Women’s Equality Day Features Celebration and Protests Against Proposed HHS Regulation

A “Women’s EquiTea” hosted by the National Organization for Women (NOW) and 15 women members of Congress will honor Sen. Hillary Clinton’s achievement in winning 18 million votes for her presidential candidacy in the Democratic primary elections. “Eighty-eight years after women won the right to vote…we have much to celebrate,” said NOW President Kim Gandy. The organization is also petitioning both party nominees to “make closing the equality gap a centerpiece” of their presidential campaigns.

On the protest side, advocates said they will renew a nationwide outcry that succeeded earlier this month in stripping a proposed HHS rule of controversial language that would have directly threatened women’s access to hormonal birth control. More than 325,000 people signed a petition circulated by Planned Parenthood Federation of America urging HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt to drop the section. The final rule, to be published soon for a 30-day comment period, omits that language but still jeopardizes women’s health, advocates said.

“These regulations would allow doctors, nurses and other health care personnel...to refuse to provide services to any patient,” said Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. “They would not even be obligated to give patients information on other options for their care.”

Leavitt said he sought only to enforce existing “conscience” laws allowing health care providers to refuse to participate in or facilitate abortions. Ness said, however, that the rule would “still leave the definition [of abortion] open to individual interpretation that could include contraception.” She called the rule “a transparent attempt to impose one set of religious and moral views on all of us” and urged women to continue to make their feelings known during the comment period.

Women’s Equality Day, established in 1971, marks the passage on Aug. 26, 1920, of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that gave women the right to vote.

CLICK HERE to read a press statement from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

CLICK HERE to read a press statement from the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.

CLICK HERE to read a statement from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

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