Many blogs have posted the information below, please help if you can!

Dear INCITE! friends and supporters,

On the eve of the 3 year anniversary of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent government criminal negligence and assaults on the low income people of color on the Gulf Coast, our sisters from INCITE! projects in New Orleans (including the local chapter, the Women’s Health and Justice Initiative, and the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic) are bracing for the potential landfall of Hurricane Gustav, which is currently projected to hit the Louisiana coast on Monday or Tuesday at a category 4 or 5. Voluntary evacuation of New Orleans has already begun, and mandatory evacuation could be declared as early as today. INCITE! organizers in New Orleans have made over 700 phone calls to women of color and their families that make up the constituency of the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic, working to prepare and implement evacuation and safety plans.

Your assistance is urgently needed to help the low-income women of color and their families evacuate safely if need be, stay safe for the duration of the evacuation, and return to the city as soon as possible so as not to fall prey to the pushout that has kept so many folks from being able to return to New Orleans since Katrina. Local organizers are using whatever resources and funds at their disposal to help women and their families evacuate, bond people being held in Orleans Parish Prison out, and support those who make the choice to stay in whatever way they can.

Your support is urgently needed: financial donations of any size are needed and would be greatly appreciated.

Donations online are preferred because we can more quickly send the funds to our folks in New Orleans.

You can send your donation to INCITE online by going to this website:
http://incite-national.org/index.php?s=137
Click the Donation button, put New Orleans in the “Purpose” line, or you can write a check directly to WHJI and send it to:

PO Box 51325
New Orleans , LA 70151

This money will go directly to supporting the hundreds of low income women of color that are the constituency of the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic.

Once again, the particular vulnerability of low-income women of color and single female-headed households (including folks with disabilities, seniors, undocumented immigrant women, and incarcerated women) has been erased in the face of disaster and overlooked in the days leading up to the storm. With few resources, facing challenges and concerns for their families of their own, INCITE! New Orleans and WHJI have stepped in to fill the gap. Please send all your support, solidarity, sisterhood and strength their way, and join us in hoping for the safety and well-bein g of the people who are already suffering from Gustav in Cuba , Jamaica , and Haiti , and willing the storm to subside or veer off safely before it strikes the Gulf Coast .

We will keep you posted as things develop.

peace,
INCITE!

In a long awaited move, Amnesty International (AI) recently updated their position and issues to include reproductive rights and justice as part of their human rights platform. AI has recognized the importance for women and men to “exercise their sexual and reproductive rights free from coercion, discrimination and violence.” AI identifies three areas of concern: opposition to the imprisonment or other criminal penalties (such as fines) against women who obtain abortions; timely and adequate medical attention and treatment for women who suffer complications from clandestine abortions; and support for women who seek abortions in cases of rape, incest or to preserve her health or life.

Apart from abortion issues, AI recognizes the importance for women to access reproductive health services, including proper and thorough pre-natal and maternal health services and access to contraception. They emphasize the right to information and education on sexual and reproductive health issues. In addition, they also view forced and child marriage as a violation of sexual and reproductive rights.

On July 6, 2007, AI-USA publicly addressed the Catholic Church in an open letter, further strengthening their stance and decision to acknowledge reproductive rights as fundamental human rights. Their open letter is viewable here.

To view their current platform on sexual and reproductive health and rights issues, click here.