Today the House passed a sweeping anti-abortion rights bill that would enshrine abortion funding restrictions into law, putting women’s health and lives at risk. NOW vows to work aggressively to block passage in the Senate and applauds the White House for threatening to veto this bill.
NOW applauds Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for chairing a first-ever Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Eight years have lagged since the last hearing for the human rights treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
The new Congress hasn’t taken office yet, but the writing already is on the wall. Efforts to advance women’s equality will be relegated to the back burner, or worse, actively torched. Today we witnessed conservatives in the Senate block the Paycheck Fairness Act, denying women a significant step toward finally closing the gender wage gap.
Millions of women will be pushed into poverty and out of the middle class if preliminary recommendations for cutting Social Security benefits made by the National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform are adopted, says NOW President Terry O’Neill.
President Obama signed the Tribal Law and Order Act into law. This landmark bill is a tribute to the years of hard work by Native women all across the country urging Congress to address violent crime and sexual assault on Indian lands. The law creates a new standard of more equitable law enforcement on Indian reservations that will discourage criminal activity, elevate public safety, and greatly improve the daily lives of Indian people and their neighbors. The Act will enhance the criminal justice system by improving and measuring the federal law enforcement response and will enhance coordination and communication between federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies.
Tell the Senate to vote No on the SAVE America Act.