In response to concern that not enough doctors are trained in performing abortions, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education next year will require residency programs for obstetricians and gynecologists to provide training in induced abortion, abortion complications, and all methods of family planning.
Programs that refuse to offer training in abortion may lose their accreditation. Residency programs with moral or religious objections to abortion must ensure that students willing to perform abortions receive training elsewhere.
In the largest out-of-court settlement ever reported for a sexual harassment lawsuit, four women employees of Chevron Information Technology ( subsidiary of Chevron oil company) will be paid $2.2 million by the company. The women said they had endured up to 20 years of sexual harassment, including receiving violent pornography through inter-office mail.
In addition, more than 770 women employees have filed a class-action lawsuit against Chevron Information Technology, scheduled for trial in October, alleging sex discrimination and sexual harassment by the company, including men being promoted over more qualified women. One of the women involved in the sexual harassment settlement, Laurie Nardinelli, said she would use $300,000 of her settlement money to help other workers file harassment suits.
More men PhD recipients received funding from their universities to complete their studies than did women PhD recipients, according to a new study by the National Research Council.
While 57% of men doctoral recipients received their primary support from their universities in the form of teaching and research assistantships, only 42% of women doctoral recipients were primarily supported by their universities.
In addition, fewer minorities than *sites received primary funding from their universities: only 25% of African Americans, 38% of Hispanics, and 20% of Native Americans, compared to 43% of whites.
A fun new magazine for teen girls puts the emphasis on activism, learning new skills, and turning dreams into reality. Real Girls is published by mother-daughter team Susan Brooks and Jenna Brooks, as an alternative to the beauty and fashion magazines aimed at young women 1420.
Susan decided to start the magazine because Jenna, 14, was "always saying things like 'I hate my body. I hate myself.' I thought starting Real Girls would be a good way to build her self esteem."
The premiere issue carried articles about animal rights activism, how to start your own band, and how to get your poetry published. In addition, girls' poetry and art are featured.
For a copy send $3 to Real Girls, P.O. Box 57393, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413. Subscriptions are $10 for four issues. To advertise, call (818) 986-3246.
"Separate but equal" is alive and well as a federal appeals court ruled that the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a state-funded public college, did not have to admit women.
In a 2-1 vote, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that VMI's plan to start a "leadership" program at a nearby private women's college was sufficient to allow VMI to remain allmale and to continue receiving state funding.
The court said that the unique education at VMI, based on grueling physical training and no privacy, would suffer if women were admitted. However, the dissenting justice, Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr., said VMI's all-male status was based on a stereotyped view of women's roles.
The U.S. Justice Department, which sued the school in 1990 for sex discrimination on behalf of a woman who wanted to enroll there, may appeal this ruling.
RU 486 (mifepristone), which should be available in the United States as a method of early abortion by 1996, also may be effective as a treatment for ovarian cancer.
Laboratory trials conducted by Dr. Faina Rose of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey have found that mifepristone inhibits the growth of ovarian cancer cells. Rose's study also suggests that mifepristone may be particularly effective in blocking growth of ovarian cancer cells in combination with tamoxifen and taxol, two other drugs frequently used in cancer therapy.
Pilot clinical trials on the use of mifepristone as a treatment for ovarian cancer are now underway.
"Once again, the data show that mifepristone has tremendous promise as a breakthrough in women's health care," said Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "Trials on the many uses of mifepristone must be expedited in order to make up for the years of research that have been lost because of anti-abortion politics."
In other clinical trials. mifepristone has been found to be an effective treatment for Cushing's Syndrome and show promise as a treatment for en@om@triosis, fibroid tumors, and some types of breast cancer.
Population Council-sponsored clinical trials on the abortion use of mifepristone at almost a dozen clinics around the country are expected to be completed by late spring. The Population Council will submit a New Drug Application to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking to license mifepristone in the United States, and is expected to win FDA approval in 1996. Roussel Uclaf, which developed the compound, transferred U.S. patent rights to the Population Council last year.
Anti-abortion organizations are mobilizing to block FDA approval of the compound. Americans United for Life filed a petition with the FDA urging the agency to slow down approval of the compound and to reject data from foreign trials. The petition included the signatures of about twenty anti-abortion members of Congress. In response to the Americans United for Life petition, the FDA said that an application for approval of mifepristone will be handled like any other new drug application.
The Feminist Majority Foundation is continuing to work with the Population Council and Roussel Uclaf to prevent delays in the conduct of trials, the selection of a distributor and manufacturer, the transfer of technology, and approval of mifepristone by the FDA.
The Republican "Personal Responsibility Act" (PRA), which dismantles federal welfare programs for poor women and their children, had passed the House of Representatives and was headed to the Senate as we went to press. The PRA - a centerpiece of the Gingrich "Contract with America" punishes poor women and their children by denying funds to young unwed mothers, and eliminating benefits to any child born to a mother already receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Most legal immigrants would also be denied all benefits.
The bill passed the House by a vote of 243 to 199, with almost all Democrats voting against the bill. Only five Republicans voted against the bill, including two Republican women, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL) and Connie Morelia (MD).
The bill passed amid protests by feminists and welfare rights advocates, including a civil disobedience action in the Capitol rotunda. Harriet Trudell of the Feminist Majority was arrested with Patricia Ireland, President of the National Organization for Women, Marian Kramer, President of the National Welfare Rights Union, and Cheryl Mucerino and Kate Engle with the Kennsington Welfare Rights Union. The women leaders held placards and shouted slogans protesting the "war on poor women" before police handcuffed them and led them away.
In a fundamental shift in how the federal government provides assistance to poor people, the PRA will turn over most of the nation's poverty programs to each state and will give each state their welfare money in a lump sum, or "block grant," allowing states to run their programs with few federal restrictions.
Under the block grant system, there is no guarantee that federal money will be used for welfare payments at all each state can decide on its own how to use the money. And even if the money is used for aid to poor people, there is no guarantee that every eligible person will receive aid. The current welfare entitlement program automatically grants AFDC benefits to any applicant who meets the eligibility criteria.
"With this bill berating poor women and their families, Congress is attempting to shift attention away from the real problems our country faces such as the interest on the national debt, which comprises 28% of our national budget," said Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority. "Welfare accounts for less than I% of our annual expenditures. The focus on poor women is a diversionary tactic to distract public scrutiny from the budget deficit and debt, as well as from federal programs that subsidize corporations and other major financial interests.
"The focus on poor women is a diversionary tactic to distract public scrutiny from the budget deficit and debt, as well as from federal programs that subsidize corporations and other major financial interests."
Instead of helping poor women care for their children, the PRA would provide grants to states to promote adoption, and to operate orphanages and homes for unwed mothers. The states are prohibited from giving this grant money directly to unwed teenage women so they can keep their babies, or to help women obtain abortions.
The PRA would also eliminate vital nutritional programs such as school lunches and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supplemental food program, replacing these with block grants to the states as well.
Another goal of the proposed welfare bill is to force women off welfare in five years, while giving states the option of cutting off benefits after two years. There is no requirement that states provide child care for parents with young children, and no acknowledgment that most women on welfare are already working or looking for work.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that if this bill is fully implemented at least 2.5 million families, mostly headed by women, and more than 5 million children now receiving AFDC, will be pushed out of the program and into the streets.
The Feminist Majority is working to galvanize supportive members of the Senate to try to block these draconian measures from being enacted.
Addresses: U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510
Or dial (202) 225-3121 and ask to be transferred to your members of Congress.
FLUSH RUSH!
Let advertisers on Rush Limbaugh's radio and TV shows know you do not appreciate their sponsorship of an anti-feminist, racist talk show host. Also, write to the Federal Communications Commission and ask for fair access for opposing points of view. Call Faith Evans at NOW for more information, (202) 331-0066.
INTERNATIONAL
If your group would like to be on the mailing list for the U.S. Network for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing, China in September 1995, call Christine Onyango at (703) 522-2214. The U.S. Network for Women is a coalition of nonprofit groups, co-sponsored by the Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Council of Negro Women, which will take positions and provide input to the Women's Conference Platform for Action.