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Friday Femorandum: The Hypocrites Hall of Fame

While the nation mourned the loss of dozens of lives in Las Vegas and wondered how many deaths would be enough to force the White House to act on gun violence, President Trump was focused on taking away women’s right to decide when, whether, and how to start our expand their families. CNN reports on the new rules, which “would let a broad range of employers — including nonprofits, private firms…

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Friday Femorandum: A Pretty Bold Claim

Perhaps seeking a distraction from their repeated failure to pass legislation robbing tens of millions of Americans of their health care coverage, Republicans in Congress will vote next week on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks. The “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act”—a name that is inaccurate and unscientific on at least two counts—would make it a crime “to perform or attempt…

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Friday Femorandum: A Grim Example

While all right-thinking people in the United States were horrified by President Donald Trump’s equivocal statements about the violent white supremacists who killed Heather Heyer and injured at least 19 other counterprotesters in Charlottesville last weekend, Trump was quietly working to sign away one of the most fundamental components of the Affordable Care Act: The contraceptive mandate, which…

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Friday Femorandum: Outside the "Big Tent"

Friday Femorandum: Outside the “Big Tent”

As you’re probably aware, the Democrats are currently weighing whether abortion rights are important enough to fight for. Specifically, the man who heads up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which provides funding and support to congressional candidates, said recently that the Party will throw its support behind candidates who oppose women’s right to choose when, whether, and how…

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Friday Femorandum: Fake Clinics, Real Consequences

Women in Seattle and the rest of King County, Washington, had reason to celebrate this week, when the King County Board of Health voted to adopt a new rule requiring “crisis pregnancy centers”—fake “clinics” run by anti-choice nonprofits that bait pregnant women with promises of medical care and counseling, then try to talk them out of having abortions—to disclose the fact that they do not…

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Friday Femorandum: Call Your Representatives!

As readers of the Femorandum are undoubtedly aware, the US Senate is currently working frantically to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and eliminate insurance coverage for 22 million Americans. (If you haven’t called your senators yet, there’s still time! Find out their contact information here). Repealing the ACA would particularly impact vulnerable women who need family planning services or…

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Friday Femorandum: Meet the New Trumpcare, Same As the Old Trumpcare

The big news this week was the US Senate’s latest tax cuts for the wealthy health care “reform” bill, which in addition to eliminating coverage for millions of poor Americans who get their health care through Medicaid and setting up a death spiral for the individual market will once again make being a woman a preexisting condition, effectively end private coverage for abortion care, and defund…

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Friday Femoradum: Below the Fold

There’s a certain danger in paying too much attention to the daily barrage of terrifying headlines that now dominate the daily news cycle. Today, alone, we learned that President Trump has acknowledged he is under investigation for obstruction of justice; that administration officials are genuinely afraid he will fire both the special prosecutor appointed to investigate him and the man who…

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Friday Femorandum: Emboldened

As abortion-rights proponents predicted after the election, the battle against women’s right to choose in Trump’s America is playing out not just at the federal level—where Congress is working to defund Planned Parenthood and Trump’s health department is working to end access to affordable birth control—but in the states. Across the country, anti-choice state legislatures have felt emboldened by…

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Friday Femorandum: "Moral Objections"

Friday Femorandum: “Moral Objections”

Remember, 500 years ago, when you didn’t wake up every morning and wonder, as you opened your eyes, “What horrible thing has the President done to women while I slept?” This week, women across the country learned that the serial sexual harasser, two-time divorcee, and proud p*ssy-grabber who occupies the Oval Office has decided our employers should be allowed to decide they don’t want to pay for…

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Friday Femorandum: "A Significant Escalation"

Friday Femorandum: “A Significant Escalation”

Renee Bracey Sherman’s editorial in the Sunday New York Times, titled, “Who Should You Listen to on Abortion? People Who’ve Had Them” kicked off the week with a bracing dose of common sense—an antidote to a President and Congress who have spent their first few months of unilateral control imposing ill-founded policies based in ideology, not economics or science, on the millions of Americans who…

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Friday Femorandum: Women in America Will Not Be Fooled

While all eyes were (understandably) on Trump’s attempts to cover up Russian interference in the 2016 election and prevent federal watchdogs from investigating his many ties to Russia this week, we thought we’d take a moment to look at a few national stories that didn’t get much press, but which illustrate the profound importance not only of electing progressive candidates, but of insisting…

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Friday Femorandum: Peddling Pseudoscience

While President Trump has stumbled repeatedly in his efforts to squelch investigations into Russian election interference, deport immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and ban Muslims from entering the country, he has had some major successes in one area: Restricting access to reproductive health care and turning the US into a real-life version of The Handmaid’s Tale. We…

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Friday Femorandum: Searching for the Great White Male

Pro-choice activists (rightly) have been keeping the furor over Independent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders’ support for anti-choice Democrat Heath Mello alive, after Sanders and Democratic National Committee president Tom Perez effectively told women to sit down and shut up about abortion rights last week. Mello, a former Nebraska state legislator who’s running for mayor of Omaha, sponsored and…

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Friday Femorandum: Reproductive Rights are an Economic Justice Issue

NARAL Pro-Choice America endorsed Hillary Clinton for President, arguing—contentiously, in many quarters—that Bernie Sanders’ “better-economic-policy-lifts-all-boats” brand of progressivism ignored and sidelined issues like abortion rights and access to reproductive health care, as well as economic policies specifically aimed at reducing the inequities that keep women trapped in low-paying jobs…

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Friday Femorandom: There Is No Pivot

For all the talk of a Trump “pivot”—he learned about the history of China and North Korea! He understands that NATO isn’t a pay-to-play protection racket!—one policy area where the president hasn’t budged is the area of women’s rights. Indeed, the last week or so saw Trump not only repealing fair pay rules that protected women working for companies that contract with the federal government, but…

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Friday Femorandum: Blowing Up the Senate

If you’re confused about what the “nuclear option” is, why Senate Republicans used it to ensure appointment for Trump Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, and why the Democrats may actually have won by losing, here are a few links that explain what the heck happened this week, why it matters to the future of the Senate and to the Democratic Party, and what advocates for equality and reproductive…

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