Tag: health care

Eden Foods Doesn’t Want to Pay for Employees’ BC

Special Thanks to Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Malinda, and Karin, the UltraViolet team!
Sign the Petition at the Bottom!
The Boycott is having an affect.

“Soy milk. Organic beans. Gluten-free pasta. A radical agenda to ban birth control coverage for their employees.

Eden Foods is one of the country’s major organic foods companies, and their products can be purchased at Whole Foods, local markets, and coops across the country. They claim they stand for “purity in food,” and now, they also stand for a right-wing crusade against birth control. The company is suing the Obama Administration over the rule that insurance companies must cover birth control under the new healthcare law. Why? Because as CEO Michael Potter put it, they believe that “these procedures [birth control] almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices.”1

That’s right. Because Eden Foods’s CEO is ideologically opposed to birth control, the company thinks they have the right to dictate to all their employees what health care they will have access to. That doesn’t just affect their employees. It’s a dangerous precedent that they are asking the court to set for all workers going forward. But progressive-minded people make up a huge portion of Eden’s customers–people who are likely to think that a boss shouldn’t be dictating their employees’ private health care decisions. And the CEO has already said “we’re getting a lot of feedback” and that the push back against them on social media “is a big deal.”2

Employers have no right to interfere with the reproductive health care of their female employees. If we all speak out now to add to the outrage, we can show Eden Foods and other businesses that are watching the controversy that their lawsuit is bad for publicity and bad for their bottom line.

Sign the petition to Eden Foods’s CEO, Michael Potter.

Making sure employees’ health insurance covers birth control matters:

  • 1 in 3 women has had trouble affording birth control.3
  • Women who had better access to the pill earned 8% more than those who didn’t by the time they were 50.4
  • Young women who can obtain the pill are 12% more likely to enroll in college.5
  • 99% of women who’ve had sex have used birth control.6

Michael Potter and Eden Foods are spreading lies, like claiming that certain companies are already exempted from the birth control mandate and that some religions are exempted and others aren’t.7 Neither of these is true. The truth is, only houses of worship are exempt, and religiously affiliated organizations like hospitals and schools can push the cost of birth control coverage onto the insurer.8

And Potter’s reason for suing? “Because I’m a man, number one and it’s really none of my business what women do.”9 But by entering this lawsuit, Potter is making it not just his business but every other employer in America’s business what kind of health care their female employees get.

Employers can’t flout laws just because they don’t like them. Allowing employers to dictate whether or not their employees have access to birth control is wrong and un-American.

We need to let Eden Foods and their CEO, Michael Potter, know that trying to deny their employees basic health care like birth control is bad for business. Sign the petition to Potter right away.”

Add your name.

Thanks for speaking out,

Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Malinda, and Karin, the UltraViolet team

Sources:
1. Eden Foods doubles down in birth control flap, Salon, April 15, 2013

2. Ibid.

3. Survey: Nearly Three in Four Voters in America Support Fully Covering Prescription Birth Control, Planned Parenthood, October 12, 2010

4. Women Who Took the Pill Had an 8 Percent Higher Income by Age 50, Yahoo! News, March 6, 2012

5. The Social and Economic Benefits of Women’s Ability to Determine Whether and When to Have Children, Guttmacher Institute, March 2013

6. Women Who Use Birth Control Are the 99 Percent, Mother Jones, February 10, 2012

7.Statement from the President of Eden Foods, Eden Foods, April 17, 2013

8. Contraception Mandate Clarified To Accommodate Religious Groups, Obama Administration Announces, Huffington Post, February 25, 2013

9. Eden Foods doubles down in birth control flap, Salon, April 15, 2013

2. Ibid.

Astorino Supports Terrorizing Women – Vetoes Clinic Access Bill

Last Friday, just minutes after the conclusion of a press conference calling on the County Executive to support safe access of reproductive health care centers, Astorino vetoed  the bill. (Watch the Press Conference.)

He cited a litany of trumped up arguments that he rehearsed on Channel 12 the weekend before. These manufactured arguments have all been proven groundless by some of the greatest legal minds in New York and by New York law itself. Astorino’s veto was dripping with untruths intended to disguise his real motivating force.

Fact: Astorino vetoed the bill because his right-to-life anti-choice extremist constituents asked him to do so. (See the promise made in an email from zealot John Mark-click here.)

Astorino knew he could get away with this because he made sure that there was no super majority to override  his veto. His little puppets, led by opportunists Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman who have become traitors to Choice, don’t care what happens to women who use clinics and centers for access to health care.

Unlike these Astorino puppets, many women of  Westchester face financial constraints that do not allow them to visit a private doctor so as to avoid harassing and terrorizing demonstrators.

Mr. Astorino and his allies in the Republican delegation are waging a silent war against Westchester’s women and our families.

Despite what Astorino and his minions would have you think, the Clinic Access Bill is not about providers. It is about women: your mother, your sister, your daughter, your aunt.

It is about women accessing safe, good, affordable health care.

It is about health care for senior women who need breast exams, pap smears, and more.

It is about younger women who need cancer screenings and comprehensive reproductive health care.

This is not about County tax dollars. It is about women and health care.

This veto stands with other attacks by this administration and its allies in the Republican delegation.

Astorino’s handpicked candidate Sheila Marcotte–along with Mike Smith, Gordon Burrows, and David Gelfarb–led the way in voting NO to funding senior transportation-just $15,000 in the County budget.

This money was allocated to transportation ONLY for seniors, most of whom are women–some widowed or divorced  and statistically one of the least financially stable groups in our society. And Astorino’s puppets wants to deny them transportation!

Astorino has made it increasingly expensive for the working poor to qualify for childcare. The result is that far fewer are qualifying, and then must choose between quitting their jobs or placing their kids in unlicensed and potentially unsafe facilities-something you can bet Astorino would never do to his own kids.

Astorino has cut four after school programs that were receiving partial funding from the federal government. Why? Because he can.  Who in a community hanging on just simply to survive has the time or the ability to fight back?

The list of his actions is much longer, and simple to understand.

Rob Astorino has brought the War on Women and our Families to Westchester–and his allies like Sheila Marcotte, are helping him target the most vulnerable.

“GOP Bill Would Force IRS to Conduct Abortion Audits”

Stop The Insanity! This Extremist Anti-Choice Congress Wants the IRS to Audit Abortions.

Anti-Choice Extremists, led by Republican House Rep. Pitts, want to pass H.R. 3–the Stupak Amendment on Steroids–so the IRS can audit abortions.

They don’t care about jobs. They Only Want to Continue On-going Attacks Against Women!

These zealots want to subject rape and incest victims to audits if they choose abortion.

If Pitts‘ bill H.R.3, becomes law it could prohibit using tax benefits such as credits or deductions to pay for an abortion or health insurance that includes abortion coverage.

In enforcing H.R. 3, the IRS could make a woman relive the horrid experience by requiring that she describe her sexual assault that she already told the police again to an agent from the IRS.

Read more from Mother Jones, click here: “Were you raped? Was it incest? And other questions the government’s tax cops would have to ask women who’ve terminated pregnancies.”

 

If Pitts‘ bill H.R.3, becomes law it could prohibit using tax benefits such as credits or deductions to pay for an abortion or health insurance that includes abortion coverage.

In enforcing H.R. 3, the IRS could make a woman relive the horrid experience by requiring that she describe her sexual assault that she already told the police again to an agent from the IRS.

Where Does Newly Elected Rep. Hayworth (R) 19th NY-CD Stand on Redefining Rape and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act?

When running Nan Hayworth claimed to be—what was it again—on yea, pro-choice but now she doesn’t want to take a position. Now, she seems, shall we say, conflicted: Vote Party line (and platform) or support women?

FYI:
1. Hayworth has defended the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act in letters to constituents.
2. Hayworth has failed to take a stand on redefining rape; and
3. Hayworth justifies tax penalties for abortion.
4. Nan Hayworth is Anti-Choice!

Ask Nan Hayworth Where She Stands!
Let’s remind Nan we’re watching.
Click Here
or Contact her at
In D.C.:
1440 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-5441
Fax: (202) 225-3289
In Goshen:
255 Main St., Suite 3232G
Goshen, NY 10924
Phone: (845) 291-4100
Fax: (845) 291-4164

ALERT: Anti-Choice Extremists Work to Change Definition of Rape

Anti-choice crazy extremists in Congress—mostly Republicans but with some Democrats thrown into the mix—are fighting to redefine rape so as to limit any form of funding for victims (in this instance that’s definitely we women.)

They want to redefine it as “forcible rape.” One would think the definition of rape is forced sex, but not to these zealots. They want it to only constitute rape when the victim is pulverized.

Forget the rape where the victim is given a drug, passes out and  becomes an unconscious target. Forget about incest where a child is scared of her attacker. Forget about the wife who is raped by her husband and forced to succumb. Forget about the rape that occurs with a knife to your throat.

Why are they doing this? Because they believe in their perverted hearts that if they successfully change this definition and then apply it to the Hyde Amendment, they will eliminate the funding of abortions that are now permitted.

The Hyde Amendment, which is enshrined in federal law targeting poor women, prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion except in a very few specific cases, two of which are rape and incest.

Today’s Congressional crazies think that this rape and incest exception is too broad. If that child was not beaten when her father raped her, to them, it doesn’t count! My suggestion is let’s see how these zealots each fare after being raped. The men won’t end up pregnant but at least they’ll experienced forced intercourse—anal, with an object, or otherwise! Then, they can come forward, putting their entire lives on the line, testify and be told it wasn’t rape because they weren’t beaten.

They want to include this new definition in their No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act. Trust me and those in Congress who fight for our cause, there is NO funding for abortion in the Obama Health Care Law now. This is simply a vehicle to further destroy our right to choose. Passing No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act is a top priority of these anti-choice crazies.