…this bill clearly goes further than the regulation of federal funds. Its effect would be to harass and intimidate women and their families in their use of their own money. It makes the job of private insurance companies so artificially complicated and unworkable as to force them from the market. It takes anti-abortion politics far beyond where they have been for the decades of the Hyde Amendment and to put them right in the middle of private homes and workplaces and squarely in private citizens’ paychecks and premiums. Its very essence is to create an undue burden on how people can exercise their own choices with their own money, and it creates a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking abortion services.

…For those members of Congress who have regularly said that they are opposed to federal funding of abortion, this bill is absolutely unnecessary.

President Obama has vowed to veto the bill, stating, “…the legislation intrudes on women’s reproductive freedom and access to health care and unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that women and their families have today.”

The Rachel Maddow Show had a nice piece on this last night which called out the Republicans for focusing on an ongoing war against women’s rights instead of focusing on the current unemployment situation. It includes another impassioned speech from Jackie Speier, who spoke so strongly against the bill earlier in the year. Speier also appears as a guest on the show in this clip.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In response, the federal Department of Health and Human Services sent state officials a letter stating that “Medicaid programs may not exclude qualified health care providers from providing services that are funded under the program because of a provider’s scope of practice.” In other words, states can’t refuse to let a clinic take Medicaid money for birth control and cancer screenings just because they also provide abortions – the law is intended to give patients a free choice of providers.

A U.S. district judge will hear arguments today on possibly halting enforcement of the law.

There is a nice summary of the arguments in the Women’s Health Policy Report, along with a link to a Slate piece that provides additional background and criticism of this and related efforts. The case may have implications in other states where similar “defund Planned Parenthood” measures are being debated.

As I read the legislation, it includes coverage for both certified professional midwives and certified nurse-midwives.

The Governor remarked, “Access to midwifery care and home birth should not be limited only to those who can afford those services out of pocket. This law will ensure that all expectant mothers get the coverage and care they want and deserve.”

The legislation establishes a maternal mortality review board made up of an obstetrician, maternal-fetal medicine specialist, neonatologist, CNM, CPM, and other relevant specialists, along with a member of the public. This board will review maternal deaths in Vermont for factors associated with the deaths, and will make recommendations for systemic changes and legislation to address those factors.

Although it seems to have received less media attention, the law also includes a provision to allow transgender individuals to acquire new birth certificates reflecting their gender rather than the one assigned at birth. This will require a doctor’s note submitted to a court “stating that the individual has undergone surgical, hormonal, or other treatment appropriate for that individual for the purpose of gender transition.”

This reportedly makes Vermont the only state with a law that explicitly specifies that surgery is not required in order to obtain a new birth certificate. The law also provides that the original birth certificates will not be available for public inspection in order to protect individual privacy.

Villegas was nine months pregnant and leaving a prenatal clinic with her three children when she was stopped by police. She did not have a driver’s license or auto insurance; Tennessee has recently made it much more difficult for immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Because of her immigration status, although authorities had the option to simply issue a citation, Villegas was held in jail. When she went into labor, she was taken to the hospital, kept under guard with no privacy or ability to make a phone call, and shackled to the hospital bed during labor. Even requests by nursing staff that she be unshackled for personal care were denied by the guards assigned to her.

This week, a federal judge has now ruled in favor of Villegas in a civil rights case against the Metropolitan Government of Davidson County/Nashville, Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, and police officers involved in the case.

According to the local newspaper, The Tennessean:

In his decision Wednesday, Haynes wrote that Villegas was “neither a risk of flight nor a danger to anyone,” citing medical testimony. The judge concluded that shackling Villegas during the final stages of her labor and her post-partum recovery violated her civil rights.

One reference in the judge’s decision is an ACOG statement that “The practice of shackling an incarcerated woman in labor may not only compromise her health care but is demeaning and unnecessary.” Some states have banned the practice of shackling during labor, and following the Villegas incident the Sheriff of Davidson County announced that inmates at any stage of pregnancy, labor or delivery would no longer will be restrained except in rare circumstances when there is a credible threat of escape.

For much more background information and detail from the time of the 2008 incident, see our previous post. Colorlines has also covered the updated story.

The full decision is a fascinating and complex read, but is not freely available online; if you have access to a resource like Lexis-Nexis, see Juana Villegas, Plaintiff, v. Metropolitan Government of Davidson County/Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, et al., Defendants. If we have any law student or lawyer readers, I’d love to hear your take on the full decision in the comments.

They also report: “At least 20 states have passed laws that require doctors either to offer women ultrasounds or to perform one. Seven others are now considering bills that would mandate the ultrasound.”

I noticed a couple of additional proposals beyond those mentioned in the NPR piece, such as Idaho’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, a move that hardly seems necessary. The recent 2007 CDC abortion surveillance data indicates a tiny number of Idaho abortions (only between 1 and 4 of them) took place after 20 weeks. Other bills in various states, however, may have a broader impact on women’s ability to access abortion procedures.

Meanwhile, I just stumbled across the 2011 model legislation from Americans United for Life. I’m not going to link to it, but it provides pre-written anti-choice legislation language ready for state legislators to insert the names of their states and file. I’m not aware of anything similar from the pro-choice, pro-reproductive justice camp, but we should have a tool like this. Anybody aware of one?

The task force is composed of six assistant U.S. Attorneys and six tribal attorneys, along with other DOJ, health care and law enforcement officials. Within a year of convening, the task force is expected to:

[...] produce a trial practice manual on the federal prosecution of violence against women offenses in Indian Country. In the short term, the Task Force will explore current issues raised by professionals in the field, and recommend “best practices” in prosecution strategies involving domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.

While this issue certainly deserves attention, I can’t help but be cautious about a Justice Department-led approach. The U.S. government doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to violence and Native Americans. Part of the problem stems from issues of jurisdiction. In 2007, Amnesty International released a report (more here) that outlined the various barriers to justice that these women face, noting: “The United States government has created a complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions that often allows perpetrators to rape with impunity — and in some cases effectively creates jurisdictional vacuums that encourage assaults.”

INCITE! provides this toolkit, Police Violence Against Native Women and Native Trans & Two Spirit People, which outlines history and current problems of law enforcement and military violence against American Indian women. As the organization makes clear, decreasing and preventing violence against American Indian women is not simply a matter of increasing law enforcement:

Native women and Native Two Spirit, transgender, and gender nonconforming people are subjected to gender-specific forms of law enforcement violence, such as racial profiling, physical abuse, sexual harassment and abuse, and failure to respond or abusive responses to reports of violence.

We hope the DOJ effort will represent, as one task force member suggested, “the Obama administration’s willingness to take seriously the crimes of rape and domestic violence against Native American women,” and that genuine safety improvements for American Indian women take place.

This issue has been in the Canadian news recently as well. According to the Abbostford News, a British Columbia newspaper, “The Native Women’s Association of Canada reports that 582 indigenous women and girls have disappeared or were murdered over the last five years.” The Canadian government has recently provided $2 million to the NWAC for an initiative to “help communities understand, prevent and respond to violence against aboriginal women and girls.”

See resources linked from our previous posts for additional background reading on this topic.

Saying that it discriminates against gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions at least a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.

Wednesday’s decision is just the latest chapter in what is expected to be a long battle over the ban — Proposition 8, which was passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote. Indeed, while striking down Proposition 8, the decision will not immediately lead to any new same-sex marriages being performed in California. Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, immediately stayed his own decision, pending appeals by proponents of Proposition 8, who seem confident that higher courts would be less accommodating than Judge Walker.

But on Wednesday the winds seemed to be at the back of those who feel that marriage is not, as the voters of California and many other states have said, solely the province of a man and a woman.

“Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,” wrote Judge Walker. “Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.”

Continue reading …

Related:

* Judge Vaughn Walker’s 136-page ruling against Prop. 8. One of my favorite sections:

The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage. The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, as states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry.

Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.

* More on the judge’s “findings of fact” at ColorLines.

* Lots of links and good info at Pam’s House Blend (start with this open discussion).

* NYT editorial: “The decision [...] is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.

“As the case heads toward appeals at the circuit level and probably the Supreme Court, Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail.”

* San Francisco Chronicle’s archive of the November 2008 California ballot measure and the state Supreme Court challenge to Prop. 8.

* Timeline of the 10-year battle over same-sex marriage in California.

* Finally, for your viewing pleasure, a look back at “Prop 8: The Musical” …

What are you reading on Prop 8?

Efforts against shackling, led by a coalition that includes the ACLU and The Rebecca Project, have gained significant ground recently. Colorado, West Virginia, Washington state and Pennsylvania passed laws in 2010 banning the practice.

And the American Medical Association (AMA) voted in June to develop model legislation states can use to pass their own anti-shackling laws. The AMA resolution condemned the practice, calling it “barbaric” and “medically hazardous.”

But recent stories by Colleen Mastony of The Chicago Tribune and Andrea Hsu of NPR offer vivid and personal reminders of the entrenched and widespread use of shackling — even in a state like Illinois that has supposedly banned the practice.

In fact, more than 20 lawsuits have been filed by women against the Cook County sheriff’s office since 2008, even though Illinois became the first state to ban the practice in 1999. The lawsuits were granted class-action status last month; attorneys told Hsu that there ultimately could be up to 150 women included in the case.

From the Tribune:

Latiana Walton went through most of her labor at Stroger Hospital with an arm and leg chained to her bed, she remembers.

As contractions surged through her body, she could not move or change position to relieve the pain. A Cook County correctional officer repeatedly refused to remove the restraints, she said, even when a doctor objected, saying that he was unable to administer an epidural.

“I actually said to the guard, ‘Where am I going?’ I’m crying. I’m in pain,” recalled Walton, 26. “‘I’m not going to get up and run out of the hospital.’”

On Aug. 27, 2008, Walton, who had been arrested after she missed a court date on a retail theft charge, became one of an estimated 50 women who give birth every year while in the custody of the Cook County Jail. [...]

In Walton’s case, she did not get an epidural and the guard agreed to remove the leg shackle only 10 minutes before she gave birth to her son, Darrion, she said. The handcuff remained on through the delivery, and the leg shackle was replaced immediately after the birth, she said.

“I couldn’t push the placenta out because I couldn’t position my legs,” Walton said. “It is not fair to treat a person like this. I did a crime … but I’m not willing to be treated like a dog. I was treated like I wasn’t human.”

Almost all of the women are low-level, non-violent offenders — their crimes include drug possession and forged checks. Yet the Cook County Sheriff’s office believes it is following the law in these cases:

A pregnant woman can be restrained, according to the policy, until a medical official confirms that she is, in fact, in labor. “When does ‘labor’ begin? Our officers aren’t trained to know, the state law doesn’t say, so we rely on medical personnel to advise us,” Steve Patterson, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, wrote in an e-mail. “Once a medical person advises us someone is in labor, restraints of whatever sort are removed.”

But the plaintiffs’ attorney argues that restraints were, in his clients’ cases, removed too late or not at all. He contends that sheriff’s officials interpret “labor” as the moments immediately before birth, and that guards sometimes deny requests by doctors and nurses to remove the handcuffs and shackles. “When you talk to these women, they say, ‘Yeah, when I’m delivering and I’m pushing, that’s what they consider labor,’” said plaintiffs’ attorney Thomas G. Morrissey. “They remain in shackles and handcuffs until the baby is about to be delivered.”

The ignorance and stupidity on the part of the sheriff’s department is mind-boggling. Besides the harm and humiliation of the shackles, some women also had to put up with a stranger’s presence at one of the most intense and intimate moments:

Melissa Hall, 32, held on a drug possession charge, said that not only did she give birth in shackles in 2007 but, all through her labor, the guard sat next to her bed watching the NBA Finals, cheering and yelling at the television despite her repeated pleas that he leave.

“My legs were open, and my baby’s head was crowning,” she recalled. “And that’s when he walks out of the room.”

State law requires that a correctional officer be posted outside the delivery room. The policy of the sheriff’s office, according to Patterson, states that “an officer (preferably female) must provide security for the subject and be posted discreetly near the head of subject’s bed.” He contends that this policy does not violate the law because the law “does not say anywhere that an officer cannot be in the room.”

While the focus is on Illinois because of the class action lawsuit, it is equally disturbing that the policies of other states, including the 40 that do not ban shackling, are not widely known.

NPR interviewed Ginette Ferszt, associate professor and psychiatric clinical nurse specialist at the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing, who sent questionnaires to wardens in all 50 states about how they treat pregnant inmates. She received 19 replies.

Ferszt says she was quite surprised to find that two facilities continue to use leg irons, belly chains and handcuffs during transport to prenatal visits.

She also learned that among the 19 prisons that responded, six of them cuff either a woman’s hands or her ankle when labor begins. During the delivery of the baby, one prison says that handcuffs stay on, and four reported back that an ankle shackle remains on.

While disturbed by the findings, Ferszt did find hope in conversations with two wardens, when she realized their shackling policies weren’t something they’d thought much about.

“For many rules and policies whether for women or men, they’ve existed for them a long time,” Ferszt says. “It hadn’t really occurred to these two wardens that this could potentially be a health problem, a health issue.”

She says the two wardens have since said they’ll sit down and make changes.

Despite the arrogant rationalizations and depressing ignorance of the responses from the powers-that-be, one inspiring story comes from some of the first inmates who spoke out about the abuse. Their age-old strategy: female solidarity. Again from the Trib:

In Illinois, the first movement against shackling came in 1999, after a former inmate named Warnice Robinson testified before a group of female legislators, explaining how, while pregnant and imprisoned for shoplifting, she had been shackled to a hospital bed through seven hours of labor. “The women legislators kind of expressed disbelief because it was so horrifying,” recalled Gail Smith, director of Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers, who had helped organize the day’s testimony. “There was a minor disruption, because the women who had been formerly incarcerated started shouting, ‘Believe her!’”

The law, which takes effect June 10, states that no restraints of any kind may be used on a pregnant woman during transporation to and from medical visits or court proceedings during the third trimester of pregnancy or during postpartum recovery. It also stipulates that “no restraints of any kinds may be used” during labor or childbirth.

Exceptions of “extraordinary circumstances” during transportation are permitted; these exceptions are defined as necessary to prevent the woman from escaping, or from injuring herself or others, and for hospital use of medical restraints for patient/provider safety. In these cases, restraints are required to be the least restrictive available, and leg irons or waist chains are not allowed under any circumstances.

The law also forbids correctional personnel from being present in the room during labor and birth and places the power to remove restraints in the hands of doctors, nurses and other healthcare personnel over that of the correctional officers.

According to the Seattle Times, the state’s Department of Corrections and prisons already had policies banning restraint during labor and delivery, but the legislation adds restrictions regarding restraining women post-delivery. The Times also describes a court case involving a complaint about the 2007 shackling of a woman during labor and for three days following delivery. Legal Voice provides additional detail on that case.

Amnesty International provides further information about the status of shackling policies and laws throughout the United States. One update to the AI report: In 2009, New York Gov. David Paterson signed into law a bill banning the shackling of incarcerated women before and after they give birth while in custody.

Democratic leaders say a bill will pass this week.  House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) pledges obstruction, saying Republicans will do “everything we can to make it difficult for them, if not impossible, to pass the bill.”

Jen Nedeau covers the multiple threats to women’s health and reproductive rights that must be addressed, including the House anti-abortion language. You know it as the Stupak/Pitts admendment. But Richard Doerflinger, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ point man on abortion, should have had his name in there, too. Meanwhile, Jessica Arons tries to see the world through the lens of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

In an editorial in Monday’s paper, The New York Times urges anti-abortion Democrats to accept the Senate’s restrictive provisions, the lesser of two evils.

Too Many Tests, Too Much Treatment: “A spate of recent reports suggests that many Americans are being overtreated. Maybe even President Barack Obama, champion of an overhaul and cost-cutting of the health care system,” reports Lindsey Tanner of the Associated Press.

“More care is not necessarily better care,” wrote cardiologist Dr. Rita Redberg, editor of Archives of Internal Medicine, commenting on Obama’srecent physical, which included prostate cancer screening and a virtual colonoscopy. The PSA isn’t recommended at any age and a colonoscopyisn’t recommended under age 50.

Over-testing may be due to a combination of what is known as “defensive medicine” — doctors ordering tests and procedures because they’re trying  protect themselves against lawsuits (or because they’ll be compensated by a fee-for-service system) — and patients insisting on tests and treatments that they’ve heard about or know is commonly prescribed. But the thinking around more care = better care may be shifting.

“This week alone,” writes Tanner, “a New England Journal of Medicine study suggested that too many patients are getting angiograms – invasive imaging tests for heart disease — who don’t really need them; and specialists convened by the National Institutes of Health said doctors are too often demanding repeat cesarean deliveries for pregnant women after a first C-section.”

Stopping the Campus Rape Crisis: Jaclyn Friedman, executive editor of Women, Action and the Media and co-editor of “Yes Means Yes,” wrote a must-read op-ed in the Washington Post on ending the silence around sexual assault on college campuses.

First, colleges can eliminate the “miscommunication” excuse that many rapists use by creating an on-campus standard that requires any party to a sexual interaction to make sure their partner is actively enthusiastic about what’s happening — not just not objecting. They can create judicial boards equipped to seriously investigate rape accusations, instead of throwing their hands up at the first sign that the accused’s testimony contradicts the accuser’s. They can defend the safety of the entire campus by permanently expelling those found guilty of sexual assault. And they can be transparent about every step of the process.

Plus: The Center for Public Integrity recently released “Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice,” an in-depth report filled with useful data, articles and resources.

Recognition for Midwives: Granny midwife Margaret Charles Smith was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame at Judson College this month. Smith attended nearly 3,000 births between 1949, when she received her midwife permit, and 1981, when she attended her last birth. Her life story is told in a book Smith co-wrote with Linda Janet Holmes, “Listen to Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife.”

Plus: Rachel previously noted that the National Library of Medicine is featuring an exhibition on African American midwives. ”Nothing To Work With But Cleanliness: African American ‘Grannies,’ Midwives & Health Reform” tells the story of “granny” midwives and the state and local training programs that educated them and succeeding generations of midwives. View a wonderful set of photos from the exhibition on Flickr.

Utah’s Controversial Law Charges Women and Girls With Murder for Miscarriages: Writing at AlterNet, Rose Aguilar breaks down the problems with Utah’s new law that makes it a criminal offense for having miscarriages caused by “intentional or knowing” acts.

“What happens to women who are in abusive relationships?” asks Planned Parenthood’s Melissa Bird. “What happens if a woman threatens to leave the abuser, falls down the stairs and loses the baby? What if the abuser beats the woman and causes a miscarriage? Could he turn her in? Who would the prosecutor believe? What happens if a drug addict who’s trying to get clean loses her baby? Will she be brought up on murder charges?”

Some critics point out the legislators erred in not considering the lack of access that young people have to comprehensive sex education, and the overall lack of contraception and health services, especially in remote parts of the state.

The Girls Who Kicked in Rock’s Door: Not exactly health related (unless you’re like me and consider loud music essential for well-being), but I am completely intrigued by the “The Runaways,” the new film about the 1970s all-girl rock band, starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. Sia Michel writes about the story behind the film and its director, Floria Sigismondi.