"Last I checked, we don't have a rubber shortage in America. Look, when I was in college, we had a machine in the bathroom, you put 50 cents in and voila. So, yes, anyone who wants contraceptives can access them, but it's an utter made-up nonsense issue," Ted Cruz, at a campaign stop in lowa responding to accusations that Republican candidates are undermining access to conAnyone following the US Presidential primaries will be struck by the level of misogyny and sexism among those contesting the Republican nomination. All the candidates have an anti-choice agenda - and that included Carly Fiorina. Donald Trump, who used to hold a pro-choice position, has switched sides. He has gone on to call women who have abortion criminals who must be punished; - yet the shock of this is still reverberating through the US. The Republicans have been in the anti-choice camp for quite a while, but this batch of candidates is particularly frightening. On the other hand, in the only democratic debate in which abortion was addressed (Fox News of all sponsors), the replies of Democratic candidates were pro-choice. Bernie Sanders came out strongly in support of women's reproductive rights, arguing that governments do not have the right to tell women what to do with their bodies and opposing limit restrictions. Hillary Clinton also took a pro-choice stance - albeit weaker than Sanders. Her general position has been the "safe, legal, and rare" framework; i.e. keep it legal and safe, but make it rare. She has recently dropped the "rare" - an important positive tweak -but still holds that abortion as a moral She, like Sanders, has now come out against the restrictive Hyde amendment -which makes it harder for poor women to get abortions. Moreover, she thinks that restrictions can be placed on late-term abortions. Neither candidate accepts the 20 week deadline - which violates Roe vs Wade - and which is embodied in several pieces of anti-choice legislation passed by These discussions are clearly not isolated but are a response to the general attack on women's reproductive rights occurring through state level legislation restricting access to abortion, increasing the cost to women, and attacking Planned Parenthood. The nature of private health care in the United States also limits women's rights to control our ATTACKS ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD Clinics which provide abortion services are under attack. An organisation called Campaign for Medical Progress (CMP) released a series of videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood has a policy of selling tissue from aborted foetuses. Investigations in several states found no evidence of wrong-doing. The videos were shown to be faked and the heads of CMP are now facing prison. This hasn't stopped calls for defunding Planned Parenthood federally and at state level. So-called moderate Republican candidate John Kasich, governor of Ohio recently defunded the organisation and other Republican candidates have been advocatOn November 27 2015, Robert Dear Jr. entered the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs and opened fire; killing 3 people and wounding 9.5 Dear referred to the sale of "baby parts" as his motivation'. He faces charges of 1s* degree murder. The clinic finally reopened its door in Defunding Planned Parenthood has serious consequences. They not only provide abortions, but are often the only provider for cancer screening (i.e., pap smears, breast cancer), birth control and STD testing for women with low incomes. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that defunding in Texas shows has negatively impacted long-term birth conCATHOLIC CHURCH President Obama allowed an opt-out to the Affordable Care Act by allowing a conscientious objection clause over access to both abortion and contraceptives as part of health insurance. Now there is yet another Supreme Court challenge coming directly from the Catholic Church to the provision of birth control in health insurance policies, and whether the church's health insurance policies cover women employees working in institutions like charities and universities. In terms of the employees of purely religious organisations like charities, the issue is clearer as they often employ members that believe in church doctrine. However, in the case of colleges and universities, employees come from various religious beliefs and their reproductive rights are being violated. And the number of Catholic hospitals is growing in the US. They are bound by the directives of Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services® which limit access to birth control, voluntary sterilisation
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and abortion provision (including waiting on D&Cs until infections set in). Mercy Health Partners in Michigan has been accused of endangering five women's lives by forcing them to undergo prolonged miscarriages with all the physical and emotional trauma that involves, in order to comply with the directives of the church. 10 LAWS LIMITING ABORTION ACCESS Women's access to abortion is being restricted by a whole panoply of laws being passed in individual states, often using the claim that they will "protect women's health"; an argument the anti-abortionists have realised they can spin better than the old calls of foetal rights. They include attempts to put into place a 20 week limit, regulations over waiting periods, unnecessary ultrasound, parental consent, forced 'counselling' about the supposed dangers of abortion, and denial of certain procedures. The West Virginia House of Representatives passed a law making it illegal for a doctor to do a "dismemberment abortion" (usually known as a Dilation and Evacuation proce dure unless the woman's health is at risk. A D&E is a safe and common form of abortion procedure for 2nd trimester abortions.12 The state governor vetoed the legislation on March 10 and the state Senate overrode his veto the following day - meaning that the ban will take effect 90 days later. 13 Another law, just passed by Indiana's house and headed to the governor, requires that women who spontaneously aborted or had an induced abortion be responsible for the burial or cremation of the foetus, in addition to the usual nonsense about listening to foetal heart beats and viewing foetal ultrasounds. It also involves doctor "admitting privileges" at local hospitals that form the heart of most recent legislation called TRAP laws.14 TRAP LAWS TRAP laws limit access by regulating abortions centres rather the procedure itself. They have increased since 2010 and currently 24 states have laws which employ these provisions. They address the following: Physicians doing abortions must have "admitting privileges" in local hospitals Given the danger to physicians providing abortion procedures (Colorado Springs is merely the latest in attack against clinics, doctors and staff), doctors often come from outside the area or even outside the state to assist women. Admitting privileges are thus very difficult to obtain which means the local hospital can determine whether an abortion clinic can exist. • Abortion clinics must have an agreement with a hospital to transfer women in case of emergency. • Abortion Clinics must be a certain distance from a hospital. Standards are imposed about the rooms where abortions can be performed (often in line with those for much more complex proce dures). These are unnecessary given that abortions are normally performed in the first trimester and their expense would force clinics to close - leaving women to travel long distances and face delays in obtaining terminations. 15 SUPREME COURT The biggest threat to a woman's right to choose is an upcoming Supreme Court decision over a challenge to Texas HB2.16 The decision specifically addresses two provi• Abortion clinics in the state must meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centres; • Abortion providers must have admitting privileges at local hospitals. While the death of Justice Antonin Scalia has significantly changed the potential outcome, it is not all plain sailing. 17 The court is now divided 4-4 conservatives to liberal judges and the Republicans are saying they will not ratify Merrick Garland whom Obama has appointed as Scalia's successor. If the court splits 4-4, the decision will be sent back to the lower courts that have upheld the Texas decision. If, on the other hand, Justice Kennedy comes to an agreement with the 4 liberal justices (resulting in a 5-3 decision - and in line with some of his previous votes); this would be very positive. The decision will not only impact on Texas, but on the 23 other states that have versions of this law. The Supreme Court has currently blocked Louisiana's application of its law (Act 620) which would shut down four out of six of the state's abortion providers.18 The application of the Texas Law is also under hold pending the courts decision, specifically the portion relating to ambulatory surgical centres which keeps some Oral arguments in the case were held on March 2 2016. The Supreme Court's decision could challenge both Doe and Roe and women's reproductive rights significantly and the outcome is far from clear. Meanwhile, in 2015 over 700,000 people searched google to find out how to self-induce a miscarriage. The state with the highest searches was Mississippi which has one of the most restrictive and stringent anti-abortion laws. NOTES 1 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ted-cruz-birthcontrol-dont-rubber-shortage-america/ story?id=35501705 2 http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2016/03/04/ gop-candidate-will-really-good-women/ 3 http://www.salon.com/2016/01/15/hillary_clintons_abortion game_changer_ why_ her call for_abandoning the_hyde_amendment_is_so_important/ 4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_2015_undercover_videos_controversy 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Springs_ Planned_Parenthood_shooting 6 http://www.womenshealthpolicyreport.org/articles/colo-planned-parenthood-reopening. html?referrer=http://www.womenshealthpolicyreport. org/articles/colo-planned-parenthood-reopening.html 7 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1511902 8 see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ courts_law/supreme-court-accepts-challenge-tohealth-laws-contraceptivemandate/2015/11/06/5556d6da-8400-11e58ba6-cec48b74b2a7_story.html 9 http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/humanlife-and-dignity/health-care/upload/Ethical-ReligiousDirectives-Catholic-Health-Care-Services-fifth-edition-2009.pdf 10 http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/ feb/18/michigan-catholic-hospital-women-miscarriage-abortion-mercy-health-partners 11 https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/16/2/ gpr160207.html 12 See, http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2016/03/10/west-virginia governor-vetoesgops-ban-common-abortion-procedure/ Similar bans of this type have been struck down by the courts in Kansas and Oklahoma http://www.womenshealthpolicyreport.org/articles/wva-abortion-bill.html See also: http://www.legis.state.wv.us/Bill_Text_ HTML/2016_SESSIONS/RS/bills/SB10%20SUB1. pdf 13 http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2016/03/10/ west-virginia-governor-vetoes-gops-ban-common-abortion-procedure/ 14 https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2016/bills/ house/1337#; see for further commentary: http:// jezebel.com/yet-another-garbage-abortion-bill-hasbeen-passed-this-1763935935 15 (http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/ spib_TRAPpdf) 16 Full text of the Texas HB law: http://www.legis. state.tx.us/tlodocs/832/billtext/pdf/HB00002F.pdf 17 http://www.wnyc.org/story/after-scalias-deathsplit-supreme-court-may-empower-lower-courts/ 18 http://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/ mar/04/us-supreme-court-louisiana-abortion-lawruling
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AN AGENDA FOR EUROPE: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOLUTION OF THE DEBT AND THE EURO Francisco Louçã A prolonged stalemate that feeds successive crises The world economy is stagnant. The system is in transformation and crisis. Transformation, because new centres of profitability - and therefore of political power - are arising. The Chinese economy is the most powerful while the Brazilian is experiencing a sharp fall. In crisis, because mediocre growth maintains high unemployment in more developed countries and because the difficulty increas ing the rate of accumulation precipitates austerity; modifying the distribution of income between capital and labour, with effects which are socially regressive and economically recessionary. This results in the weakening of political regimes, shown by the instability in France, the referendum in the United Kingdom, the governmental impasse in Spain and the emergence of xenophobic populism, not only in Hungary and Poland and also in Belgium or the Netherlands. The centre of the empire, Washington, is a decadent power, with a decomposing hegemony and as such is even more dangerous. The USA represents one third of the global economy. In politics, more. In demography and geography, much less. In currency, still almost everything. In military technology, the same. This monumental power, that dominated the last century and slowly degrades in this, is one of the greatest threats to global stability. Its external action accentuates conflict, its policy is dangerous, its economy is extractive and therefore decadent. Foreign policy was the main factor in Obama's election. He promised decompression (the closure of Guantanamo) and multilateralism (a minimum form allowing inclusion of allies). In all these areas he has retreated. In Europe, he has drawn Germany into a conflict in Ukraine, trying to place the boundary of NATO at the edge of Russia. Meanwhile, the three pillars of the US's relationship in the Middle East have suffered serious disturbance or increasing risks: in Egypt, with a popular uprising and then a military coup, while Israel and Saudi Arabia both risk a political suicide through complacency or support for Daesh. US foreign policy has failed because it permitted the resurgence of Russia as a military power and Iran's assertion as a regional force. The biggest problem, however, is that for the USA, foreign policy is determined by internal politics (in Europe is the opposite), imposed by rightward drift of their political system with the emergence of isolationist populism in the two major parties. This is a move from an imposing imperial leadership towards hesitant government, with brutal and disjointed disciplinary actions that inflame the world. The U.S. no longer has control as a territorial power. The defeat in Vietnam seems to have closed an epoch. Attack and withdrawal has become the US practice, so that internal politics becomes volatile in its external actions. This is "drone militarism." The technology allows air wars, which amplify conflict and facilitate conditions for the globalization of terror, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya and Syria. Since internal politics is closed in on itself, the US can no longer lead the world: Obama cannot accept a treaty on climate change because it would be rejected by the House of Representatives or by the Senate, starting with his own party - and he would be forced to seek legal solutions based on a weak compromise. If foreign policy is determined by internal politics, the US also abdicates from offering an external leadership, even when needed. The world is dominated by a state that cannot lead internaThe extractive economy is at the root of this contradiction in internal policy. The sovereign privilege of the dollar has been undermined by the existence of a basket of currencies of reference for the creation of a reserve for trade, although none can yet compete in the supreme role. Only the yuan has the support of a state that can aspire to this, but China still does not have a sufficiently powerful financial market to absorb income from savings and direct the financial funds that are the nerve of capital accumulation. Thus, it is still what the US decides which conditions globalisaThe US benefits and will continue to benefit from globalisation, standing in a privileged and comfortable position as the first hegemonic leader that imports capital rather than exporting it, making this anomaly one of its forms of domination. This is unprecedented in history. This requires the dollar to be the reference currency (without being the privileged international reserve currency) and control of the main productive forces (without the US being the productive motor of goods or possibly knowledge), of natural resources (although the powder keg of the Middle East threatens this), of innovative capacity (where space has been opened up tor other powers with changes in energy patterns and new essential goods, like medicine) and even control of savings and investment (al27 The US benefits and will continue to benefit from globalisation, standing in a privileged and comfortable position as the first hegemonic leader that imports capital rather than exporting it, making this anomaly one of its forms of domination. This is unprecedented in history. though China will soon have sufficient resources to overtake here). So the reason for its strength today is the cause of its fragility tomorrow, inasmuch as this advantage Some US economists, alarmed by this, launched a debate two years ago on "secular stagnation", reviving a term used in 1939 by a president of the American Economic Association, Alvin Hansen, to describe the features of 1929 - demographic stagnation, the deficit in demand and therefore a perspective of falling investment with a consequent reduction of potential growth. Following this analogy, we would now be in a new secular stagnation for reasons similar to those of the Great Depression. The numbers seem to confirm this. The IMF revised forecasts for 2020 late last year, anticipating a GDP for China 14% lower than previously forecast, with Europe and the US being 6% lower. A previous study by the National Bureau of Economic Research stated that the production potential of the major economies because of sub-prime crash of 2008-9 would be around 9% or, as summarized in The Economist (June 14, 2014) would be "as if the entire German economy had evaporated." Hence the extractive economy, in which financial income is parasitic on the system: a shadow banking that absorbs savings, a political system which imposes austerity,