American Civil Liberties Union

Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most comprehensive treaty on children’s rights. The convention has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, except for the United States. The convention would fill current gaps in U.S. laws, and provide all children in America with the same robust protections that children in 193 countries are already entitled to.

(Originally posted on ACSBlog.)

Last week the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. government's practice of granting patents on human genes - specifically, the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are associated with breast and ovarian cancer. In the last 20 or so years the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has issued patents on thousands of human genes — the segments of DNA that we all have in our cells — giving private corporations, individuals, and universities the exclusive rights to those genetic sequences and their usage.

The patents on the BRCA genes are particularly broad and offensive. The PTO has granted Myriad Genetics, a private biotechnology company based in Utah, patents on both the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic sequences, on any mutations along those genes, on any methods for locating mutations on the genes, without further specification on the type of methods, and on correlations between genetic mutations and susceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer.

The lawsuit charges, as critics of gene patents have argued for years, that gene patents stifle biomedical research and interfere with patients' access to genetic testing. The lawsuit argues that the patents on the BRCA genes are unconstitutional and invalid given the long-standing legal precedent that "products of nature" and "laws of nature" are not patentable. The suit also makes the novel argument that the practice of patenting genes, their correlations with disease, and the thought of comparing two genes violates the First Amendment and interferes with scientific freedom.

Today the ACLU filed an amended complaint in federal court charging that Breckinridge County, Ky., and the U.S. Department of Education are violating the law by allowing sex segregation in public schools. The ACLU lawsuit expands a previous lawsuit filed by a private attorney to include the Department of Education as a defendant for its role in encouraging sex-segregated schooling. School districts across the country have been touting the 'choice' that sex-segregated programs offer students and parents, but Breckinridge County is a perfect illustration of why sex-segregated education fails to offer a meaningful choice.

A reminder to those of you in the New York area to join us tomorrow at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women for a film screening and discussion about the human rights of domestic workers.

For decades, nannies, caregivers, and housekeepers have been excluded from most U.S. labor protections – a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and the undervaluation of "women's work." The lack of regula­tion combined with the isolated nature of domestic work makes these women particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses, breeding the global phenomenon of human trafficking.