On Friday, a district court in Missouri rejected a case brought by a mining company challenging the federal birth control rule that requires employer health plans to cover contraception without a co-pay. The Missouri case is one of 30 pending, and it is the first case to be dismissed on the merits. It’s a tremendous victory for women, particularly those employed by the mining company.
By Sandra S. Park, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 1:14pm
Today, we asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appellate court’s 2-1 ruling upholding patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. The case challenges patents that pose a serious barrier to using new discoveries in genetic testing and how genes influence the way cancers develop and can be treated.
BRCA1 and BRCA2 are two of the 23,000 genes in the human genome, 20 percent of which have been patented. We all have these genes, but women with certain genetic mutations are estimated to have up to an 85 percent risk for breast cancer and 50 percent risk for ovarian cancer. Myriad Genetics obtained patents on the “isolated” forms of the two genes, which simply means it obtained a patent on the human gene once it has been removed from the cell. It does not matter whether the genes come from you, me or any of the other 285 million people in the U.S., or whether you have a mutation or not – the patents claim them all. Even though laboratories around the country are fully capable of providing genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 (and were already testing patients before the patents forced them to stop), the patents in essence give a monopoly over these genes.
For 25 years, the ACLU has been a forceful advocate to end discrimination against prisoners living with HIV. We've worked to end their segregation from the rest of the prison population and ensure they are afforded access to vital services and programs.
By Emily Herx, a teacher at a Catholic school in Indiana who was fired after the school discovered that she used IVF to try to become pregnant. The teacher filed EEOC charges and later a lawsuit in federal court alleging discrimination on the basis of sex and disability. The ACLU has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.
I did not imagine when I began teaching at St. Vincent de Paul School that I would find myself in this position today. I loved teaching, and was devoted to my profession and to my students. When I was fired, I was shocked and saddened.
By Christina Brandt-Young, Attorney, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Jenny Lee, Staff Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union at 5:49pm
Across the country teachers at religiously affiliated schools are being fired for their reproductive choices. What’s worse, the schools are unapologetic, claiming they have the right to discriminate because of their religious beliefs.
Emily Herx, a former Language Arts and Literature teacher at St. Vincent de Paul, a Catholic School in Indiana, was fired after she requested time off to receive in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. She is suing the school for sex and disability discrimination in federal court, and today we filed a friend-of-the court brief to support her legal arguments. A few states over, Jane Doe (a pseudonym), an employee at a Catholic school in Missouri, was fired for becoming pregnant outside of wedlock. Today the ACLU of Kansas & Western Missouri filed a complaint on Jane’s behalf with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for sex discrimination.
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.
By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 2:35pm
Do we need another reminder about how state legislatures are a key battleground for women's health? Or about how so many politicians are out of touch? We do not. But we got one anyway.
Yesterday, the Missouri legislature voted to override Governor Jay Nixon's veto of SB 749, a bill that aims to undermine a woman's access to comprehensive health care. SB 749 attempts to allow employers to refuse to provide contraception coverage to their employees, despite the new federal rule that prevents such discrimination against women and the health care benefits they need.
By Merissa Kovach, Field Organizer, ACLU of Michigan & Maggie McGuire, Communications Associate, ACLU of Michigan at 5:22pm
As Michigan legislators observed states quickly upping the ante with extreme war on women policies like the personhood amendments and mandatory vaginal probe laws, they must have grown tired of our state merely being a face in the crowd; so they decided to dole out their own special brand of bat-crackers crazy in the form of an outrageous, monster War on Women Mega Bill.
We’ve written about the War on Women Mega Bill before, which combines every attack on women's health into the greatest assault on reproductive rights in our state’s history.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a popular definition of insanity. Those of us across the country trying repeatedly to pass bills that would prohibit the shackling of pregnant women in jails and prisons are hardly insane. Dedicated? Yes. Stubborn? Possibly. Unwilling to accept women suffering? Absolutely.
This year marks the third attempt to get a signature on a bipartisan, unanimously supported bill in California (AB 2530) that would ban the practice of putting incarcerated pregnant women in dangerous shackles. Similar bills have passed two previous legislative sessions with overwhelming support from both political parties, only to be vetoed. Opposition from the powerful law enforcement lobby surely played a role in these vetoes. But we have persevered, and this year we’ve been successful in keeping law enforcement neutral. While we’re happy with this progress, we still need the Governor to sign the bill.
By Amy L. Katz, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 3:56pm
The Van Devender Middle School in Wood County, West Virginia, will return to coeducation next week, thanks to the efforts of a courageous mother who refused to allow her daughters to be assigned to discriminatory single-sex classes for another year. Girls and boys were separated at Van Devender for all core curriculum classes and were being taught using different methods based on dangerous sex stereotypes.
