Jazz & Jewels

Get excited for Planned Parenthood of NYC's latest action fund event tomorrow -- Friday, November 30 -- night!

At the duplex with three amazing jazz performers -- Jacqueline Antaramian, Elizabeth Soychak and Michele -- and jewelry for sale.

9:30-12:30, 2 drink minimum, $20 cover includes action fund membership.

8, 9 and 11

According to the Associated Press, three boys ages 8 and 9 were being held Monday in a detention center on charges of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl in the woods near a suburban apartment complex.

There are a lot of "alleged"s floating around in the story but whatever facts ultimately come to light this is heartbreaking. And I can't honestly think of a better, potentially more tragic, example of why parents desperately need to be involved in their kids lives AND to start having conversations about sex, sexuality, respect, boundaries, and relationships as soon as their kids can talk.

Rounding up

I've been a bad blogger this week. I apologize. To make up for it, I've compiled a bunch of things to get us all riled up.

Great week for women’s right. (Yes, that’s sarcasm).

Let’s see… for starters, the Associated Press reports that the Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for an anti-abortion group to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person. If approved by voters, the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process. (I’m not entirely clear how a fertilized egg would seek due process since it’s, umm, not generally outside of a woman’s uterus or, well, able to talk.) But that aside, the award for disingenuity surely goes to those who have the gall to say that this measure is NOT an attempt to outlaw abortion.

In highly depressing news, a rape VICTIM in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 200 lashes for being in a car with a man unrelated to her.

And in infuriating news, Senator John McCain, upon being asked by a supporter, “How do we beat the bitch?” responded not by denouncing the question, but by calling it “excellent” and then answering it.

On the upside, women do still have the right to vote.

And, speaking of voting, don’t forget to come to Planned Parenthood of New York City’s PNYC Action Fund’s event on Saturday night: Body Politic '08: Pro-Choice Poker! From 5-9 pm at Pete's Candy Store where you can meet other pro-choice New Yorkers, play a friendly (games are for fun, not money) game of poker and support the important political work of the Planned Parenthood of New York City Action Fund! Your $20 ticket** to this fabulous party also gets you a one-year membership to the Action Fund. As a member, you'll get all the latest info on how to make pro-choice political change in 2008 and beyond.

Have a grand weekend.

Birth Control Cri$is

For nearly 30 years, federal laws have been in place to help safety net providers, including college health clinics, buy birth control at affordable prices, then pass on their savings to college and low-income women. But the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), passed by Congress in 2006, included a provision that adversely affected the ability of university health centers and other safety net family planning providers to purchase contraceptives at a discounted or nominal price. By most accounts, it was an inadvertent outcome of a complicated change in the law. However, nothing has been done to fix it, and millions of college women and low-income are being penalized. For example, the cost of a pack of birth control on college campuses has risen from between $5 and $10 to upwards of $40 and $50. As result, affordable birth control has become out of reach for many college women.

Congress can fix this problem immediately and Congressman Joseph Crowley recently unveiled stand alone, bipartisan legislation to restore low priced birth control at college clinics. The solution will cost nothing, and would simply clarify that college health clinics and other safety net providers are eligible to purchase nominally priced birth control.

Affordable birth control is essential to family planning and reproductive health care policies. Congress should act quickly to fix this problem.

To help bring more attention to the issue, Planned Parenthood of NYC, along with NYU Students for Choice; NYU Law Students for Choice; and Representative Joseph Crowley will be holding a rally on Monday, 11/12 at 4:45 at the Southside of Washington Square Park. Come join us and support access to affordable birth control!

Why am I surprised?

I may have to give up one of my favorite guilty pleasures. No, not Nora Roberts... America's Next Top Model.

Last night -- after all of Tyra Banks' semi-progressive talk about the modeling industry and starving models being bad, the panel voted off Sarah for no reason other than that she was "too thin to be a plus-size model and too large to be... a model."

Heaven forbid there be a beautiful woman with a "normal" body.

Not that we shouldn't have seen this coming: for the past two weeks judge Nigel Barker has been commenting that Sarah seemed to have lost weight since joining the show (can't imagine why, being "plus-size" in a house full of size zeros).

The whole thing is especially ironic, in a not really all that ironic kind of way, considering that "thin" model Heather passed out and needed oxygen after not EATING ENOUGH. I had been wondering why Tyra didn't have some sort of intervention with Heather but after seeing the results I realized that doing so would've exposed the show's hypocrisy even more.

On the plus side (pun really not intended) the episode DID feature singer Enrique Iglesias which may (may) have made up for the negatives. Not sure yet. Thoughts?

Asylum denied

Gosh. Sometimes injustice can be so overwhelming...

Acccording to a NYT article, Alima Traore was a young girl in Mali when she was forced to undergo female genital mutilation. Upon her return home (pending) her father is going to force her to marry her first cousin. In addition to, well, not loving him, she is extremely concerned that her children will have birth defects resulting from such a close union and she fears that her own daughters will be forced to undergo the same mutilation.

Alima applied for US asylum, but in September, the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected her plea and ordered her sent back to Mali. Their ruling was based on the argument that “the cutting, while "reprehensible," could not be repeated. "The loss of a limb also gives rise to enduring harm," the board said, but it would not be a good enough reason to grant asylum.”

Strangely, though, the board acknowledgedthat women who have been subjected to forced sterilization are routinely granted asylum even though that procedure, like genital cutting, cannot be repeated.

In its decision, the board, which is part of the Justice Department, rejected the reasoning of a 2005 decision by the federal appeals court in California, which refused to deport a woman who had been subjected to genital cutting in Somalia. "Like forced sterilization," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, "genital mutilation permanently disfigures a woman, causes long-term health problems, and deprives her of a normal and fulfilling sexual life."

Added Judge Reinhardt, “We see no need for using initials rather than the full three-word phrase. We are short neither of paper nor of ink. The use of initials, if it has any effect, serves only to dull the senses and minimize the barbaric nature of the practice.”

Alima’s lawyers are appealing the decision, but – in addition to her own plight -- this should serve as a very painful reminder of all of the women who are forced to have their genitals scraped off with a knife.

Pro-Choice Poker

This just in:

On Sat, 11/17, the Planned Parenthood of NYC Action Fund is sponsoring Body Politic '08: Pro-Choice Poker! From 5-9 pm at Pete's Candy Store (details and RSVP click here), you can meet other pro-choice New Yorkers, play a friendly (games are for fun, not money) game of poker and support the important political work of the Planned Parenthood of New York City Action Fund! Your $20 ticket** to this fabulous party also gets you a one-year membership to the Action Fund. As a member, you'll get all the latest info on how to make pro-choice political change in 2008 and beyond.