35 Presbyterian collegiate women gather in nation's capital   [9-6-07]

Presbyterian News Service reports that the National Network of Presbyterian College Women (NNPCW) held its annual leadership event July 25-29 at American University in Washington D.C. This year's theme, "Speaking Truth to Power," drew 35 young women from private and public universities nationwide.

Many issues pertinent to the upcoming 2008 election influenced the conference. To teach about the connection between faith and politics, the leadership event planning team organized a different plenary speaker each night and a visit to the PC(USA)'s Washington, D.C. office.

One of the speakers was Mara Vanderslice, the founder of Common Good Strategies. Her focus is on helping elected officials and candidates with tools to connect with religiously diverse communities. One student, Rachel Lewis, a senior at the University of Washington, commented "I really liked the talk by Vanderslice because she is actually working in the political field to help Democrats understand how faith and politics is for everyone, not just Republicans."

This note was sent by Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood to supporters of the group.

I want you to be among the first to know about a major victory Planned Parenthood just won. It's a giant step forward in protecting women's access to emergency contraception (EC).

In recent weeks, Planned Parenthood activists fanned out across the nation checking, community by community, on access to EC at local pharmacies.

Armed with evidence gathered by these Pill Patrol members, Planned Parenthood approached Wal-Mart asking it to clarify its policies on this crucial issue.

We've just received word that Wal-Mart has now committed in writing to a nationwide corporate policy on emergency contraception. Under that policy, Wal-Mart will stock EC and dispense it without discrimination and without delay. Of course, we have to remain vigilant to make sure Wal-Mart puts this policy into practice.

But our hard work has really paid off. And now, we've got to act quickly to build on this remarkable victory.

There are major pharmacy chains that continue to threaten women's health when it comes to access to EC. And today, fresh from our Wal-Mart victory, we're zeroing in on the biggest holdout.

It's time to target Target.

The first step is to gather more evidence -- the same fact-based approach that worked so well in convincing Wal-Mart to act. And we need your help.

Sign up now to be part of the Planned Parenthood Pill Patrol campaign. Visit Target stores in your community to check on the availability of emergency contraception. http://www.ppaction.org/ct/MdLuW4p1ZEgV/

Make no mistake about it. We just won a huge victory for women's health and for Planned Parenthood's campaign for accessible birth control. Now Wal-Mart joins other women-friendly pharmacy chains like CVS, Eckerd's, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Kmart, all of which have agreed to do the right thing on access to EC.

But our work won't be done until Target and other pharmacy chains adopt policies that protect women's health. Thank you so much for the effort and commitment that produced a Wal-Mart victory that will affect thousands of women's lives. And thanks even more for your continued commitment to our efforts to protect women's health.

Please join the Pill Patrol today. Sign up now. http://www.ppaction.org/ct/MdLuW4p1ZEgV/

Sincerely,

They say:

Voices of Sophia, a national advocacy group working for the full inclusion and equality of women in the Presbyterian Church, met recently in Ghost Ranch, Santa Fe from October 26-29, 2006, for worship, reflection and re-connection.

100 years of milestones in the PC(USA)'s efforts to achieve full equality in ministry  [10-24-06]

The New York Times reports that clergywomen find it difficult to move into larger congregations as heads of staff
[8-28-06]

The story >>

On Wednesday evening, June 21, the General Assembly approved an overture from the Health Issues committee dealing with late-term pregnancies that, in the words of Presbyterian News Service, "affirms the lives of viable unborn babies."

You can read the report on JustPresbys >>           or on the PC(USA) website >>

Ann Hayman, a member of the PARO Leadership Team, offers this comment on the GA action:

Well, folks -- this has only served to convince me that Presbyterians should not be allowed to practice medicine in groups larger than two. The debates concerning our abortion policies in both the Health Committee and on the floor of GA were confused and confusing. We had several commissioners who fought a brave battle. It is too soon to assess how much damage was done to our Late-Term, Post-Viability Abortion Policy . I assume that the Stated Clerk’s office will have to cull through this and make some kind of a determination. I fear that we've lost the edge and it will become difficult to do much with this in the realm of amicus briefs.

The new policy certainly does not speak to much of any kind of reality I've ever encountered. Post-viability abortions only involve compromised fetuses -- the unborn that have been medically determined to be incompatible with life. We Presbyterians have come out squarely for viable fetuses and healthy babies, so I'm not sure what we have. The prevailing myth of the Assembly was that 8-month pregnant woman who wakes up one morning and decides she's tired of being pregnant and on impulse (whim) seeks an abortion. It just doesn't happen. I will continue to be dismayed at the abominable and undeserved lack of trust we manifest for both women and physicians, most of whom put their life on the line to do this work.

Upward and onward to San Jose in 2008.

Ann

What are women's public values?
What do they mean for policy and practice?

Help us answer these questions on May 15 or 18.

You're invited to participate in a unique and exciting event!

Using new and emerging technology, the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is holding an unprecedented online convening of women, where we will write a statement on women's vision for public life--and how we might live it out in policymaking and practice.

The event is sponsored by IWPR's project on Politics, Religion, and Women's Public Vision, which is raising the visibility of women's values for public life and building networks among women in religious movements for social justice and women's movement organizing. By participating, you will help us develop a statement and policy agenda that seeks to advance women's values in American public life.

There are two opportunities to participate:

May 15, 2006, 4 pm to 6 pm EST (East Coast time)
May 18, 2006, 4 pm to 6 pm PST (West Coast time)

Please register by Wednesday, May 10th.

Synanim is a unique online process that enables participants to contribute as individuals but to share interactively. Information on the process is available at www.synanim.com.

After the event, you will receive a copy of the statement. It will be used to help us develop a policy agenda based on women's values. We will keep you apprised of future events and publications incorporating the statement. We are also planning to provide additional opportunities for participants to interact.

To participate, please register by clicking here. You will be prompted to indicate which day you will take part. Prior to the writing session you will receive an email from Synanim (help@synanim.com) with a web link and your login and password information.

Questions? For information about IWPR's work on women's public vision, email Erica Williams at williams@iwpr.org.

Peace,

Rita Nakashima Brock is an award-winning author and a respected international lecturer and scholar in religion. She directed a think tank for women at Harvard University for several years and has worked for two decades in the field of religion in higher education.

Along with business and technology strategist Brian Sarrazin, she founded Faith Voices, a non-profit community of diverse member organizations. Faith Voices uses Synanim, a powerful new technology innovation, to bring theological educators into dialogue with policy experts and activists. To advance the common good, American public life needs new language, new ideas, and strong leaders. Member organizations experience the power of engaging with a broad constituency sharing progressive commitments, such as the value of diversity in a democratic society; the respect and dignity of every human being; justice for all, especially the underprivileged and disenfranchised.

Pastors may join Gather Heart, a nationwide online community of preachers committed to speaking prophetically on social justice issues using Synanim, levering speed and strength of the internet with a warm, human approach. Synanim is like a high-voltage brainstorming session.

Featured speaker at GA, Voices of Sophia breakfast

Dr. Brock will be the featured speaker at the Voices of Sophia breakfast at General Assembly June 19^th. She will be sharing the research she did on early Christianity, at a time before crucifixion and resurrection became the core of Christian theology, a time she calls paradise. Tickets are available for $20 online until May 22^nd and upon arrival at GA. Tickets will not be sold at the door.

To register online, go to https://ogasys3.pcusa.org/mrcjava/ga04webreg/m00140gs.mrc

This process will allow you both to register as a visitor (or whatever), and to order tickets for GA special events, including most of those listed here.

Nicholas Kristof reports from a maternity hospital in Niger about the consequences – unintended, perhaps, but no less terrible for all that – of the Bush policy of refusing to support the U.N. Population Fund in the name of its "pro-life" position. For lack of a few dollars for urgently needed medicines and care, women die in labor, or their babies die, when they could be helped.

Kristof also mentions a grass-roots organization started by two American women, which seeks to make up for the Bush cuts with private donations; its website is www.34millionfriends.org.)

If you favor women's right to choose, you may want to contact your Senators and Senator Bill Frist today, to defend the possibility of the choice of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) as chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter is the only pro-choice Republican on the committee.

Thousands from the Religious Right are calling and e-mailing, and those who favor choice must be heard from too. Also, perhaps let Specter's office know that he has your support.  [11-9-04]

Comments similar to those made by religious right extremists   [4-28-04]

In interviews given to CNN and other news agencies, top Presidential advisor Karen Hughes compared pro-choice Americans to "the terrorist network we fight." According to Hughes, Americans who support Bush's efforts to restrict choice in reproductive health care do so because "after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life." She then went on to say, "The fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life."

"It is totally outrageous and irresponsible for one of the President's top advisors to compare pro-choice Americans to terrorists," said Dr. Sylvia Rhue, Director of Equal Partners in Faith. "In relation to the issue of reproductive freedom, the only terrorists we know about are the ones on the far right who bomb clinics and murder doctors."

Click here for the rest of the story.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, calls for a new sexual ethic that contrasts radically with the neo-Puritan ethic being demanded by President Bush - even in Africa, where it will harm rather than help efforts to combat the rising incidence of AIDS.

What's needed, she says, is not merely sexual freedom, but an end to "sexual illiteracy," which can come only by replacing the still-current "male ethic of sexual exploitation" with a truly egalitarian sexual ethic, which allows learning through experience - but experience in stages of growing maturity and responsibility.

Her essay is published in Conscience, the "newsjournal" published by Catholics for a Free Choice.

We've just received a query from a member of the Lutheran Church of Australia, where the ordination of women is still a closed topic. We invite you to send your comments, ideas, and resources in a note to him, that will also come to your WebWeaver, and may be shared here.

His note:

In an effort to put the women's ordination debate in the Lutheran Church of Australia into an international context I would appreciate any information on Women's Ordination sites that you may know of. Our Women's Ministry Network site is http://www.picknowl.com.au/homepages/wmn/

Leigh Newton

As negotiations begin for a new government in Afghanistan, Afghan feminists are apparently being ignored - still. Fariba Nawa, a reporter based in Islamabad, Pakistan, who writes regularly for Agence France-Presse and Pacific News Service, writes in Mother Jones that even though the 1964 Afghan constitution guaranteed equality for men and women, it has been completely ignored since 1996 when the Taliban seized Kabul. She quotes Zieba Shorish, a Washington-based Afghan exile and veteran women's rights activist, as summing up the problem: "The players in Afghanistan, including the US and United Nations, all talk about women's rights but when it comes to action, there is nothing."

Researcher and writer Fred Clarkson reports on the latest efforts of the anti-abortion "Nuremberg Files" web site to broadcast video shots of abortion providers and patients over the Web, and to wrap its actions in the First Amendment.

Voices of Sophia gathers at the border

[3-19-01]

For reports on some of the main addresses, click on any of the names below: 

The Women's Gathering in Louisville -- 
a progressive perspective

Women's Ministries awaits report, 
and differences remain sharp

6/10/00

Leslie Scanlon of Presbyterian Outlook has surveyed the current state of Women's Ministries as they await a final report (if it really is final this time!) by the small group of GAC members who were assigned to follow up after a few conservatives charged that they had not been sufficiently consulted in the evaluation already conducted.

She notes continuing differences of opinion, and suggests that even the "re-review" may be basically supportive of women's programs, while there may be some pressure on the program area to be more "inclusive" of women of varying persuasions.

Overture 45, coming to this year's General Assembly, would movoe Presbyterian Women from the National Ministries Division, where Women's Ministries is administered, to the Congregational Ministries Division. Scanlon suggests that this effort to weaken the women's program "may be dying" before the Assembly even convenes.

The Rev. Barbara Dua has written a clear and compelling response to the action of the GAC executive committee, calling for the kind of review of the whole Church that is badly needed. Click here for her letter.

The Witherspoon Society and Voices of Sophia, among others, are urging the reconsideration of this violation of the study process, apparently to satisfy one small interest group.

Voices of Sophia
223 Choctaw Road
Louisville, KY 40207

Keep this year's General Assembly, Commissioners and Advisory Delegates in your prayers.

We look forward to hearing from you with your name, contribution and ideas.

Sophia's blessings,

Voices of Sophia Central Team

Janis Adams, Virginia Copenhefer, Charlene Heaton, Mari Helen High, Betty Kersting, Mary Kuhns, Rebecca Reyes, Meg Rift, Marcia Smith-Wood, Jean Snyder, Sylvia Thorson-Smith, Mieke Vandersall, Emily Wigger