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Report of FL NOW President's Visit to Key West
By Anne Shaver

On Saturday, March 1, 2003 Linda Miklowitz, newly elected president of Florida NOW, held an information session on "Beating the Bushes" at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 801 Georgia Street. The meeting, from 10 AM until 4 PM,
was attended by local NOW members and friends, and included a potluck lunch.

The first topic Miklowitz covered was the current danger to Roe v. Wade: "It's My Body, Dammit!" She emphasized two specific threats emerging state by state: parental notice laws, which disrespect privacy, and the effort to ban so-called "partial birth abortion," a late term procedure used only to spare women the pain of labor or a cesarean when the fetus is not viable. Indiana has passed a law mandating that all candidates for abortion get counseling within 18 hours of the request. Vicki Weeks pointed out that NOW and other pro choice organizations should make ourselves one of the sources of that counseling.

Miklowitz emphasized the importance of working at the state and local levels, and advocated sending the NOW questionnaire to local candidates, so we can be sure of their positions on women's right to choose and other important matters.

The next session dealt with a revival of the effort to pass the ERA: "The Big Kahuna: ERA? Again?" It was interesting that all of the cases Miklowitz provided of gender inequity were initiated by men - her point being that the ERA will benefit all of us.

Our state senator, Larcenia Bullard, is one of the sponsors of the bill in the Florida senate, and we should thank her. On Monday April 28 pro-ERA people are going to Tallahassee to make our point. A chartered bus will leave Miami, and if enough sign up, Key West, the night before. Scholarships for those wanting to go are already available. Call 295-9466 for more information.

The afternoon meeting was about preventing war with Iraq: "Waging Peace." Miklowitz pointed out the importance of language in public relations, and praised the bumper sticker devised by Vietnam Veterans for Peace, "Support our troops: no blood for oil." We must make it clear that peace is patriotic. She read us GOP pundit Adriana Huffington's contention that this war is all about business: Halliburton and companies like it stand to make millions, even billions, rebuilding what we may destroy.

The price we pay is estimated at 127 to 682 billion for war and rebuilding, to the detriment of our own crumbling infrastructure and poor services, and the erosion of our civil rights. We must prevent a "Patriot Act II" from eroding our civil rights further. We are also losing friends in Europe, though most Europeans are anti-Bush rather than anti-American.

On Sunday morning, Miklowitz delivered the address at the UU service.

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