By Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project at 4:18pm
Over the weekend extremist politicians continued their onslaught on restricting abortion care. What happened? Well, the saying goes "three's a crowd," and when it comes to interfering in personal decisions best left to a woman, her doctor and her family, that's especially true.
On Friday, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed a sweeping anti-abortion bill that threatens women's access to care in a multitude of ways.
Due to onerous regulations approved last week by the Virginia Board of Health, Hillcrest Clinic was forced on Saturday to shut its doors to women seeking care.
A Thursday debate about an abortion bill in the Florida House of Representatives became so insulting that five Representatives had to leave the debate.
Three is, indeed, a crowd – especially when our privacy and our health are at stake. Tell your elected officials to leave us alone.
By Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project at 1:01pm
After her adventures in Oz, Dorothy couldn’t wait to get back to Kansas. But if she lived there now, she might not be so eager to return. Governor Sam Brownback has just signed yet another bill that makes it more difficult for Kansas women to get the health care they need.
This behemoth 70-page sweeping anti-abortion bill attacks women’s health care from a variety of angles. It could impose new taxes on a woman who obtains an abortion and on the health center where she obtained it, and it could require doctors to inform patients about a supposed link between abortion and breast cancer — a risk that the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and other medical experts roundly reject. The law also includes language about the legal rights of fertilized eggs, which lays the groundwork for even more extreme measures blocking access to reproductive health care.
When Peggy Young got pushed out of her job at UPS after she became pregnant, she fought back by bringing a lawsuit against her employer, claiming that UPS discriminated against her by refusing to give her a light duty rotation, even though UPS admitted that it routinely accommodates workers with on-the-job injuries, workers who lose their drivers’ licenses, and workers who are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Unfortunately, many employers think it’s okay to treat pregnant workers worse than other employees who need temporary light duty positions or other temporary adjustments, like the ability to sit down or drink more water. And some courts have agreed.
By Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project at 4:44pm
Yesterday, we filed a lawsuit in Arkansas to challenge what was, for a short time, the most extreme abortion ban in the nation. Don't be mistaken though, the Arkansas law is still outrageous - banning most abortions just a few weeks after a woman finds out she is pregnant. By passing this law, politicians are preventing a woman and her family from being able to make the most personal decision they might ever make.
By Hayley Smith, Advocacy and Policy Associate, ACLU at 2:17pm
Today we filed litigation challenging a new law in Arkansas that bans abortion starting at 12 weeks – a law that is a clear violation of state legislators' duties to preserve, protect and defend the state and federal constitutions. Our lawsuit asks the court to block this blatantly unconstitutional ban, which violates numerous Supreme Court decisions dating back 40 years. A stubborn group of legislators insisted on rushing the bill through the legislature, refusing to listen to admonitions by doctors and even the Governor himself.
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
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.
By Christopher E. Mason, Assistant Professor of Computational Genomics, Weill Cornell Medical College, Affiliate Fellow, Information Society Project of Yale Law School & Jeffrey Rosenfeld, Assistant Professor of Medicine, New Jersey Medical School at 12:29pm
Even though they’ve been in our families since the dawn of man, our genes do not belong to us. They’ve been claimed by companies that hold patents on the DNA from our cells. Over the past 20 years, at least 41 percent of our genes have become the intellectual property of corporations. These patent claims contradict an intuitive sense that our DNA is no less ours than our lungs or kidneys. More importantly, these patents, covering thousands of human genes, restrict our doctors’ ability to look at our DNA and plan ahead for our medical treatment.