Last week, Senate Democrats proposed extending unemployment insurance by 14 weeks — with an extra six weeks for states with unemployment above 8.5 percent — only to have Republicans block the measure on the chamber floor.
Thanks to lobbying by women’s advocacy groups, Obama’s stimulus bill offered women a good deal in terms of targeted funds to sectors in which women are employed as well as in human infrastructure investments.
Of all the supposed “pork” in the proposed economic stimulus bill, perhaps none got so much media attention as the provision to extend family planning to more low-income women.
A spike in the number of men seeking vasectomies suggests that family planning is a critical step in financial planning.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides substantial economic help to women and families. Although it does not include all that we want, it represents a major re-ordering of priorities in funding.
Last week Congress ditched a family planning expansion from the stimulus, saying it didn’t belong in an economic recovery package. But young, unintended parenting is a key indicator for poverty.
The House of Representatives this afternoon passed the economic stimulus package without any Republican support.
Family planning is voluntarily prevention of unintended pregnancies — meaning women and their families are able to determine for themselves whether and when to have children.
The real economic consequences of contraception; on family planning, Brookings has it both ways; slight increase in average age of first birth among American women; Freedom of Choice Act moving in New Mexico; Obama forging a new path on abortion?; Rita Henley-Jensen gushes over new Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
House Republicans recently announced their idea of what is wasteful in the stimulus bill. On the list? A proposal for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get $400 million for STI screening and prevention.
