Link reblogged from MS National Organization for Women with 4 notes
A wonderful article on Huffington Post about what’s going on here in Mississippi.
…Hemmins and the No on 26 campaign said they are frustrated with the majority of Democratic politicians in Mississippi for refusing to publicly oppose the amendment.
“There’s been a lot of ‘off the record’ sentiment, but it’s really disappointing to not see state leadership publicly talk about the shortcomings and dangers of this initiative for the women and families of Mississippi,” said Leola Reis, a spokesperson for the No on 26 campaign.
The personhood measure actually has a fair amount of support from Mississippi Democrats. Jim Hood, the Democratic Attorney General, endorsed the amendment in a statement and said he would defend it if it were challenged. A spokesperson for Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, the Democratic candidate for governor, told HuffPost that that he supports the amendment as well, despite his “concerns about some of the ramifications.”
But of all the Democrats in the State Senate, only two were willing to discuss the ballot measure at all, when called by HuffPost…
Read the full article at HuffPo’s website. Please share it widely!!
Source: nowms
Link reblogged from MS National Organization for Women with 26 notes
From the Daily Mississippian:
…But on Nov. 8, birth control could become illegal in the state of Mississippi; yet another unintended consequence of Initiative 26. This so-called “Personhood Amendment” will change the legal definition of the word “person” in Article 111 of the state constitution to include “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”
Read the full article on their site
Source: nowms
Link with 1 note
this is so incredibly disgusting.
During the 2010 Super Bowl in Miami Beach, child outreach professionals said they saw a surge in young women working the streets in the week leading up to the big game. Many of the young girls they spoke with told outreach experts that they’d been brought to the area by pimps hoping to profit from the game.
“We saw at least four times as many, if not more, young women on the streets,” said Sandy Skelaney, who headed the Super Bowl outreach project at Kristi House, a child advocacy organization in Miami.
Link with 1 note
this is pretty cool. i have never heard of such a thing before. people volunteer to work in the coffee house and all the profit - overhead go to fighting human trafficking.
Link with 1 note
this is a great piece, and very difficult to read. here in mississippi we are one step closer to voting on fetal personhood. even the most widely-read newspaper in central MS, the Clarion Ledger, called personhood simply an “anti-abortion” issue. the truth is fetal personhood goes far beyond abortion and infringes on the right of a woman to control her own body, even when wanting to carry a pregnancy to term.
i urge you to read this whole article, but here are some excerpts:
The argument that eggs and fetuses may be treated as if they are legally independent of the women who carry them has been used to deprive pregnant women of their status as full constitutional persons. Angela Carder was forced to have cesarean surgery to advance the rights of the fetus inside of her. Shortly after the surgery both the baby and Ms. Carder died. Ms. Carder was deprived of her right to life. Recently, a pregnant woman was kept prisoner in a Florida hospital because doctors believed that doing so would advance the rights and health of her fetus. She nevertheless suffered a stillbirth. Ms. Burton was deprived of her right to liberty. Although courts in both cases eventually held that these deprivations of life and liberty were wrong, adopting fetal separatist measures would allow outsiders to take similar actions whenever they disagreed with the pregnant woman.
this scares the CRAP out of me. it’s like something out of a sci-fi film:
When doctors at a hospital learned that Laura Pemeberton was attempting to have a home birth, fetal separatist arguments became the basis for sending a sheriff to her home. She was taken into custody, forcibly restrained while in active labor, judged without representation and forced to undergo cesarean surgery, depriving her of her right to liberty, privacy, bodily integrity, medical decision-making, and due process of law.
(Via Deirdra Harris-Glover)
Link reblogged from moreapologies with 27 notes
Via moreapologies:Does exactly what it says on the tin.
Source: moreapologies
Link reblogged from Creatrix Tiara with 99 notes
Having reported on prison issues for the past four years, I’ve heard one recurring refrain from women prisoners: There are never enough feminine hygiene products to go around. In many facilities, women must buy pads or tampons from the prison commissary, sometimes waiting a week or more for their supplies to arrive. Women without external contacts to send them cash are out of luck. The hygiene-product shortage amounts to far more than an annoying inconvenience. Women described to me the discomfort and smell, especially in the summer, of living in close quarters with other women who are often menstruating simultaneously.
Since the advent of the recession, budget cuts at prisons often hit women-specific services first, and “fringe” benefits like feminine hygiene products are some of the first to go. “Tampons are $5.00 and pads are around $3.20,” Vicki Rosepiler, a prisoner at Danbury Federal Medium Security Prison, told me. “You can get five free pads per week and three rolls of toilet paper, but that is the extent of help with hygiene.” Creative solutions abound: Women described learning the best techniques for molding tampons and pads out of toilet paper (using as little of it as possible, since TP is also rationed). But sometimes guards won’t allow use of the homemade kind.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Is there some way to donate this stuff to prisons? Or find a list of women to write and send things to? Research time.
I was wondering exactly this. Though there could be the issue that just because you donated it doesn’t mean they receive it. I remember visiting a juvie center in San Diego and they had such strict rules over everything, like you couldn’t donate hardcover books because the kids would whack each other over the head with it, and shower doors were really short so that the wardens could keep an eye on any shenanigans. And this juvie had everyone from major criminals to kids playing truant. It gave all of us the chills.
Are there campaigns like these happening? I would love to chip in a few menstrual products of my own - it’s already hard enough when you can afford & access them and just happen to not have them with you! How’s the situation like in Australia, does anyone know?
Via:
Source: abbyjean
