• Summit to Focus on Judicial Nominees, Reproductive Rights
  
• Numerous Anti-Reproductive Rights Measures Move Forward
  
• Social Security Legislation Introduced; Floor Vote on Privatization Challenged
  
• Welfare Reauthorization Taken Up by the House

Summit to Focus on Judicial Nominees, Reproductive Rights

More than 450 feminist activists will be drawn to the Women's Equality Summit and Congressional Action Day (WESCAD), Monday and Tuesday, April 8 and 9, where they'll hear about threats to reproductive rights by an increasingly right-wing federal judiciary and meet with members of their Congressional delegation. In addition, WESCAD attendees will hear about effective ways to re-shape welfare policy that will help poor women become economically self-sufficient and they'll learn more about increasingly serious privatization threats to Social Security.

On Monday, former NOW president Ellie Smeal, founder of the Feminist Majority, will moderate a panel of experts on international women's rights issues. Speakers will provide an update on the situation for women in Afghanistan now that the Taliban have been thrown out of power.

Monday afternoon, NOW Membership Vice President Terry O'Neill will moderate a panel session on "Rethinking Welfare and the Social Safety Net" reviewing principles developed by the economic security task force of the National Council of Women's Organizations. The principles are intended as a guide to policy-makers as they re-authorize the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, the 1996 act that eliminated Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Tuesday morning, NOW President Kim Gandy will welcome participants to a Congressional breakfast on Capitol Hill, followed by an address by former Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.). The highlight of the morning will be a panel session on women and the 2002 elections, moderated by well-known political analyst Charlie Cooke, with commentators from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

NOW Action Vice President Olga Vives will introduce senior feminist Betty Friedan who, along with Dr. Dorothy Height, will be honored for their long careers dedicated to women's rights and civil rights.

Numerous Anti-Reproductive Rights Measures Move Forward

Now that most of the major bills responding to terrorist incidents and the anthrax scare have been addressed, Congress is settling back into its pre-9/11 agenda and pace. Numerous anti-reproductive rights initiatives are being moved through committees and to floor votes as fast as members can act. Top among these efforts is a scheduled House floor vote after the spring recess on the so-called Child Custody Protection Act (H.R. 476), more accurately titled the Teen Endangerment Act. This bill (H.R. 1218, also sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), which passed the House in the last Congress by 270-129, would make a crime for any adult other than a parent to escort a minor across state lines to receive reproductive health services in violation of the home state's parental involvement laws.

The legislation, if passed, presents a safety risk for young women who fear parental reprisals if they confide in them. It is opposed by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians and many other professional medical associations.

In addition, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (S. 1050), which has already been passed by both houses and is part of the Patients' Bill of Rights legislation, may be scheduled for another vote in the Senate. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), is another stealth anti-abortion rights measure that would define in the U.S. Code a fetus (at any stage of gestation) as a "person" as soon as it is delivered or aborted. Newborn infants, however premature, already have full legal protection under the law and any attempt to harm a newborn could give rise to criminal prosecution. NOW and other reproductive rights advocates believe this unnecessary legislation is merely an effort by opponents to ratchet up rhetoric against abortion rights.

Earlier in the year, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced the administration's intent to propose regulations for making fetuses eligible for health insurance coverage under the Child Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. Immediately NOW decried the move as a transparent attempt to advance fetal personhood, not to improve health care access for pregnant women.

The proposed regulations were published in the Federal Register in early March and the comment period runs through May 6, 2002. Anyone may comment by sending their written statement to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Attn: CMS-2127-P, P.O. Box 8016, Baltimore, Md., 21244-8016. Suggested comments are available on the NOW website. You can also call NOW Government Relations (202) 628-8669, ext. 101, to request faxed materials.

NOW and other advocates argue that a much superior and straightforward course would be for the administration to issue waivers to the states to allow prenatal care coverage under CHIP for mothers of eligible low income children, as several states have already done. Also, Congress could pass any one of several bills covering parents of eligible low income children under CHIP. One of these bills is the Family Care Act of 2001, S. 1244 (sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.) and H.R. 2630 (sponsored by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich.). Others have been introduced, and Sen. Kennedy, chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, reportedly intends to move forward with his legislation soon.

Yet another attack on contraception is being pursued in Congress. Rep. Melissa Hart (R-Pa.) is sponsoring a bill that would suspend federal funds to local education agencies if school-based health clinics provide the "morning-after" pill to students. About 180 schools currently offer emergency contraception to students. In the past Congress, 50 members of the House sent instructions to conferees on the Labor-HHS appropriations bill to delete funding for that purpose. But those efforts were beaten back by supporters of contraceptive access. The current bill, the Schoolchildren's Health Protection Act, H.R. 3805, would deny all federal funds to school districts if they provide emergency contraception. Reproductive rights advocates see emergency contraception at school-based clinics as essential in continuing the decline of teen pregnancy in the U.S.

Social Security Legislation Introduced; Floor Vote on Privatization Challenged

A bipartisan bill that would make a number of technical changes to the Social Security system that would benefit widows and divorced spouses, the Social Security Benefit Enhancements Act for Women of 2002, will soon be introduced. The legislation would update benefit eligibility requirements, resulting in higher benefits and expanded eligibility for elderly and disabled widows and divorced spouses, who are among the poorest of elderly persons. According to Rep. Robert Matsui, ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, the bill would:

• Increase the unfair benefit limit on widows whose spouses both retire and die before the full retirement age;
• Update eligibility requirements for disabled widows to ensure consistency with earnings requirements in current law; and,
• Eliminate a needless two-year wait for some divorced spouses to receive benefits.

Welfare Reauthorization Taken Up by the House

Hearings on the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program and related welfare issues have been underway since the beginning of the 107th Congress. The House Republican leadership has promised to get a bill to a floor vote in April or May. A detailed analysis of the varying pieces of legislation will soon appear on the NOW website; in addition, a series of principles under which any revision to the current system is made has been prepared by the National Council of Women's Organizations Economic Security Task Force and backed by the NCWO's Domestic Agenda Task Force, co-chaired by NOW Vice President—Membership Terry O'Neill. These principles assure that poor women first receive the training and education that they require before being able to sustain economic self-sufficiency. In addition, the principles stress the need for greatly expanded child care, housing, health care, transportation and anti-violence services.

NOW and many other women's rights organizations are backing legislation sponsored by Rep. Patsy Mink, (H.R. 3113), The TANF Reauthorization Act of 2001, that would reward states for education, training and other services that improve women's chances of self-sufficiency — instead of simply mandating that they get a job within a limited period of time. More information about H.R. 3113 and competing bills will be posted on the NOW website.