Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/marley-gibbons/)
The battle over funding Planned Parenthood created a media feeding frenzy in several states this summer. The angry buzz boils down to a few key questions about states’ power to cut funding and impose prohibitive regulations.
New Jersey Planned Parenthood clinics lost 10 percent of their budget in a single stroke of the governor’s pen. Now a clinic supervisor talks about heavier work load, streamlined procedures and some lost clients.
Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security were spared immediate cuts in this week’s deal to raise the government’s borrowing limit. But long-term threats are seen to the programs women disproportionately depend on.
Funding attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics are crimping birth-control services for low-income, uninsured women, data from New Jersey’s Planned Parenthood shows. Health reform in 2014 could turn the whole situation around.
Beneath the super-nova news coverage of Casey Anthony and the Sofitel housekeeper, UN Women this week drew attention to the lower-profile, more widespread problem of women who drop efforts to obtain justice.
Official Saudi reaction to the women’s driving campaign may be taking a harsher turn, with five women arrested this week. As usual, the e-mail alert about the situation came from Change.org, which is supporting the cause every way it can.