Vol. 73/No. 26      July 13, 2009

On the first day Kari Ann Rinker and four other Kansas NOW members talked about their experiences with ongoing attacks by antiabortion rightists in Wichita. The meeting came three weeks after vigils across the country protested the killing of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider in Wichita.

Rinker helped to organize dozens of participants in the defense guard at Tiller’s funeral, which antiabortion rightists had threatened to disrupt. She spoke on a panel titled, “Through the Back Door: States Limit Women’s Reproductive Rights.”

The panel covered bills in various state legislatures that chip away at women’s right to abortion. This includes fetal “personhood” legislation, which elevates fetal “rights” above those of women, and laws requiring a sonogram image of the fetus be made available to women before they have an abortion.

Among those who were attending their first national NOW conference was Jessica Lowe, 26, who helped lead a successful union-organizing drive for graduate assistants at Florida State University in April.

In the workshop titled, “Islamic Fundamentalism and Its Attacks on Women’s Rights,” Eleanor Smeal, president of Feminist Majority, endorsed the continuation of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, calling on the Obama administration to implement a new “Marshall Plan” in that country. To justify her prowar position she pointed to the hundreds of girls’ schools in Afghanistan that have been attacked by Islamist forces.

Responding in the discussion, Betsy Farley, a NOW member from Chicago and the Socialist Workers Party candidate in the April special congressional election there, said, “How can you expect the U.S. government, which under the Obama administration has escalated the war in Afghanistan, to send economic aid that will help women or workers and farmers in that country? We need to demand immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all imperialist troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.”

The conference passed a resolution supporting ongoing clinic defense training. Another resolution adopted called for ending the shackling of women prisoners who are pregnant or are in pre- or post-childbirth stages. This resolution was put forward by Tina Reynolds, one of three former women prisoners who described the draconian conditions facing women behind bars, the fastest growing segment of the prison population.

The conference elected Terry O’Neill NOW president and Bonnie Grabenhofer executive vice president.
 
 
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Antiabortion rightists pushed back in Wichita
Australia rally defends 2 charged in abortion case  
 
 
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