The national Girl Scouts organization apologized last week for a regional council’s legal threat against a St. Louis troop raising money for children in Gaza.

Nawal Abuhamdeh of St. Louis started a bracelet-making fundraiser with her daughter's troop in mid-January. The regional council sent her emails saying that the activity violated their policies, and instructed her to remove all Girl Scouts branding from the troop's online flyer -- or face legal action.

In response, the local troop decided to disband from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri.

Soon, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent a letter to Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), asking for an internal investigation of the incident. The council also asked that scout troops be allowed to raise funds for the worsening humanitarian crisis facing the children of Gaza since the war with Israel began.

Bonnie Barczykowski, chief executive officer for GSUSA, responded to the letter: “We are disappointed and disheartened by what recently transpired. We sincerely regret any hurt caused,” Barczykowski wrote. She added that the national organization had not approved the language in the Eastern Missouri council's emails to the St. Louis troop, threatening legal action.

“GSUSA will be working alongside our council partners to review this incident and make the necessary adjustments to prevent it from happening in the future. We realize we missed an opportunity to champion our troops while they make a difference,” she wrote.

It’s good that the organization admitted it could have responded differently -- with kindness instead of threats -- to a troop’s desire to help other children. Hopefully, once the cookie sale season is over, the Girl Scouts organization will temporarily lift their ban on fundraising for outside nonprofits and allow other troops to raise money for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is disproportionately affecting children. (That ban had been lifted for three months through Jan. 10, although Abuhamdeh said she never heard about that policy change.)

Since the girls in St. Louis are no longer affiliated with GSUSA, they have restarted their independent fundraiser at BraceletsForPalestine.bigcartel.com. And since their story made national headlines, they have raised more than $10,000 for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, Abuhamdeh said.

Her daughter, Mariyah Abdelbaset, 10, said she was initially discouraged when she and her friends were told to stop, especially because she had seen other Girl Scout fundraisers for war victims in Ukraine and Israel.

“I feel like it was unfair that that the Girl Scouts encouraged doing something right for Ukraine, but not something right for Gaza,” Mariyah said.

The United Nations has called Gaza “a graveyard for children,” with about 12,000 children killed in the aftermath of Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7.

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director for CAIR, said that the group welcomes the GSUSA's apology as a positive first step. He wants to continue the conversation about allowing Girl Scout troops to raise money for Gaza as the crisis there becomes even more dire.

Abuhamdeh said her daughter's former troop had wanted to do something good for a situation that has caused them grief and heartbreak. She told the girls that their decision to disband and continue their fundraiser is having an impact beyond what they could have imagined.

“Now, we are going to help so many people,” she said. Their next bracelet-making session will include volunteers from across the area who want to show their support.

Abuhamdeh, who had initially been nervous about talking publicly about this experience, said she now feels empowered by speaking out and by the support they have received. The girls have also learned important lessons in standing up for what they believe -- even if it comes at a cost.

That’s a badge no one can take away.

Nawal Abuhamdeh of St. Louis recently posted about a bracelet-making fundraiser that her 10-year-old daughter's Girl Scout troop started to raise money for urgent humanitarian aid for children in Gaza. She never expected the organization’s leadership would threaten her with legal action for doing it.

Abuhamdeh had led the troop's annual cookie sale, which raises funds for the troop’s activities, for the past four years. But as this year's sale approached, her heart just wasn’t in it.

Since the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, she’s witnessed the destruction of her parents’ homeland in Palestine.

Israel’s assault in Gaza -- one of the most destructive military campaigns in recent history -- has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians since the war began, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. That includes around 12,000 children. U.N. agencies warned this week that child deaths were poised to skyrocket because "food and safe water have become incredibly scarce" in the Palestinian territories. Hunger and infectious illnesses are rampant.

The girls in Abuhamdeh’s troop, who come from diverse backgrounds, including Somali, Indian, Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian, have been emotionally affected by the news reports.

The videos circulating are traumatizing. Abuhamdeh watched an inconsolable Palestinian father collect body parts of his slain children in a shopping bag. A doctor tried to save his 16-year-old niece's life by amputating her leg without anesthesia on his dining table. A wailing 4-year-old tried to get up and look for his parents -- both of whom were killed, and his own legs amputated.

“I’m grieving. We are all grieving. We literally couldn’t muster the energy to sell cookies,” Abuhamdeh said.

She asked the girls if they had ideas for a community service project instead. They suggested making and selling beaded bracelets to raise money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Abuhamdeh recalled seeing other troops' efforts to raise money for war victims in Ukraine highlighted by the Girl Scout organization. It seemed like a good way to channel their sadness into positive action.

She shared a post on social media, advertising bracelets for $5 and $10 with all the proceeds going to PCRF. Soon after, she received an email from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri. It said members could not raise money that represents “partisan politics,” and must “stay neutral.”

The organization asked her to immediately remove all references to the Girl Scouts from any communications and social posts about the girls' efforts. Abuhamdeh replied by explaining how important the fundraiser was for the girls and how critical the situation in Gaza was for children. She assured them that the troop wasn’t making any political statements.

“We condemn any innocent lives taken -- whatever religion they are, whatever ethnicity they are,” said Abuhamdeh.

She asked the leadership how their bracelet sale was any different than Girl Scout fundraisers for Ukraine. She received a lengthy response, in official language, informing her that the activity had not followed the “appropriate policy, procedures and approval processes as outlined in our volunteer and leader training documents.”

The last sentence hit her hard: “Unfortunately, if this direct violation of the organization’s governing documents and policies continues, Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri and Girl Scouts of the United States have no other choice than to engage our legal counsel to help remedy this situation and to protect the intellectual property and other rights of the organization.”

“I got a little scared; I’m not gonna lie,” she said. “I wondered, what are they going to do to me?”

For years, she had strived to give these girls the opportunities she had missed out on herself. The troop had formed a sisterhood, growing up together since kindergarten.

Abuhamdeh reached out to the other parents. They decided the organization’s values didn’t align with what they were trying to teach their daughters.

Abuhamdeh sent an email to the Girl Scouts expressing her disappointment and hurt, and explaining that the troop wanted to disband from the organization. They sent her instructions on how to leave.

When I asked Kelly Daleen, chief membership and marketing officer for the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, why this project was different from other fundraisers for war victims, she wrote that the troop leader had failed to get prior approval.

Abuhamdeh said she wished they had simply said so at the start, and asked her to suspend the activity until she got the necessary approval. Instead, they made her troop feel unvalued and vilified in a moment of deep grief and vulnerability.

“What did we do wrong?” the girls have asked her.

Abuhamdeh gets emotional when she talks about the decision to leave an organization that teaches girls to “make the world a better place.”

In the end, she said, deciding to stand up for their beliefs was the Girl Scout way.

Missouri lawmakers have revealed to the nation the depths of Republican cruelty in their never-ending crusade against women’s reproductive choices.

Democratic state senators recently tried to create an exception for rape and incest victims to Missouri's draconian abortion ban. Sen. Sandy Crawford, who voted against the exception (along with every other Republican present), credited God for the pregnancies that result from rape and incest.

What an insult to God.

Sandy, many people don’t believe in a God who would want a raped 10-year-old girl to suffer even more -- and risk death -- giving birth to her rapist’s baby. Don’t impose your cruel understanding of God on the rest of us.

Republican Sen. Rick Brattin went even further, saying that forcing rape victims to carry a pregnancy and give birth “may be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.”

Save that twisted healing for yourself, Rick.

When a perpetrator rapes a person, they are robbing the victim of power and choice. Forcing a survivor to bear a child after a sexual assault again robs her of power and choice, replicating the same dynamic.

“Every survivor’s healing journey is unique and should only be decided by that survivor,” said Emily Stoinski, community education coordinator for Safe Connections, a nonprofit that provides services to survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Safe Connections CEO Cynthia Danley said the organization would gladly provide education and training for lawmakers about how to reduce the impact and incidence of sexual assault and support survivors in healing.

Missouri state legislators also need a science teacher to explain to them how babies are made. There’s apparent confusion among the ranks of those most eager to legislate women’s bodies.

For instance, GOP Sen. Bill Eigel objected to an amendment aiming to protect sexual assault victims under the age of 12 from being forced to carry a rape pregnancy to term.

“A 1-year-old could get an abortion under this,” Eigel said. A Democratic colleague, Sen. Doug Beck, had to break it to Bill that a 1-year-old can’t get pregnant.

A man who lacks basic knowledge about human reproduction should not be making laws regulating it.

These ignorant comments may seem ridiculous, but the laws being debated impact millions of women and girls.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, 14 states enacted total or near-total abortion bans, like Missouri's. Nine of those states lack an exception for rape and incest victims.

Researchers recently calculated the likely number of pregnancies resulting from rape in those 14 states since the Supreme Court’s decision.

The results were startling.

The paper, published by JAMA Internal Medicine, estimated that more than 64,000 pregnancies were caused by rape between July 1, 2022, and Jan. 1, 2024, in states with abortion bans.

The researchers analyzed national data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's survey on intimate partner sexual violence from 2016 to 2017, and also relied on a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey on criminal victimization. They used state-level crime data from FBI reports to help calculate the number of rapes per state, although rape is a highly underreported crime.

Texas is estimated to have had the highest rate of rape-related pregnancies at 26,313, and Missouri came in second with an estimated 5,825.

What a distinction -- to be known as a place where rape victims are revictimized by the state.

There’s an effort to mitigate the harm from these laws.

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, a coalition of civil liberties and reproductive rights organizations, is working to get signatures for a statewide ballot initiative to restore abortion access in the state up to the point of fetal viability. The coalition has until May 5 to collect signatures.

It’s an opportunity for women to reclaim our rights, safeguard our children and support sexual assault survivors.

We must stand up for survivors -- and stand up to Republican efforts to "heal" them by ripping away their bodily autonomy.