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The news of the day was that Democratic representatives walked out of a hearing on \u201creligious liberty and birth control.\u201d<\/a> Republicans had blocked the testimony of a woman who wanted to speak in favor of the Obama administration\u2019s compromise on birth control.\u00a0 But the Republicans allowed representatives, men, from conservative religious organizations to testify.\u00a0 House Representative Carolyn Maloney remarked, \u201cWhat I want to know is, where are the women?\u201d<\/p>\n A picture tweeted by Planned Parenthood illustrates this question completely<\/a>.<\/p>\n Where are the women?\u00a0 In Nicaragua, some women are in the streets.<\/p>\n Yesterday, at the International Poetry Festival in Granada, there was a parade, with dancing and singing and cheers.<\/p>\n There was also a protest by Nicaraguan women.\u00a0 Nicaraguan feminists.<\/p>\n On the parade route, a group of Nicaraguan women, wearing signs that read \u201cFui violada y ahora estoy embarazada.\u00a0 \u00bfTe parece justo?\u201d (\u201cI was raped and now I am pregnant.\u00a0 Does that seem just?) lay down in the middle of the parade, stopping the flow of the marching.\u00a0 They passed out flowers in protest of the ban against therapeutic abortion in the country.<\/p>\n Therapeutic abortion\u2014an abortion performed to save the life of a pregnant woman\u2014had been constitutional in Nicaragua up until October 2006.\u00a0 When Sandinista politician Daniel Ortega re-assumed the presidency, he kept the law intact, a complete reversal from his stance before his re-election.\u00a0 Women\u2019s groups have been pressuring the State to repeal the ban, but Ortega\u2019s switch came with the support of an important Catholic bishop<\/a>.\u00a0 Within a year of the law\u2019s passing, 82 women had died<\/a> due to lack to life-saving abortion procedures.<\/p>\n The State passes regulations preventing women from accessing health care that would save their lives.\u00a0 Then the State uses religious institutions to embolden its position.\u00a0 Sound familiar<\/a>?<\/p>\n Violence against women more than often flows from patriarchal institutions trying to police their bodies and autonomy.\u00a0 It happens globally, outside the United States<\/a>, and inside the country just as easily.<\/p>\n Women are defending their equality all over the world, in the State and in the streets.\u00a0 That is where they will be until the job is done.<\/p>\n