a bill on Tuesday to allow for strictly limited abortions in Ireland.
Disseminating information on how to buy early abortion pills is illegal in the Republic and under the new legislation those helping to procure an illicit termination risk being jailed for up to 14 years.
The Abortion Support Network (ASN), a Irish charity that helps women access abortion services in Britain, applauded the guerrilla campaign. “The leaflet is a one-stop shop that tells women which local organisations can provide unbiased information about all their options, contact details for clinics in England and information on where to turn to for financial help or access to early medical abortion pills,” one of ASN’s founders, Mara Clarke, told the Guardian. “This information needs to be put into the hands of women and I hope the leaflets find their way into every women’s toilet, changing room and pub in Ireland.”
The proposed measure also doesn’t include any exceptions for rape, incest, or fatal fetal defects. A group of women who were forced to travel to Britain to obtain an abortion because their fetuses had fatal abnormalities, and therefore would have died shortly after birth, told the Guardian they have been “left out and let down” by the new legislative push.
Trial Against Lt. Dan Choi for ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Protest Set for Today
With much press devoted to the Supreme Court arguments on California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, not everyone may be aware that LGBTQ rights are on trial in a third case this week: United States v. Daniel Choi.
The case concerns whether Lt. Dan Choi should serve up to six months in jail or pay a fine of up to $5,000 for chaining himself to the White House fence in protest of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy in November 2010. An Iraq war veteran, Arabic linguist, and West Point graduate, Choi was discharged for “coming out” while DADT was still in effect. He has been arrested while engaging in several high-profile acts of non-violent civil disobedience and activism, including three White House DADT protests, a White House protest of the Keystone XL pipeline, and a gay pride parade in Moscow.
Choi was one of 12 activists arrested during the November 2010 DADT protest, but he is the only one with an ongoing trial; the others pled guilty. Choi argues that since DADT has since been repealed, his charges should be dropped.
Take Action: Texas politicians are at it again | Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Action Network
Texas politicians have introduced a “Back Door Abortion Ban” (Senate Bill 537), a bill that would virtually ban abortion statewide. This type of bill, termed TRAP (“targeted regulation of abortion providers”), places medically unnecessary and onerous requirements on health care centers, while doing nothing to improve the health or safety of women. TRAP is a back door attempt to deny women access to a safe and legal medical procedure.
SB 537 would require all health centers that provide safe and legal abortions to become licensed Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs ). Among the 117 pages of regulations required of Ambulatory Surgery Centers in Texas are surgical operating rooms of at least 240 square feet, specific requirements for the flooring and outfitting of janitors closets, and ventilations systems required for a sterile operating room, among many other onerous requirements that are excessive for procedures that, like abortion, can be safely performed in a health center setting.
This “Back Door Abortion Ban” could mean the closure of multiple health centers outside of the few major cities and could have a devastating impact on women living in most areas of Texas.
Already, an estimated 200,000 Texas women are going without basic, preventive health care this year because of the state’s ongoing political attacks on women’s health care. If lawmakers care about women’s health, they should focus on restoring Texas women’s access to lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and HIV tests by reinstating the Medicaid Women’s Health Program and restoring funding for the state’s family planning program.
Join us and voice your outrage: How have you and your community been affected by the state’s ongoing political attacks on women’s health? How would you like to see YOUR elected officials take action to support women’s health?
Fill out the form
“Let’s value activism and intentional change-making more than we value having the world’s most feminist pubic hair, whatever that means right this second. And hell, maybe your feminist pubic hair is being the change you want to see in the world, but it doesn’t have to be everyone’s.”
- Andrea Grimes
Response to Nancy Keenan in Salon: Let’s Set the Record Straight on Millennials and Abortion. Again
Written by Julia Reticker-Flynn for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Another day, another article about whether or not Millennials care about access to safe abortion care, this time in the form of an interview with outgoing NARAL President Nancy Keenan in Salon in which the commitment of our generation to this issue is once again questioned.
It is time to put to rest the questioning about Millennials and whether they care about access to safe abortion care. It is time to get to work. Too much is at stake, too much ground has been lost, and, for far too many women, safe and affordable abortion care is out of their reach.
So, let’s set the record straight. Again.
Yes, Millennials care about ensuring access to safe, affordable abortion care. They care — deeply and passionately — and many are working tirelessly on this issue.
This generation of young people is more likely to care about the whole range of sexual health and rights issues than older generations. Whether we are talking about LGBT rights, contraception, or abortion, Millennials are taking center stage, and no one should doubt this or call it into question. This generation may just be the most pro-sexual health generation in U.S. history.
Women’s health should always come before politics. Let’s get ourselves some EC access - sign the petition today.
