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09/14/2012
Abortion Legislation

Sad Day For Science and Women’s Health

By Talcott Camp, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 6:20pm

Today, Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli strong-armed the VA Board of Health into reversing previous decisions based on medical evidence and patient safety in favor of unprecedented regulations on doctors and facilities that provide abortion care. This political move will endanger women by shutting down good, safe providers of abortion care. In a year when we have seen numerous politicians show utter disregard for women’s health, the story of today’s vote illustrates just how far some politicians will go to interfere in a woman’s personal, private decision making. 

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05/01/2012
War on Women

Extremist Personhood Initiatives Prove To Be a Losing Strategy. Help Us Continue to Win the War on Women

By Talcott Camp, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 5:08pm

In the midst of endless attacks on women's health, there have been a few recent victories worth celebrating. Yesterday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a group calling itself "Personhood USA" cannot use the ballot initiative process to ban abortion (and contraception, in vitro fertilization, and miscarriage treatment as well). Intent on granting legal rights to fertilized eggs, these anti-choice activists sought to strip women of their right to determine when and whether to access those critical health care services. The court correctly reasoned that such a ban is "repugnant to the Constitution of the United States," and that allowing it on the ballot would therefore result in nothing but "a costly and futile election." The ACLU and the ACLU of Oklahoma, along with the Center for Reproductive Rights, challenged the initiative in March, and on behalf of the state's women and families, we are enormously grateful and relieved that it won't be on the ballot in November.

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03/29/2012
Personhood Bill

Eggs Are People. Really?

By Talcott Camp, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 5:36pm

A ballot initiative in Oklahoma would redefine a "person" to exist from the moment of "fusion of a female egg with a human male sperm to form a new cell."

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05/28/2010

In Memory of Dr. George Tiller

By Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project & Talcott Camp, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 3:37pm

A year ago on Memorial Day, we lost a true friend to women and a true American hero: Dr. George Tiller. While Dr. Tiller's death was violent and borne of hate, we know — from the witness of his patients and family — that he lived a life of love, compassion, and courage.

The person who murdered Dr. Tiller, Scott Roeder, never once denied that he killed Dr. Tiller; he admitted to years of planning and to finally stalking Dr. Tiller to his church on May 31, 2009, and shooting him there, in front of friends and family, as he handed out programs for that Sunday's church service. But in spite of all that, Roeder still argued that he should be found to be less culpable — that he should be treated more leniently for his crime. Make no mistake: Roeder was not arguing that the killing was an accident, that he misunderstood the circumstances in the church that morning, or that he was suffering from mental illness or delusion at the time of the shooting. Roeder was arguing that he was less culpable for Dr. Tiller's murder because he honestly believes that the constitution should not protect the right to abortion. In other words, that vigilantism is ok if you really mean it.

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07/01/2009

Just How Private Are Your Private Medical Records?

By Talcott Camp, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 3:35pm

Specifically, when can someone else, who sues your doctor, obtain your records? According to the decision the Ohio Supreme Court issued today (PDF) in Roe v. Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region only under specific and limited circumstances. In this case, John and June Roe claimed that a Planned Parenthood clinic had improperly provided their teenage daughter with an abortion. With the financial support of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, their lawyers filed the suit, and then, in a court process called "discovery," demanded that Planned Parenthood turn over the medical records of all the minor patients the clinic had seen over a 10-year period. The Roes were willing, however, to receive the records with personally identifying information "redacted" — essentially blacked out with a Sharpie.

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05/28/2008

The 4th Circuit Upholds the Law: Carhart is Not Carte Blanche

By Talcott Camp, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 1:09pm

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., struck down a law — the “Partial Birth Infanticide Act” — that would have made it virtually impossible for doctors to perform second-trimester abortions in the state regardless of whether a woman’s health was threatened.

If the law sounds familiar, it should. It is yet another iteration of the federal “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act” that the U.S. Supreme Court misguidedly upheld last year in Gonzales v. Carhart. Like the federal law, Virginia’s fails to include any exceptions to protect women’s health. But as last week’s court held, the Virginia law goes even further than the federal ban, which proved to be its fatal constitutional flaw.

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