NWLC’s Weekly Roundup: January 30 – February 3

Hi all, and welcome to another weekly blog roundup! This week we’ve got stories about some anti-choice bills in Virginia, a new video and call to action on SNDA,  an update on Samantha Garvey, some of the perils faced by pregnant women on the job, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure decision on Planned Parenthood, and some wrap-ups on blog carnivals we participated in this week, all after the jump.

Let’s start off with this: a Virginia state senator has done what so many pro-choice activists have been calling for over the years this week. Janet Howell, state senator from Fairfax Country, attached an amendment to a mandatory ultrasound bill (that’s one of those bills that require women who seek to have an abortion undergo an ultrasound before they can have the abortion) that would require men seeking erectile dysfunction medication undergo a rectal exam and cardiac stress test before they can receive an ED prescription. And all in the name of gender equity!

Unfortunately, Senator Howell’s amendment was defeated by a vote of 21-19. On the upside, a bill that would have banned most abortions after 20 weeks in Virginia was defeated in committee yesterday.

The ACLU released a new video yesterday about Zach, a gay high school student in Ohio, who’s been a victim of bullying in his school. On October 17, 2011, Zach was attacked while in school for being gay. The ACLU reports that 66% of LGBT students surveyed feel unsafe at school. This video reinforces the need for the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA), an act that would outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Please take a moment to ask your senators to support SNDA by sending them a letter here. You can also watch the ACLU’s video below. (Warning: video contains images of Zach being attacked in his school.)

Remember Samantha Garvey, the “Homeless Science Wiz”? Here are a few quick updates on her. Last week, Garvey was invited to attend President Obama’s State of the Union address by Rep. Steve Israel, her congressman. While in Washington, Garvey met with John P. Holdren, the president’s science adviser, as well as Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. She also had dinner with Jane Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Unfortunately, when she returned to New York and the homeless shelter she and her family were living in, she learned that she was not one of the 40 finalists in Intel’s Science Talent Search. But regardless of that disappointment Samantha and her family moved into a new home in Bay Shore, Long Island over the weekend. And even though she won’t be continuing on in Intel’s competition, Samantha is looking forward to getting back to researching her mussels in the lab.

Ever think that getting pregnant could cost you your job? That’s just what’s happening to some women, according to an op-ed from Dina Bakst, founder and president of A Better Balance, in The New York Times this week. As Bakst points out, even though federal and state laws ban discrimination against pregnancy women in the workplace, pregnancy itself is not a disability – meaning that women workers with a healthy pregnancy are not covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act in the same way some pregnancy women with medical complications related to their pregnancy are.

So what happens to these women with healthy pregnancies who need an extra bathroom break or could use a place to sit every now and again request these things? Many are fired or put on unpaid leave. And many mothers – especially single mothers or women who are the primary breadwinners in their family – just can’t afford this. Interested in reading more? Head over to The New York Times for the rest of the scoop.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation making the decision to cut their funding to Planned Parenthood and then reversing that decision this morning. This caused a lot of kerfuffle, to say the least, and has set many communities of advocates surrounding choice, health care, and cancer to task. Many national figures have come out against this decision, too –including two dozen senators, New York City Mike Bloomberg (who’s matching contributions to Planned Parenthood up to $250,000) and LIVESTRONG (who also issued a challenge grant of $100,000 to Planned Parenthood specifically to their cancer fund).

As for us? We’re relieved that the Komen foundation has changed their decision, and we’ll be monitoring to see how they move forward and we hope that women's access to critical health care is uninterrupted.

Finally, we were a part of two blog carnivals this week. The first we hosted in honor of National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Wednesday. You can find a collection of all our posts as well as those from our participants here. The second blog carnival was the latest HERvotes Coalition blog carnival speaking out against religious exemptions to birth control coverage. You can find all the blog posts from the HERvotes blog carnival here.

That’s all for this week! Have a story you’d like to share for a future blog roundup? Leave a link in the comments or email it to me at djackson(at)nwlc(dot)org.