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For Immediate Release
September, 21 2010, 01:26pm EDT
Contact:
Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116; cell 202-641-1906
Anti-Abortion Rights Model Guidelines Released: NOW Intensifies Call for Obama to Live Up to Campaign Promises
WASHINGTON
Late last night, the Office of Management and Budget and the
Department of Health and Human Services released pre-regulatory model
guidelines for the implementation of the anti-abortion rights provisions
tacked on to the Affordable Care Act in order to secure the votes of a
handful of religious fundamentalists serving in Congress.
NOW remains clear that women in the
United States have fewer abortion rights today than we did one year ago,
and that the situation will be dramatically worsened by the time health
insurance exchanges are up and running in 2014. Forcing health insurers
who participate in exchanges to segregate funds for abortion care
perpetuates grave injustice to women; insults those paying into plans --
young, old, women, men, as well as payroll account administrators --
with a burdensome monthly "two-check" requirement; and will lead to the
end of private coverage for abortion care, even for women with the
luxury to afford their own insurance premiums.
Today 87 percent of employer-based
insurance plans cover abortion care; those that choose to continue that
coverage while participating in exchanges will be subject to annual cost
audits, new layers of internal and administrative controls and the
potential for harassment from state health insurance commissioners. It
is no surprise that a George Washington University study has predicted
that one outcome of the Affordable Care Act will be the virtual
elimination of private coverage for abortion care -- legal medical care
accessed by one in three women in this country.
Discrimination against abortion care
is discrimination against women. NOW intensifies its calls on President
Obama to live up to his campaign promises to repeal the Hyde Amendment,
which bars federal funding for abortion care, and to pass the Freedom of
Choice Act (FOCA). NOW also calls on women to speak up and organize for
abortion rights at the community level -- whether lobbying elected
officials; penning opinion pieces and blog posts; or countering the
pervasive violence and harassment outside reproductive health clinics.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
LATEST NEWS
'Talk Is Cheap': 100 Arrested at Sit-In Demanding Schumer, Gillibrand Vote No on More Arms for Israel
"We call on Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to follow the will of New Yorkers and vote to block weapons and bulldozer sales to Israel."
Apr 14, 2026
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning, MPower Change founder Linda Sarsour, and actor Hari Nef were three of around 100 people who were arrested outside the New York City offices of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Monday after the activists joined hundreds of anti-war campaigners in demanding the two Democrats vote against more weapons for Israel and block the Pentagon's $100 billion request to fund President Donald Trump's deeply unpopular war on Iran.
More than 300 people assembled outside the two US senators' offices, holding signs that read, "Fund People, Not Bombs" and "Stop Arming Israel."
“Schumer, Gillibrand, talk is cheap," the organizers chanted. "You’re sending bombs, how can you sleep?”
BREAKING: 300+ New Yorkers have taken over the offices of Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer demanding no more weapons for Israel.
Tell Congress: Fund people, not bombs. pic.twitter.com/7VuAj01bSZ
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) April 13, 2026
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), one of the groups that organized the protest, said descendants of Holocaust survivors were among those who were arrested for speaking out against the Israeli government and the unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran, which has killed more than 3,300 people in the Middle Eastern country, according to Iranian officials, and has spread to countries including Lebanon and Iraq.
In Lebanon, which Israel has insisted is not covered by a ceasefire deal reached last week, Israeli officials have said they are using their destruction of Gaza as a "model" as they bomb heavily populated areas, healthcare facilities, and other civilian infrastructure. At least 2,089 Lebanese people have been killed since March 2.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued attacking Gaza, killing more than 700 Palestinians since a ceasefire deal was reached six months ago as it joins the US in bombing Iran.
The protest was held as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) planned to bring Joint Resolutions of Disapproval up for a vote this week to block the transfer of bulldozers and hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to the Israeli military.
BREAKING: Hundreds of anti-genocide activists who were rallying outside the offices of Sen. Gillibrand & Schumer have mobed into the street on 3rd Ave in Midtown Manhattan.
They’re calling on Gillibrand & Schumer to vote YES on an upcoming vote to block a weapons sale to Israel. pic.twitter.com/MEbqcQrtpg
— Talia Jane ❤️🔥 (@taliaotg) April 13, 2026
JVP joined the Palestinian Youth Movement, Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and other groups in demanding "yes" votes from Schumer and Gillibrand, who last July voted in favor of more weapons shipments to Israel.
“The Joint Resolutions of Disapproval is a crucial effort to stop the US from committing war crimes in Iran and aiding and abetting war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon," said Manijeh Moradian, a founding member of Raha Iranian Feminist Collective and a member of the Feminists For Jina Global Network, which also helped to organize the action. "As an Iranian American with loved ones who have survived more than a month of aerial bombardment, I am profoundly grateful to everyone in the United States who takes a stand and refuses to normalize the logics and instruments of mass death."
Artists who have been outspoken in their support for Palestinian and Iranian people and their criticism of Israel were among those who joined the civil disobedience action, including actors Hannah Einbinder and Taylor Trensch. US congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier and New York City Council members Alexa Avilés and Sandy Nurse also participated, and Chevalier and Avilés were among those arrested by the New York Police Department.
A poll taken by Quinnipiac University last year found that 60% of Americans want the US to suspend weapons transfers to Israel, and multiple surveys have recently found public support for Israel plummeting. The US-Israeli war in Iran is also broadly unpopular with Americans, with nearly six in ten saying late last month that it had gone too far.
“Our actions matter in shaping the course of history," said Manning. "Senators Schumer and Gillibrand have repeatedly supported weapons sales to Israel that are being used to commit atrocities across Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran. We call on Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to follow the will of New Yorkers and vote to block weapons and bulldozer sales to Israel."
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‘A Constitutional Emergency’: Psychiatric Experts Say Congress Must Confront Mentally Unstable Trump
“We recognize the gravity of what we are asking. We ask it because the gravity of the situation demands it."
Apr 14, 2026
A group of four psychiatrists warned congressional leaders on Monday that US President Donald Trump has recently exhibited "every behavioral sign of a personality in acute crisis," presenting a "constitutional emergency" that demands immediate action from lawmakers and members of the administration.
In a letter to the top Republican and Democratic lawmakers in both chambers of Congress, the psychiatrists and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs—who helped organize the letter—pointed to Trump's recent genocidal threats to wipe out Iran's "whole civilization" and bomb the country "back to the stone ages" as examples of rhetoric that has "crossed a threshold."
"President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the 'Dark Triad' of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy," the letter states. "Rather than constituting a clinical diagnosis, this trait-based assessment is grounded in behavioral observation and is particularly useful for assessing the level of danger an individual poses in a political leadership position. We do not offer this as a clinical verdict. We offer it as the considered judgment of a substantial body of professional opinion, based on well-researched evidence that is consistent, accumulating, and impossible to dismiss."
The psychiatrists who signed the letter are James Gilligan, clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University; Prudence Gourguechon, former president of the American Psychoanalytic Association and former vice president of the World Mental Health Coalition; Bandy Lee, president of the World Mental Health Coalition and former professor at Yale School of Medicine; and James Merikangas, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at George Washington University.
The experts' letter came amid growing calls from congressional Democrats for Trump's removal from office, whether through the impeachment process or the pathways offered by the 25th Amendment.
The psychiatrists stop short of demanding Trump's immediate removal. Rather, they urge Congress to reestablish its constitutional authority over war in response to the president's unauthorized assault on Iran; convene "urgent consultations" with top administration officials to prevent Trump from escalating "toward catastrophe"; and "formally initiate consultation" with Vice President JD Vance and Cabinet members "regarding the president’s fitness for office under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment."
"We recognize the gravity of what we are asking. We ask it because the gravity of the situation demands it," the letter states. "A president who publicly threatens to destroy a foreign civilization, who launches a bombing campaign and then imposes a naval blockade without congressional authorization, and who shows every behavioral sign of a personality in acute crisis is not merely a political problem. He is a constitutional emergency. The mechanisms for addressing such an emergency exist. They were placed in the Constitution and its amendments for moments precisely like this one."
The letter was released days after Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to White House physician Sean Barbabella requesting an "immediate and comprehensive cognitive and neurological evaluation of President Donald Trump, along with full public disclosure of the findings," in response to his "increasingly volatile, incoherent, and alarming public statements," specifically regarding the war on Iran.
"This is plainly out of the realm of normal politics," Raskin wrote. "When the president of the United States threatens to extinguish a civilization on social media, rants about combat missions with children at the Easter Egg Roll, and drops profane tirades on Easter morning, we have indisputably entered the realm of profound medical difficulty and concern."
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Minnesota Prosecutor Probes ICE Arrest of Saint Paul Resident as Possible Abduction
Officials, said one observer, "are finally starting to call the terror ICE is inflicting on communities what it actually is: kidnapping."
Apr 14, 2026
Prosecutors in Minnesota are investigating whether some of the most infamous images of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities earlier this year actually captured a kidnapping, when US citizen ChongLy "Scott" Thao was filmed being taken from his home by federal agents in freezing temperatures, wearing only his underwear with a blanket wrapped around him.
Ramsey Country Attorney John Choi, whose jurisdiction covers Saint Paul, where Thao was arrested in January, said at a press conference Monday that he has requested information from the Department of Homeland Security about the man's arrest.
"There are many facts we don't know yet, but there's one that we do know. And that is that Mr. Thao is and has been an American citizen. There's not a dispute over that," Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at the press conference.
The officials said they are investigating whether the agents could face criminal charges for kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived without a warrant at the home Thao shares with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson on January 18 and forced their way in, brandishing their guns at the family as they handcuffed Thao.
They did not allow Thao's daughter-in-law to get proof of his citizenship. The 56-year-old has been a US citizen for decades after his mother fled Laos in the 1970s.
“We believe there was no legitimate legal reason for the federal agents to enter that home, it was not supported by probable cause,” said Choi.
Without giving him a chance to get dressed, the agents then hauled Thao out of his home into the 14°F temperatures as his neighbors yelled and blew whistles at the officers, demanding his release.
ICE arrest of US CITIZEN probed as kidnapping
ChongLy ‘Scott’ Thao seized Jan 18 — agents smash down door, drag him out at gunpoint in underwear
'Potential case of kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment' — officials pic.twitter.com/alsaq46bAz
— RT (@RT_com) April 14, 2026
They drove him around for nearly an hour before arriving at a remote area and demanding that he get out of the car and show his ID—which he hadn't been allowed to bring. They determined he was a US citizen with no criminal record and drove him back home.
Fletcher said federal agents switched the license plates of the vehicle used during the arrest, violating Minnesota law and leaving authorities with no knowledge of the identities of the officers who arrested Thao.
"There's no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home, and driven around," said Fletcher at the press conference. "Is that good law enforcement, to take an American citizen out of their home and drive them around aimlessly, trying to determine what they can tell them?'"
One observer said the officials "are finally starting to call the terror ICE is inflicting on communities what it actually is: kidnapping."
"If regular people did this, they’d be in prison," they said. "So why aren’t the agents?"
In keeping with the Trump administration's response to widespread condemnation of its immigration crackdown and the conduct of its federal agents, DHS told The New York Times that Choi's investigation into the arrest was “a political stunt to demonize ICE law enforcement.”
The agency has claimed the officers were looking for two convicted sex offenders, one of whom has reportedly been in state prison since 2024.
Choi said Monday that there is no evidence the federal agents had a judicial warrant to enter Thao's home. The arrest took place days before a whistleblower group reported on an ICE memo which claimed that according to the DHS Office of the General Counsel, "the US Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants" in order to enter a home to make an arrest.
Legal experts have said the memo directly contradicts the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
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