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  • A Challenge to Reproductive Decisions Made by Politicians

    March for Women's Lives 

    Women’s Health Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Arizona Abortion Ban»

     The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona today sued to challenge an Arizona law banning pre-viability abortions on behalf of two Arizona doctors whose patients include women in need of this essential medical care. Today’s lawsuit was also filed on behalf of a third doctor, who is represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

    The law, the most extreme ban in the nation, criminalizes virtually all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and contains the narrowest possible exception for only immediate medical emergencies. The ban would force a physician caring for a woman with a high-risk pregnancy to wait until her condition imposes an immediate threat of death or major medical damage before offering her the care she needs. The ban also contains no exceptions for a woman who receives the devastating diagnosis that the fetus will not survive after birth. 

    “Any number of things can happen during a pregnancy, and a woman has to be able to make the right decision for herself and her family,” said Talcott Camp, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “Whether a woman decides to continue with a high-risk pregnancy or terminate it, the important thing is that women, families and physicians make these decisions – not politicians without any medical training.”

    Although very few abortions occur after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a woman who has an abortion at this point does so for a variety of reasons, including the fact that continuing the pregnancy poses a threat to her health, that the fetus has been diagnosed with a medical condition or anomaly, or that the pregnancy has failed and miscarriage is inevitable. The Arizona Section of the American Congress of Obstetrics & Gynecology has criticized the ban as violating standard practice and interfering with the doctor-patient relationship in a way that is adverse to women’s health. 

    “No court has ever upheld such an extreme and dangerous abortion ban,” said Dan Pochoda, legal director of the ACLU of Arizona. “Instead of passing unconstitutional laws and blocking women’s access to critical health services, our legislators should be working to ensure that all women get the care they need to have healthy pregnancies and protect their families.”

    More information about this case can be found at: www.aclu.org/womens-rights/isaacson-v-horne

    Photo from Wikimedia Commons: March for Women’s Lives, 25 April 2004

  • Realities: Upcoming Tax Changes and the Health Care Reform Act

    Editor’s Note: The following summary has been structured by HTG Investment Advisors of New Canaan, Connecticut: 

    The Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act argues for a refresher on some of the bill’s key tax provisions. The list below is meant to highlight some provisions which are relevant for, in some cases, high income investors and is not an exhaustive summary. us navy operating room in Rota

    A new tax on individuals who don’t obtain adequate health coverage by 2014 — this is often referred to as the individual mandate. The tax is to be phased in over three years, starting at the greater of $95, or 1% of income, in 2014, and rising to the greater of $695, or 2.5% of gross income, in 2016.

    Starting in 2013, a 0.9% Medicare surtax will apply to wages in excess of $200,000 for single taxpayers and over $250,000 for married couples.   This means that for every $1,000 over the limit, an additional $9 of Medicare payroll tax will be collected.  If you are married filing joint and your individual income is under the $200,000 limit but jointly over the $250,000, you will need to either have your employer withhold extra taxes or pay estimated taxes to cover the shortfall.

    Also, for the first time ever, a Medicare tax will apply to investment income of high earners. The 3.8% levy will hit the lesser of (1) unearned income or (2) the amount by which adjusted gross income (AGI) exceeds the $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married) threshold amounts. The new law defines unearned income as interest, dividends, capital gains, annuity withdrawals, royalties, net rent income and other passive income.

    Tax-exempt interest is not included, nor are qualified pensions and withdrawals from IRA/401(k) accounts.

    Example: Sally Single has adjusted gross income of $275,000 based on $50,000 of investment income and $225,000 of earned income. She will owe 3.8% tax on the lesser of $75,000 ($275,000-$200,000) or $50,000. She also will pay 0.9% extra Medicare tax on $25,000 ($225,000-$200,000). Total extra tax bill: $1,900 + $225.

    The 3.8% Medicare surtax will also affect trusts and estates with undistributed net investment income, provided they are in the highest income tax bracket for trusts, which for next year will start around $12,000.

    A hike in the 7.5% floor on itemized deductions for medical expenses to 10% will start in 2013. Taxpayers age 65 and over are exempt from the cutback through 2016.

    The penalty for non-qualified distributions from health savings accounts will double to 20%. This already began in 2011.

    The annual amount that employees can contribute to health care flexible spending accounts will be limited to $2,500 starting in 2013. 

    ©2012 HTG Investment Advisors wih permission for SeniorWomen.com

    The IRS has provided a page on the Affordable Health Care Act, including the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit: 

    This new credit helps small businesses and small tax-exempt organizations afford the cost of covering their employees and is specifically targeted for those with low- and moderate-income workers. The credit is designed to encourage small employers to offer health insurance coverage for the first time or maintain coverage they already have. In general, the credit is available to small employers that pay at least half the cost of single coverage for their employees. Learn more by browsing our page on the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit for Small Employers and our news release.

    For other provisions for the consult the The Commonwealth Fund Health Care Reform Resources — The Health Reform Resource Center: What’s in the Affordable Care Act?  View the timeline for the highlights of the law, or use the “Find Health Reform Provisions” tool to search for specific provisions by year, category, and/or stakeholder group.

  • Elaine Soloway’s Caregiving Series: Four Times Around

    Tommy jogging

    Tommy holds two hands in the air. Two fingers on each hand are raised. He uses one hand to draw a circle in front of him, as if he were twirling a lasso. He draws that circle twice. His face shines with sweat and he is smiling.

    “Four times around,” I say. “That’s two miles!”

    He nods, “yes.”

    My husband’s first attempt, to walk around the park for exercise instead of riding his bike, is a success. This shouldn’t surprise me; he used to be a runner.

    “Half marathons,” he said back in 1996 when we first met. He was 61, muscled with no visible fat, divorced, and a bachelor for 15 years. I was 58, separated from my husband of 30 years, and on the lookout for a second.

    Just a few months after our first hellos and a sweet romance, little by little, Tommy moved in with me. His exercise gear came first. Dozens of T-shirts, imprinted with running event logos, scooted my Gap T’s along the closet rod.

    I relinquished one dresser drawer, then two, for his shorts, tank tops, and tube socks. And when his well-worn running shoes jumbled onto the closet floor, my high heels and sandals adjusted. 

    Once my divorce was final, Tommy and I married, and his workout stuff claimed permanent residency. Several years later he stopped running. Plantar fascia, or some other pain in the bottom of his foot ended it. To keep in shape, he switched to an elliptical machine at the local Y. And, when weather permitted, rode his Schwinn.

    I’m happy to see my husband continue to be active today. He has Primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a degeneration of the frontal lobe of the brain that affects speech. In some cases, the illness impacts physical condition. Perhaps Tommy’s allegiance to fitness has deflected this symptom.

    Because he communicates by gestures, nods, and words on note pads, when he rides his bike, I insist on him carrying his cellphone, notepad and golf-sized pencil. This way, if he were to have an accident, he could communicate to a passerby and get help.

    I thought I was doing well protecting my husband, but a few nights ago, I changed my mind. Tommy and I happened to be undressing for bed at the same time. Usually, I turn in two hours before him. But because we returned home late from a Passover dinner, he joined me upstairs.

    He pulled off his sweater and an old running event logo T-shirt he uses as an undershirt. When he started to shuck his slacks, I saw it. Tommy’s body, still slim as the day we met, now bore a black and blue bruise. It was imprinted on his left thigh and resembled a drawing of a map of Italy. Long, wide at one point, then narrowing.

    “Tommy, what happened?” I asked. I ran my hand over the surface of the bruise, as if I were stroking a kitten. “Does it hurt?”

    He shook his head “no.” 

    “When did this happen?” No answer. This bruise could’ve been on my husband’s thigh for days or weeks. 

    “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt? I’ll call the doctor in the morning,” I said. 

    A head shake, “no.”

    “Did it happen at the Y? Did you fall off the elliptical?” 

    Another head shake. 

    “Did you fall off your bike?”

    A nod, “yes.” Bingo.

    “When?” I sat down on the edge of the bed. 

    He took a pad and pencil from his nightstand — we have these all over the house — and wrote, “2.”

    “Two days ago? Why didn’t you tell me?”

    A shrug as he replaced the pad and pencil.

    To me, the bruise appeared to be more ominous then a tumble off a bike.

    “Were you hit by a car?” My heart was pounding. 

    Head shake, “no.” 

    Before I could continue, he got into his side of the bed, turned his back to me, and pulled the covers over his head. 

    “Honey,” I said, loud enough to penetrate his shield. “You have to take a break from bike riding until that bruise heals.” I meant forever. “If you want exercise, how about walking around the park? Once around is half a mile.”

    This day, when Tommy returned from the park and triumphantly acted out his lasso routine, I breathed easier. After all, how much trouble can a fat-free former runner, banned bicyclist, and current walker get into as he strides four times around?

    ©2012 Elaine Soloway for SeniorWomen.com

    Elaine Soloway’s new novel is She’s Not The Type: She's Not the Type

  • Smart Systems: Don’t Expect to See the ‘Home of the Future’ by 2020

    Editor’s Note: We built a new home that has Internet, cable and satellite connections facilitating present and future smart systems. http://house.seniorwomen.com/

    Janna Quitney Anderson, Elon University
    Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
    OverviewIntelligent Circuit Breaker

    Science fiction scenarios have long prophesied a gee-whiz Home of the Future complete with automated appliances, chore-performing robots, and jetpacks. In recent years, technologists and corporate officials have expanded that idea with visions of utility systems, buildings, and even entire cities where sensors, ubiquitous smartphones, and real-time data analytics allow traffic to flow more smoothly, electricity and water systems to adjust efficiently to customer needs, and buildings or bridges that tell their overseers when they are in need of repair.

    Cisco predicts that there will be 25 billion connected devices in 2015 and 50 billion by 2020, each generating data and insights that might prove helpful to those who monitor and collect such things.

    This profusion of connectivity and data should facilitate a new understanding of
    how living environments can be improved.

    To some degree, that future already exists or is being plotted now. Here are some of the things that are occurring now or are being planned for implementation in the foreseeable future:

    •  In 2008, IBM declared that it was going to make a big push into the “industrial Internet” in an initiative called “Smarter Planet.”
    • There are now more than 2,000 projects in the company’s initiative. The New York Times reported: “In Dubuque, Iowa, for example, IBM has embarked on a long-term program with the local government to use sensors, software, and Internet computing to improve the city’s use of water, electricity, and transportation. In a pilot project in 2011, digital water meters were installed in 151 homes, and software monitored water use and patterns, informing residents about ways to consume less and alerting them to likely leaks. In Rio de Janeiro, IBM is employing ground and airborne sensors, along with artificial intelligence software, for neighborhood-level disaster preparedness. The system … aims to predict heavy rains and mudslides up to 48 hours in advance and conduct evacuations before they occur.” 
    •  Google and other companies have created driverless cars that have successfully navigated the streets of San Francisco and interstate highways.
    •  One of the newest “smart appliances” will enter the market this month. It is a rice      cooker made by Panasonic and sold in Japan that downloads an Android app that  then allows the cooker itself to search for recipes. The app is capable of sending emails to the owner about the ingredients that are needed for certain recipes.

  • In Search of a Job: Criminal Records as Barriers to Employment

    by Amy L. Solomon

    Note: Ms. Solomon co-chairs the staff working group of the Attorney General’s Reentry Council. This article is an adaptation of her July 26, 2011, testimony before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

    I am writing this letter … out of desperation and to tell you a little about the struggles of re-entering society as a convicted felon.” Thus began a letter that made its way to me at the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The letter came from a 30-year-old man who — in 2003, at age 21 — lost control of his car after a night of drinking, killing his close friend. “Jay” was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 38 months in state prison.

    “I have worked hard to turn my life around. I have remained clean for nearly eight years, I am succeeding in college, and I continue to share my story in schools, treatment facilities and correctional institutions, yet I have nothing to show for it. … I have had numerous interviews and sent out more than 200 resumes for jobs which I am more than qualified. I have had denial after denial because of my felony.” Jay ends the letter saying, “I do understand that you are not responsible for the choices that have brought me to this point. Furthermore, I recognize that if I was not abiding by the law, if I was not clean, and if I was not focusing my efforts toward a successful future, I would have no claim to make.”

    Jay’s story is not unusual.Edward Hopper's Living Up to Your Employment System

    Edward Hopper’s Living Up to Your Employment System

    A Substantial Share of the US Population Has Arrest Records

    A new study shows that nearly one-third of American adults have been arrested by age 23. This record will keep many people from obtaining employment, even if they have paid their dues, are qualified for the job and are unlikely to reoffend. At the same time, it is the chance at a job that offers hope for people involved in the criminal justice system, as we know from research that stable employment is an important predictor of successful re-entry and desistance from crime.

    Criminal records run the gamut — from one-time arrests where charges are dropped, to lengthy, serious and violent criminal histories. Most arrests are for relatively minor or nonviolent offenses. Among the nearly 14 million arrests recorded in 2009, only 4 percent were considered among the most serious violent crimes (which include murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault).  (See Figure 1[opens in pop-up window].)

    [opens in pop-up window] 

    Figure 1. Arrests in 2009 by Offense

    Another 10 percent of all arrests were for simple assault; these do not involve a weapon or aggravated injury but often include domestic violence and intimate partner violence. The remainder of the arrests in 2009 were for:

    • Property crimes, which accounted for 18 percent of arrests. These include burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, vandalism, stolen property, forgery and counterfeiting, fraud and embezzlement.
    • Drug offenses, which accounted for 12 percent of arrests. These include production, distribution or use of controlled substances.
    • Other offenses, which accounted for 56 percent of all arrests. These include disorderly conduct, drunkenness, prostitution, vagrancy, loitering, driving under the influence and weapons violations.

  • Four Months to Go: Campaign Exhausting But Informative.. Important But Dull

    OVERVIEW

    Republicans and Democrats find little to agree on these days, but they have some similar reactions to the 2012 presidential campaign. Nearly identical percentages of Republicans and Democrats say the election will be exhausting. On the positive side, there also is widespread partisan agreement that the campaign will be informative.

    The national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 7-17 among 2,013 adults, finds that just 49% expect the election to be exciting. Nearly six-in-ten Democrats (59%) say the election will be exciting, compared with 51% of Republicans and just 41% of independents.

    The expectation that the election will be exhausting is in line with perceptions of the campaign so far. Most Americans say the campaign has been too long and dull (56% each), while 53% say it has been too negative. At the same time, an overwhelming majority (79%) views the presidential campaign as important.

    Comparable percentages of Republicans, Democrats and independents say that the campaign has been too long and too negative. And more than eight-in-ten Republicans (85%) and Democrats (83%) say the campaign is important, as do 77% of independents.

    However, there are partisan differences in views of campaign 2012. Notably, fewer Republicans than Democrats say the campaign is interesting. Republicans are less likely to say the campaign is interesting — and more likely to view it as dull — than they were in late March, before Mitt Romney effectively wrapped up the GOP nomination.

    Currently, 33% of Republicans say the presidential campaign is interesting down from 52% in late March (March 22-25). The share of Republicans describing this year’s campaign as dull has spiked from 42% to 60% since then. By contrast, Democrats are finding the campaign increasingly interesting as the general election gets underway. Currently, 45% say it is interesting, up from 36% in March.

    While fewer Republicans than Democrats currently say the campaign has been interesting, GOP voters are more engaged than Democratic voters in the 2012 campaign. For instance, more Republicans are giving quite a lot of thought to the election and more say it really matters who wins. (For more see “GOP Holds Early Turnout Edge, But Little Enthusiasm for Romney,” June 21, 2012.)

  • CultureWatch Books: Black Gotham and Gods Without Men, Judge John Deed DVD

     In This Issue

     Books: 

    If you respect well-researched history, and crave an open account of the footwork, persistent digging, and sometime serendipity required to create it, Carla Peterson’s Black Gotham should be one of the next books that you read.  Trying to keep up with  the various characters and periods in Gods Without Men is more than a little daunting, but the pure quality of Kunzru’s writing is brilliant. 

    DVD Tip: Judge John Deed’s fifth season is now available, with a sixth soon to be released. It’s become another addiction of ours for both the appealing couple Jenny Seagrove and Martin Shaw present on screen and the legal issues explored by the BBC.

    Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City
    By Carla L. Peterson; c. 2011
    Published by Yale University Press; Hardback; e-book; paper; 446pp.

    Reviewed by Jill Norgren

    Despite door-stop histories of New York City including Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace’s prize winning Gotham, there remains a great deal to chronicle about this great American city. In Black Gotham Carla Peterson has written a soul searching account of the city’s African-American elite. The book grows out of Peterson’s quest to uncover the lives of her nineteenth century ancestors. Researching the book required extraordinary detective work, sleuthing that paid off in her own prize winning, “truth” changing narrative. Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, Jr., director of Finding Your Roots, a PBS project, writes that Peterson’s book “reminds us that in all of our families lies the story of this country.” Her book represents the new way of looking at the “full sweep” of African American history that Gates has championed.

    Black Gotham  is a game changer. Peterson’s book negates earlier histories that do not acknowledge or fully chronicle the existence of a black elite in nineteenth century New York. The book demonstrates that an outsider’s lens might suggest the existence of a “black community” although African Americans in New York, in fact, constituted multi-class and culturally diverse groups.New York Society Library

    The book also re-positions black communities geographically, describing the racially mixed neighborhoods in which African Americans lived, first in Lower Manhattan and then after the Civil War in Brooklyn, “at a time when Harlem was a mere village.” New York’s black intellectual and cultural life, Peterson argues, began in this pre-Harlem world. Through painstaking research Black Gotham, which won a 2011 New York City Book Award from the New York Society Library (founded in 1754), lays out the story of Peterson’s ancestors, men and women of the middle and upper middle class who made their living as doctors, pharmacists, teachers, and ministers. She documents their personal lives, work, and politics — complete with triumphs and tragedies. The story comes together as social history born out of the author’s desire to find out more of her family’s background and to write “what really happened, how it really was for black New Yorkers in the nineteenth century.”

    The history unwound by Peterson takes us through nineteenth century Manhattan and Brooklyn. Initially, her camera shot focuses on the Mulberry Street School many of whose alumni went on to become African-American leaders and professionals. In a narrative containing many individuals, and changing venues, the choice of beginning with this school and the role of education was a wise one. It provides an anchor as the book moves along.

    Peterson, professor of English at the University of Maryland, uses the lives and achievements of two of her ancestors to structure the narrative. She begins with her great-great-grandfather, Peter Guignon, and then brings onto the stage her great-grandfather, Philip White, who was also a pharmacist. Peterson considers White “the hero“ of her book, his individual achievements “amazing.” Peter, however, was no slouch. He loved book reading, with others experimented with black political organizing, held membership in literary societies and, at the age of forty-five, became a pharmacist. He was a man of stature.

  • The Missing Piece: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

    At a seminar held at CERN1 July 4th as a curtain raiser to the year’s major particle physics conference, ICHEP2012 in Melbourne, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented their latest preliminary results in the search for the long sought Higgs particle. Both experiments observe a new particle in the mass region around 125-126 GeV.

    “We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of 5 sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV. The outstanding performance of the LHC and ATLAS and the huge efforts of many people have brought us to this exciting stage,” said ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, “but a little more time is needed to prepare these results for publication.”

    “The results are preliminary but the 5 sigma signal at around 125 GeV we’re seeing is dramatic. This is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found,” said CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela. “The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks.”

    “It’s hard not to get excited by these results,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “ We stated last year that in 2012 we would either find a new Higgs-like particle or exclude the existence of the Standard Model Higgs. With all the necessary caution, it looks to me that we are at a branching point: the observation of this new particle indicates the path for the future towards a more detailed understanding of what we’re seeing in the data.”

    The results presented today are labelled preliminary. They are based on data collected in 2011 and 2012, with the 2012 data still under analysis.  Publication of the analyses shown today is expected around the end of July. A more complete picture of today’s observations will emerge later this year after the LHC provides the experiments with more data.

    The next step will be to determine the precise nature of the particle and its significance for our understanding of the universe. Are its properties as expected for the long-sought Higgs boson, the final missing ingredient in the Standard Model of particle physics? Or is it something more exotic? The Standard Model describes the fundamental particles from which we, and every visible thing in the universe, are made, and the forces acting between them. All the matter that we can see, however, appears to be no more than about 4% of the total. A more exotic version of the Higgs particle could be a bridge to understanding the 96% of the universe that remains obscure.

    “We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. “The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle’s properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe.”

    Positive identification of the new particle’s characteristics will take considerable time and data. But whatever form the Higgs particle takes, our knowledge of the fundamental structure of matter is about to take a major step forward.

    1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession. Israel and Serbia are Associate Members in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

  • Nuanced Sexism: Reflections of a female surgery resident

    By Arghavan Salles, Clayman Institute for Gender Research

    When do women first realize we are not supposed to be good at math and science? For me, it was during high school calculus class when my classmates begrudged me my position as the best student in the class. I was slow to catch on, though: many children learn the harmful stereotype about women’s supposed inferior math ability early on in their elementary school years.

     Even after I had this realization, I naively did not think the stereotype affected me. In college I majored in engineering. Of course I noticed that my classmates were mostly men, but I did not think much of it. I was even a little bit annoyed by organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers because their very existence made it seem as though women in engineering needed more support than their male colleagues. That, to me, was insulting.

    I went on to medical school and decided to become a surgeon. In retrospect, it’s almost as though I was set on defying the stereotypes about women’s abilities, first in engineering, then in medicine, and finally in the medical specialty thought of as the least welcoming of women, surgery.  

    Rosalyn Yalow at her Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital, October 13, 1977, after learning she was one of three American doctors awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine that year.

    Rosalyn Yalow at her Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital, October 13, 1977, after learning she was one of three American doctors awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine that year. 

    In many fields the leading thinkers go into academic careers in which they generate new knowledge through their research. In these positions, they have the responsibility of training the future leaders in their field. Over the past 25 years, women have increasingly accounted for a greater proportion of surgical trainees. However, they often do not choose to stay in academics. Indeed, despite one third of surgical trainees being women, only eight percent of full professors in surgery are women. Even fewer of these women go on to hold important leadership positions such as serving as department chairs: there are only three women chairs of departments of surgery in the United States. I carefully consider these stark facts when I think about whether to pursue an academic career.

     … despite one third of surgical trainees being women, only eight percent of full professors in surgery are women… there are only three women chairs of departments of surgery in the United States.

  • Veterans’ Benefits, Child Protection For Adoptive Parents and Against Child Pornography

    Weekly Congressional Highlights From June 25 -29th, 2012 and a Hearing on Veterans’ Benefits, courtesy of Women’s Policy, Inc.

    US Woman soldier provides perimeter security outside an Iraqi police station

     Child Protection

    H.R. 6021 — Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)/Ways and Means (6/26/12) — A bill to require states to follow certain procedures in placing a child who has been removed from the custody of his or her parents.

    H.R. 6063 — Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)/Judiciary (6/29/12) — A bill to amend title 18 of the United States Code with respect to child pornography and child exploitation offenses.

    Family Support

    H.R. 6035 — Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)/Ways and Means (6/27/12) — A bill to promote permanent families for children, privacy and safety for unwed mothers, responsible fatherhood, and security for adoptive parents by establishing a National Responsible Father Registry and encouraging states to enter into agreements to contribute the information contained in the state’s Responsible Father Registry to the National Responsible Father Registry, and for other purposes.

    International

    H.R. 6027 — Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ)/Foreign Affairs (6/26/12) — A bill to provide for universal intercountry adoption accreditation standards, and for other purposes.

    H. Res. 713 — Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)/Foreign Affairs, Energy and Commerce (6/28/12) — A resolution expressing support for the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) and the sense of the House of Representatives that continued commitment by the United States to HIV/AIDS research, prevention, and treatment programs is crucial to protecting global health.

    Tax Policy

    H.R. 6074 — Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)/Ways and Means (6/29/12) — A bill to deny the refundable portion of the child tax credit to individuals who are not authorized to be employed in the United States and to terminate the use of certifying acceptance agents to facilitate the application process for individual taxpayer identification numbers.

    Senate Committee Holds Hearing on Veterans’ Health and Benefits

    On June 27, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee held a hearing on health and benefits legislation. The hearing covered a number of bills relating to veterans, including S. 3313, the Women Veterans and Other Health Care Improvements Act of 2012. The measure would increase reproductive health and fertility treatment services offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), improve facilities for women veterans, and introduce child care pilot programs for veterans.

    Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) opened the discussion on S. 3313 by saying, “The Women Veterans and Other Health Care Improvements Act of 2012 builds upon previous laws to improve VA services for women veterans and veterans with families. My bill will create a child care pilot program for veterans seeking readjustment counseling at vet centers and increase outreach to women veterans.” She continued with a discussion of fertility treatment: “Many of these veterans dream of one day starting a family. But with the injuries they’ve sustained on the battlefield that may not be possible without some extra help. While the Department of Defense (DoD) and Tricare are now able to provide advanced fertility treatment to injured servicemembers, today VA can only provide limited treatment. VA’s services do not even begin to meet the needs of our most seriously injured veterans or their families. My bill will help make real the dream of starting a family by authorizing VA to provide advanced fertility treatment to severely wounded veterans. By authorizing these treatments, we will bring VA services in line with what DoD and Tricare already provide. It’s the right thing to do and it’s what our veterans deserve.”

    Photo: US Army Spc. Rebecca Buck, a medic from Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, provides perimeter security outside an Iraqi police station in the Tarmiya Province of Iraq. (US Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. William Greer)