What We're Reading This Morning -- June 14
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Good morning, everyone and Happy Flag Day! Here’s what we’re reading this morning…
After convening in Atlanta, the Catholic bishops continue to campaign against affordable access to birth control. “US Catholic bishops: Religious freedom fight over Obama birth-control mandate not partisan” – “ATLANTA — The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday promised steadfast opposition to President Barack Obama’s mandate that birth control be covered by health insurance, saying it is one of many threats to religious freedom in government. Bishops insisted repeatedly that they had no partisan agenda. They said they were forced into action by state and federal policies that they say would require them to violate their beliefs in order to maintain the vast public-service network the church has built over a century or longer. ‘It is not about parties, candidates or elections as others have suggested,’ said Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the bishops’ religious-liberty committee. ‘The government chose to pick a fight with us.’ The meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Atlanta is its first since dioceses, universities and Catholic charities filed a dozen federal lawsuits over Obama’s rule that employers provide health insurance covering birth control. The provision, part of the White House health care overhaul, generally exempts houses of worship, but faith-affiliated employers would have to comply. Federal officials have said the rule is critical to preserving women’s health by helping them space out their pregnancies.”
What do women voters want? “Romney, Obama: When Wooing Female Voters, Check Marital Status First” – “What do women want, electorally speaking? We know that women, like men, are ‘not some monolithic bloc,’ to quote the current occupant of the White House. But as a group they are reliably influential voters, more risk-averse than men, and — pollsters tell us — generally more likely than the opposite sex to vote for Democrats, oppose the use of military force and support government programs.… A new Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey taken in Pennsylvania cited Obama's strong support among women and independents as fuel for his 46-40 percent lead over Romney in the Keystone State. Tim Malloy, the institute's assistant director, says that comments made in March by the state's GOP Gov. Tom Corbett defending a bill that would have required women to have an ultrasound before an abortion contributed to the president's hold on a steady lead. (Corbett said that an ultrasound is not that big an issue because women ‘just have to close your eyes’ during the procedure.) ‘I'm not saying there's a war on women, but this perpetuated the perceptions that Democrats have pushed,’ Malloy says. The ‘war on women’ narrative is a ‘long-term strategy,’ Selzer says, ‘and Democrats are working to provide the evidence that it's true.’ That included pushing the ‘Paycheck Fairness Act’ in Congress last week.”
Attacks on women’s health hurt women of color and those who need care the most. “’War on Women’ Increasingly Focused on Women of Color and Immigrant Women” – “VAWA. PRENDA. Aderholt. What do all these words (and acronyms) have in common? They represent the three latest attacks on women's health, safety, and reproductive justice. However, the War on Women has been raging continuously in the 112th Congress. So what else connects these three? They represent the escalating attacks on the health and rights of women of color, and immigrant women in particular — their right to reproductive health care, their access to protections from intimate partner violence and other crimes, and their right to bodily autonomy… Just last month, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4970 - a bill which claims to reauthorize the historically bipartisan Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), but actually rolls back protections for immigrant women that have existed for almost 20 years. Since it was first signed into law, VAWA has been reauthorized twice. And each time, both parties worked together to advance protections for all victims, including immigrants. This time around, the House bill reversed protections for immigrant women and excluded advances included in the Senate bill for LGBTQ victims of violence.”
