Category: Women’s Rights

By Lori Saldaña / Part Three of Four

In Part 2, Lori Saldaña discussed the path to her decision to mount a grass-roots campaign for the California Assembly in 2004. She really didn’t have a choice: all the political pros around thought she was too much of an outsider.

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I decided to give up on getting support from Sacramento. My volunteers and I adopted the motto “We Walk, We Win.” A typical weekday would be: make calls to raise money in the morning (rarely more than a few hundred dollars), walk precincts in the afternoon (rarely actually talking to voters at that time of day), then teach in the evening. On weekends I would walk 4 precincts: 2 on Saturday, 2 more on Sunday.

Between these activities, I was looking after 2 houses and providing care for my mother and grandmother, whose illnesses had required additional surgeries and hospitalizations.

Some San Diegans will be honoring September 11th by demonstrating for their freedoms and against US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia – who is attending the California State Bar Convention being held in San Diego this week – for abusing the rights of so many Americans. Scalia consistently voted against women’s rights, most recently in the Hobby Lobby case, has equated homosexuality to murder and bestiality, and overturned key elements of the Voting Rights Act.

Justice Scalia will be here on Thursday, September 11th. – MORE INSIDE …

Scalia: an Utter Moral Failure – SEE INSIDE

As leaders like Planned Parenthood are dropping “pro-choice” language, is there a smart alternative—and should there be one?

By Alyssa Figueroa / AlterNet

Across America, reproductive freedom is shrinking. Even with Alabama’s recent court victory protecting abortion rights in that deep red state, the overwhelming trend is very discouraging.

Red-state Republicans have shut down clinics in states like Texas. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld protesters’ right to harass women going to clinics. State legislatures have …

National movement using humor and outrage to remove bodily autonomy-hating local politicians from office

By ladypartsjustice

Lady Parts Justice is the first not safe for work, rapid response reproductive rights messaging hub that uses comedy, culture and digital media to get people off their asses and reclaim their rights.

By Lauree Benton

“Corporations are people, my friend.”

Women? Well… the jury is still out on that. Whether you are a person or not may depend on the religious views of your boss.

Makes sense I guess. The Constitution does say that all men are created equal.

I’m sure the ALL MALE majority who made this stirring decision is just looking out for us lady types. You know, we can’t be trusted.

Think you always have a choice over how to give birth? Think again.

By Michele Goodwin / AlterNet

When most women become pregnant, understandably they believe the choice of how they give birth will remain theirs; whether to deliver vaginally or through cesarean surgery or where to give birth, at home or at a hospital. Decades ago, those decisions were well within the domain of pregnant patients whose reproductive liberty and autonomy interests gained constitutional recognition in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

After all, whose body is it anyway? But what may have seemed clear-cut decades ago, is now put to the test by doctors and lower courts.

Six women have filed a lawsuit against the program director of a Rock Church-affiliated recovery program alleging sexual battery and sexual harassment. The suit states that program director David Powers committed the non-consensual sexual incidents as he owns ABC Sober Living. His wife and the church are also listed as defendants. Five of the women were participants in the drug and alcohol rehab program and one was a former employee.

The women say that Powers – calling himself the director of the Rock Recovery Ministry – groped or sexually assaulted them. His spouse, Tina Powers, also a defendant, is alleged to have intimidated the victims when they complained, and it’s alleged that she was aware of her husband’s misconduct.

Come celebrate with the OB Woman’s Club as they enjoy the 90th anniversary of the Club.

Thur. April 17 The Ocean Beach Woman’s Club Turns 90!

Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents:

The Ocean Beach Woman’s Club Turns 90!

Come Celebrate the Women of O.B. and their Fabulous History

— at P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., OB

Marlise Muñoz was removed from life support, but a growing pattern of state intervention in pregnancies threatens women from Alabama to Wisconsin.

By Michele Bratcher Goodwin / Alternet

In Texas, hospital officials refused for over two months to remove 33-year-old Marlise Muñoz, who was declared brain dead, from life support because of her pregnancy. A court ruling on Friday ordered John Peter Smith Hospital to take Munoz off life support in accordance with the family’s wishes, and her body was disconnected from machines on Sunday, Jan. 26.

The tragedy of Muñoz’s case is that it fits a terrible pattern of state interventions in women’s pregnancies.

The man who committed sexual assaults against two women in OB pleaded guilty on Monday, March 3rd, and agreed to be sentenced to 30 years in state prison.

On the day he was to go to trial, Richard C Butts, 26, plead guilty to to one count of oral copulation with a kidnapping allegation and one count of forcible rape with a multiple victim allegation. He’ll be formally sentenced April 17th.

Eager volunteers work long hours recreating Cabrillo’s galleon at Spanish Landing

Editor: We covered the building of the San Salvador by San Diego volunteers back in May of 2012 and posted a photo essay of the wonderful reconstruction of the Spanish galleon. Here, Judi Curry continues our coverage with a special focus on the women volunteers, the Women of the San Salvador.

By Judi Curry

The Maritime Museum of San Diego is building a $5 million replica of San Salvador, the galleon Cabrillo guided here in 1542 when he became the first European to explore what is today known as San Diego Bay. The museum has dedicated a construction site for the ship which was donated by the San Diego Port District on public land at Spanish Landing, 2 miles from where its main collection of historic vessels are docked on North Harbor Drive.

Thirty-five months have passed since the keel was first laid in March of 2011. This three-masted galleon, totaling 88 feet of beautiful wood will weigh 200,000 tons when completed. Plans call for the ship to open as a paid attraction in 2014, when it joins the museum’s other ships at the nearby embarcadero.

By Erika Couric / Special to the OB Rag

Former federal prosecutor Sarah Boot is Run Women Run’s endorsed candidate for San Diego City Council District 2.

Boot left the U.S. Attorney’s Office to run for this seat and explains her motivation as follows: “I’m running for office because I’m passionate about public service and I’m committed to making my community a better place to live, work and raise a family.”

Boot has extensive experience in law enforcement prosecuting bank robbers, drug dealers and child sex traffickers. She also has private law practice experience representing local technology businesses, internet companies and non-profits. She has been a community leader for many years with much of her work dedicated to advancing the status of women.