Hospitals Fined Over Emergency Contraception, How Shopping Started As A Feminist Activity, ‘Mexico City Policy’ Reinstated By President Trump

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22 Wisconsin hospitals were fined by the state for not complying with a law that requires emergency rooms to provide access to emergency contraception to sexual assault victims. The executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health shares her perspective with us. Shopping and feminism might not seem to go together. But our guest shares the history of shopping as we know it, and how it brought women into male-dominated public spaces. And President Trump has reinstated the “Mexico City Proposal” amid a flurry of executive orders. We’ll learn about what the policy is and what could be at stake for foreign aid groups.

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  • 22 Wisconsin Hospitals Fined For Non-Compliance With Emergency Contraception Law

    A new report from the Wisconsin State Journal found that 22 Wisconsin hospitals have been fined by the state over the last handful of years for not complying with a 2008 law. Under that law, hospitals are required to offer emergency contraception, sometimes called “morning after pills,” to rape victims. The executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health shares her perspective with us.

  • Wisconsin Hospitals Fined For Noncompliance With Emergency Contraception Law

    Twenty-two of Wisconsin’s 129 general-service hospitals were fined by the state for not complying with a 2008 law requiring emergency room staff to offer sexual assault victims emergency contraception, also commonly referred to as the “morning after pill,” according to a report from the Wisconsin State Journal.

    Wisconsin Act 102 requires emergency service providers to give sexual assault victims “unbiased written and oral information” about emergency contraceptives and also dispense them if requested. Wisconsin is one of 13 states requiring emergency rooms to do both, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.

    Over the last handful of years, various hospitals audited by the state were found to not have been in full compliance with the law that was passed under former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

    Sara Finger, founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health, said she had been involved in the effort for an emergency contraceptive law since 2004.

    She said the law is meant “to ensure that when a rape victim is seen at a Wisconsin emergency room, that they’re at least informed about and are dispensed emergency contraception as a way to prevent a pregnancy from her attacker.”

    But reports also show organizations like Pro-Life Wisconsin fought the law, and anticipated some hospitals opposing it on religious grounds. In 2007, when the bill was being debated, some Republicans talked about allowing medical professionals or hospitals to opt out of the requirement for religious reasons.

    Finger said that even though the law passed in 2008 with bipartisan support, its enforcement is still important.

    “The sad thing is about policy and legislation is that it’s one thing to get the law passed, but it’s another to fully implement it and have it complied with,” she said.

    Some of the hospitals fined for noncompliance said they had been offering emergency contraception but didn’t document it. The CEO of Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County, which was fined in 2015, told the Wisconsin State Journal the hospital supported the law but didn’t keep a paper trail of who it offered emergency contraception to.

    Finger said her group has tried to encourage the state Department of Health Services to come up with a standardized reporting procedure.

  • As Department Store Traffic Slows, Reporter Looks At Their Important History

    Across Wisconsin and the nation earlier this year, department stores such as Macy’s and Sears announced plans to shutter a number of locations following a disappointing holiday season.

    However, long before they were the fading domain of doorbuster sales and last-minute holiday gift-gathering, department stores were a vital part of first-wave feminism that allowed 19th century middle-class women newfound freedoms.

    Jeff Guo wrote in a recent piece for The Washington Post that “it’s impossible to tell the full story of women’s rights without talking about the rise of the mall and its predecessor, the shopping district.”

    Guo, who covers economics for The Post, said department stores as we know them are rooted in a deep and important history dating back to Victorian England.

    “This is a part of history that I don’t think many Americans realize, which is that shopping was an important feminist activity back in the day,” he said.

    In the mid-1800s manufacturing was booming, which made goods like furniture and clothing more affordable for the middle class. In a culture that was widely separated by sexes, women mostly stayed home while men worked, so shopping allowed a social activity outside the home that was unprecedented for women.


    A hectic scene in well-known department store after Christmas as women rushed to buy silk stockings which were for sale in London on Jan. 2, 1942. Two coupons were required for a pair. AP Photo

    Soon, shop owners wanted stores to be a destination for women – a place where they could spend the afternoon drinking tea, browsing and socializing. Guo said whether or not they spent money was beside the point. It was meant to be a place where women felt safe, since at the time it was still “strange” for women to stroll the streets alone, Guo said.

    “I think it was an empowering space for a lot of women, because they could use shopping as an excuse to socialize in public, they could wander a little, they had a little more agency,” he said. “And that’s something I think we may have lost in our shopping culture.”

    Alongside independence, 19th century women realized being the primary shoppers gave them a lot of economic power, Guo said, which led to boycotts of stores that didn’t support women’s rights, smashing of windows, protests and other means of promoting their cause. Shopping helped bring women into civic urban life and when they arrived, they harnessed their power to make a point.

    On the other hand, Guo said this history has also perpetuated some gender-based assumptions to this day.

    “I think we have to question, first of all, why shopping is still in a lot of circles thought of as a women’s activity, because it shouldn’t be,” he said. “There’s nothing inherit about shopping that makes it more pleasurable for women than for men.

    “Department stores were designed to cater to women 100 years ago so they continue to operate that way, so it’s kind of been a self-fulfilling prophecy because these stores recognize that women are their main customers, so they adapt themselves to fit what they think of as women’s taste.”

    So, if malls – and their longstanding traditions – become a thing of the past, will they be missed in our culture? Guo says “yes.”

    “I think that anything that gets you out of the house these days can be thought of as a positive thing and even just the act of walking around, of meeting your neighbors and meeting the people in your community,” he said. “That has been a function of bazaars and marketplaces for centuries and that’s something that we’re losing now that so many of us click some buttons on Amazon and something arrives at our door.”

  • Department Stores Gave Women Newfound Freedoms In The 1800s, Today It's A Different Story

    The advent of department stores and opportunities for middle-class women to shop freely in the 1800s meant they could leave the home and be away from men. This opened up newfound freedoms that helped nurture the emancipation movement. But retail’s long feminist history is in flux as department stores close and shopping preferences migrate online. We’ll look at the feminist history of shopping through the centuries and what it means for brick and mortar department stores in the future.

  • 'Mexico City Policy' Reinstated By President Trump

    In his first week in office, President Trump reinstated a Reagan-era policy which prevents U.S. aid going to foreign aid organizations which provide abortions. It also prevents those organizations from advising women on abortion. We’ll speak with Rachel Robinson of American University about the order and what it could mean under the Trump administration.

Episode Credits

  • Rob Ferrett Host
  • Veronica Rueckert Host
  • Kate Archer Kent Host
  • Haleema Shah Producer
  • Kate Archer Kent Producer
  • J. Carlisle Larsen Producer
  • Sara Finger Guest
  • Jeff Guo Guest
  • Rachel Robinson Guest