By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:47pm
The Kansas House passed an unwieldy 70-page bill, chock full of troubling provisions aimed at depriving a woman from receiving accurate information about her pregnancy, preventing her from accessing medical care and punishing health professionals who treat her. We need to make sure the Senate doesn't do the same.
Here are just a few examples of what this bill would do:
• It would provide legal protection to a doctor who discovers that a baby will be born with a devastating condition and deliberately withholds that information from his patient because he doesn't want her to seek an abortion. That means a doctor could decide to lie about the results of a woman's prenatal test so that she won't have information that she needs to make the best decision for her circumstances.
• The bill attempts to scare women by forcing doctors to tell 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 .
• This bill would also require public hospitals to turn away a woman who desperately needs an abortion to prevent serious harm to her health. The extremists pushing this bill would have a hospital tell a very sick woman that she should come back when her pregnancy is about to kill her, even if that risks her future fertility or causes organ failure.
• And there's a provision that targets workers at women's health centers that provide abortion care. The bill could prohibit those workers from volunteering at their kids' school. We've seen a lot of bizarre provisions about women's health care, but this is one of the strangest. Imagine the nurse who helps care for women at the local clinic. When she wants to accompany her son on a class field trip will she be told to stay home unless she quits her job?
If a Kansas bill passes, a doctor who opposes abortion could lie about prenatal test results so a woman won't have information that might lead her to decide to end her pregnancy.
A Justice Department investigation of more than 300 million votes cast between 2002 and 2007 found zero cases of voter impersonation fraud. So why are so many states passing laws to fight it?
If you were faced with the decision of having an abortion, would your health insurance cover it? This is a question that many women have probably never considered. It’s a health care procedure that most people just don’t plan ahead for. Well, if you happen to be covered under your employer’s health plan, it’s likely that you do have at least some coverage. For now. Unfortunately, politicians across the country have been busy trying to take away that coverage. Since 2010, 13 states have passed laws prohibiting some or all insurance plans from covering abortion care. Most Americans with employer-based heath insurance currently have coverage for abortion care. In fact we know that 87 percent of typical employer-based insurance policies cover medically necessary or appropriate abortions (as of 2002).
By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 1:28pm
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. Withover 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it's ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we've spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.
By Kari Ann Rinker, State Coordinator, Kansas National Organization for Women (NOW) & Member, ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri at 11:28am
Yesterday the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri brought a challenge against my home state's ban on comprehensive insurance coverage of abortion. The case was brought on behalf of the ACLU's members who are losing their abortion coverage as a result of the law — I am one of those members. I am also the State Coordinator for Kansas NOW, and a large part of my job is to keep abreast of the Kansas Legislature. I have watched and fought against piece after piece of anti-abortion legislation that has been pushed through in the 2011 session. Every piece of this legislation has become law, rubber-stamped by a governor who has promised to promote a "culture of life" within the state. But this so called "culture of life" puts the very health of Kansas women in jeopardy and drastically infringes upon their individual rights.
By Brigitte Amiri, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 5:07pm
Today the ACLU and the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri filed a case challenging a Kansas law that prohibits insurance companies from providing abortion coverage in their comprehensive plans. Since 2010, 13 states have passed laws prohibiting some or all insurance plans from covering abortion care. Kansas's law is the first to take effect, and our lawsuit is the first to take a step toward putting an end to this growing trend.
