Encouraging Words and Leaders Who Encourage

By Gloria Feldt | May 7, 2009 |

Do you ever have a day when you know you need some encouraging words? Today is one of them for me. So may irons in the fire, anxious with waiting for them to come to fruition, feeling like sometimes hard work doesn’t pay. You know. We’ve all been there.

So I want to share two antidotes that are encouraging to me. First is Women’s eNews big fundraising dinner tonight honoring 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. This event produces enough positive energy to levitate our spirits to the sky and fuel our collective passion for bettering the lives of women everywhere. Be sure to read all these amazing, inspiring women’s stories.

One especially close to my heart are my friendMaria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes, head of the Mexican reproductive rights advocacy group GIRE that has led the successful effort to decriminalize abortion in Mexico City based on human rights legal principles

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Appeasement is Lethal

By Gloria Feldt | October 3, 2007 |

Rosaura “Rosie” Jiménez died bleeding and doubled over in excruciating pain from infection caused by the botched illegal abortion she sought in desperation. She was 27, a scholarship student in McAllen, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, six months shy of getting her teaching credential and struggling to make a better life for herself and her 5-year-old daughter when she was caught in a vise called the Hyde Amendment. This law denied her, as it has denied millions of low income women who depend on Medicaid for their health care, financial access to a safe abortion.

Rosie’s life was sacrificed on the altar of politically expedient appeasement.

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