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Today on Blog for Choice Day, NARAL Pro-Choice America is asking, "Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?" I think little Michelle from Full House speaks for all of us when she says, "Duh!"

This weekend is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, so the crazy anti-choicers are sure to be out in force, but in case you needed reminding that reproductive rights are in jeopardy every day of the year, meet Nebraska State Senator Beau McCoy. He got a jump on the issue earlier this month by introducing legislation that would prevent health insurance companies from having to cover abortions, because "Nebraskans who find abortion morally reprehensible should not be forced to pay for abortions through their insurance premiums." Hmmm. Continuing this logic, if I find State Senator Beau McCoy morally reprehensible, should I have to pay for his salary through my taxes? But I digress.

Senator McCoy is concerned about the yet-to-exist health insurance exchanges created through last year's health care reform act. It's not enough that those purchasing health insurance would have to get an additional rider to cover abortion and have to write separate checks (one for the premium of health insurance, and one for whatever the cost of the additional abortion coverage would be). It's not enough that Nebraska already has a law prohibiting insurance coverage for abortion if the health insurance is paid for with any public funds. It's not enough that State Senator Annette Dubas has introduced a bill to ban insurance plans purchased on the yet-to-exist health insurance exchange from covering abortion.

No, McCoy wants to ban any private health insurance plans from covering abortion. Yes, you read that correctly. If you live in Nebraska and have health insurance, your plan cannot cover abortion, even if your pregnancy endangers your health, or is the result of rape or incest. The only exception is to save the woman's life. They're not totally heartless in the heartland.

How much trouble could a wider door cause? A lot, if that door leads to a Maryland health clinic that provides abortions.

Since 1991, the Maryland Department of Health and Human Hygiene has been required to regulate abortion providers using the "least intrusive method." Delegates Adelaide C. Eckardt and Pamela Beidle have apparently misread that clause as they've introduce a bill requiring abortion providers to be regulated as surgical centers. Senator Nancy Jacobs plans to introduce a similar bill in the State Senate.

Surgical centers are held to tougher requirements than clinics and doctors offices, where 95% of abortions are performed, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Surgical centers must have wider doors and hallways, and specialized medical equipment, like ventilators, that are not required at clinics. According to John Nugent, President of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, few (if any) of the 41 abortion providers in the state have the financial means to implement such medically unnecessary changes. Probably because they're spending their money, you know, treating their patients.

For more than 100 days, criminal defense attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh has been imprisoned in Iran's notorious Evin Prison for "security offenses." In Iran, representing a Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist (Shirin Ebadi) and belonging to a human rights center are grave security offenses worthy of solitary confinement.

In protest of her mistreatment, Sotoudeh began a hunger strike and her supporters held a sit-in at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. Ebadi herself was there on the first day and told reporters "Ms. Pillay [Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights] should be aware that a lawyer, a human rights activist in Iran, is at death's door and she needs to do something."

Three days later, Pillay did something, and Ebadi et al ended their protest. In a letter to the protestors, Pillay explained that she had been following Sotoudeh's case for over a month and "will continue to follow her case, and will take appropriate steps to reiterate our concerns to the attention of the Iranian authorities." Sotoudeh has ended her hunger strike, but she remains in prison.

I hope you've all recovered from your tryptophan comas, because it's time to get back to work. While we were eating, celebrating, and watching my precious Pats stuff the Detroit Lions like a turkey, the Rutger's Center for Women's Global Leadership kicked off their 16 day campaign against gender-based violence. Did you know November 25 was International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women? Yeah, me neither.

Fortunately, we have a few more days to take action, beginning today with International Women Human Rights Defenders Day and culminating on December 10 with International Human Rights Day. The campaign ends on International Human Rights Day to link gender-based violence with human rights and to show that gender-based violence is a violation of human rights.

Across the world, participants will be holding vigils, marches, and other peaceful, nonviolent demonstrations to challenge militarism and end violence against women, strengthen women's leadership to promote peace and realize human rights for all to achieve genuine security. Event organizers are encouraged to add two additional, more locals goals. You can find local and online events at the campaign calendar.

Personally, I never thought much about militarism or the military industrial complex and how it might relate to gender-based violence. The global call to action explains that militarism is a way of looking at the world that influences how we see our families, neighbors, public life, and other people in the world. In essence, it's an ideology of fear that supports the use of violence to settle disputes. Sounds like our health care reform "debate," Republican/Tea Party, Fox "news," and that Alaskan woman with the dancing daughter.

If you are American, you'll be inundated this week with messages reminding you to be grateful this Thanksgiving season and give thanks for the your blessings, like friends and love and your health. Too many of us take these gifts for granted, but too many of us have heard this same message since nursery school. So let's change it up a bit. This year, let's also give thanks to the activists and changemakers who rocks our socks, the people who put their hearts and souls into their work, often risking their lives to do so.

Jane Barry and Jelena Dordevic spoke with over 100 female human rights activists in 45 countries, not about their work, but about how they cope with the chronic stress, the traumas they witness, and the activist culture of self-sacrifice. What they found, first, was that activists didn't want to discuss these topics. But we need to talk about it or "the stress of the work gets absorbed into our hearts, minds, bodies, and into the movement as a whole. Without the time and space to reflect and recover, it stays there. Eventually it takes form as breakdowns, strokes, heart disease, cancer, suicide." Now I'm even more worried about those 10 days before the election when I sustained myself on Aleve, caffeine, and Milky Way bars. Damn Halloween candy.

Fortunately, we can do something besides splurging on post-holiday candy sales. In the middle of their essay, Barry and Dordevic note that activists are each other's families, and that by uniting, gathering, talking and listening, we create peace. Not just the peace that ends conflict, but hopefully some inner peace that allows us to keep fighting the good fight.

What's the easiest way to unite across causes and time-zones? Why, the internet, of course. For that reason, World Pulse, a nonprofit media org devoted to giving women a voice in global issues, created PulseWire, a sort of social networking site for activists, or an "online sanctuary" for women to share ideas and solutions. Right now, the focus is on the activism, but I hope as the activist community becomes more aware of the need to sustain ourselves, it can be used as a support group.

Can art change the world? The people at Freedom to Create believe it can. Since 2008, Freedom to Create has awarded its annual prize to honor "the power of art to fight oppression, break down stereotypes and build trust in societies where the social fabric has been ripped apart by conflict, violence and misunderstanding."

One of the 2009 runners-up, Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai, grew up in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Chel Dokhtaraan, The Forty Girls, is her installation piece about the violence committed against women and girls in Afghanistan. The piece includes 41 calendars depicting photographs and stories of women who have been killed. The title of the piece refers to a legend of 40 women who committed suicide when their home was invaded. The first calendar in the series is incomplete. It begins with the current year, thus asking the question: who will be next?

Obviously, we hope no one will. But since we live in the real world, not a mythical wonderland where all is peace, love, and unicorns, we need a back up plan. Enter the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom, or WILPF. WILPF has joined a coalition of major women's groups and peace organizations, including the Feminist Majority Foundation, calling on Congress to support the Afghan Women Empowerment Act of 2009 (S.229/H.R.2214). This act provides a structure for administering funds to Afghan nonprofits by providing direct assistance to the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and grassroots non-governmental organizations that promote literacy, job training programs and health care services within an international human rights framework. All good things, and perhaps the next Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai will be among the recipients of these vital job training or health services.

Happy Blog Action Day y'all! Today, bloggers all over the world are writing about water. Obviously, we all need water to survive, and there are environmental issues at play, but since this is the Women's Rights blog, I'll be writing about water from a gender perspective. You see, water is a women's issue.

In our industrialized countries, water is associated with women's work. Think about it -- who does the dishes and the laundry at home? But thanks to washing machines and dishwashers, these chores aren't as time-consuming as they once were. However, in more rural, developing countries, it is the women's work (and girls' work) to fetch and carry the water back to the home. In rural India, women average six trips a day (a total of ten miles) and it is far too common for girls to drop out of school to help at home by -- you guessed it -- gathering the water.

Jamie Bechtel, the founder of New Course, an organization dedicated to involving women in the management of natural resources, wrote about women and water gathering last summer at the Huffington Post. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a typical young woman would begin her day before dawn when she started her four mile (average) hike to obtain water. On the return trip, the water she carries in a container on her head would weigh up to 75 pounds. Instead of making her stronger, these trips will weaken our girl's skeleton, cause problems during pregnancy, and generally threaten her health as she exposes herself to diseases like malaria and dengue fever.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that the Afghan government and the Taliban had begun secret peace agreement talks. Conditions require the Taliban to renounce violence, surrender their weapons, and accept the constitution of Afghanistan. Sounds pretty basic, right?

But women's rights advocates are worried. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Jennifer Rowell, head of policy and advocacy for Care International in Afghanistan, expressed her concern that we are entering a very dangerous time for Afghan Women. "The greatest concern is the policy of reconciliation and reintegration (of militants) ... In the reconciliation process, women’s rights are a card on the table ... I’m afraid they will be the first thing to be sacrificed in the negotiations.” She said Care has talked to thousands of Afghan women and they are also worried, so this is not just Western NGO posturing. And even if it were, Care isn't the only NGO worried.

Earlier this month I received a good old-fashioned paper appeal (remember those?) from the Feminist Majority Foundation for their Campaign to Help Afghan Women and Girls. It included the following facts: nearly 1000 girls' schools have been destroyed. Girls and teachers have been killed in a return of the Taliban reign of terror. Only 18% of Afghan women have skilled medical personnel present when they give birth. One in six Afghan women are dying in childbirth.

It's baaaa-ack. It's more annoying than the vuvuzela and crazier than most of the drivel coming out of the mouth of the Tea Party — I mean GOP — candidate for governor in my home state of Maine. What is it? It's the Facebook Status Update approach to Breast Cancer Awareness!

You remember the last go-round: Women, post the color of your bra as your status. The guys won't know what we're talking about! That at least had a somewhat superficial connection to breast cancer. This time, that vague link is gone. Now we are to put as our status the spot where we drop our purse upon returning home, preceded by the words "I like it." "I like it on the hall table!" "I like it on the floor!" Tee-hee-hee aren't we clever.

My goodness. The garish neon pink accessories assaulting my eyeballs Monday night as I watched my beloved Pats demolish the Dolphins do more to raise awareness about Breast Cancer Awareness Month than these inane Facebook ploys. At least the NFL players also sport the Pink Ribbon decal on their helmets, even if it does clash with their garish pink cleats (though as an aside, they might consider sporting the purple Domestic Violence Awareness ribbon).

But what's a well meaning person to do? How about some honest-to-goodness effective activism. Here in Maine, you can now get an "Early Detection Saves Lives" Breast Cancer Awareness license plate when you register your car. The money goes to the Maine CDC Breast Cancer Fund. Check with the DMV to see if your state has a similar program. Make your daily clicks at The Breast Cancer Site to help donate free mammograms to women in need or make a financial contribution to a worthy organization. You could find one right here on Change.org. And if you absolutely must show your activist bonafides via mass social networking, you could make that ubiquitous pink ribbon your Facebook or Twitter picture.

Today is the Autumnal Equinox, the September Full Moon, and Mabon, the Wiccan celebration of the equinox and the harvest. In the Wiccan text I consulted, the September moon is the Harvest moon, a time to give thanks for the blessings we've received and remember those whose bounty is not as plentiful. Under these themes, I'd like to discus hunger in the context of gender.

Children are frequently cited among the recipients of food aid in the United States. According to the Hunger in America 2010 report, children comprise one-third of the recipients of food aid, but over half of the clients are adults ages 18 to 64. Sixty-one percent of those adults are women. In fact, single mothers with children are especially vulnerable to hunger and food insecurity, and these female-headed households with children are more prevalent at food pantries.

Hunger and food insecurity has increased sine the 2005 report, no doubt as a result of the economic recession. More than half of food pantries, kitchens, and shelters reported an increase in demand and an average of 25 percent had to turn clients away. Lack of adequate food resources was a predominant reason for doing so.

This is where we come in. Check out the food bank locator at the Feeding America website. Celebrate the harvest by stopping by and bringing a can of non-persishables, or spending an hour or two volunteering at your local food bank. And even if you only have a minute to spare, you can sign our petition to Congress to make food security a constitutional right.

Photo credit: bonnie-brown