Recent research & reports:

New study on "tag-team" parents

AFL-CIO survey highlights working women's concerns about health care costs, retirement security; "Stirring the Pot" initiative

Future of Children reports on "Opportunity in America"

Work, wages & economic wellbeing:

National Women's Law Center: Women losing ground in
worker-unfriendly economy

UK Women's Commission launches plan to reduce barriers to women's advancement in the workplace

Economic Policy Institute releases
2006/2007 State of Working America report

More news and commentary on women in the workforce

Mothering & Caregiving:

Selected news and commentary

Social Policy:

News and commentary on "The Motherhood Manifesto," poverty & welfare reform, health care, falling through the safety net

Women:

More on Linda Hirshman. Plus: other news and commentary of note

Education:

The high cost of college, homework debate, more

Reproductive Health & Rights:

Men's reproductive rights, fetal homicide laws, after Plan B, the Fugitive Girl Act

New study on "tag-team" parents

A new analysis of national data on married, dual-earner couples who manage child care by working alternating schedules finds that "tag team" parents are more likely to be younger and have lower incomes and less education than dual-earner parents with concurrent work schedules. In her report, economist Heather Boushey suggests that while parental choice is a contributing factor, the decision to tag-team parent is "driven primarily by necessity." The study, Tag-Team Parenting (Center for Economic Policy Research, August 2006), looks at the socioeconomic characteristics, work hours and work schedules of tag-team families to understand how they balance job schedules and childcare.

Boushey identifies four potential motives or constraints that may lead parents to take the tag-team approach to meeting their work and family responsibilities: families who object to non-parental child care or desire a high level of flexibility; families in which one or both parents have jobs with evening, night or other non-standard hours when formal childcare is less likely to be available; families who cannot afford to pay for other childcare options; and families for whom alternative child care arrangements are not an option because children have special needs. "Families who tag-team parent are obviously in a tough bind, and the policy implications from this research are clear: Tag-team parents need policies to help them better balance work and family," Boushey concludes.

…Policymakers should be concerned about tag-team parenting because it may be at most a second-best solution for working families. Families who are pushed into tag-team parenting must accept a day-to-day life where parents are not able to spend much quality time with one another. This clearly has implications for family life and family happiness.

However, even for families who "choose" tag-team parenting, policymakers should be concerned. If working alternating schedules is the best way for families to provide care, then there may be something wrong with our system of childcare or our workplaces.

Boushey's report is packed with sophisticated statistical analysis and detailed tables that may have more appeal to a specialized audience than general readers, but does include several useful summaries of the demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, work schedules and childcare arrangements of U.S. families.

Center for Economic Policy Research
www.cepr.net

Tag-Team Parenting
Heather Boushey, CEPR, August 2006
26 pages in .pdf

- back to top -

AFL-CIO survey highlights working women's concerns about affordable health care, retirement security

Based on the results of a recent online survey of over 26,000 U.S. women, the AFL-CIO reports that today's working women are most concerned about "basic economic issues such as pay not keeping up with rising costs, inability to afford health insurance and lack of retirement security." For many working women, the report concludes, "the long hours they put in at work and the family time they sacrifice does little more than help them make -- or almost make -- ends meet." Overall, 97 percent of respondents were very or somewhat worried about health care costs and 95 percent reported they were worried about the rising cost of living. Other top concerns were higher education costs, the transfer of jobs overseas and the declining number of jobs offering paid benefits. Women with college education and those with less education were nearly equally concerned about these issues, although those with no college were slightly more likely to be worried about the movement of jobs overseas and the shortage of jobs with good benefits.

Although three-quarters to two-thirds of survey respondents indicated that their jobs offered benefits such as paid vacation time, paid sick leave, prescription drug coverage and retirement benefits, only 61 percent said their employers offered affordable health insurance and fewer than half (44 percent) said their employers provide equal pay for equal work. Only 41 percent reported they had control over their work hours, while 37 percent had access to paid family and medical leave; just 4 percent had access to child care through their employers. Notably, less than one in ten women felt "hopeful and confident" about the future of young people going into the workforce. As for legislative priorities, women younger than 40 were most supportive of public policies to improve the availability of affordable quality health care and child care and expanding the FMLA; women over 40 were most likely to support legislative solutions related to affordable health care, retirement security, and equal pay.

Although the findings of the AFL-CIO's 2006 "Ask a Working Woman" survey are encouraging for activist and organization that support progressive policy reform, the results of the survey cannot be broadly applied to the concerns and workplace characteristics of U.S. working women overall. Although the sample of survey-takers was large, it was neither random nor nationally representative. Women of color, especially Hispanic/Latina women, were underrepresented among survey-takers, and 86 percent of respondents had some college education, compared to 60 percent of women workers nationwide. Women workers with post-graduate degrees were particularly overrepresented in the survey (28 percent of survey-takers versus 9 percent of woman workers in the U.S.). This undoubtedly skewed the survey results, since women with higher education are more likely to be higher earners and have jobs with greater flexibility and more paid benefits. With this in mind, it's significant that the majority of women who opted to take the Working Women survey reported that their jobs offered limited control over work hours. On the other hand, it's also possible that women who experience higher levels of work-life conflict may have been more likely to participated in the survey as a way to record their grievances. A more representative sample of women workers might also have found that fewer have access to affordable health care coverage and paid sick and family leave through employers than the AFL-CIO survey indicates.

AFL-CIO
www.afl-cio.org

AFL-CIO 2006 Ask a Working Woman Survey Report
September 2006, 19 pages in .pdf

Also of interest:

AFL-CIO "Stirring the Pot" Initiative
"Stirring the Pot Dinners" will be held all over the country, Tuesday, October 10th.  "Women from small towns and big cities, neighbors, co-workers and just acquaintances will gather on this day to talk about issues we care about -- the things that keep us up at night and that determine the quality of life for our families and our communities." 

These gatherings are intended as "an opportunity to remind our friends and neighbors that we can use the strength of our numbers to make a difference – and we will. Women’s voices do matter if we vote and encourage other women to vote too."

For more information, visit the Stirring the Pot web site.

- back to top -

Future of Children reports on "Opportunity in America"

The Fall 2006 volume of the Future of Children report examines economic opportunity, income mobility and the intergenerational transfer of wealth and poverty in the United States. Although the new report deals only glancingly with the influence of labor market factors and redistributive social polices on high rates of social exclusion and income inequality in the U.S., the volume includes a selection of studies that assess cultural, health and educational characteristics of families which are thought to contribute to constraints on children's economic opportunities as adults, and offers recommendations on what the government might do to level the playing field for future generations.

Although America has long had a reputation as the land of opportunity for everyone willing to work hard and play by the rules, the Opportunity in America report confirms that while contemporary examples of individuals going from "rags to riches" in a single generation do exist in the United States, they are rare. "Americans need to pick their parents well," concludes co-editor Isabel Sawhill. "Circumstances of birth matter a lot, and the advantages and disadvantages of birth persist." Sawhill also notes that contrary to popular belief, "The United States does not provide a lot of opportunity" compared to other wealthy countries. She notes that while the U.S. offers better economic opportunities for families who migrate from poorer countries, "children in born in the United States have no greater chance to succeed than children in other advanced countries -- and probably less." In particular, several articles suggest that rather than serving as a great equalizer, the educational system in the U.S. tends to reinforce the advantages and disadvantages of socioeconomic status. Other articles find that while gender and race continue to have an effect on access to opportunity, barriers to class mobility may be the overriding issue for children of today's low-income working families.

Of special interest to mothers' advocates is an analysis on 'Culture' and the Intergeneration Transmission of Poverty by public policy scholars Jens Ludwig and Susan Mayer. "A primary goal of contemporary U.S. social policy is to reform the 'culture' of poor parents to make it less likely that their children will grow up to be poor," the authors explain, and policymakers tend to favor legislation which promotes marriage, work and religion as a way to instill mainstream values in socially marginalized families (1996 welfare reform is a prime example of this strategy). However, Ludwig and Mayer point out that although children whose parents are unmarried, do not work full-time and do not attended religious services regularly have higher odds of experiencing poverty as adults, "Encouraging parents to marry, work, and become religious would do far less to reduce poverty among future generations of American adults than most policymakers believe." In fact, the authors calculate that the majority of poor adults grow up with parents who are married, working and religious, and conclude that "even successful efforts to change parental behavior or culture among 'high risk' families will have surprisingly modest effects" on the intergenerational transmission of poverty. "To reduce poverty among future generations, there many be no substitute for a system of social insurance and income transfers for those children who end up as poor adults."

Much of the Opportunity in America report focuses on the role of education in perpetuating inequality. Core public policy recommendations from the report emphasize improving the delivery, quality and consistency of education across the board, but especially increasing the availability of intensive, high-quality preschool education to all American children and in expanding opportunities for college education for qualified low-income students.

The full report, executive summary and related issue briefs are available from the Future of Children web site in .pdf and .html formats.

The Future of Children
www.futureofchildren.org

Opportunity in America
Volume 16, Number 2 -- Fall 2006
Index page with links to .pdf of full report and individual articles

Opportunity in America: The Role of Education
Isabel Sawhill, Policy Brief, Fall 2006, 8 pages in .pdf

Opportunity in America: Introducing the Issue
Isabel Sawhill and Sara McLanahan, 16 pages in .pdf

"Culture" and the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty:
The Prevention Paradox
Jens Ludwig and Susan Mayer, 22 pages in .pdf

- back to top -

Women losing ground in worker-unfriendly economy

An independent analysis of newly released Census data finds that American women are losing ground on wages, health care coverage and economic security. The National Women's Law Center reports that between 2000 and 2005, the number of women living in poverty increased, and the earnings of U.S. women working part-time or part year were stagnant. Although median wages of women working full-time, full year increased slightly over the last six years, early gains are offset by a decline in the wages of full-time women workers in the past three years.

While the real median income of male-headed households remained unchanged between 2000 and 2005, the median income of female-headed households fell by $1,700; in 2005; the median income of female-headed families with children was just two-thirds of the income of male-headed families with children. The real median income of married couple families with children also declined from $71,600 in 2000 to $70,900 in 2005.

The NWLC also found that since 2000, and additional 2.9 million women have joined the ranks of the uninsured, including over half a million women in the past year alone. The percentage of women without health insurance grew from 13.4 percent in 2000 to 15.6 percent in 2005, a faster increase than for the overall population.

National Women's Law Center
www.nwlc.org

Losing Ground:
An Overview of Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Among Women: 2000-2005
National Women's Law Center, 8.sept.06, 3 pages in .pdf

- back to top -

UK Women's Commission launches plan to reduce barriers to women's advancement in the workplace

A UK government commission launched a major action plan this month to tackle barriers to women's achievement in the workplace. The plan includes an array of practical new measures addressing almost forty recommendations made in the UK Women and Work Commission's "Shaping a Fairer Future" report (February 2006). The action plan includes creating more flexible work options for employees with family responsibilities, the development of a new "equality check" tool to "help companies spot any emerging problems with equal treatment of staff," revising educational standards to make girls more aware of career opportunities in non-traditional fields, and a proposal for a "new half a million pound fund to support companies and organizations in increasing the number of senior and quality roles available part time."

If there is one flaw in the Commission's recommendations and action plan, it's that the proposed solutions give only superficial attention to workplace norms that conflict with men's family responsibilities as fathers and caregivers and their impact on women's opportunities for occupational advancement.

U.S. readers will note that even though women in the UK (like those in the U.S.) are affected by occupational segregation into lower-paying jobs, based on median earnings UK women earn 13 percent less than men, compared to the 23 percent gender wage gap in the United States. Of course, the real heartbreaker is that the UK government actually has a publicly-funded Women & Equality Unit to "develop policies relating to gender equality and ensure that work on equality across Government as a whole is co-ordinated," a critical activity which is left almost entirely to the non-profit public interest sector in the U.S.

From the playground to the Boardroom'
Breaking down barriers to women's achievement
Press release, DirectGov.uk, 11.sept.06

Women & Equality Unit UK --
Women and Work Commission

Shaping a Fairer Future
Executive Summary, 12 pages in .pdf

- back to top -

Economic Policy Institute releases
2006/2007 State of Working America report

The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank seeking to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy, has released the latest report in its series on the State of Working America. The key finding of the current report is that although productivity growth has been strong in the previous decade, income gains have been concentrated among the wealthiest Americans while middle- and low-earning workers are stuck in place or losing ground:

Our findings show that while faster productivity growth creates the potential for widely shared prosperity, if that potential is to be realized, a number of other factors have to be in place. Those factors include labor market institutions (such as strong collective bargaining), an appropriate minimum wage, and, importantly, a truly tight labor market, all of which are necessary to ensure that the benefits of growth reach everyone, not just those at the top of the wealth scale. …When these institutions are weakened or absent, growth is likely to bypass the majority of working families.

The report notes that one way that middle-income families have kept their incomes rising over the past few decades has been for married women to enter the paid labor market. "Among married-couple families with children, for example, middle-income wives added over 500 hours of work to total family work hours between 1979 and 2000. While this has been a positive force for women’s economic independence, it has also put a strain on the need to balance work and family."

Chapters, detailed tables and fact sheets from the report are available from the State of Working America web site.

Economic Policy Institute
www.epi.org

State of Working America 2006/2007
www.stateofworkingamerica.org

Executive Summary, 2006/2007 report

Fact Sheets on trends in income inequality, wages, jobs, poverty, wealth, women, work hours, health care and pensions, many more.

Related EPI Economic Snap Shots:

Wealth inequality is vast and growing

Employers shift health insurance costs onto workers

Work, poverty, and single-mother families

U.S. government does relatively little to lessen child poverty rates

CEO pay-to-minimum wage ratio soars

- back to top -

Other news and commentary on women in the workforce

Women's Work: Still Not Done
Claire Cain Miller, AlterNet, 16.aug.06
Why are women still struggling over the career-family quandary four decades after the second wave of feminism brought it up?

New Boss Learns of His Own Biased Blind Spot
Michael T. Luongo, Women's eNews, 14.sept.06
Managing an all-woman staff taught Michael Luongo he wasn't as woman-friendly as he thought. In 1992, he worked in a department store where only men were allowed to wear pants. One saleswoman had five children and often missed work.

Rise of the working parent
Hillary Wicai, NPR Marketplace Money, 25.aug.06
Working parents are turning the tables on their employers. They want more time off to spend with their children. And they're ready to make their personal fight political.

This Mommy Track May Go Somewhere
Molly Selvin, Los Angeles Times, 5.sept.06
"Some employers in high-pressure professions such as law, medicine, accounting and finance -- that years ago may have fired women who became pregnant — are finally giving working mothers what they've wanted for years: a shot at the top jobs but with flexible hours, part-time schedules or other concessions to their care-giving responsibilities."

Dare to be honest in your job hunt:
It's best to be upfront with an interviewer about outside needs
Maggie Jackson, Boston Globe/BostonWorks, 10.sept.06
Overworked, with an eye on the door -- that's how many feel about their current jobs and why more job candidates are raising work-life issues, such as a flexible schedule or even a desire to eat dinner with the kids, during a job search.

Democracy in the Workplace
Traci Fenton, Common Dreams, 23.aug.06
"Business leaders who want to retain and leverage talent and position yourselves for success in the new business landscape, listen up. More workers want to be fully engaged, and they want a new model through which they can express themselves while making a contribution that matters."

The Not-So-Good Times
Heather Boushey, TomPaine.com, 31.aug.06
Gross domestic product—our measure of how much the U.S. economy is producing—has been increasing at a healthy rate. But, most Americans are not seeing the benefits of this economic growth. Wages are the smallest share of GDP that they have been in the last 50 years, while profits are their highest since the 1960s.

The Slow Death of the Middle Class
Laura Barcella, AlterNet, 06.sept.06
Conservatives are working hard to dismantle almost every policy that protects average American workers. Air America host Thom Hartmann speaks up about how we can fight back.

Labor Day Wake-Up Call
Beth Shulman, TomPaine.com, 05.sept.06
"We have a problem. But what many choose to forget is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We as a nation are making choices that stack the deck against everyday Americans. We’ve forgotten that it was no accident that we had one of the largest middle classes in our history in the mid-20th century."

Beyond the Living Wage: A New Challenge for Progressives
Sam Pizzigati, Common Dreams, 30.aug.06
Last year, top executives at major U.S. corporations took home 411 times more than average workers. In 1994, at the birth of the living wage movement, chief executive pay outpaced pay for average workers by only 142 times.

For U.S. Workers, Vacation Is Vanishing
Mark Ames, AlterNet, 8.sept.06
More than a quarter of working Americans won't take time off, while Europeans enjoy two months of holiday. Did the Reagan revolution make us forget how to relax?

- back to top -

News and commentary on "The Motherhood Manifesto," poverty & welfare reform, health care, falling through the safety net

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner: The Motherhood Manifesto
Feministing interview, 9.sept.06
"The Motherhood Manifesto book covers a lot of common-sense solutions. We find that when family-friendly policies are in place in other countries, then the wage gap for mothers is not nearly as large as it is here. This is because, in part, the economic repercussions are spread and are carried more than just by the mom alone."

From Welfare to Poverty
Randy Albelda and Heather Boushey, TomPaine.com, 23.aug.06
"But, the workplace has not adapted to the needs of the millions of new working single mothers. Studies of people leaving welfare consistently find that the wages of those leaving welfare average between $7 and $8 per hour , which are above the minimum wage but leave families close to or even below the poverty threshold. Further, most people found jobs that do not offer the kinds of benefits middle- and upper-class workers take for granted."

Clinton Ended Welfare, Not Poverty
Robert Scheer, Common Dreams, 30.aug.06
"To hear Bill Clinton tell it, his presidency won the war on poverty three decades after President Lyndon B. Johnson launched it, having changed only the name. Unfortunately, however, for the mothers and their children pushed off the rolls but still struggling mightily to make ends meet even when the women are employed, the war on welfare was not the same battle at all."

Has Canada Got the Cure?
Holly Dressel, AlterNet, 29.aug.06
Since 1970, Canada has had a publicly funded, single-payer health system. Today, all Canadians are equally healthy, regardless of income.

When Government Shrugs: Lessons of Katrina
Adolph L. Reed, Jr., The Progressive, Sept.06
The fetish of 'efficient' government—code for public policy that is designed to serve the narrow interests of business and the affluent—is the ultimate cause of the city’s devastation.

Katrina's Second Crisis
Van Jones and James Rucker, TomPaine.com, 28.aug.06
"Last year, Americans met a massive human tragedy with a massive opening of our homes and our hearts. But as we enter the 12th month of this ongoing crisis in the Gulf Coast, it is clear that charity alone won’t do. …There are people in real need, every day. And there is an impressive array of worthy groups, advancing just demands, that we must continue to support."

Disabled People Left Behind in Emergencies
Megan Tady, AlterNet, 21.aug.06
Right now, there is no standardized federal preparedness plan for disabled people, so when a Katrina-level disaster strikes again, many will be left in the cold.

- back to top -

Women:

More on Linda Hirshman -
plus: other news and commentary of note

Anti-Unpaid-Work Polemicist Riles Full-Time Moms
Jeanine Plant, Women's eNews, 8.sept.06
Linda Hirshman has offended plenty of stay-at-home mothers with her polemic in praise of paid work and against house chores. But many also credit her for pressing a subject neglected by "workplace feminism."

Linda Hirshman's Manifesto For Women
Mindy Farabee, AlterNet, 5.sept.06
The political philosopher discusses why men don't stay home and why having Ph.D.s wiping butts is immoral.

Denigrating Women Who Change Diapers
Ruth Conniff, The Progressive, 5.sept.06
Political philosopher Linda Hirshman’s critique of women who make career sacrifices to take care of their children is the sort of thinking that gives feminism a bad name.

No Such Thing As An Old Girl’s Network
Melissa Silverstein, AlterNet, 3.aug.06
Why are there not more women directing movies? Because gender disparity runs rampant throughout the Hollywood studio system.

Groups seek female candidates
Charisse Jones, USA Today, 10.aug.06
"A number of groups are pushing female candidates for state-level offices across the USA. The goal is to bring different perspectives to the political debate, draw disenchanted voters to the polls and widen the pool of female candidates. The percentage of female state legislators has hovered near 22% for the past decade."

No Escaping Sexualization of Young Girls
Rosa Brooks, Common Dreams, 25.aug.06
With JonBenet back in the headlines, it's hard for a parent to avoid paranoia.

Cow Whisperers Against the War
Molly Ivins, AlterNet, 29.aug.06
What I learned from women peace activists: spill love and calm and reassurance and, well, peace all over them.

Women Expose Street Harassment
Elana Fiske, AlterNet, 06.sept.06
Women who are cat-called on the street can put their harassers to shame with the help of a New York-based website.

The High Cost of Manliness
Robert Jensen, AlterNet, 8.sept.06
Society's toxic view of masculinity isn't just harmful to men. Everyone pays the price. "At the moment, the culture seems obsessed with gender differences, in the context of a recurring intellectual fad (called 'evolutionary psychology' this time around, and 'sociobiology' in a previous incarnation) that wants to explain all complex behaviors as simple evolutionary adaptations -- if a pattern of human behavior exists, it must be because it's adaptive in some ways. In the long run, that's true by definition. But in the short-term it's hardly a convincing argument to say, 'Look at how men and women behave so differently; it must be because men and women are fundamentally different' when a political system has been creating differences between men and women."

- back to top -

The high cost of college, homework debate, more

Moms Head Back to School
New Business School Programs Help Women Make Career Comebacks
Katharine Escherich, ABC News, 8.sept.06
"Women who leave their jobs to start families have long had difficulty reentering the work force once their children are grown. But a new wave of business programs is training moms to get back into the office without the familiar perils of pay cuts and demotions."

Student Debt Crisis: Are There Any Solutions?
Talia Berman, AlterNet, 23.aug.06
A look at what's behind the ever-increasing cost of college and potential solutions offered by activists and government.

College Blues
Tamara Draut, TomPaine.com, 05.sept.06
"Getting a bachelor’s degree is the required ticket for entry into the middle class today, but the security once implied in that status is gone. In addition to the exigencies now felt by middle-class Americans of all ages—rising health care costs, soaring home prices and flat or falling incomes—today’s new generation of college grads bear an added vulnerability of massive debt."

Back to (Public) School
Ruth Conniff, The Progressive, 22.aug.06
"It strikes me that the consumer mentality some of us develop when our kids are in preschool leads directly to a kind of victim mentality. We set out to try to get our kids the best education we can afford. From vouchers to Catholic schools to tony private institutions, more and more places give more and more parents the ability to exercise their consumer power."

The New First Grade: Too Much Too Soon?
Peg Tyre, Newsweek/MSNBC, 11.sept.06
Kids as young as 6 are tested, and tested again, to ensure they're making sufficient progress. Then there's homework, more workbooks and tutoring.

Building a hate for learning
Rebecca Traister, Salon, 5.sept.06
Is homework bad for kids? Author Nancy Kalish tells Salon why she believes it inhibits learning, strains familes and stunts social development. Interview with the co-author of "The Case Against Homework."

Forget Homework: It's a waste of time for elementary-school students
Emily Bazelon, Slate, 14.sept.06
A review of three recent books concluding that there is little or no evidence that younger students benefit from homework.

Kids may be right after all: Homework stinks
Alfie Kohn, USA Today, 14.sept.06
"No study has supported the claim that homework teaches good work habits or develops positive character traits such as self-discipline and independence."

- back to top -

Men's reproductive rights, fetal homicide laws, after Plan B,
the Fugitive Girl Act

Readers Write: Birth Control and 'Men's Rights'
Laura Barcella, AlterNet, 24.aug.06
A pair of contradictory opinion pieces sparked heated debate among AlterNet readers about male roles in parenthood and contraception.

States expand fetal homicide laws
Christine Vestal and Elizabeth Wilkerson, Stateline.org, 22.aug.06
A wave of new state fetal homicide laws recognizing a fetus “of any gestational age” as a person and potential crime victim has abortion rights advocates worried the statutes could undermine a woman’s right to end her pregnancy.

What Comes After Plan B?
Nancy Keenan, TomPaine.com, 30.aug.06
Despite this positive progress, we cannot ignore that the right wing’s intense campaign to cut off women’s access to contraception is a major threat. In 2006 alone, 18 states considered measures that would allow pharmacists or pharmacies to refuse to fill women’s prescriptions for birth control. And the anti-choice leaders in Congress have already held a hearing on this issue—in order to lend support to these rogue pharmacies.

The Fugitive Girl Act
Paul Rogat Loeb, TomPaine.com, 13.sept.06
"Do you remember the Fugitive Slave Act? It criminalized not only slaves who'd escaped to non-slave states, but also anyone who helped them flee. That law has troubling echoes in a new bill, passed by the Republican Senate and House, that will make it illegal to transport a girl from a state requiring parental consent to get an abortion in another one."

- back to top -