Women’s Rights – Powers For the People

Podcast: Fighting Back Against Repressive Anti-Choice Laws in Arizona & Texas (video)

Posted on September 18, 2021April 8, 2022 by Pamela Powers

In 2016, Senate Republicans stopped President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it was too close to the election and that the new president should choose the new supreme court judge. Despite nationwide outcry against this, the Supreme Court functioned for months with only eight justices. After President Donald Trump took office, he nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch in January 2017, Judge Brett Kavanaugh in July 2018, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett on September 2020, just months before the 2020 election. (I guess according to Mitch McConnell rules are meant to be broken.)

The US is currently suffering the aftermath of these three conservative appointments. Multiple Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed restrictive anti-abortion bills during the past decade. Since the Supreme Court has taken a decided hard turn to the right with the Trump era appointments, states like Texas and Arizona are in the forefront with anti-choice legislation designed to challenge Roe v Wade.

Continue reading Podcast: Fighting Back Against Repressive Anti-Choice Laws in Arizona & Texas (video)

#HB2706 Targets All Girls who Don’t Match Feminine Ideal (video)

Posted on March 6, 2020February 14, 2023 by Pamela Powers

As you may have read in the news, the Arizona House passed Rep. Nancy Barto’s anti-trans bill HB2706 late on Tuesday night, after hours of rousing debate.

This is another Cathi Herrod Center for Arizona Policy bill that would require girls to submit to genetic testing and get a letter from a doctor confirming their gender, if someone doesn’t believe they are genetically a girl and challenges them. This is another one of those Republican “anybody can complain” and start an investigation or a lawsuit bills.

HB2706 is supposed to weed out trans girls and forbid them from competing in girls sports in K-12 education and college.

This bill is overly broad. Any girls who don’t fit the traditional feminine stereotype could be targeted with this bill and be forced to submit to unnecessary genetic testing to confirm their gender. This bill will lead to bullying and harassment of girls– trans girls and sis girls who are muscular, strong, and athletic. This is ridiculous.

There are national athletic standards for trans competitors. Why don’t we adopt these standards? Why did we even hear HB2706? Because Barto is challenging her moderate Republican seat mate Senator Heather Carter for the Senate seat in 2020.

One of the lawyers in the Democratic Caucus said that this bill would keep lawyers busy.

How Can the #1 ‘Pro-Life’ State Be #50 in Child Wellbeing? (video)

Posted on February 16, 2020February 14, 2023 by Pamela Powers

Several times during the tax cut debates on Wednesday, Feb. 11, in the House Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Ben Toma and other Republicans repeated the mantra that Arizona has a “budget surplus”. The only reason that we have funds that have not been allocated is because we have had decades of budget cuts and chronic underfunding of important programs like public education(!), the Housing Trust Fund, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), and so forth. It’s not that there is no need in our state, and, so therefore, we have extra cash. We don’t have extra money.

Also, several times during the committee meeting, I reminded everybody that Arizona is worst in the nation for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). We are not only shortchanging our school children by underfunding education, we are shortchanging small children before they ever get to school. It is highly ironic that Arizona is the country’s #1 “pro-life” state and also #50 in ACEs, due to our stingy policies and poor treatment of our children.

In my study of gaps and inequities in maternal and child health in Arizona, I took a comprehensive approach and looked through the lens of the social determinants of health. Two contributing factors to Adverse Childhood Experiences are housing insecurity and food insecurity.

#HB2388: Big Brother Meets Aunt Lydia (video)

Posted on February 9, 2020February 14, 2023 by Pamela Powers

With big data surveillance, church recruitment, government-funded, incomplete and biased medical information, and unregulated clinics providing “all wrap-around pregnancy, counseling and post-childbirth services”, HB2388 is Big Brother and Aunt Lydia’s love child.

Last week was draining– with multiple tax cuts in Ways and Means, fake pregnancy centers in Health and Human Services (HB2388), and passage of the Build Your Own Border Wall on the House floor on reconsideration. (Another Zombie Bill brought back from the dead).

I recorded the video (below) late in the day on Thursday after the end of a two-part, marathon health committee meeting with multiple ideological debates. I am proud to serve with Dr. Amish Shah, and Reps. Kelli Butler and Alma Hernandez. The four of us did a great job standing up for patient choice, reproductive rights, medically accurate and unbiased information, science, privacy and separation of church and state.

If Arizona Is ‘Pro-Life,’ Let’s Look Beyond the Womb (video)

Posted on February 5, 2020February 14, 2023 by Pamela Powers

If Arizona is truly a “pro life” state, it’s time to think big on maternal and child health rather than thinking small. Let’s go beyond the womb with our “pro-life” ideals and help Moms and their children lead healthier, safer lives.

I have met with more than 100 people and analyzed the data, the needs, the costs, and the gaps in services in maternal and child health in Arizona for more than a year.

The bottomline is that Arizona has stingy policies, cumbersome bureaucracy, and unnecessarily lengthy application procedures that cost money and lives and limit access to healthcare. I ran on this issue in 2015, and five years later, I am shocked at how right I was.

Did you know that Arizona is dead last– #50 — in Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)? ACEs include food insecurity, housing insecurity, loss of parent(s) due to incarceration, death, addiction or abandonment and similar sad scenarios.

Did you know that only 6% of the people eligible for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Need Families) in Arizona actually get it? Not even all Arizonans living in extreme poverty get TANF.

Did you know that women, who are eligible for AHCCCS (Arizona’s Medicaid system), are coming to indigent clinics pregnant with no prenatal care, no insurance, and no money?

It is morally unacceptable and fiscally irresponsible to deny basic healthcare, food security, housing security, and a solid education Arizona’s children and their parents.

Maternal & Child Health! The Movie! (video)

Posted on October 24, 2019October 23, 2019 by Pamela Powers

Now that I have your attention…

Who can resist babies doing yoga coupled with multiple exclamation points?

As many of you know, maternal and child health has been my focus for nearly a year now, ever since my strong, adorable, and intelligent granddaughter Selah was born with gastroschisis. Her three months in the Nursery Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Tucson Medical Center (TMC) in 2018 gave me a new appreciation for the human and financial costs related to adverse birth outcomes and high tech medicine.

When it comes to maternal and child health, I strongly believe that the state of Arizona can and should do better regarding:

Increasing access to prenatal, perinatal and postpartum care.
Decreasing the rates of premature and low birthweight babies.
Reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and nonmarital births.
Reducing toxic stress in and increasing opportunities for families and children by tackling chronic, systemic poverty in Arizona– particularly among single parent households.

Continue reading Maternal & Child Health! The Movie! (video)