Our Bodies, Ourselves — It's a Cliché Because It's True.
Between hearings in the challenge to breast cancer gene patenting on Monday and a highly successful rally in Washington, D.C., yesterday, the ACLU was standing up for women's rights — not to mention free speech, scientific freedom, and choice — all over the place. The courtroom was crowded with scientists, medical professionals and legal scholars when the ACLU's Chris Hansen presented arguments in our case against Myriad Genetics' patent on the breast cancer gene. And about 3,500 supporters of women's health showed up at the rally. See what they had to say here.
ACLU news this week included some victories — our FAA challenge will go forward, the Google books settlement was rejected, Afghan activist Malalai Joya got her visa to visit the USA — and some new and continuing challenges for us — outrageous abortion law in South Dakota and evolution v. creationism in Tennesee redux. It's the second-to-last week of Women's History Month and the first week of spring. I think we can all get behind that.
Today a group of state legislators announced they will introduce bills in their state legislatures intended to deny Americans the fundamental protections of the 14th Amendment by requiring states to deny standard birth certificates to many U.S. citizen babies born in the U.S. to immigrant parents. The proposed legislation directly contradicts the long-standing 14th Amendment guarantee that all people born in the U.S. and under its jurisdiction are citizens of the U.S. and the state in which they reside and subject to equal protection under the law.
