Blog of Rights
Andrew
Beck
05/27/2011

ACLU and Planned Parenthood File Lawsuit Challenging South Dakota's Outrageous Abortion Law

By Andrew Beck, Reproductive Freedom Project at 1:37pm

Today, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit in South Dakota challenging one of the most restrictive—and downright offensive—abortion laws we've ever seen. We've blogged about this law before.

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03/27/2012
Using Religion to Discriminate

Victory! Court to Bishops: Federal Help for the Most Vulnerable Should Have No Strings Attached

By Andrew Beck, Reproductive Freedom Project at 12:27pm

Once again the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has attempted to impose its religious beliefs on those who don't share them. This time, they did so in an attempt to deny victims of human trafficking access to reproductive health services in a federally funded program.

Fortunately, late Friday night, a federal judge ruled that religion isn't a license to discriminate and that the government cannot award a contract to an organization that denies services to trafficking victims based on the organization's religious beliefs.

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12/08/2011
Department Of Health And Human Services

In Overruling FDA on Plan B, Sebelius Puts Politics Before Scientific Evidence

By Andrew Beck, Reproductive Freedom Project at 12:52pm

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took the unprecedented step of overruling the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to allow the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step to be sold over-the-counter to consumers of all ages. Plan B One-Step has been approved for over-the-counter sale to people 17 and older since 2009, and when the manufacturer asked the FDA to remove the prescription-only status for those under 17, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (“CDER”) conducted a scientific study.

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09/08/2011
Alaska

Young Women Seeking Abortion Care Get the Cold Shoulder in Alaska

By Andrew Beck, Reproductive Freedom Project at 2:02pm

For decades, teens in Alaska had been able to obtain abortions without the state ordering the involvement of their parents. In 1997, however, the Alaska legislature passed a law preventing young women from obtaining abortions without parental consent. The ACLU, together with Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights, sued the state, and in 2007, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the Alaska Constitution.

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07/01/2011
Planned Parenthood

Court Finds South Dakota's Extreme Abortion Law Degrades and Humiliates Women

By & Andrew Beck, Reproductive Freedom Project & Brigitte Amiri, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 11:21am

In a case brought by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, a federal district court judge in South Dakota yesterday blocked the enforcement of the state's extreme abortion law, which was scheduled to take effect today.

The extreme law is just that: extreme. As we've blogged before here and here, this law requires women to wait 72 hours between the first counseling session with the doctor and the abortion; it also requires women to first visit "crisis pregnancy centers," entities that are notorious for providing false and misleading information; and requires doctors to tell the woman of any possible risk factor published in medical and psychological journals since 1972.

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02/25/2011

One More in a Long Line of Attacks on Women's Access to Health Care

By Andrew Beck, Reproductive Freedom Project at 2:30pm

Today, the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Liberty University v. Geithner, one of the first lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act (the new health care reform law) to reach an appeals court. We oppose Liberty University's arguments because they represent yet one more attempt to take away vital reproductive health services for women.

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