President’s Message

Linda Bliden, President

561-488-2930

As of today, we do not know who the Democratic nominee will be, but we must start ensuring that we and our friends and neighbors do not vote for John McCain.

McCain has a very poor record when it comes to women’s rights.Too many voters think that McCain is a moderate. Can someone who's voted anti-choice 125 times out of 130 opportunities on abortion and other reproductive-rights issues be a moderate? He wants Roe v Wade overturned. He does not believe in abortion for any reason whatsoever. He has flip-flopped over this issue, but in his current position, he is pandering to the religious right. Sen. John McCain has gone even further than George W. Bush in his anti-choice rhetoric by directly calling for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. If he gets elected, it is guaranteed he will get to appoint at least one new Supreme Court Justice. So we can say ‘hello’ to back alley abortions again and ‘goodbye’ to women’s health and safety.

He also is for abstinence only education. Even though his “get to know me” tour, told about his forays to strip clubs and the likes. He is ignoring his own youth, and the statistics about STD’s. His stand is to teach abstinence only, therefore we will have no need to talk about birth control methods.

He also voted against the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007, which is an important first step in returning Title VII, the law against employment discrimination to its original intention regarding remedies for pay discrimination .Mc Cain’s vote against this act makes clear he is willing to support systemic pay discrimination faced by women workers.

We also know that he would continue the war in Iraq forever (until a victory!) or 100 years which ever came first.

The election of John McCain would insure another 4 years of the Bush Presidnecy!

Calendar

June 14 Membership Meeting

10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

Topic: Creating the Financially Independent Woman

Speaker: Ralph S. Robbing, Certfied Financial Planner

June 21 Board Meeting

10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

All NOW members welcome

July 18 Board Meeting

10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

All NOW members welcome

July 18 -20 National NOW Conference

Hyatt Regency Bethesda

Bethesda, MD

July 19 Board Meeting

10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

All NOW members welcome

July 26 State Council Meeting

946 N Mills Avenue
Orlando Florida

August 9 Board Meeting

10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

All NOW members welcome

August 17 Women’s Equality Day

2:00 to 4:00 PM

Candidate’s Forum

Universal Unitarian Chapel,

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Board of Directors

Co President……….Linda Bliden

Co President……….Adele Guadalupe

Vice President……..Betsy Belmuth

Vice President……..Tony Sacher

Treasurer and

Membership………Natalie Andre

Secretary …………Roselee Seidler

Communications…..Sheila Jaffe

Facts ………………Carol Guglielmo

Historian …………..Gonzalee Ford

Newsletter…………Jean Poleshuck

Domestic Violence…Louise Shervan

Vote NO on the so-called Florida “Marriage Protection Act”, Amendment 2

What the Amendment Says
“Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

If passed, the so-called "Marriage Protection Act," would strip away domestic partnership protections currently being relied on by thousands of Floridians, including seniors, fire fighters, teachers and police officers. It would also bar the passage of future measures to help Florida families.

The state already has laws recognizing only heterosexual unions — and the pending change would jeopardize the rights of tens of thousands of unmarried couples, gay and straight.

Not only did Michigan's Supreme Court use their so-called "marriage protection" amendment to strike down domestic partner protections across the state, but we also have evidence that proponents of Amendment #2 are getting ready to do the same here in Florida.

One of Amendment #2's major backers, David Caton, was discovered gathering data on Tampa's Domestic Partnership policy. He had to admit to reporters that he was doing this to prepare for his group's attack on Tampa's Domestic Partnership plan that currently provides health benefits to Tampa's police officers, firefighters and other municipal employees. The issue is poised to come up this summer and fall .

Based on the 2006 popular vote any proposed Constitutional amendment must now garner 60% of the vote. In November 2008 we can defeat this hateful and politically driven amendment.

Spread the word to your family, friends, co-workers and neighbors to vote against any law that denies protections to Florida's families.

Don't let this happen in Florida! We can defeat this.

Why Make It Difficult for Women to Use Contraceptives?

For many years, pharmaceutical companies have been selling birth control pills at a large discount to higher education health centers and safety net-health care providers. This was part of a complicated process involving exemptions from the calculation of Medicaid-related rebates to states. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 removed those exemptions, making it unreasonably expensive for manufacturers to continue providing such deep discounts to schools and clinics. We must restore this important exemption.

The Deficit Reduction Act, whether intentionally or not, caused the price of birth control for patients to skyrocket from $5 to in some cases $50, and something must be done. While some health clinics were able to stock up on birth control prior to the price increase, many have now run out of their supplies.

As a result, their patients are incurring major, often insurmountable, price increases. Many have chosen to stop taking the pill, while others have sacrificed necessities in order to remain on birth control.

Denying low income and college women the ability to use contraception will surely increase unintended pregnancies and abortions. Access to affordable birth control is part of every woman’s right to reproductive health care.

Contact your U.S. senators and representatives and urge them to sponsor and support this bill to restore affordable birth control for millions of college and low income women.

Recent Florida NOW Conference hosted by South Palm Beach NOW and North Palm Beach NOW Supports Improved Health Care for Women

Many countries have a united or national health care system, and all industrialized countries except for the U.S., have some sort of single-payer universal health care system.

The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.

This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.

Recent studies report that women’s health care costs are increased because of female-specific conditions such as pregnancy and menopause. Health costs for being a women are substantial and reports estimate women spent from almost $500 a year for menopausal disorders to almost $4,000 for female cancers.

Americans without health insurance coverage at some time during 2006 totaled about 16% of the population, or 47 million people. Health insurance costs are rising faster than wages or inflation, and "medical causes" were cited by about half of bankruptcy filers in the United States in 2001.

Now is the time for NOW to unite with other organizations to push for a One-payer Universal Health Insurance for all.

Act to urge Governor Crist to Veto SB 2532 – Custody and Visitation Changes

By Adele Guadalupe

This bill which was passed a few weeks ago does not mention “Presumptive Joint Custody” but instead changes all the wording referencing primary and secondary custody to “Shared parenting”, thereby directing the courts to assume that a child be split down the middle. The bill will give even more teeth to the legitimacy of a batterer and /or child molester getting custody as it does not address the importance of taking these circumstances into consideration, but instead automatically grants the father equal standing with the mother.

The bill also advocates a psychologist draw up a detailed parenting schedule, allowing hostile parents to use this as a tool to control the one another. The bill calls for the elimination of the “Standards” of the American Psychiatric Association without which the families are ripe for deception and at the hands of unscrupulous members of the legal, psychological and judicial system.

As a Court Watcher for over 5 years, in family and dependency court, I have found that the judges rely too heavily on the appointed “professions”. At this poiiiint judges already appoint Evaluators, Guardians ad litem, Pyschologists, Forensic accountants with impunity and the parent has to foot the bill. No time or fee limits are set for these professionals. For the ordinary parent these expenses are a tremendous burden placed on top of attorney’s fees and court expenses, such as mediation and transcripts.

Please fax or email this or a similar letter to Gov. Crist....Fax..850-487-0801, email charlie.crist@myflorida.com.