Chanting "Not the church, not the state; women must choose their fate," hundreds of members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) rallied for abortion rights as President George W. Bush prepares to select a new US Supreme Court justice.
NOW shifted the agenda for its three-day annual convention following the announcement Friday that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was retiring.
"The most important thing to me after the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor is that NOW puts confidence in my team to lead our organization through the fight for our lives and for our future," said Kim Gandy, who was re-elected Saturday to a second four-year term as the group's president.
The first woman on the Supreme Court, O'Connor refused in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion.
In 1992, she helped forge a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. Then, in 2000, she provided the fifth and decisive vote that struck down a Nebraska law that was aimed at banning a procedure critics call "partial-birth" abortions.
Her retirement gives the court its first vacancy since 1994 and leaves Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the only woman on the court.
Activist Eleanor Smeal told the crowd that if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has any future presidential ambition, he can't be known as the lawmaker instrumental in rolling back abortion rights. Frist, a Republican, will be expected to guide Bush's choice to succeed O'Connor through Senate confirmation.
"What we have to do now is raise such a loud voice that Senator Bill Frist hears it," said Smeal, former president of the National Organization of Women and current president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "He has to understand we need a moderate, centrist Supreme Court."
Frist spokesman Nick Smith said it was "premature to be talking about who the president may or may not nominate."
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
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