Until now, all the court's abortion decisions have upheld Roe's central framework — that women have a constitutional right to an abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy when a fetus is unable to survive outside the womb, until roughly between 22 and 24 weeks.

But Mississippi's law bans abortion after 15 weeks. A separate law enacted a year later would ban abortions after six weeks, and while the six-week ban is not at stake in this case, the state is now asking the Supreme Court to reverse all of its prior abortion decisions and to return the abortion question to the states.

This Supreme Court is more conservative

This is not the first time the court has been asked to reverse Roe. The last major challenge to abortion rights was in 1992 in a case called Planned Parenthood v. Casey. So it's worth listening to what three justices said back then in reaffirming what they called "the central holding of Roe."

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spoke first from the bench: "Our obligation is to define liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code."

Justice Anthony Kennedy was next: "Our cases recognize the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child."

And last was Justice David Souter: "The factual premises on which it rests are no different today from those on which the ruling rested initially ... so to overrule in the absence of the most compelling reason ... would subvert the court's legitimacy beyond any serious question."

Those justices, all appointed by Republican presidents, were centrist conservatives, but today's Supreme Court supermajority of six justices, without exception, are all dramatically more conservative, and all have records opposing abortion rights.

In this case, Mississippi contends that Roe and Casey were egregiously wrong and undemocratic rulings. State Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the Explicitly Pro-Life podcast that abortion "needs to be given back to the states. The unelected judiciary don't need to be making those decisions for us. ... We all elect our legislators ... and then you know what? They're accountable."

But lawyer Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights will tell the justices that's wrong.

"The very essence of a constitutional right is that it is not up to the legislatures. ... It's a right that we all have [that] the legislators cannot take away from us," she said in an interview with NPR.

Rikelman says she agrees that in the Casey decision, the court allowed states to regulate abortion to further a state's interest in life, but she adds that because abortion is a constitutional right, the one thing a state cannot do is ban a woman's right to an abortion prior to fetal viability, the point when the life of the fetus, now able to survive outside the womb, takes precedence in most instances.

Mississippi's only abortion clinic doesn't perform abortions past 16 weeks, which is earlier than clinics in most other states, but is still later than the 15-week ban. Clinic personnel say that this is "because all of the other restrictions that Mississippi has in place ... make it incredibly difficult for the clinic to provide care after that point."

How risky is it?

Mississippi says it put its 15-week ban into place, in part, because abortions are more dangerous later in pregnancy. Not so, says American Medical Association President Gerald Harmon: "We know that the risk of death during or after childbirth is substantially more than the risk of death ... from an abortion," he says.

Abortion-rights advocate Rikelman points to dramatic statistics in Mississippi, compiled by the state's Department of Health. "In Mississippi, it is 75 times more deadly for a person to carry a pregnancy to term than to have an abortion," she says.

For abortion opponents, however, there are moral issues involved. Lawyer Charles Cooper, who filed a brief siding with the state, points to "new scientific facts" about fetal development.

He cites "discoveries of when a fetus ... begins to form the physiology of a human with fingers and toes and appendages."

"It can make a sucking sound all before viability when an unborn child can begin to feel pain," he says. "These are all ... legitimate interest issues and scientific realities ... that the people of the state are perfectly entitled to take into consideration."

But those are not all scientific realities, according to a brief filed by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, other specialists in obstetrics and neonatology, and just about every major medical group in the United States. They dispute the notion of fetal pain pre-viability, asserting that the neural pathways in the brain that are required to feel pain have simply not developed before 24 weeks' gestation.

While some of Wednesday's argument may involve that question, the justices will largely focus on Roe and Casey, whether there is a constitutional right to abortion, and whether, after nearly a half-century and many decisions upholding the core of Roe, the court should reverse itself.

"There's rarely been, in American jurisprudence, a decision as widely criticized as wrong, and even egregiously wrong, as Roe v. Wade," Cooper said in an interview with NPR.

He argues that Roe is as wrong as the court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which upheld racial segregation — a decision that took more than a half-century to reverse. "The justices of the court take an oath to protect and defend the constitution, not their precedents," Cooper maintains.

What the Constitution says

The text, history and tradition of the 14th Amendment do not support any right to abortion, Cooper argues. How could it, he asks, when at the time the amendment was ratified in 1868, 30 out of 37 states banned abortion?

But Rikelman replies that the 14th Amendment is focused on "life after birth," and others have noted that its text guarantees rights to those "born or naturalized" in the United States.

She argues that under the amendment's "explicit protection for liberty," the court has protected marriage, contraception and intimate relationships, even though those words are not in the Constitution, "just as it has protected the ability to make basic decisions about our bodies for over 100 years."

"What's critical to remember," she contends, "is that the court has long said that a woman's liberty interests are unique when it comes to pregnancy. Her body and health are deeply affected by pregnancy, as is the course of her life, her ability to work, go to school and to prosper."

A brief filed by Texas Right to Life counters by declaring that "women can control their reproductive lives without access to abortion; they can do so by refraining from sexual intercourse. The only time abortion is needed to ensure women's ability to control their reproductive lives is when a pregnancy results from non-consensual behavior as in cases of rape, or when a pregnancy is endangering her life."

As Cooper sees it, if the court overturns Roe, even without explicitly saying so, the country will return to its natural order of things, as the Founders had intended.

"Issues that go to the moral, social and political values of people are decided by the people within their states," he says. "That's our system of federalism."

Rikelman, however, counters that such a decision would result "in chaos."

"If the court does overrule Roe and say that bans on abortion before viability are fair game ... about half the states in the country would be poised to either ban abortion entirely or ban it at extremely early points in pregnancy," she observes.

A decision in the case is expected by summer.

An epic argument at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday: At issue is whether to reverse the court's nearly half-century-old Roe v. Wade decision and subsequent decisions declaring that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

Click the link below to listen to the arguments live beginning at 10 a.m. ET.

Until now, all the court's abortion decisions have upheld Roe's central framework — that women have a constitutional right to an abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy when a fetus is unable to survive outside the womb, until roughly between 22 and 24 weeks.

But Mississippi's law bans abortion after 15 weeks. A separate law enacted a year later would ban abortions after six weeks, and while the six-week ban is not at stake in this case, the state is now asking the Supreme Court to reverse all of its prior abortion decisions and to return the abortion question to the states.

This Supreme Court is more conservative

This is not the first time the court has been asked to reverse Roe. The last major challenge to abortion rights was in 1992 in a case called Planned Parenthood v. Casey. So it's worth listening to what three justices said back then in reaffirming what they called "the central holding of Roe."

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spoke first from the bench: "Our obligation is to define liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code."

Justice Anthony Kennedy was next: "Our cases recognize the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child."

And last was Justice David Souter: "The factual premises on which it rests are no different today from those on which the ruling rested initially ... so to overrule in the absence of the most compelling reason ... would subvert the court's legitimacy beyond any serious question."

Those justices, all appointed by Republican presidents, were centrist conservatives, but today's Supreme Court supermajority of six justices, without exception, are all dramatically more conservative, and all have records opposing abortion rights.

Abortion "needs to be given back to the states"

In this case, Mississippi contends that Roe and Casey were egregiously wrong and undemocratic rulings. State Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the Explicitly Pro-Life podcast that abortion "needs to be given back to the states. The unelected judiciary don't need to be making those decisions for us. ... We all elect our legislators ... and then you know what? They're accountable."

But lawyer Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights will tell the justices that's wrong.

"The very essence of a constitutional right is that it is not up to the legislatures. ... It's a right that we all have [that] the legislators cannot take away from us," she said in an interview with NPR.

Rikelman says she agrees that in the Casey decision, the court allowed states to regulate abortion to further a state's interest in life, but she adds that because abortion is a constitutional right, the one thing a state cannot do is ban a woman's right to an abortion prior to fetal viability, the point when the life of the fetus, now able to survive outside the womb, takes precedence in most instances.

Mississippi's only abortion clinic doesn't perform abortions past 16 weeks, which is earlier than clinics in most other states, but is still later than the 15-week ban. Clinic personnel say that this is "because all of the other restrictions that Mississippi has in place ... make it incredibly difficult for the clinic to provide care after that point."

How risky is it?

Mississippi says it put its 15-week ban into place, in part, because abortions are more dangerous later in pregnancy. Not so, says American Medical Association President Gerald Harmon: "We know that the risk of death during or after childbirth is substantially more than the risk of death ... from an abortion," he says.

Abortion-rights advocate Rikelman points to dramatic statistics in Mississippi, compiled by the state's Department of Health. "In Mississippi, it is 75 times more deadly for a person to carry a pregnancy to term than to have an abortion," she says.

For abortion opponents, however, there are moral issues involved. Lawyer Charles Cooper, who filed a brief siding with the state, points to "new scientific facts" about fetal development.

He cites "discoveries of when a fetus ... begins to form the physiology of a human with fingers and toes and appendages."

"It can make a sucking sound all before viability when an unborn child can begin to feel pain," he says. "These are all ... legitimate interest issues and scientific realities ... that the people of the state are perfectly entitled to take into consideration."

But those are not all scientific realities, according to a brief filed by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, other specialists in obstetrics and neonatology, and just about every major medical group in the United States. They dispute the notion of fetal pain pre-viability, asserting that the neural pathways in the brain that are required to feel pain have simply not developed before 24 weeks' gestation.

While some of Wednesday's argument may involve that question, the justices will largely focus on Roe and Casey, whether there is a constitutional right to abortion, and whether, after nearly a half-century and many decisions upholding the core of Roe, the court should reverse itself.

"There's rarely been, in American jurisprudence, a decision as widely criticized as wrong, and even egregiously wrong, as Roe v. Wade," Cooper said in an interview with NPR.

He argues that Roe is as wrong as the court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which upheld racial segregation — a decision that took more than a half-century to reverse. "The justices of the court take an oath to protect and defend the constitution, not their precedents," Cooper maintains.

What the Constitution says

The text, history and tradition of the 14th Amendment do not support any right to abortion, Cooper argues. How could it, he asks, when at the time the amendment was ratified in 1868, 30 out of 37 states banned abortion?

But Rikelman replies that the 14th Amendment is focused on "life after birth," and others have noted that its text guarantees rights to those "born or naturalized" in the United States.

She argues that under the amendment's "explicit protection for liberty," the court has protected marriage, contraception and intimate relationships, even though those words are not in the Constitution, "just as it has protected the ability to make basic decisions about our bodies for over 100 years."

"What's critical to remember," she contends, "is that the court has long said that a woman's liberty interests are unique when it comes to pregnancy. Her body and health are deeply affected by pregnancy, as is the course of her life, her ability to work, go to school and to prosper."

A brief filed by Texas Right to Life counters by declaring that "women can control their reproductive lives without access to abortion; they can do so by refraining from sexual intercourse. The only time abortion is needed to ensure women's ability to control their reproductive lives is when a pregnancy results from non-consensual behavior as in cases of rape, or when a pregnancy is endangering her life."

As Cooper sees it, if the court overturns Roe, even without explicitly saying so, the country will return to its natural order of things, as the Founders had intended.

"Issues that go to the moral, social and political values of people are decided by the people within their states," he says. "That's our system of federalism."

Rikelman, however, counters that such a decision would result "in chaos."

"If the court does overrule Roe and say that bans on abortion before viability are fair game ... about half the states in the country would be poised to either ban abortion entirely or ban it at extremely early points in pregnancy," she observes.

A decision in the case is expected by summer.

Mary Musgrove  (1700? - 1763?)

As the daughter of an English trader and a Native American woman, Mary Musgrove was able to understand many cultures. Her mixed heritage and language skills allowed her to become a negotiator between English and Native American communities. She is most commonly known for playing an important role in the development of Colonial Georgia. She is also known for her business knowledge as a trader and interpreter.

Mary Musgrove was born around 1700 in Coweta, Creek Nation. She was given the name Coosaponakeesa at birth by her Native American mother. Her mother was related to many of the prominent leaders in the community. Her brother was the chief of Coweta. Musgrove grew up learning to speak the Creek language of Muskogee and the cultural traditions of Creek Natives. Musgrove also spent much of her childhood in South Carolina. Her father, Edward Griffin, took her and her younger brother to a small town in South Carolina called Pon Pon when she was about seven years old. In Pon Pon, Musgrove learned English and changed her name to Mary. In 1717, Mary got married to an English trader named John Musgrove. They had three children, but all died very young. Mary and John Musgrove set up a trading post near the Savannah River shortly after they were married where Mary served as a skilled interpreter. Her business caught the attention of General James Oglethorpe, one of Georgia’s charter members. General Oglethorpe hired Musgrove as his primary interpreter. She worked for him from 1733 to 1743. Two years into her work with General Oglethorpe, Mary’s husband John Musgrove died.

At the time of her husband’s death, John Musgrove owned their land in South Carolina. He also owned 500 acres in Georgia that included their trading post, house, and cow pen on Yamacraw Bluff. Due to Georgia laws, Mary was only permitted to hold the land until her oldest son could take over the land as owner. However, all of her sons died. Historian Michael D. Green concludes that Musgrove married her second husband, Jacob Matthews, in 1737 because she was in danger of losing her property. Matthews was one of her indentured servants and was many years younger than she was. Musgrove was then allowed to keep her property. The new couple started another trading post in Mount Venture on the Altamaha River. Musgrove continued to work as an interpreter for General Oglethorpe. She helped maintain peaceful and fair trade relations between the new Georgia Colony and the Creek Nation. During her time in Yamacraw Bluff, she successfully negotiated relations between the Yamacraw Chief, Tomochichi, and the Savannah settlers. Unfortunately, Musgrove’s second husband Matthews died in 1742.

Two years later, Musgrove married Christian missionary Reverend Thomas Bosomworth. This marriage came with a rise in social class. Musgrove and Reverend Bosomworth opened a second trading post on the Altamaha River in 1746. They continued to serve as cultural mediators. Musgrove and her husband traveled to Native American communities with messages from General Oglethorpe and the English King and they would return with the speeches and concerns of the Native American communities. Sometimes, they taught Christian missionaries the Muskogee language to help with their interactions. However, Musgrove and Reverend Bosomworth faced a problem when the Lower Creek Chief Malatchi gave them three islands. These three islands, Ossabaw, Sapelo, and St. Catherines, were known as the “Sea Islands" that belonged to the Creeks. British officials refused to honor Musgrove’s claim to the land. They stated that a nation can only grant land to another nation, not to an individual. Musgrove fought this decision. In 1749, over 200 Creek people went with her to Savanah to petition Georgia officials. When they refused her claim, she went to England to plead her case before the Board of Trade. The Board referred her case back to the Georgia courts. When she arrived back home, Georgia had taken control of her land. Decades later, royal governor Henry Ellis compromised. He granted Musgrove St. Catherines Island and £2,100, when she released her claims to the other two islands. Musgrove continued to serve as a mediator between Georgia and Creek nation until her death on St. Catherines Island around 1763.

By Kerri Lee Alexander, NWHM Fellow | 2018-2019

MLA - Alexander, Kerri Lee.  "Mary Musgrove." National Women's History Museum.  National Women's History Museum, 2019.  Date accessed.

Chicago - Alexander, Kerri Lee.  "Mary Musgrove."  National Women's History Museum.  2019.  www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-musgrove.

Iwrising.org

Indigenous Women Rising is committed to honoring Native & Indigenous People’s inherent right to equitable and culturally safe health options through accessible health education, resources, and advocacy.

niwrc.org

The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, Inc. (NIWRC) is a Native-led nonprofit organization dedicated to ending violence against Native women and children. The NIWRC provides national leadership in ending gender-based violence in tribal communities by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty. Our staff and board of directors consist of Native women from throughout the United States with extensive experience and commitment to ending violence against Native women and their children. NIWRC's staff bring decades of expertise in building the grassroots movement to increase tribal responses to domestic violence and increase safety for Native women.

reproaction.org

 Reproaction is a left-flank culture change organization with deep chops in strategic communications, fearless opposition research, and community organizing, including but not limited to non-violent direct action.

DeSantis and Rethuglican Legislators are trying to make Florida the next battleground for destroying our reproductive rights.  Join us if you can.  Bus rides are available in central and south Florida only.

PLEASE JOIN US IF YOU LIVE IN OR NEAR FLORIDA    

www.womensvoicesmedia.org                          YOUR VOICE

Another rich, white boy.

Recently a 20-year-old man in Lewistion, NY, was sentenced to eight years’ probation.  Christopher Belter had pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree sex abuse, third degree attempted abuse and third degree rape, all involving multiple 15- and 16-year-old girls in his home.

Because Belter was 17 at the time the assaults occurred, he was initially sentenced to a two-year interim probation with the understanding, if he successfully completed probation, he would be granted Youthful Offender status.  Prior to the recent sentencing hearing Niagara County Judge Mathew Murphy ruled that Belter would be sentenced as an adult and denied Youthful Offender status.  Judge Murphy said of Belter ”we now know from his documented failure to follow the rules imposed by the court about abstinence from pornography that this defendant does not hesitate to ignore the rules when they compete with his own carnal appetites.” 

Despite Belter’s failure to comply with the restrictions of his 2-year probation, Judge Murphy explained, “It seems to me that a sentence that involves incarceration or partial incarceration isn’t appropriate, so I am going to sentence you to probation.”  This even after the judge had said “the Defendant still poses an ‘above average risk’ to reoffend after two years of counseling.”

The judge did issue a lengthy list of probation rules for Belter and did issue a strong warning about following the rules.  In addition, Belter will have to register as a sex offender.   He returns for a Sex Offender Registration Act hearing on December 2.  There it will be decided if he is a level one, two or  three sex offender.

Steve Cohen, attorney for one of the victims, made the following statement:   “Justice was not done today.  There were ‘zero consequences’ for violating his previous probation.  He is privileged.  He comes from money.  He is white.  He was sentenced as an adult, appropriately – for an adult to get away with these crimes is unjust.”

Once More, with Feeling: The ERA

by Robin Morgan Nov 15, 2021

In 1923, on the 75th anniversary of the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, Alice Paul introduced the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.”

The National Women’s Party and professional women like Amelia Earhart, the great pilot, supported it. But other reformers, particularly in the labor movement, who had worked hard for protective labor laws for women, were afraid the ERA would wipe out their progress. (This could have been solved by mobilizing for the extension of protective labor laws to men – like not lifting items over a certain weight or doing especially hazardous labor — but it became a huge sticking point for those protectionists who exploited class divisions within the women’s movement.)

By the early 1940s, both the Democratic and Republican parties had added support of the Amendment as a plank in their political platforms, although opposition was building: social conservatives, who considered equal rights for women a threat to their existing power structure, joined with labor and with leftists fighting for protectionist workplace laws to hinder the amendment. Eleanor Roosevelt agreed with them, and the ERA stalled.

Nevertheless, in 1943, after two World Wars that had seen women pouring into the labor force, the Amendment was reintroduced, this time reworded to reflect language in the 15th and 19th Amendments: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” That’s the whole of it, even today – 24 words

Still, the left and the right remained fairly united in opposition. By the 1960s, young women active in the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement (I was one) began to examine their/our own lives politically and shake the dust of the male left off our boots. We organized as citizens, and politicians started to react to the power of women’s voices in new ways. Mainstream groups joined the call for the ERA–this time including organized labor.

Whew, you exhale. Yes! It was passed by the Senate and the House on March 22nd, 1972, and the proposed 27th Amendment to the Constitution was sent to the states to be ratified! But wait. Congress placed a seven-year deadline on the ratification process. Still, the ERA hit the ground running and got 22 of the necessary 38 state ratifications in the very first year.

Yet as opposition coalesced, the pace slowed. All through the 1970s, ERA opponents like Phyllis Schlafly, right-wing leader of the Eagle Forum’s Stop ERA group, played on fears that had generated opposition back in women’s suffrage days. She and her followers claimed that women would be sent into combat, that contraception use and abortion rights would be required, that same-sex marriages would be upheld, that unisex bathrooms would be mandated, and that the ERA would destroy the family.

State’s rights advocates added that the Amendment was a federal plot, and corporations — particularly the insurance industry — strongly opposed the measure, which they believed might cost them money. Not surprisingly, the ERA was also vociferously opposed by most evangelical and/or fundamentalist religious groups.

Nevertheless, The National Organization for Women (NOW) and ERA America, a coalition of almost 80 mainstream organizations, mobilized skillfully and that same year, Indiana became the 35th state to ratify the amendment. Whew again!

Oops. As the 1970s drew to a close, Illinois changed its rules to require a three-fifths majority to ratify an amendment, thereby ensuring that their previous simple majority votes in favor of the ERA “didn’t count.” Other states proposed or passed rescission bills, despite legal precedent that states lack the power to retract a ratification. All the while, the original 1979 deadline was approaching and, although some groups, like the League of Women Voters, wanted to retain 11th hour pressure as a political strategy, most ERA advocates appealed to Congress for an indefinite extension of the time limit, and NOW coordinated a successful march of 100,000 supporters in Washington DC. Congress granted an extension until June 30th, 1982.

Is that a tentative “whew” I hear? Nope.

The political tide would turn much more conservative, and in 1980 (the year Ronald Reagan was elected president), the Republican Party removed their support for the ERA from its platform. Distinguished Republican feminists walked out of the convention in protest when the party took that plank out of the platform, and Betty Ford denounced the action.

Meanwhile, Reagan never named Phyllis Schlafly to a promised cabinet position, after all.

So, given machinations by the states plus the sharp right political turn, and despite increases in massive pro-ERA lobbying, petitioning, walkathons, hunger strikes, fundraisers, White House pickets, and civil disobedience, on June 30th, 1982, the ERA fell three states short of the necessary 38 for full ratification. It was a significant defeat.

But you can’t keep a good woman down. Two weeks later, the Equal Rights Amendment was reintroduced in Congress, and it’s been reintroduced before every session of Congress since then. In 2017, Nevada became the 36th state to ratify, followed by Illinois and then Virginia made history to become the 38th ratifying state.

Now, attention is focused on removing the deadline. There are also after-the-fact ongoing efforts in several states — North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida — to ratify. Now, gee, everyone claims they want to ratify because after all who could be against equality? Well, the opposition could!

Because the deal is not yet done.

We ourselves were partly to blame in the past: we didn’t fully grasp how state legislatures work, and the importance of redistricting. Wow, were we naïve–the public, not only feminists. Also, we failed to impress sufficiently on Americans the concrete changes that the ERA would bring. Even today, some people say, Don’t women already have equality? Why is an ERA necessary? I’m indebted to Jessica Neuwirth for her excellent book Equal Means Equal: Why the Time For An Equal Rights Amendment Is Now for the clarity and concision of the following examples:

In the absence of an ERA, targeted federal legislation has been used to try to close the gaps, so we women have squeaked in, doing things piecemeal, relying on the Commerce Clause, the Equal Pay act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendment, the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. While this has helped, these federal laws are neither comprehensive nor fully inclusive (one has been partially struck down by the Supreme Court for lack of a constitutional foundation). Most critically, none of these laws has the force of a constitutional amendment, which means they do not cover everyone and they can be rolled back at any time by a simple congressional vote. Poof! There goes every form of misogynistic attitude and act against women let loose on us–terrifying.

Moreover, the United States is one of only seven countries in the world (along with Iran, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and two small Pacific Island nations, Palau and Tonga) that have not ratified the United Nations Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, otherwise known as CEDAW. It’s the international Bill of Rights for women, and it has been signed and ratified by 187 countries, virtually every nation in the world except the U.S.

President Jimmy Carter did sign it in 1980 but it must be ratified by a two thirds vote of the Senate to enter into force, yet apparently the United States can’t (or won’t) ratify it since the ERA has not yet passed.

What will the ERA really do? It will enshrine in the Constitution the value judgment that sex discrimination is wrong, require the federal government and each state to review and revise all laws and official practices to eliminate discrimination based on sex, and ensure that governments do not enact future laws that discriminate on the basis of sex. It will be the basis for recognition of the principle that the homemaker’s role in marriage has economic value and that marriage is a full partnership; it will ensure that non-monetary contributions to a marriage, such as household work and childcare, must be considered when a couple’s household goods are divided as a result of divorce; it will ensure that married women can engage in business freely and dispose of separate or community property on the same basis as married men, and it will give the same rights to a woman as to a man in marital law and allow a married woman to maintain a separate domicile for voting purposes, for passports, for car registration, etc. It will ensure equality of opportunity in public schools, state colleges, and universities, employment training programs of federal, state, or local governments, and in governmental recreation programs.

It will ensure equal opportunity, privileges, and benefits in all aspects of government employment. It will ensure that families of women workers receive the same benefits as families of male workers under the Social Security law, government pension plans, and workers’ compensation laws.

What will the ERA not do? Well, fortunately or unfortunately, it will not destroy the family. Neither will it mandate contraceptive use, or insist on abortions for women who don’t want to have them.

Public opinion charged way ahead of Phyllis Schlafly, because women are already in combat, performing with valor. Public opinion also left Phyllis at the starting gate in approving same-sex marriage. Nor will it require coed bathrooms, although when flying 35,000 feet in the air, people willingly use unisex bathrooms, anyway.

And frankly, I would wager that if you ask the average American woman if she would enjoy being discriminated against while pregnant or in case she might become pregnant, if she liked being battered by a violent partner, if she was content to sacrifice equal education, never even to aspire to equal pay, and would guffaw at the notion of equal sports access, she would get damned cranky. Even a great many American men might share that reaction.

As for being informed that the United States ranked with Iran, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Palau, and Tonga, sharing the humiliated status of not ratifying an international Bill of Rights for the majority of its citizens, again I’d wager that every “red blooded American” would fume with outrage.

I know. We’re tired. The last thing we need is a new cause. But you see, this is an old cause, unfinished. I know that we’re exhausted from COVID and lock-down and climate change crises, and years of Trump and the dreadful aftertaste he leaves in our mouths that still have to swallow some of his Big Lie Republican Party poison. We just want to curl up, squeeze our eyes shut, maybe suck on our thumbs, and listen to a nice fairy tale.

Well, your sunbeam sister here is telling you that the fairy tale will come when all women in this country live free, empowered, and protected by our Constitution. This is one fairy tale we can make come true.

So pick up or order a copy of Jessica Neuwirth’s excellent, thorough, and easily accessible book, and brandish it during Thanksgiving dinner arguments with certain members of that family that has not yet been destroyed. Then drop an email or call your senator, to weigh in as one of what I hope will be many voices saying Now!

Look, if we don’t do it this time, you and I both know we’ll just have to do it all over again, which will really be a drag. Hell is repetition without movement. This is a chance to strike a great blow for democracy in general and for women specifically.

So do it for Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony and the great Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Do it for all those hunger strikers and civilly disobedient girls and women who acted on their outrage. Do it for daughters and granddaughters–and sons and grandsons, too. But most of all, do it for yourselves.

Hell, yes! Put yourself in The Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America.

The post Once More, with Feeling:

The ERA appeared first on Robin Morgan | Author, Activist, Feminist | NYC.

COVIDead City is now the 18th largest city in the US, larger than Seattle by a good bit and smaller than San Francisco by a good bit, too (there's a 130,000 person population difference between the two cities).

It's remarkable how our perception of the magnitude and severity of this pandemic has changed, even among folks that aren't in the anti-vax/Ivermectin/Pandemic camp. This latest Delta-variant surge has never dipped below the second wave and yet nearly all of us are in a much less fraught state-of-mind than at most points last year. Doctors and nurses have been transformed from heroes to targets of abuse which, in combination with the trauma of dealing with so many deaths with no end is sight, is driving them to leave medicine entirely. A husband in Florida is suing the hospital staff who cared for his wife, who died of COVID, for not administering Ivermectin as he directed. D & I traveled through three states and D.C., and observed vastly different cultures around mask wearing. Hardly a mask worn in FL any more. My point is that the medical part of the pandemic has become landfill of the culture war that is playing out across the country, and the world.

My point is also that this five act play is still in Act IV. We have a lot of epic drama in front of us still.

And we are all just... exhausted... by it all; tear ducts wrung out, hearts shriveled two sizes too small as the deaths, the illnesses, the Long COVID, the hostility continues to amount, and the lines between the camps harden.

What's next? I don't know. I just know that a lot of change is on top of us, coming at us all from every direction possible, and at a speed beyond what even the best of us can manage. Maybe we thought we were finding a "new normal" but that's not true, either, because the scale, scope, and speed of the changes negates the formation of new norms. Or, said differently, if "ad hoc AF" is a new norm, then we have a new norm. Our lives as a Minimal Viable Product in an all-encompassing Agile paradigm with no project manager.

A final note: don't read this as if I wrote this in despair. I didn't. These are merely bald, unadorned observations now.

Author: Jonathan Cornwell

With all the issues we are facing now and have struggled with these past few years, the one that may be the most important is redistricting.  If we can't stop gerrymandering and ensure fair redistricting, the next ten years will be as bad, if not worse than, the kind of corruption, the failure of government, and the control of big business we have had to contend with the last four years or more.

It behooves each of us to consider it our responsibility in doing something about it as our HOMEWORK.  The following excerpt from the Indivisible website further explains the urgency.  I implore you to read it; then go to their website to lay the groundwork for completing your homework assignment.

The process by which congressional district lines are drawn dramatically impacts the fairness of our political process. In 35 states, the state legislature controls how district lines are drawn in a process known as redistricting, which occurs once every decade following the census. Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries in favor of a political party or incumbent.

The redistricting process is already underway. It’s important that we do everything in our power to ensure a fair redistricting process because we will be stuck with the next round of maps for a decade. If we allow state legislatures to gerrymander the maps like they did in 2010, it will lock voters into another decade of unfair and unresponsive representation. So what can we do in our own states?

https://indivisible.org/

We can do this if we all do our share.

With all the issues we are facing now and have struggled with these past few years, the one that may be the most important is redistricting.  If we can't stop gerrymandering and ensure fair redistricting, the next ten years will be as bad, if not worse than, the kind of corruption, the failure of government, and the control of big business we have had to contend with the last four years or more.

It behooves each of us to consider it our responsibility in doing something about it as our HOMEWORK.  The following excerpt from the Indivisible website further explains the urgency.  I implore you to read it; then go to their website to lay the groundwork for completing your homework assignment.

The process by which congressional district lines are drawn dramatically impacts the fairness of our political process. In 35 states, the state legislature controls how district lines are drawn in a process known as redistricting, which occurs once every decade following the census. Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries in favor of a political party or incumbent.

The redistricting process is already underway. It’s important that we do everything in our power to ensure a fair redistricting process because we will be stuck with the next round of maps for a decade. If we allow state legislatures to gerrymander the maps like they did in 2010, it will lock voters into another decade of unfair and unresponsive representation. So what can we do in our own states?

https://indivisible.org/

We can do this if we all do our share.

https://indivisible.org/

We’re a grassroots movement of thousands of local Indivisible groups with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.

Indivisible was founded in response to Trump’s election - but we know that Trump is a symptom of a sick democracy, not its cause. We face two fundamental problems: first, our democracy was rigged from the start in favor of the white and wealthy. Second, in the last few decades, an alliance of white nationalists and the ultra-rich have been actively working to further undermine democracy and cement their hold on power permanently. That’s how we ended up with Trump. 

We have to build a democracy that reflects a broad, multiracial “we the people,” one that works for all of us and is sustained by all of us. Only then will we be able to achieve a progressive vision for our future.

www.commoncause.org

Since 1970, Common Cause has been working to hold power accountable through lobbying, litigation, and grassroots organizing. Our non-partisan, pro-democracy work has helped pass hundreds of reforms at the federal, state, and local levels. Our more than 1 million members and more than 30 state organizations around the country work to strengthen our democracy by empowering the voices of everyday Americans in government.

Working together across party lines, we’re building a democracy that works for everyone. Common Cause is a nationwide network of skilled advocates, organizers, activists who are working every day to strengthen our democracy and the people’s right to speak, assemble, and critique our government to level the playing field for everyday people.

Kimberly Teehee  (19656 - )  

Over 200 years ago, the United States signed a treaty with the Cherokee Nation, granting them representation in Congress. However, this position was never filled until Kimberly Teehee entered the scene. In 2019, Teehee became the first Cherokee Nation delegate in the House of Representatives. As a lawyer, activist, and former advisor to President Obama, Teehee has quickly become a monumental figure in history.

Kimberly Teehee was born on March 2, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois. Due to a federal program under the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, Teehee’s parents were moved to Chicago. Although Teehee was born in this city, she grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma. She became a member of the Cherokee Nation and was highly involved in Cherokee Nation affairs. Teehee went on to attend Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma for her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Following this, she earned her law degree (Juris Doctor) from the University of Iowa, College of Law. During her time in law school, Teehee served in leadership positions with the National Native American Law Student Association and the Iowa Native American Law Student Association. Recognized for her work, she received the Bureau of National Affairs Award as a student.

In the early 1980s, Teehee began working actively in politics. She started her career as an intern for former chief Wilma Mankiller. Mankiller was the first and only woman to become chief of the Cherokee Nation, who often mentored young people within the nation. Teehee was influenced early on by Mankiller’s strength, leadership, and her influential friends. One of Mankiller’s best friends, Gloria Steinem, also welcomed Teehee. She said that both of those women “planted seeds firmly in me that I pay forward today to teenagers in rural communities.”[1] Teehee also recalls that Mankiller told her to make a decision that would change her life. “It was Wilma who told me to go to Washington, D.C. to go get greater experience and that I could always bring that back to the Cherokee Nation.”[2] Once in Washington, Teehee became a vocal leader and advocate for Native American rights. She held important positions on the Democratic National Committee and the Presidential Inaugural Committee for President Bill Clinton’s second Inauguration as the Deputy Director of Native American Outreach.

In January of 1998, Teehee became the Senior Advisor to Congressman Dale Kildee of Michigan. Congressman Kildee was the co-chair of the House of Representatives’ Native American Caucus. She served this Caucus for over a decade as a staffer on Capitol Hill. Through her involvement, the Caucus was able to make meaningful progress on a variety of laws affecting Native American issues including education, housing, and health care. By early 2009, President Barack Obama recognized Teehee, and selected her to serve on the White House Domestic Policy Council as the first-ever Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs. In this position, Teehee served to strengthen the relationship between the United States and tribal nations. For three years, she collaborated with various federal agencies to create policies that helped address concerns within Native American communities. Teehee’s work led to an Executive Order from the President to improve Tribal Universities, as well as American Indian and Alaska Native Education. In addition, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum on tribal consultation as a result of her work. During Teehee’s time in the White House, she was able to guide the President’s support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She also pushed for the support of legislation that would hold people accountable when they committed crimes of domestic violence against Native American Women. This was known as the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Teehee continued to make an impact in the White House by leading a government-wide team to monitor the progress of tribal policy and legislation, while organizing three White House Tribal Nations Conferences. In 2012, she began working as a Partner for a federal advocacy group called Mapetsi Policy Group. This organization represented the concerns of Native American tribes and tribal organizations. Two years later, Teehee became the Vice President of Government Relations for Cherokee Nation Businesses, and the Director of Government Relations for the Cherokee Nation. Due to her extensive experience, Teehee was the perfect person to fulfil the historic role as the first Cherokee delegate in the House of Representatives. Appointed in September of 2019, Teehee’s position was the result of a treaty signed between the United States and the Cherokee Nation over 200 years ago. This treaty promised the Cherokee Nation representation in Congress. Kimberly Teehee is the first person to fulfill this role.

MLA – Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Kimberly Teehee.” National Women’s History Museum, 2019. Date accessed.

Chicago – Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Kimberly Teehee.” National Women’s History Museum. 2019. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/kimberly-teehee.

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On November 11^th (Veterans Day) I attempted to post a tribute to our veterans.  Partway through my effort, Facebook blocked me on the grounds I was sharing with too many groups.   Now they will not let me share at all.

I am a member of all the groups I share with and have been anywhere from several months to almost two years each.  During this whole time, I have never received a single complaint from any of the groups’ administrators.  I have not and will not engage in posting material that violates rules of decency.

For now I am unable to share posts with your group and I do not know how long this situation will continue. To receive what I post, you may do one or more of the following.

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Thank you

Mary Golda Ross   (1908 – 2004)  From the Skunk Works to the stars: that was the trajectory of the remarkable and still partly secret career of Mary Golda Ross (Cherokee), the first Native aerospace engineer who was a member of the top-secret team planning the early years of space exploration. She is now being honored on a special $1 U.S. coin.

A Cherokee Education

Born in 1908, Mary Golda Ross grew up in Park Hill, Okla. Her great-great grandfather was Cherokee Chief John Ross, who led the Cherokee Nation during the traumatic and turbulent Indian Removal era of the 1830s that resulted in the forced relocation of thousands of Cherokee people to west of the Mississippi River in present-day Oklahoma.

Ross attributed her successes to the rich heritage of her Cherokee people and the importance of tribal emphasis on education. “I was brought up in the Cherokee tradition of equal education for boys and girls,” she said. “It did not bother me to be the only girl in the math class.” Her home town was the original site of the famed Cherokee Female Seminary, the first women’s institution of higher education west of the Mississippi. Its cornerstone was placed by Chief Ross in 1847, and it opened in 1851. The curriculum emphasized science, with courses in botany, chemistry and physics.

In 1909, the seminary became part of Oklahoma’s state educational system and was renamed the Northeastern State Teacher’s College. Mary Ross enrolled here at the age of 16 and graduated with a degree in mathematics. During the Great Depression, she taught science and math in rural Oklahoma. She put her skills to work on behalf of other Native people, first as a statistician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and then as an advisor to girls at the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School in New Mexico. (The school later became the Institute of American Indian Arts.)

A Rocket Scientist

It’s a tribute to both Ross’s ability and the quality of her eduction that she was able to launch successfully into the next stage of her career. Pursuing a passion for astronomy, she took a master’s degree at the Colorado State College of Education (now Northern Colorado University).

After earning her degree, Ross joined Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in 1942, helping design the P-38 fighter airplane. Six years later, she was an integral part of what was later called the “space race.” As one of 40 engineers in Lockheed’s Advanced Development Programs, what became known as the Skunk Works, the company’s top-secret think tank, she was the only woman on the team aside from the secretary. She was also the only American Indian.

Much of her research and writing at the Skunk Works remains classified, even today. “It is closed even to me,” laughs Willis Jenkins, an engineer in NASA’s Heliophysics Division, “even though I am an official at NASA.” Jenkins was assigned to research Ross’s career, as liaison to the U.S. Mint’s commemorative coin project. Jenkins notes, “I sought to place myself in her shoes by performing calculations to see how I would get a rocket in space. I marveled at the work that had been done to get a rocket outside the Earth’s atmosphere, which is a magnificent accomplishment.

“I have an advantage of a calculator these days versus the slide rule I used in the 1960s, similar to what Mary used working on preliminary design concepts for interplanetary space travel, manned and unmanned earth-orbiting flights, and the earliest studies of orbiting satellites for both defense and civilian purposes.”

As the American missile program matured, Ross found herself immersed in researching and evaluating feasibility and performance of ballistic missiles and other defense systems. She also studied the distribution of pressure caused by ocean waves and how it affected submarinelaunched vehicles. Space flight made use of missile advances originally developed for military purposes, like the Agena rocket. Ross helped develop operational requirements for the spacecraft, which later became a vital part of the Apollo program. Says Jenkins, “Mary worked on the Agena rocket orbital dynamics, calculating the transfer orbit as the rocket left the Earth’s atmosphere. Today’s engineer would use the computer program, MATLAB, and insert the parameter to determine when the rocket would reach its destination.”

Over the years, Ross helped write NASA’s Planetary Flight Handbook, the agency’s comprehensive guide to space travel. She worked on preliminary concepts for flights to Mars and Venus, laying the groundwork for missions that have not yet come to fruition.

A California newspaper reporter who interviewed Ross in 1961 wrote that she was “possibly the most influential Indian maid since Pocahontas” and noted that she was “making her mark in outer space.” She told the reporter, “I think of myself as applying mathematics in a fascinating field.” Another article at the time noted that Ross, who had yet to witness a rocket launch, thought women would make “wonderful astronauts.” But she insisted, “I’d rather stay down here and analyze the data.”

How to Get to Space

The design for the 2019 American Indian coin features an equation representative of Mary Golda Ross’s contribution to the U.S. space program and her skill in mathematics. Because much of her work remains classified, the U.S. Mint staff worked with Willis Jenkins, a NASA engineer from the agency’s Heliophysics Division, to determine an appropriate equation. The challenge was especially meaningful to Jenkins for two reasons. “Mary Golda Ross worked on designs for rockets and I have managed rockets in my career. Also, she was of Cherokee descent and I believe my mother’s family is as well.”

The equation, which is seen in the clouds on the design, was used to help determine the velocity needed to leave the Earth and travel to a distant planet such as Mars.

Jenkins identified the equation as “an example of a formula that Ms. Ross would have used to calculate interplanetary space travel, determine the departure plane orbit and transfer orbit energy.

V²∞ = V²- 2μ / r

V, is the speed of an orbiting body
V∞, is the orbit velocity when the orbit distance tends to infinity
μ = GM, is the standard gravitational parameter of the primary body, with mass M
r, is the distance of the orbiting body center

“Obviously,” says Jenkins, “there is no simple formula to be had for the complexity of going into space and reaching a planet. Several calculations are needed to reach space and the surrounding planets for which orbital dynamics play a major part in the operation. There are just too many variables.”

The Commemorative Coin

The earth-bound achievements of Mary Ross was the centerpiece in early 2019 of a new coin honoring American Indians in the Space Program. Each year since 2009, the United States Mint has produced and issued a $1 coin that celebrates significant contributions Indian tribes and persons have made to the history and development of the United States. Ross will represent both her own work and that of several other prominent Indians, such as astronaut John Herrington (Chickasaw) and flight controller Jerry C. Elliott High Eagle (Osage/Cherokee). Herrington manned the International Space Station in 2002. Elliott plotted the re-entry of the troubled Apollo 13 mission and received a Prsidential Medal of Freedom for his role in saving the astronauts.

The Ross proposal, like many of the Native American $1 coins, started as a narrative provided by and design concepts developed in consultation with the National Museum of the American Indian. The Native American $1 Coin Act requires consultation with the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate, the Congressional Native American Caucus of the House of Representatives, and the National Congress of American Indians. Once the design concepts are defined, the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) discusses them during its public meetings.

Emily Damstra, an American freelance science illustrator living in Guelph, Ont., was selected to create the design for the 2019 coin.

She explains, “I first learned about Mary Golda Ross upon receiving the assignment to design this coin celebrating the contributions of American Indians to the United States space program. Her achievements deeply impressed me, and I was excited for the opportunity to tell her story through numismatic art. From the beginning of my design process, before I had anything else worked out, I knew that my design would include a figure of her.” Damstra’s only regret is that she could not fit in a feather into her design.

A figure representing American Indian astronauts is included, she says, because, “I knew Ross was not the only American Indian who contributed to the space program. Though we don’t see his face, the astronaut in my design is outfitted as John Herrington would have been for extravehicular activity. I liked the idea of including an astronaut in space because such a feat was ultimately made possible by the work of people like Mary Golda Ross.

“I came up with the general design elements pretty quickly,” she admits, “but the details and configuration went through several iterations before being finalized. For example, I originally drew Ross using a Friden calculating machine, but it looked too much like a typewriter so I replaced it with paper, a pencil and a slide rule. Ross undoubtedly employed these tools while working on the Agena rocket program at Lockheed Martin. The small tools may not be obvious at coin size, but their purpose is evident in the large equation inscribed across the Atlas-Agena rocket exhaust behind Ross. I’m very grateful to NASA for providing that equation.”

Inspiring the Future

Although humble, Ross herself likely realized the important legacy of her work. After retiring from Lockheed at age 65, she pursued her interests in engineering by delivering lectures to high school and college groups to encourage young women and Native American youth to train for technical careers.

In 2004, at age 96, she attended the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Wearing a traditional green calico Cherokee dress she had asked a niece to make especially for the occasion, she marched in the opening procession of 25,000 Native people. Said a friend, “She felt she was a part of history being made, again.” She herself said, “The Museum will tell the true story of the Indian, not just the story of the past, but an ongoing story.” Ross died four years later, a few months before her 100th birthday. She lived long enough to see her work help launch an American Indian astronaut into orbit.

AUTHOR: HERMAN VIOLA

Dr. Herman Viola serves as senior advisor for the Museum’s National Native American Veterans Memorial Project, is curator emeritus at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and is a member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.

We offer our thanks and praise to those who have and who are serving their country (us) so well.  We particularly want to make note of those who often are forgotten - women and people of color.  Our gratitude to all of you.