Friday Femorandum: Better Late Than Never

Happy Friday, supporters of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington!

Welcome to the Friday Femorandum, our weekly roundup of reproductive rights news, sent to your inbox every Friday morning from the communications staff at NARAL Pro-Choice Washington. You probably noticed that it’s not the morning, and for this the Femorandum apologizes. What a week we’ve had! Between #GiveBIG on Tuesday and our Power of Choice event last night, it’s been all systems go all the time at NARAL this week.

But although it might stop us from sending it on time, it won’t ever stop us from sending you the Femorandum! Reproductive health news still happens, and we still can’t resist reporting it to you. As we recover from our exhausting, exciting, magical week, here’s what’s on our radar.

At last night’s Power of Choice Awards, Dr. Caroline Heldman wowed us with an inspiring keynote speech on the growing anti-rape movement on college campuses and the importance of electing pro-choice leaders, and we celebrated longtime volunteer Lorie Lucky and pro-choice champions Rep. Eileen Cody & Sen. Steve Hobbs.

If you missed it, we’ve got a recap featuring commentary from Seattlish and our favorite Instagram photos and Tweets from the night here, and Dr. Heldman’s speech was also featured in Morning Fizz at Publicola today.

Friday Femorandum: Not That Steve Martin

Every Friday, we bring you all the repro news that’s fit to reprint! Here’s what happened in reproductive politics this week:

Another anti-choice bill works tirelessly to solve a problem that doesn’t exist: “Despite no evidence that sex-selective abortions are happening in the state at all, a sex-selective abortion ban passed the South Dakota House last week,” reports Feministing. Oh, turns out the ban is also racist.

From Lisa Simpson to Rory Gilmore: Our Favorite Feminist TV Characters

By Communications Intern Michelle Auster

Television isn’t always a great place for feminists, from the sexist tropes we’ve seen time and again, to the lack of diversity, to a lack of female directors and writers, to the sidelining of female characters to limiting roles – so it’s especially awesome, and notable, when TV gets away from these bad habits and shines a light on strong, real women, or even women who themselves identify as feminist. Here are a few of our favorite leading ladies, who we’re excited to watch sticking it to the patriarchy year after year.

1. Lisa Simpson. The longest-recurring TV character on this list, Lisa Simpson has been inspiring young girls for years to stand up for what they believe and to call out wrongdoings against them. She also preceded most of the characters on this list, providing a crucial voice of feminist common sense for little girls growing up in the early 90s.

Thank you for helping us grow up to be feminists, Lisa Simpson! (Image Credit: CelebQuote)

Friday Femorandum: Questioning Your Judgment Right Now

Every Friday, we bring you all the repro news that’s fit to reprint! Here’s what happened in reproductive politics this week:

 Today, in regrettable judicial nominations: Last year, reports RH Reality Check, the Obama administration made a deal with Republican senators from Georgia to pre-approve three judicial nominees in exchange for an end to Republicans’ filibuster of Jill Pryor’s nomination to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Now we’re seeing the result: Obama’s nomination of Michael Boggs — who is anti-choice, and has a history of opposition to civil rights — to Georgia’s federal district court.