<^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> ........Catt's Claws # 130 ... October 29, 1996......... ........ A Feminist Newsletter by Irene Stuber......... <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> "Women are beginning to participate more fully throughout this country in the life of American. As far as I know, the sky is not falling anywhere." -- President Clinton, August 26, 1996 . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Your vote this coming Tuesday for President of the United States will be the first of the three most important votes of your life. The second will be in the year 2000 and the third in 2004 - which should mark the final defeat of the religious, ultra right-wing misogynists attempts to run women's lives in accordance with *their* views and for their profit$. Our tasks next Tuesday is not only to vote ourselves but also to get ten other like-minded voters to the polls. The Republicans in all states are upping the filth they are pouring out in their political ads in a last minute attempt to discourage "dainty little ladies" from expressing their views - which is how they did it in 1992 when 58 million - READ THIS AGAIN: - 58 million women stayed away from the voting booths. Thus the Gingrich-Dole War on America was instituted. The so-called revolution was decided by only 27% of the electorate. There are certain so-called liberal forces such as the national officers of the National Organization for Women - led by Patricia Ireland - who are calling for women to stay away from the polls again. We must not listen to this rich woman's piper call to oblivion for women's rights on this the 30th anniversary of the formation of the National Organization for Women. NOW's whose flame lit the skies and changed the world - only to sputter and become the light that fails women under the new leadership. And then there are those who say that women should not vote for Bill Clinton but for Ralph Nader as a protest. However, if anyone would like to examine Nader's record with women's rights and compare it to Clinton's, they would be hard pressed to defend Nader - a man who talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. This election and the next two elections must be a strong offensive against the religious right, ultra-conservative attempt to have government rule women's vaginas and uteruses while removing government oversight from banks, checkbooks, Wall Street and big business. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Two hundred and twenty years ago Abigail Adams asked the future president John Adams to "remember the ladies." He and the framers of the U.S. Constitution did not. President Bill Clinton, however, has remembered the ladies. President Clinton - Billy - was raised by a very strong woman who surrounded herself with strong women. We know a lot of those women personally. There were no wimpy women at Virginia Clinton Kelley's table. Bill Clinton married a very strong woman. His closest advisor, chief of staff during his years as Governor of Arkansas was a strong, strong woman, Betsey Wright. His appointments to positions have not been Southern-belles-of-money, but strong, strong women such as Donna Shalala who headed one of the largest universities in the nation, along with Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Janet Reno, etc. President Clinton's record in supporting women's rights and concerns is unequaled in the annals of American politics. HOTLINES ESTABLISHED: National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 National Child Abuse Hotline 1-800-422-4453 National Child Care Information Center 1-800-616-2242 (These numbers are toll-free and no record of your call is recorded on your phone bill.) Here is a partial list of what Bill Clinton has done for women: * Made improvement of women's health a priority * Signed legislation requiring that women and minorities are included in NIH- supported research * Increased funding for breast cancer research by 65% * Committed to making abortion safe, legal and rare. * Revoked Reagan-Bush restrictions on abortion counseling * Pushed for and signed Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, ensuring clinic safety. * Pushed for and signed the Violence Against Women Act * Ensured safety, effectiveness and availability of mammography. * Increased resources to reach women affected by HIV/AIDS * Establish first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women's Health * SBA lending to women increased by 86 percent * DOL's Women's Bureau launched Honor Roll initiative, encouraging employers to implement family-friendly polities good for women * Expanded the public-private SBA's Women's Demonstration Program, providing business skills and training for women * Created the Interagency Committee on Women's Business Enterprise, eliminating barriers to economic development within federal agencies * Increased federal procurement contracts for women in both percentage and dollar amounts * 42 percent of President's appointees are women, highest ever * Six women hold Cabinet-level positions, highest ever * 59 percent of all President's judicial nominees are women and minorities, highest ever * Second president to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court * Opened almost 260,000 positions for women in the military * Established Older Women's Initiative, bringing focus on issues impacting older women and their families * Created President's Interagency Council on Women, bringing home the agreements reached at U.S. Fourth World Conference on Women to benefit American women and families. * Established White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach which may be reach at 202-456-7300, fax 202-456-7311. * Established a Women's Abuse hotline * Has increased the pressure on deadbeat dads (some of whom are the leaders of the Republican party). . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . "Until all women have an equal opportunity to develop their full potential and to make contributions that are accepted and welcomed by our society, our freedom as a nation will be incomplete." _ President Bill Clinton, Women's Equality Day, 1995, Proclamation . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Women appointed throughout the Clinton Administration: More than 40 percent of the President's appointees are women, by far the highest percentage of any Administration. * Six women hold Cabinet-level posts, the highest ever. * The President has appointed the first woman to serve as deputy chief of staff. * The President has appointed women for the first time to such positions as: Attorney General, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Secretary of Energy and Office of Management and Budget Director. * The President has appointed women to positions held traditionally by men: Chief Scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and Deputy Director at the National Science Foundation. * Nearly 60 percent of the President's judicial nominees are women and minorities, the highest proportion ever. * The President nominated a woman to the Supreme Court, only the second president to save done so. * Two out of the three policy-making councils in the White House are headed by women. * The Clinton Administration has opened nearly 260,000 positions previously not open to women who wish to serve in the military. * President Clinton convened a White House Conference on Aging which provided specific recommendations for improving the lives of older women. These recommendations will be incorporated into the final report of the Conference which will be presented to the President and Congress for legislative and administrative action. * The President established an intragovernmental body to bring home the agreements reached at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women to benefit American women and their families. Housed at the White House, the President's Interagency Council is charged with coordinating the implementation of the Conference Platform for Action and reaching out to America's non-governmental organizations to work for successful implementation. * Appointing a record number of women (73) to the federal bench. * Creating the White House Office for Women's Initiatives & Outreach; the Department of Justice's Violence Against Women Office; and the Interagency Council on Women's Business Enterprise. * Winning enactment of the largest deficit-cutting plan in history - cutting the deficit by more than half within four years. * Fighting for and signing into law the first increase in the minimum wage in five years - almost 60 percent of all minimum wage earners are women. * Working to make child care programs more consistent and coordinated by streamlining programs, linking services, reducing red tape, and giving states more flexibility. * Proposing an employee choice flex-time initiative that will allow workers to agree with their employers to work overtime in exchange for up to 80 hours of paid time-off. * Signing the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to enable workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a family member without fear of losing their jobs; he is proposing to expand the FMLA to allow workers to take up to 24 hours of unpaid leave to support their children's educational needs, older relatives' health care, and other family medical obligations. * Providing tax relief for 15 million working families by increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to help ensure that parents who work full-time do not raise their children in poverty. Nearly half of all EITC recipients with children are female heads of households. * Fostering growth of women-owned businesses by improving access to capital, expanding the federal procurement market, and increasing business training and technical assistance. From 1993 to 1994, the volume of loans to women increased by 86 percent. * Supporting effective, fair, and balanced affirmative action programs that provide opportunities for minorities and women. * Ending welfare as we know it by signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. This bill includes time-limits and work requirements, gives states incentives to create jobs for welfare recipients, increases funding for child care, strengthens child support enforcement, and maintains the federal guarantee of nutrition programs and Medicaid coverage for pregnant women, children, and the disabled. EVEN BEFORE SIGNING NATIONAL WELFARE REFORM, PRESIDENT CLINTON GRANTED WAIVERS TO 43 STATES TO REFORM WELFARE ON THEIR OWN - MAKING WORK AND RESPONSIBILITY A WAY OF LIFE FOR 75 PERCENT OF WELFARE RECIPIENTS. * Collecting $11 billion in child support in 1995 - a 40 percent increase from 1992 - by strengthening enforcement of child support laws. * Revoking the Reagan/Bush restrictions on abortion counseling ("gag rule"), abortions in military hospitals, and the "Mexico City" policy. He has protected Medicaid for abortion services for poor women who are victims of rape or incest and signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to fight violence and intimidation against women and their doctors. * Signing the Health Insurance Reform Act (Kassebaum-Kennedy Bill) that expands and protects access to health insurance by limiting exclusions for pre-existing conditions and allowing individuals to take their health insurance with them when they change or lose their jobs. * Increasing funding for breast cancer research by 65 percent and initiating the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer, a public/private partnership to fight the disease. * Fighting to preserve the guarantee of Medicaid coverage for women, children, people with disabilities, and older Americans. Sixty percent of all Medicaid beneficiaries are women. * Strengthening Medicare by enacting savings and structural changes that extended the life of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund for an estimated three years. Women comprise over 20 million, or 57 percent, of the 37 million Medicare recipients, and nearly 5 million women, or 23 percent of women aged 65 or older, depend solely on Medicare to help with their medical bills. * Launching the Medicare Mammography Campaign to educate older women about the importance of detecting breast cancer early and to inform them about Medicare coverage of mammography services. * Requiring that women and minorities be included in all clinical research supported by the National Institutes of Health. * Fighting for full funding for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program. * Requesting budget increases each year for the federal Family Planning Program in order to help women reduce the risk of unintended pregnancies. * Vetoing legislation that would have banned late-term abortions because it did not include an exception for serious adverse health consequences for women. * Increasing Head Start funding by nearly $800 million to provide early education to tens of thousands of additional children in need. * Signing the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, which broadens educational, career and economic opportunities for students not immediately bound for four-year colleges. * Increasing access to college by reforming student loans, by creating AmeriCorps, by expanding Pell Grants, and by proposing tax cuts for higher education and training. * Included the Violence Against Women Act, the first national effort to reduce violence against women. The Act increases funding for battered women's shelters and has already provided $156 million in state grants to bolster law enforcement, prosecution, and victims' services. * Created the first nationwide 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline - 1-800-799- 7233 - providing immediate crisis intervention, counseling, and referrals for women in need. It is toll free and there is NO record of you making the call. * Increased penalties for sex offenders and imposed a registration requirement for violent sexual offenders. * Imposed a targeted "Three-Strikes-and-You're-Out" provision to put career violent offenders behind bars for life. * Fighting for and signing the Brady Bill, which has prevented more than 60,000 fugitives, felons, and other criminals from buying handguns. * Calling for an extension of the Brady Bill to prevent those who commit acts of domestic violence from buying guns. (And President Clinton wants to ban the purchase of guns to those who commit domestic violence.) * Continuing to support affirmative action consistent with Supreme Court rulings and working with federal agencies to reform programs so that they are stronger where needed. The Administration will oppose legislation that will turn back the clock on the federal government's historic, bipartisan commitment to equal opportunity. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . According to Associated Press, eleven-year-old Charlotte Kirk thought she was doing a good thing by helping her mom pack her lunch. The sixth- grader included a steak knife in her lunch box so she could cut up her chicken. But after asking a teacher if she could use the knife, Charlotte was arrested on a charge of possessing a weapon on school grounds and taken to a South Carolina jail. Charlotte never took the smooth-edged steak knife out of the lunch box but had asked permission first. Isn't it amazing how so many of these rules seem to affect women more than men? How many boyz have been arrested and suspended for carrying jock itch salve (which is a drug) while girls are being arrested for taking a Midol. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . California added another feather for decency to its cap when an improved "Megan's Law" was made law. It implements a federal law that allows law enforcement officials to inform the public of the whereabouts of some 57,000 registered California sex offenders and provide information to the public within some guidelines. The information will include the offenders name, photograph, where they live, and information about their convictions and stored on a CD-Rom by mid-1997. A hotline 1-900-463-8400 is being set up to verify facts about sex offenders citizens feel might be near them. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Canada's monster Paul Bernardo, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree of two teenagers whom he videotaped while he tortured them has been ordered to take an HIV test at the request of his several of his other rape victims who are fearful of having been infected by him. Such testing, thank the good GAWD is allowed in Canada. For some reason, in the U.S. of A., a rapist can refuse to take an HIV/AIDS test so he can force his victims to be raped over and over and over again in fear that their next AIDS test will prove positive. Something is drastically wrong with our legal system when it protects the rights of a rapist and ignores the right of a woman to know if she is living under a death sentence. All you have to do is stipulate that the results of the test will not be admissible in court as proof or non-proof of rape. And yet men attorneys sit on their thumbs because - what the hell - the victims are women and who the hell cares about them. Let's protect our heroes, the rapists. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Openly rejecting the Log Cabin gay men's support of Bob Dole is a Gay and Lesbian Advocacy Project to Re-elect Bill Clinton with a web page at www.cais.net/morkley. Anthony Green for the project: "Many believe that the Republican effort to bring up DOMA as a "wedge" issue--to divide the President and Democrats in Congress from their natural allies in the gay, lesbian and civil rights communities--is failing. Congressional Quarterly, the most respected journal covering Congress and politics, said, "the Republican legislative efforts. . .do not appear to be yielding political dividends." Translation: gay bashing may not be so politically beneficial. "We have a President and a Vice-President dedicated to civil rights for our community. The President came out in support of ENDA last year, and it was the first time an American President endorsed civil rights legislation for lesbians and gays. The Vice President vigorously lobbied Senators to vote for ENDA, and the White House machinery was ready to helicopter Gore back to DC from the campaign trail in Pennsylvania to break a tie vote if it happened." CC-->> That tie vote would have occurred if Arkansas Senator David Pryor hadn't stayed at the bedside of his critically ill son. <--cc) . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Sandra sent us a news report from the Calgary Herald about how the anti-rights for women forces are trying to prevent the drug induced abortions that use the combination of Methotrexate - a widely used cancer drug - and another inexpensive drug Misoprostol, an ulcer medicine, that showed a 96% effectiveness in aborting fetuses. The much touted and much more expensive RU486 only has a 95% clinical effectiveness. According to the article RU486 is not available in Canada although it has been legal in England for many years and has just been approved in the U.S. The two drugs Methotrexate and Misoprostol, however, *are* approved for use by physicians and therefore may be used for abortions. Methotrexate destabliizes the uterine lining and misoprostol triggers contractions that expel the embryo. The publicizing of the two drug combination has been a project of Catt's Claws for more than a year. By the way, have a little chat with your family doctor about the use of Methotrexate and Misoprostol ... you might be VERY pleasantly surprised. And if you are not, find another doctor. From what we can gather, there are a LOT of family doctors who are using the procedure very quietly and very professionally in their offices. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . The correct FDA approved dosage for the morning after abortifacient is: 2 Wyeth's Ovral or 4 tablets of Wyeth's Nordette, Lo/Ovral or Triphasil or Berlex Laboratories Levlen or Tri-Levlen and then take the same, second dosage exactly 12 hours later. Nausea occurs in some cases. Vomiting, which is RARE, will prevent it from working so take an antiemetic (antinausea) medication such as Dramamine with the pills. This method must be used within 24-72 hours of the intercourse. Later than that, a different chemical or a surgical abortion is necessary. The Emergency Contraception phone number is 1-800-584-9911. They are available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and will refer you to the nearest place to get EC. EC has a website (http://opr.princeton.edu/ec/ec.html. EC hotline has information about emergency contraception and have a directory of more that 1800 clinicians willing to prescribe emergency contraceptives. ....................... * ........................ Women's rights are young and tender and we must protect them from the plagues of holy hypocrisy and newts. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>> Send your ideas, comments, and news to istuber@cswnet.com for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed up to three times a week. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information. Catt's Claws is NOT sponsored by any organization. We are accepting *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting Catt's Claws. Copyright 1996, Irene Stuber. PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902.<<<< To receive Catt's Claws by email, write and in the body of the note We thank Jennifer Gagliardi for handling the madding subscription list through her listserv.