July, 22 2015, 03:15pm EDT
Seventy-One Human Rights Organizations Call on President Obama to End Unnecessary Reproductive Health Restrictions That Harm Women
As President Obama makes official visits to Kenya and Ethiopia this week, a broad-based coalition of leading domestic and global organizations are calling on him to put an end to the incorrect implementation of the Helms Amendment in order to save women's lives and protect their health.
WASHINGTON
As President Obama makes official visits to Kenya and Ethiopia this week, a broad-based coalition of leading domestic and global organizations are calling on him to put an end to the incorrect implementation of the Helms Amendment in order to save women's lives and protect their health.
In an open letter, the coalition asks President Obama to meet with the U.S. government's partners implementing health and gender-based violence programs in Kenya and Ethiopia, local community organizations, and the women they serve, in order to see why it's imperative that the Obama Administration address its flawed implementation of the Helms Amendment.
The Helms Amendment prohibits the use of U.S. foreign assistance funds "to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family planning." Although abortion in Kenya is allowed in cases of rape, incest and when the health or life of a pregnant woman is in danger, women are still unable to access legal abortion services. Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal mortality, and Kenya and Ethiopia are among the 24 USAID priority countries in which 70 percent of maternal deaths worldwide occur.
"While nearly 300,000 women in developing countries continue to die needlessly from unsafe abortion every year, the United States' flawed interpretation of the Helms Amendment denies critical funding to local organizations that could help women get the safe care they need, " said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
"In Kenya, maternal deaths and injuries can and must be prevented," added Evelyne Opondo, regional director for Africa at the Center. "President Obama has been a champion for women's health in the United States, so we now call on him to take a stand for women worldwide and fix the Helms Amendment."
The letter provides further background on the groups' concerns, stating that women in Kenya, Ethiopia and around the world face high rates of gender-based violence, limited access to trained health care providers, and financial and geographic barriers to access comprehensive reproductive health care, including safe and legal abortion. Every year, an estimated 287,000 women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth - 13% of those deaths are the result of unsafe abortion. Close to half of those who die from unsafe abortion are younger than the age of 25. While no single policy can address the broad challenges that affect women in developing countries each day, the administration can take an important step by correcting its implementation of the Helms Amendment.
Kenya's 2010 constitution eased the country's severe restrictions on abortion, legalizing safe abortion services when the life or health of a woman is in danger and in cases of emergency--a measure aimed at decreasing the country's high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity resulting from unsafe abortion. However, Kenyan women continue to be deprived of essential reproductive health services--including quality maternal health care and safe and legal abortion services. This is due to a variety of factors, including the misapplication of the Helms Amendment and the arbitrary withdrawal of the government's guidelines for reducing morbidity and mortality from unsafe abortion and a ban on safe abortion trainings for health care professionals, which has led to great confusion as to when legal abortions can be provided.
The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a petition last month against Kenya's Ministry of Health for undermining women's constitutional rights and contributing to cases of maternal death by denying countless women, including rape survivors, access to safe, legal abortion.
The Center has worked for more than a decade across the continent of Africa to advance women's access to reproductive health care through law and policy reform. In 2010, the Center published the report In Harm's Way, which documented the devastating effects of the criminalization of abortion in Kenya before the law was reformed, and demonstrated how the weaknesses in Kenya's health care system are further exacerbated when it comes to a reproductive health that is perceived as illegal and highly stigmatized.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.
(917) 637-3600LATEST NEWS
On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Food Chief Says Northern Gaza Suffering 'Full-Blown Famine'
"And it's moving its way south," she warned.
May 04, 2024
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing "full-blown famine" after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is "moving its way south" through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain's remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday's edition of NBC News' "Meet the Press"—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"It's horror," said McCain, who is American. "There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it's moving its way south."
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
pic.twitter.com/eyk0OeOEzr
— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 4, 2024
McCain's remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel's 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
"What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings," McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been "some forward steps" toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official toldABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees."
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency
warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
May 03, 2024
Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified a social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular