In This Issue:

~Why I Take the Issue of Abstinence-only  Education Personally by Carolyn Mark, President

~Language Concerns over Stillborn Legislation

~Calendar of Events

~Legislative Update

~Supreme Court Decision Impacts States

~Volunteer Opportunities

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Statement of NOW President Kim Gandy

Eighty-seven years ago, on August 26, 1920, women finally won the right to vote in the United States. Each year we commemorate this pivotal date for women, hailing it as Women’s Equality Day.

Thanks to the leadership of great women who have organized, demanded change, and fought for their rights, today’s women have more opportunities than ever in education and employment, more economic freedom and reproductive options, and a better future for themselves and their families. But many of those gains are threatened.

So in celebrating Women’s Equality Day 2007, we should pause and ask, “Is this what equality looks like?”

On average, women still only make $.77 for every dollar a man makes; for women of color the percentage is even less. The boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies are still overwhelmingly male. Working women have no guaranteed medical leave for childbirth, and are often discriminated against in promotions and salary.

A woman’s right to safe, accessible, legal abortion is threatened as never before — as is the availability of birth control and family planning services. One in six U.S. women is a victim of sexual assault, and for many women violence is a part of their daily lives.

Although the proportion of women in elected office is growing, we’re still a far cry from parity in policymaking roles. Women make up just 16 percent of our representatives in Congress, 18 percent of governors, and only 23.5% of state legislators across the country.

The suffragists endured ridicule, ostracism, abuse and imprisonment, and their steely determination sets an example for all of us who continue to work toward equality for ourselves and our daughters. Until women earn the same wages as men; until we are in charge of our own reproductive lives; until racism and sexism and violence are eradicated; until we have overcome discrimination and bigotry; until women are included in the U.S. Constitution … we will keep working for equality and justice.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is urging its Maryland members to speak out against a rush to judgment in the Ocean City stillbirth case.

Christy Freeman is being charged under a 2005 state “fetal homicide” law that makes it illegal to kill “a viable fetus,” despite a provision in the law that was intended to protect pregnant women from prosecution for actions that result in their own fetus’ death, such as abortion.
NOW strongly opposes these kinds of fetal homicide laws because they have the potential to undermine a woman’s right to make reproductive decisions, even when the law specifically states that the pregnant woman’s actions are not covered. This case is a perfect example: the Maryland law states that it does not apply to a pregnant woman’s actions that harm her fetus, yet she is being prosecuted under the law anyway. In many states, such laws are being used to prosecute women who consume alcohol or take drugs during pregnancy.

“Fetal harm laws are all too often used not as a safeguard but as a club, to punish women who already have two strikes against them,” says NOW President Kim Gandy. “A punitive approach to substance abuse by pregnant women is unwarranted; a medical and therapeutic answer is more appropriate and should be the proper focus of such laws.”

Extremists opposed to abortion and birth control use fetal harm laws to advance their own goals, by playing upon the natural sympathy for violently injured pregnant women. But instead of advancing laws that actually protect women, they push to have a fetus recognized in law as an autonomous person. That legal definition ultimately enables the government to prosecute women who undertake any activity, such as smoking, that could harm their fetus.

In the 30 states where these kinds of bills have been passed, the incidence of violence against pregnant women has not decreased but rather it has increased. In the 30 states where these kinds of bills have been enacted, the prosecution of pregnant women who have taken drugs or consumed alcohol has increased tremendously. Research data show that a woman who is in an abusive relationship and a woman abusing substances are often one and the same person. Why pass laws that do not prevent violence but instead punish vulnerable women?

Maryland NOW’s president Terry O’Neill cautions that right-wing talk radio and Internet chatter shouldn’t be allowed to sensationalize this tragedy. “We know the radical right won’t stop until abortion is legally defined as murder,” O’Neill says. “It is unacceptable that women who need help are invisible until calamity strikes – and then they are considered criminal. Responding to the Christy Freeman tragedy is a job for social services, not the D.A.”