Obama admin reverses Bush stance on asylum for abused women.

[Uzybone]

U.S. Opens Path to Asylum for Victims of Sexual Abuse

The Obama administration has opened the way for foreign women who are victims of severe domestic beatings and sexual abuse to receive asylum in the United States. The action reverses a Bush administration stance on an issue at the center of a protracted and passionate legal battle over the possibilities for battered women to become refugees.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/us/16asylum.html?_r=1&hp

[Ken Burch]

1. I'm glad to hear this

It will be interesting to hear what the "Independent" Women's Forum comes up with to attack him on this.

[ccharles000]

2. great

[lindisfarne]

3. Obama hasn't done anything for progressive views. n/t

:sarcasm:

[Cha]

4. As evidenced by all the

bushit they're cleaning up.:)

[Chulanowa]

8. I just checked my backyard. Still no unicorn pony with wings

Bastard.

[Arkana]

5. Good news.

I didn't even know this was a thing.

[Zodiak]

6. Great news

And good for Obama!

[Raine1967]

7. Globally this is wonderful for women's rights.

It actually is a move to extend refugee status beyond political issues into the issues of human rights.

[Orsino]

9. Change.

Rather more than a dime's worth of difference, too.

[lunatica]

10. This is a good start on the international stage as far as the US image goes

but I fear the gesture is mostly symbolic at this stage. Could women who are being raped in wars get asylum? How do women prove they've been sexually abused or raped. And then there's the inevitable Republican argument that women all over the world are inviting rape so they get to come to the US. Or the Christian Right claiming that women should do their husband's bidding. Oh yeah! I forgot that husbands don't rape their wives. Silly me, anticipating stuff before it happens!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. good questions.... still

Obama actually recognizes that women experience specific rights abuses and calls public attention to it. I'm so sick of the cultural insistence that anything that happens to women is either all in their head, their own fault for their insufficient subservience, or too much of a turn on to be confronted.

Symbolic or not, it's good to see the acknowledgment that abuse against women is rampant and demands action.

[ensho]

12. kick

nt

[Political Heretic]

13. Good news! Same day as I read Obama to allow logging in nations largest Rain Forrest

I'd just like to get through one week with only good news. I thought I'd actually get that with this president.

This, though, is good news just the same.

[bigwillq]

14. Good!

:thumbsup: