NOW Supports Protests Against Arizona Immigration Law Measure Will “Push Already Vulnerable Families Past The Breaking Point”

The National Organization for Women (NOW), the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States, joins the Arizona chapter of NOW in supporting the public protest against Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, SB 1070, which makes it a state crime for a person to be undocumented. The law, as it stands, will take effect on July 29 unless the courts intervene.

“For years, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arapaio has been terrorizing this community by profiling, arresting and deporting the undocumented. This law codifies Sheriff Arapaio’s vigilante justice and gives a green light to the politics of racial division, fear and discrimination,” says NOW President Terry O’Neill.

President Obama Breaks Faith with Women

NOW is incensed that President Barack Obama agreed today to issue an executive order designed to appease a handful of anti-choice Democrats who have held up health care reform in an effort to restrict women’s access to abortion. Through this order, the president has announced he will lend the weight of his office and the entire executive branch to the anti-abortion measures included in the Senate bill, which the House is now prepared to pass.

Health Care Reform Victory Comes with Tragic Setback for Women’s Rights

As a longtime proponent of health care reform, I truly wish that the National Organization for Women could join in celebrating the historic passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It pains me to have to stand against what many see as a major achievement. But feminist, progressive principles are in direct conflict with many of the compromises built into and tacked onto this legislation.

White House Health Care Reform Bill Denies Women’s Basic Rights

Today the White House announced that it has set March 18 as the deadline for Congress to pass a final health care reform bill. President Obama has embraced the Senate’s version of health care legislation. This bill is no panacea for the nation’s broken health care system. It has major flaws that probably cannot be fixed within two weeks. However, the National Organization for Women is not about to give up — not with women’s basic human rights at stake.

NOW Echoes President Obama: Don’t Quit on Women

NOW President Terry O’Neill said, “President Obama’s State of the Union speech was never expected to be a policy address about women’s rights, but women were keenly listening to every line — and paying close attention to the messages between the lines, or left unsaid altogether.”