June 29, 1995 - Episode 335 - Women of Achievement and Herstory 

           (Continued from June 23, we present point three in WOA's
     continuing presentation of The Platform for Action: 12 Critical Areas
     of Concern, a blueprint for women's advancement in countries around
     the world, which will be the main document to be adopted at the
     Fourth World Conference on Women to be held in Beijing, China,
     September 4-15, 1995.)

           3. INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH AND ACCESS TO APPROPRIATE
     HEALTH CARE SERVICES
           Throughout their lives, women experience special health
     problems due to biological difference and social conditioning,
     including lack of access to and inadequate health care services.
     Despite significant advances in primary health care, high morbidity
     and mortality rates of women due to inadequate attention to
     reproductive health persist. More than 500,000 women die each year
     due to complications from pregnancy and half of all adults newly
     infected by HIV/AIDS are female.
           The Platform states that the right to health is a fundamental
     human right vital to women's ability to participate in all areas of
     public and private life.      
           Women now constitute 40 percent of HIV-infected adults. By the
     year 2000, more than 14 million women may become infected  with the
     virus.  Each year at least half a million women  die from
     complications due to pregnancy and another 100,000 due to
     unsafe abortions.
           ACTIONS PROPOSED INCLUDE: 
           By Governments (in collaboration with the UN system, the
     medical community, research institutions, NGOs, media and others):
     Design  and  implement  gender-sensitive  health programs; Provide
     affordable primary health-care; Give particular attention to the needs
     of girls; Ensure  women's  involvement  in  decision-making relating
     to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, facilitate the
     development of strategies to protect women from HIV and other STDs,
     ensure the provision for affordable preventive services for STDs and
     HIV/AIDS;
           Promote research on women's health, increase the number of
     women decision-makers in the health sector, develop and encourage
     dissemination of data and research findings on women's health;
     Increase funding for health care and social services. 
           << Continued June 30,  Part 4, Violence Against Women  >>

     06-29 Anniversaries ...........................................

           B. June 29, 1858, Julia Clifford Lathrop*, social worker and
     reformer, first woman to head a statutory federal bureau. William
     Howard Taft appointed her head of Children's Bureau of Department
     of Commerce and Labor, one of the inner circle of Jane Addams' Hull
     House.

           B. June 29, 1867, Emma Azalia Smith Hackley, singer and choral
     director. Talented musician, she was active in the musical life of
     Denver, then Philadelphia. Instrumental in keeping talented black
     musicians in the public eye as well as keeping alive traditional Negro
     folk music, she raised funds to send promising young black musicians
     aboard to study.

           B. June 29, 1930, Oriana Fallaci, award winning Italian author,
     journalist, and feminist whose coverage of Vietnam was a blood
     wound.  Her book _Nothing, and So Be It_ won the 1971 Bancarella
     Prize, an Italian award similar to the U.S. Pulitzer.

           B. June 29, 1936, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, Secretary of Labor
     and now head of American Red Cross. Wife of U. S. Senator Bob Dole
     of Kansas.

           Event June 29, 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court in _Planned
     Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania_ v _Casey_ reaffirmed a
     woman's constitutional right to abortion.  It, however, also allowed
     states a "compelling interest" in potential life and approved some
     restrictions.

     Quotes du jour ................................................

           "I was trained to be numb, I was born to be numbered and
     pegged,
           "I was bred and conditioned to passivity, like a milk cow.
           "Waking is the sharpest pain I have ever known."
                 -- Marge Piercy in her unforgettable poem "The
     Judgment."  
     
      .................................................

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