California NOW

Monday's Action Checklist

This week we're spotlighting two important videos that come to us from San Francisco NOW.

The first one is an impassioned personal video from Linda, a breast cancer survivor herself, who talks about what cancer is and what it is not.  She made this video in response to the decision by Susan G Komen for the Cure Foundation to politicize the disease by discontinuing their grant program to Planned Parenthood who provides breast cancer screenings throughout the country.

After watching the video, we hope you'll visit BreastCancerAction.org where you can learn about another problem - that of the "pink" products associated with breast cancer which have absolutely nothing to do with finding a cure.  This site discusses the corporate politics behind breast cancer and helps you understand how important it is to "Think Before You Pink."

 

The second video we're spotlighting this week also comes from San Francisco NOW and talks about GMO Labeling - an issue that is not discussed as often or as widely as it should be, especially since it affects every single one of us.

To learn more about this important issue, please visit LabelGMOs.org

What year is it?

 Is it really 2012?  Because lately, it feels a lot more like 1912!

There's something surreal about watching a congressional hearing in 2012 that consists of all men publicly discussing birth control, menstrual pain, ovarian cancer, and migraine headaches. But that's exactly what happened yesterday when California Republican Congressman Darrel Issa convened a panel entitled, "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama administration trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?"  He refused to hear testimony from women all morning.  Instead, the panel consisted of ten males - all of whom were from conservative religious institutions - testifying on YOUR behalf opposing the Obama administration's birth control rule.

Two days ago, the Republican supermajority from within the Virginia state legislature muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the House, including one that would all but outlaw the procedure in the state by declaring that the rights of persons apply from the moment sperm and egg unite.  The other bill requires women to have a transvaginal ultrasound before undergoing an abortion.  Virginia Republican Legislator Todd Gilbert justified the new bills saying that most abortions come as "matters of lifestyle convenience."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, lawmakers across the nation pursued a record number of reproductive health and rights-related provisions in 2011, enacting 135 measures in 36 states — “an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.” Sixty-eight percent of the provisions — 92 in 24 states — restricted access to women's reproductive healthcare.

While women are busy just trying to get by in this troubled economy and take care of their families, conservative legislators are focused not on jobs but, instead, on making sure women are thrown back into the dark ages where they have no individual rights and cannot make their own healthcare choices.

And if you don't think this affects you because you live here in California, you're wrong!

The common thread through all of these restrictions is the tie to religious organizations - churches.  We've all watched as the Catholic Bishops have taken center stage in condemning the Obama administration's birth control rule.

This means that if the Catholic Bishops win this fight, EVERY employee at a hospital (doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators, electricians, food service workers, janitorial staff) will be denied full reproductive healthcare coverage because the hospital is owned by the Catholic Church.  It won't matter that the hospital is the only medical facility in town or the only employer available or that the employees are not Catholic.

We're headed down a dangerous path.  The 2012 election is how we stop this once and for all.  Pay attention!  Leave the comfort of your home and get into the street!  Begin organizing NOW to unseat any legislator who puts a religiously affiliated corporation ahead of women’s healthcare.  This battle is too important to sit back and hope that someone else will save us.  It’s time we –women working together – win this fight ourselves!

To read CA NOW President Patty Bellasalma's full blog piece on how recent Supreme Court decisions will impact this issue, click here.

Monday's Action Checklist

The federal minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers has been $2.13 for the past 20 years.  That’s right! Two dollars and thirteen cents can’t even buy a gallon of gas or milk; yet, it is the hourly federal minimum wage for hundreds of thousands of restaurant workers - most of whom are women!  Tipped workers need a raise. Let's join MomsRising and ROC-United to urge Congress to support the WAGES Act which would raise the federal tipped minimum wage.  Take Action NOW:  Send a quick “Don’t Shortchange Women” email urging your member of Congress to co-sponsor the WAGES Act.

With a motto like "Don't be evil," Google has become a trusted brand.  Until now.  We just learned that Google was a major sponsor of this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This conference gives a platform to white nationalist and anti-gay bigots.This year's CPAC features a man named Peter Brimelow, who publishes a website called VDARE. Brimelow will speak on a panel which claims that "the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity." CPAC is also giving a platform to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC), which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. FRC has repeatedly equated homosexuality with pedophilia, and Perkins has said that gay people lead a "death-style," not a lifestyle.  At the same time that CPAC gives a platform to these figures, it banned GOProud, an organization of gay Republicans. Take Action NOW:  Sign this petition asking Google to immediately repudiate Brimelow and Perkins' bigotry, and donate $20,000 - the sum it donated to CPAC - to causes that advance tolerance and equality.

The Hayden Law was passed in California in 1998 and provides the nation's most comprehensive laws to protect shelter animals. Governor Jerry Brown is considering a repeal of a number of provisions of this law citing budget concerns. Some of the provisions that are subject to repeal would mean permanently reducing the required holding period for animals to 72 hours prior to euthanasia and eliminating the requirement to provide veterinary treatment for shelter animals.  Take Action NOW:  Sign this petition asking Governor Brown not to turn back the clock on animal rights to balance the budget.