Category: Civil Equality

Ursula Wing Sold Abortion Pills Online, Awaits Federal Indictment

~ mcequality

Federal agents are preparing to indict a New York woman who, for two years, sold abortion pills to more than 2,000 people. Mother Jones reports that in May 2016, Ursula Wing discreetly began selling abortion pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, on her blog, Macrobiotic Stoner, where she had written about “terminating her own pregnancy with pills she’d bought online, and women regularly posted comments asking for help to do the same.” Wing offered them without any consultation or prescription for $85, and soon became invested in the work:

While filling them, she corresponded with many more women—a teenager afraid to tell her parents she was pregnant, a woman hiding her abortion from an abusive partner, another who wrote that she wore the necklace included in her package to remind her of what she had been through. One woman, Wing recalled, told her she was doing “God’s work.” Wing had thought hers was one in “a sea of websites offering this,” but she came to see just how few options the women who contacted her had. “It started changing into something political,” she says. “I felt very obligated.”

via Ursula Wing Sold Abortion Pills Online, Awaits Federal Indictment

Kansas bills say same-sex marriage is ‘parody marriage’

~ mcequality

A group of state representatives in Kansas introduced legislation Wednesday that seeks to define same-sex marriage as “parody marriage,” stop the state from recognizing gay marriage and establish an “elevated marriage” option for straight couples who seek “higher standards of commitment.”

One of the two bills introduced contends LGBTQ people are aligned with the secular humanism movement, which it calls a religion. It also calls the gay pride rainbow flag a symbol of a “faith-based worldview.”

By doing so, the proposed legislation seeks to define marriage between a man and a woman as “neutral” and same-sex marriage as religious in nature. It then contends the state cannot constitutionally condone a religious practice.

via Kansas bills say same-sex marriage is ‘parody marriage’

French Journalists Talk About Ligue du LOL Group Harassment

~ mcequality

It appears that an powerful group of male journalists in France, known online in a group cornily dubbed the “Laughing Out Loud League,” have been casually promoting the harassment of their women peers.

RFI (Radio France Internationale) reports that the group was a private Facebook group started in 2009 by the Libération writer Vincent Glad. The “Ligue du Lol” sort of sounds like the “Binders” groups that American women have created for writing and other fields, except this is for influential douchebags. “The original idea was for this group of young males-on-the-make in the world of Paris media to share private jokes, sometimes about their female colleagues,” RFI reports.

via French Journalists Talk About Ligue du LOL Group Harassment

Rikers Rape Victim Wins Settlement After Smuggling out DNA Evidence

~ mcequality

Jane Doe, a woman who smuggled out clothing with DNA evidence on it after she was raped by a guard at Rikers won her $500,000 settlement in a civil lawsuit against the city in a rare victory on Monday, the Intercept reported.

According to the Intercept, Jose Cosme, the guard who sexually assaulted Jane Doe, cornered her in an office. Jane Doe accused another officer, Leonard McNeil, of arranging the rape after Cosme found out that McNeil had a sexual relationship with Jane Doe (any sexual relationship is considered non-consensual between a guard and a incarcerated person under New York law). McNeil was neither prosecuted nor disciplined.

via Rikers Rape Victim Wins Settlement After Smuggling out DNA Evidence

‘Where Would I Go?’: Domestic Violence Victims Brace for Another Shutdown  

~ mcequality

The government will close again on Friday unless Congress and the White House reach a deal or pass another temporary spending measure. But as another shutdown looms, domestic violence shelters that depend on federal funding are still dealing with the repercussions of last month’s historic shutdown.

“The most constant word I’ve said is uncertainty,” Jean Collins, the executive director of Huntingdon House, a small domestic violence organization that runs a 16-bed shelter in rural Pennsylvania, told Jezebel. “My biggest problem as executive director is that I’m getting virtually no information.”

Despite the fact that the government is re-opened for the time being, there is little assurance that it won’t close down again by the February deadline. Donald Trump hasn’t ruled out the possibility of another shutdown, indicating that he is willing to double down on his strategy of holding the government hostage for border wall funding, and negotiations reportedly broke down again over the weekend.

For a list of support centres around the world use https://www.mysticmag.com/psychic-reading/domestic-violence-resource-guide/

via ‘Where Would I Go?’: Domestic Violence Victims Brace for Another Shutdown  

Ligue du LOL: Secret group of French journalists targeted women – BBC News

~ mcequality

Several senior French journalists have been suspended or fired for allegedly co-ordinating online harassment through a private Facebook group.
The largely-male Ligue du LOL (League of LOL) mocked women, including other journalists, with rape jokes and photoshopped pornographic images.
Dozens of women have spoken out since the group was uncovered by the major French daily Libération.
Libération’s online editor Alexandre Hervaud is among those suspended.
People in the League of LOL set up anonymous Twitter accounts in order to harass prominent journalists, writers and activists – predominantly targeting women.
Vincent Glad, a well-known freelancer who also worked for Libération, admitted founding the group in 2009. He has also been suspended from the paper.

via Ligue du LOL: Secret group of French journalists targeted women – BBC News

Videos Show Southwest Key Staff Dragging, Shoving Migrant Kids

~ mcequality

Using state public-records laws, The Arizona Republic has obtained video from surveillance cameras showing staff at a now-shuttered Southwest Key shelter for migrant children in Arizona physically dragging and pushing children in their care. But authorities determined that the physical aggression used against the children last September does not constitute a crime.

This week, Splinter’s Samantha Grasso reported that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office closed three cases of child abuse reported at the Hacienda Del Sol children’s shelter, operated by Southwest Key in Youngtown, Arizona, after only reviewing security camera footage and without interviewing the Southwest Key employees allegedly involved or the minors reported to have been abused.

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In the videos obtained by the Republic, incidents that occurred on Sept. 14, 17, and 21 involved shelter staff dragging, pulling, and slapping a young boy, and dragging another child against their will. The videos are blurred to protect the identities of the children.

via Videos Show Southwest Key Staff Dragging, Shoving Migrant Kids

Jazmine Headley’s Arrest and the ‘Slow Violence’ of Poverty

~ mcequality

On Tuesday afternoon, elected officials in New York City gathered in front of City Hall to denounce the violent arrest of 23-year-old Jazmine Headley, which had happened the previous Friday while she and her 1-year-old son were waiting at one of the city’s public assistance offices. Headley’s arrest was captured in a hard to watch video taken by a bystander; in it, you can see a swarm of security guards and police officers surrounding her as she sits on the floor clutching her son Damone, repeatedly calling out, “They’re hurting my son!” before an officer ripped the one-year-old out of her arms. At one point, an officer takes out a bright yellow taser and waves it around at the people watching in horror.

In the days that followed, the consequences had continued to compound for Headley, who did nothing to provoke the reaction of the Human Resource Administration security guards and NYPD officers except, perhaps, commit the sin of being black and in need of childcare assistance and a place to sit. The Brooklyn district attorney had dropped all charges against Headley, but as of Tuesday afternoon, she was still being held, without bail, at Rikers Island, the city’s jail, as a result of an outstanding warrant related to a credit card fraud case in New Jersey.

via Jazmine Headley’s Arrest and the ‘Slow Violence’ of Poverty

Advocates Say the NYPD Has ‘Pressured’ Rape Victims Into Ending Investigations

~ mcequality

Victim advocates are concerned that the New York Police Department may be forcing rape victims to sign “withdrawal” forms that close their cases without ever investigating them, the Appeal reports.

In 2012, the Special Victims Division asked 19-year-old Katherine Murrell to sign a “C-3 Uncooperative Complainant” form, which authorized the NYPD to close Murrell’s case on her account of lack of cooperation. But Murrell signed the form thinking she had no other option, and that by signing it, she was cooperating with officers

via Advocates Say the NYPD Has ‘Pressured’ Rape Victims Into Ending Investigations

Steve King Isn’t the Only Elected Official Pursuing a White Supremacist Vision for America | American Civil Liberties Union

~ mcequality

Last week, U.S. Rep. Steve King, Republican from Iowa, posed a question to a New York Times reporter that laid bare his racist ideology: “White nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” He didn’t stop there. In the same interview, he expressed resentment toward the record-breaking gender and racial diversity of the 116th Congress: “You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men.”

His words were not taken out of context, as he now argues. Nor is such racism new for him. During the Republican National Convention in 2016, King responded to a critique about older white men dominating the Republican Party by questioning the contributions that people of color have made to civilization. “I’d ask you to go back through history, and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about – where did any other sub group of people contribute more to civilization?” he said on an MSNBC panel.

via Steve King Isn’t the Only Elected Official Pursuing a White Supremacist Vision for America | American Civil Liberties Union