Daily Archives: 11/26/2013

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Birth Control


Democrats
The Supreme Court just decided to take up a case that could determine whether or not for-profit companies can deny their employees’ access to birth control. Republicans opposed to the Affordable Care Act are taking an extreme position and arguing that women’s bosses should have a say in their personal health decisions — which could undermine a core tenet of Obamacare and compromise women’s health.
That means it couldn’t be a more important time to speak out in favor of a woman’s right to make her own choices about her health. Let’s all stand together to show this is a decision that belongs to a woman, not her employer:

http://my.democrats.org/Stand-with-Women

Load image and stand with women.
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Could this happen to you?


Imagine that complications from your pregnancy put your health at risk and when you arrive at the hospital you suddenly find out that they can refuse to help you.

This horrific reality has happened to many women, and it will happen again. If your local hospital is religiously affiliated — or if it employs doctors or nurses who have religious objections to providing needed medical care — it could even happen to you.

Tell the Department of Health: Women in Washington deserve better.

Within the next two years, more than 50 percent of hospital admissions in Washington may be to Catholic institutions that restrict patient access to medication and procedures. These religiously affiliated hospitals allow religious doctrine, rather than proven medical best practices, to dictate the kind of care and procedures pregnant women and patients can receive. In these hospitals, patient care and medical standards often run a distant second to religious doctrine. As a result, women’s health can suffer, and lives can be at risk and all the while women continue to seek care at these hospitals with no idea.

You can change this. The Washington Department of Health is asking for comments on proposed changes to hospital disclosure policies.

Submit your comment today to ensure that hospitals in Washington fully inform their patients about the reproductive health services they do and do not provide.

Many women seeking care at these hospitals may not realize that the hospitals deny care for women and patients in emergency situations, including:

  • Prohibiting prompt, medically indicated treatment of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy, even if the woman’s life and health is at risk.
  • Refusing   to inform a couple about their contraceptive options, including sterilization, even though a pregnancy could threaten the women’s health or life.
  • Requiring patients in persistent vegetative states to be kept on feeding tubes even when a patient has specifically indicated that a feeding tube is something he or she would never want.

This is a growing problem in Washington. Women cannot wait until they are in dire need of services to be informed of their care. Please take action right now — the comment period closes at midnight on November 26.

Thanks for keeping it personal,

Thao Nguyen
Campaign Director
This Is Personal
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A Deal With Iran


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Global Powers Reach Interim Agreement on Iran’s Nuclear Program

After months of previously secret high-level meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials and years of international diplomacy, global powers reached a signifcant interim agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program.

ThinkProgress has the details of the deal, which is meant to provide six months for negotiators to hammer out a final, comprehensive agreement:

According to the terms of the deal, Iran has agreed to open itself up to more and greater sanctions from the International Atomic Energy Agency, while halting the installation of any further centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent will be diluted, and construction at the heavy water reactor in Arak will be halted. Progress at Arak, which will be able to produce plutonium when fully operational, was a key concern left unresolved at the last round of talks.

In exchange, according to the White House fact sheet on the interim deal, the so-called P5+1 — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, and Russia — will provide “limited, temporary, targeted, and reversible” relief from sanctions to Iran. This will include the release approximately $4.2 billion of Iranian funds currently being held and suspending sanctions on “gold and precious metals, Iran’s auto sector, and Iran’s petro-chemical exports” to the tune of approximately $1.5 billion. Embargoes against Iranian oil, banking institutions, and other financial sanctions will remain in place during the six month period the deal covers.

Polling out last week indicated that Americans overwhelmingly support an agreement along the lines of the deal reached on Saturday.

Nevertheless, Republicans and some Democrats almost immediately criticized the deal and threatened to pass additional sanctions when Congress returns next month, something which would violate the agreement and blow up the deal. Last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) explained her opposition to a new round of sanctions:

“If you want a war, that is the thing to do. I don’t want a war. The American people don’t want a war. We’ve had years in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is an opportunity to move in a different path, and we ought to try it.”

Others, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), likened the deal to the unsuccessful effort to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. Here’s five reasons why they are wrong.

Still other critics of the deal, including Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), made the bizarre and utterly ridiculous suggestion that the years-in-the-making, high-profile international diplomatic effort was really just a plot to distract from the rollout of HealthCare.gov.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been sharply critical of what he called “a historic mistake,” an Israeli military official said a deal could increase regional stability.

(ThinkProgress explains how the deal would look compared to the cartoon bomb that Netanyahu famously displayed during a speech before the United Nations General Assembly last year.)

BOTTOM LINE: The first-step deal announced yesterday in Geneva represents a major achievement by the Obama administration, addressing a top U.S. security challenge. By marshaling all the elements of American power—diplomatic, economic, and military—the United States and its partners haven taken a significant step toward addressing one of the most pressing concerns in the Middle East: the Iranian nuclear program.