Blog of Rights

Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick on Life with the “Breast Cancer Gene” and Human Gene Patenting

By Joanna Rudnick, Activist, Filmmaker at 1:19pm

In the Family (POV 2008) tells the first-person story of director Joanna Rudnick as she tries to decide on a course of action after testing positive for the BRCA1 mutation, the "breast cancer gene." To raise public awareness of the issues being presented in the April 15th Supreme Court hearing in our case challenging gene patents, Rudnick, POV, and Kartemquin Films will re-release the film online for free streaming. The film features Rudnick's probing interview with Myriad Genetics' founder about its patents on the genes. Today, Rudnick gives POV an update on her health and personal life, and addresses the upcoming Supreme Court case regarding human gene patenting. An excerpt of the update appears below – to read Rudnick's thoughts in full, and to watch In the Family, go to: http://to.pbs.org/ZjQjcW

Why ENDA's Religious Exemption Must Be Narrowed

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:21am

Remarkably, there are only 16 states that currently have workplace non-discrimination laws that are fully inclusive of LGBT people. This leaves LGBT people vulnerable to workplace discrimination in well over half of the country–an unacceptable situation that must be changed.

To address this, last week, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was reintroduced in Congress. The legislation would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in most American workplaces, a critically important step towards full equality for LGBT people.

Get Tested Or Get Out: School Forces Pregnancy Tests on Girls, Kicks out Students Who Refuse or are Pregnant

By Tiseme Zegeye, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 12:33pm

In a Louisiana public school, female students who are suspected of being pregnant are told that they must take a pregnancy test. Under school policy...

Your Body, Your Decisions – This Means You, Moms!

By Mie Lewis, Women's Rights Project at 1:57pm

Recently, a mother in South Carolina reached out to the ACLU for help. She was pregnant, and although she had had two prior cesarean surgeries, she wished to attempt a “trial of labor,” that is, to give birth naturally, rather than having a scheduled cesarean surgery. The mother’s wish made sense in light of her medical history, and according to professional standards set by obstetricians.

Opting out of Gender Stereotypes

By Noah Saenz

This week, as part of our “Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes” campaign, ACLU affiliates across the country filed administrative complaints and public records act requests seeking investigation of single-sex education programs rooted in sex stereotypes. We learned about one of these programs from Noah Saenz, a sophomore at Valley Charter High School in Modesto, California, who contacted the ACLU about the separation of students in his advisory class. 

Want to Breastfeed Your Baby? You're Fired!

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Rebecca T. Wallace, ACLU of Colorado at 4:03pm

Imagine you've recently come back to work after maternity leave and you're using every last minute of your break time to pump breast milk to feed your baby at home. You just need a little help from your employer — an extra 20 minutes a few times a week. But your employer refuses to help, and tells you that, instead of breastfeeding your baby, you should consider switching to feeding him formula. Worse yet — imagine that after you complain, you're fired.

The Battle to Shut Down Virginia's Abortion Clinics

By Alicia Gay, ACLU at 12:43pm

After considerable arm twisting by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, today the Virginia Board of Health approved medically unnecessary regulations designed to force many women's health care centers in Virginia to shut their doors. These costly and unprecedented regulations require many women's centers to meet the building requirements as if they were newly constructed mini-hospitals. The retroactive application of these guidelines to existing health centers is excessive and inappropriate.

30 Years of Fighting Discrimination against Women - It's Time the U.S. Stepped Up

By Lenora M. Lapidus, Women's Rights Project at 3:56pm

Today, the United Nations and the world celebrate 30 years of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the international human rights treaty dedicated to gender equality, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 1979.

Are Human Genes Patentable? Supreme Court Will Decide

By Sandra S. Park, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 3:54pm

Today, the Supreme Court granted our petition seeking review of an appellate court’s 2-1 ruling upholding patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.  We represent 20 plaintiffs, including geneticists, patients, and scientific organizations representing over 150,000 pathologists and laboratory professionals.   The case is the first challenging whether human genes can be patented.

Updated EEOC Guidance on Criminal Records: Neither the Apocalypse nor the Total Solution

By Vanessa Torres Hernandez , ACLU of Washington at 11:26am

Last week, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued updated guidance on employers' use of criminal records to screen potential employees. On the day the guidance was published, we applauded the EEOC for helping to balance the civil rights of workers with the legitimate concerns of employers. Now that the dust has settled, some groups have complained that the EEOC guidance creates new law that will prevent employers from ensuring safety in the workplace. Are those criticisms well-founded? In a word: no.