NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports that Supreme Court Justice David Souter, 69, plans on retiring at the end of the current court term:
Factors in his decision no doubt include the election of President Obama, who would be more likely to appoint a successor attuned to the principles Souter has followed as a moderate-to-liberal member of the court’s more liberal bloc over the past two decades.
In addition, Souter was apparently satisfied that neither the court’s oldest member, 89-year-old John Paul Stevens, nor its lone woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery over the winter, wanted to retire at the end of this term. Not wanting to cause a second vacancy, Souter apparently had waited to learn his colleagues’ plans before deciding his own.
Given his first appointment to the high court, most observers expect Obama will appoint a woman, since the court currently has only one female justice and Obama was elected with strong support from women. But an Obama pick would be unlikely to change the ideological makeup of the court.
Souter was appointed in 1990 by former President George H.W. Bush. View his court writings here.
Back in February, in the wake of Ginburg’s bout with cancer, the Washington Post speculated on court retirements. The story noted that Souter had told friends he was tired of Washington and wanted to return to a scholarly life in his native New Hampshire. White House advisers were already working on a short list for the court in the case of a retirement this summer.
Among the names mentioned were former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, who Obama named as his solicitor general; Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit; Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit; and Stanford University law professor Kathleen M. Sullivan.
The Washington Post tonight reported that the list may also include Kim McLane Wardlaw of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm and former Georgia Supreme Court chief Justice Leah Ward Sears.
Looking at Souter’s voting history, the The New York Times recalled two important cases:
During his confirmation hearing, Judge Souter said he had no agenda on abortion and had not made a decision on how he would vote if the issue of Roe v. Wade was put before him. A major abortion case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, arrived at the court in his second term and was argued on April 22, 1992. It was widely expected that Roe v. Wade would be formally or functionally overturned because by then another abortion rights supporter, Justice Thurgood Marshall, had retired, and he was replaced by Justice Clarence Thomas.
But the result was just the opposite. Justice Souter, joined by two other Republican-appointed justices, Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy, who had earlier both expressed strong doubts about Roe v. Wade, collaborated to produce a highly unusual joint opinion that reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion. With Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens joining the central parts of the joint opinion, the vote was 5 to 4.
Justice Souter was in the minority, and a bitter dissenter, in the case of Bush v. Gore, the 5-to-4 decision that ended the disputed Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election and effectively declared George W. Bush the winner.
Being “Maddy”: Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote a beautiful piece about her relationship with her sons as she transitioned from male to female. Published as a New York Times “Modern Love” column, the essay was adapted from “The Book of Dads,” to be published in May by Ecco.
Determining Which Medical Therapies Work: “Good luck trying to learn what medical treatment works best to relieve low back pain, alleviate depression or prevent the spread of prostate cancer. The information isn’t available — to you or your doctor — because studies comparing potential treatments and how effective they are haven’t been done,” writes Judith Graham at the Chicago Tribune.
The story looks at the government’s plan to invest $1.1 billion in “comparative effectiveness” research and evaluate potential therapies head-to-head. Four medical experts weigh in on conditions they consider most deserving of research on comparative effectiveness. Rachel previously wrote about public input sought on research priorities.
The War Against Women: Writing at The New York Review of Books, Hilary Mantel discusses the four volumes of “From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World,” by Marilyn French. The collection is published by Feminist Press.
Sticker Shock: “A new national poll, conducted by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, shows that what most uninsured people are willing to pay is a long way from what insurance really costs,” reports NPR’s “Morning Edition.” “Two out of three uninsured Americans say they’d be willing to pay no more than $100 a month for coverage. But, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average individual health plan costs about $400 a month, and a family policy costs more than $1,000.”
When Accidents Happen: According to the Guttmacher Institute, more than half the pregnancies in the United States each year are unintended; poor women are four times as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy compared with higher-income women. NPR’s “Morning Edition” looks at the use of and access to contraceptives. Reporter Brenda Wilson notes that “the health system often throws up barriers to contraception, especially for young women who are the most vulnerable.” The story, however, focuses more on one woman’s situation.
Call for More Family Planning Aid: Dominique Soguel writes at Women’s eNews about a report released Tuesday calling for aggressive investment in family planning to curb population growth, poverty and maternal mortality. Five former directors of the population and reproductive health program of the U.S. Agency for International Development recommend the United States increase its spending to $1.2 billion in the next year’s funding round from $475 million in 2008.
Also from Women’s eNews: Five women will be recognized this week for their scientific discoveries.
“There is still a very big glass ceiling for women in science,” said Milbry Polk, director of Wings WorldQuest, which runs the awards. “You don’t find them in the history books. Women are left out. Their projects aren’t.”
Search Me: One of my favorite reads last week was Dahlia Lithwick explaining how Supreme Court justices can act like total dingbats:
When constitutional historians sit down someday to compile the definitive Supreme Court Concordance of Not Getting It, the entry directly next to Lilly Ledbetter (“Court fails utterly to understand realities of gender pay discrimination”)will be Savana Redding (“Court compares strip searches of 13-year-old girls to American Pie-style locker-room hijinks”). After today’s argument, it’s plain the court will overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion finding a school’s decision to strip-search a 13-year-old girl unconstitutional. That the school in question was looking for a prescription pill with the mind-altering force of a pair of Advil — and couldn’t be bothered to call the child’s mother first — hardly matters.
Nine years after becoming the first state to offer civil unions, Vermont is now the fourth state to allow same-sex marriage.
Lawmakers voted this morning to override Gov. James Douglas’ veto of a bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry.
In doing so, Vermont became the first state to allow same-sex marriage through a legislative ruling instead of a court order. The law takes effect Sept. 1.
The vote was 23-5 to override in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House. The vote went down to the wire in the House: Two-thirds was needed for an override, and the outcome wasn’t clear until the final moments of the roll call.
“We are not done yet until every lawmaker who voted yes gets 1,000 thank you cards,” Beth Robinson (pictured above in the center), an attorney with the group Vermont Freedom to Marry, said at a rally after the vote. “We’re not done yet until every person who voted for this is reelected in 2010.”
Other states permitting same-sex marriage are Massachusetts, Connecticut and, as of last week, Iowa.
This New York Times story includes a look at the Northeast as the main battleground over gay marriage:
Massachusetts became the first state in the country to make same-sex marriage a reality in 2004 when its supreme court ruled that it was required under the state’s Constitution, which contains an equal-protection clause. Connecticut followed in April 2009.
Two other states in the region recognize civil unions — New Jersey and New Hampshire — and gay rights advocates have waged a campaign in hopes of making same-sex marriage legal in every state in New England by 2012. Before Tuesday, Vermont, like New Jersey and New Hampshire, had also allowed civil unions, a step that gay rights advocates say helps ease the transition to laws allowing same-sex marriage. Just last month, the House of Representatives in New Hampshire voted narrowly to approve a bill to legalize such marriages, which moves to the state Senate and could be considered there as early as this week.
But organizers in Maine and Rhode Island have opposed the civil-union approach, which they say makes same-sex couples appear unequal. Instead, they have sought to change the laws directly. In Rhode Island, for example, gay rights advocates plan to wait until 2011, when the Republican governor, Donald L. Carcieri, who opposes gay marriage, leaves office.
I was away last week, so no Political Diagnosis, but it’ll be back to business on Monday …
Court Strikes Down Iowa Law Banning Same-Sex Marriage: The unanimous state Supreme Court decision means same-sex couples will be allowed to marry in Iowa by the end of the month — and the doors will be open to couples from other states. The decision seems pretty solid for now. Unlike California, voters in Iowa cannot directly initiate constitutional amendments. Instead, an amendment would have to be taken up by the state Legislature, and Democrats, who control both chambers, show no interest in making it a priority.
Mammogram Benefits Under Debate: “The conventional wisdom about breast cancer screening is coming under sharp attack in Britain, and health officials there are taking notice,” writes Roni Caryn Rabin in The New York Times. “They have promised to rewrite informational fliers about mammography after advocates and experts complained in a letter to The Times of London that none of the handouts ‘comes close to telling the truth’ — overstating the benefits of screening and leaving out critical information about the harms.”
Do People Who Support “Traditional Values” Value Pregnant Women?: Lynn Paltrow writes at Huffington Post – “I have to thank Andrea Lafferty, of the Traditional Values Coalition for her response to a piece I wrote opposing Personhood USA’s efforts to give full constitutional rights to the unborn from the moment of fertilization. In her commentary she hopes to discredit my organization, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) by exposing our commitment to all pregnant women, including those who love their children but are unable to overcome a drug problem in the short term of pregnancy …”
Birth Centers Advocacy Update: As we previously mentioned, American Association of Birth Centers was looking for 100 physicians to sign a letter in support of legislation to mandate the facility fee in Medicaid. There are 102 signatures so far and counting …
Women Pay Higher Price For Health Insurance: NPR reporter Sarah Varney writes about a past experience seeking health insurance (a completely frustrating process) and the higher insurance rates women pay in some states. The piece concludes with some important news for workers laid off after Sept. 1, 2008:
If you had employer-sponsored health insurance and qualified for COBRA coverage, under the new stimulus bill, the federal government will pay 65 percent of your premium for up to nine months.
And that even includes laid-off workers who initially turned down COBRA coverage because they thought it was too expensive. They now have a second chance to sign up.
Plus: Also from NPR — the hidden costs of cancer treatment, even with insurance. And The New York Times offers tips for people with pre-existing conditions, whether you’re currently covered or shopping for insurance.
Congress Approves Budget: The House and Senate approved budget blueprints on Thursday that include funding for expansion of health care coverage; now the hard work begins in conference committee.
America Going Quiet on HIV/AIDS: A new Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that the percentage of people in the United States who say that they have seen, heard or read a lot about HIV/AIDS in the United States has fallen from 34 percent five years ago to just 14 percent today. The percentage of African Americans reporting this has fallen from 62 percent to 33 percent.
Global Women & Health Salon: President Obama this year has signed executive orders eliminating the “Global Gag Rule” and restoring U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund. “Now that [these two goals] have been met what else should the Obama administration do to promote the health and welfare of women worldwide?” asks Mark Goldberg, in the kick-off post for the After the Gag Rule Salon sponsored by RH Reality Check and UN Dispatch.
Afghan Law Criticized: UN and Western aid agencies are urging Afghan President to repeal a law he signed last month that reverses freedoms won by Afghan women, reports BBC News. Human rights activists say the law legalizes rape within marriage, and women will need permission from their husbands to leave their homes.
A federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to make the Plan B morning-after birth control pill available without prescription to women as young as 17.
The judge ruled that the agency had improperly bowed to political pressure from the Bush administration in 2006 when it set 18 as the age limit.
The agency has 30 days to comply with the order, in which the judge also urged the agency to consider removing all restrictions on over-the-counter sales of Plan B. The drug consists of two pills that prevent conception if taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse.*
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued the FDA on behalf of women’s health organizations and individuals, called the ruling “a complete vindication of the argument that reproductive rights advocates have been making for years, that in the Bush administration it was politics, not science, driving decisions around women’s health.”
Plan B has been available in the United States since 1999, but originally it was only by prescription. It took until 2006 for the FDA to approve over-the-counter sales to women age 18 and over, meaning it must be stocked behind the pharmacy counter and women have to show proof of age. This makes it difficult for some women, including undocumented immigrants, to easily obtain the pills when needed.
In his 52-page ruling, Judge Edward R. Korman of Federal District Court in New York concluded that “no useful purpose would be served by continuing to deprive 17 year olds access to Plan B without a prescription,” and “FDA officials and staff both agreed that 17 years olds can use Plan B safely without a prescription.”
Korman said the FDA’s decision was “not the result of reasoned and good faith agency decision-making.” He cited FDA officials for improperly communicating with White House officials about Plan B and stacking the expert panel charged with the drug’s review with people who hold anti-abortion views. The FDA also ignored safety conclusions reached by its own advisory panel.
In a piece published last week at the Huffington Post, Northrup outlines the byzantine journey of Plan B’s application for over-the-counter status and describes what was learned during the trial:
[M]onths of testimony in the federal case uncovered a web of deceit behind-the-scenes — replete with high-level FDA officials kowtowing to outside political influence, circumventing agency regulations, and ultimately, conspiring to grant only limited access to Plan B.
Court testimony revealed that one official confessed to his coworker that he had to reject the Plan B application for fear of losing his job. Another told a colleague that the plan was for the agency to postpone making any decision on the drug for as long as possible, and when push came to shove, approve it with an age restriction — all in order to “appease the [Bush] administration’s constituents.”
Susan Wood, the former FDA director of women’s health who resigned in 2005 to protest the delays over approving Plan B, told the Times that now there is a new chance to “restore the scientific integrity of the FDA.”
Plus: Need more information about EC, or wondering if your pharmacy stocks it? Check out the Emergency Contraception website, an independent, peer-reviewed resource operated by the Office of Population Research at Princeton University and by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals.
*Up to 120 hours after sex has been found to be just as effective.
Publicly Funded Family Planning Programs Make Sense: This new report (pdf) from the Guttmacher Institute on the essential role of family planning shows the pay-off: prevention of nearly 2 million unintended pregnancies and more than 800,000 abortions each year, saving billions of dollars.
“Report co-author Rachel Benson Gold called the family planning program ‘smart government at its best,’ asserting that every dollar spent on it saves taxpayers $4 in costs associated with unintended births to mothers eligible for Medicaid-funded natal care,” reports the AP.
Iran’s Women Are Taking On The Mullahs: “Iranian women, and not just the sporting queens or Nobel prize winners, are standing up to the mullahs. And some of them are experiencing a frightening political backlash,” writes Katherine Butler at The Independent. A strikingly good story, it provides an in-depth look at life in Iran. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in for this one.
Sex-Discrimination Suit at Boston Hospital: Dr. Sagun Tuli, a 39-year-old neurosurgeon, filed a lawsuit against her employer, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and her boss, Dr. Arthur Day, the chairman of the neurosurgery, alleging a hostile work environment and retaliation against her when she complained.
After a seven-week trial, a jury agreed and awarded Tuli $1.6 million, reports the Boston Globe.
Facts Matter Most: When you need to be reminded that kids today are (generally) all right, check in with Mike Males, a senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco who also heads up YouthFacts.org, which aims to debunk media myths, such as all girls are “girls gone wild.”
Star Tribune columnist Gail Rosenblum recently wrote about a lecture Males gave, sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Konopka Institute for Best Practices in Adolescent Health, that separated fact from fiction.
Plus: Here’s a great response to the media coverage of Chris Brown & Rihanna, penned by Alex Pates, 15, and Ansheera Ace Hilliard, 17, members of the Chicago-based Females United for Action. FUFA is a youth group that works on issues of violence against women and media justice.
Beautiful Cervix Project: It took a headlamp and a lot of mojo, but photos of a cycling cervix are now available. From the author’s introduction: “I am a 25 year old woman who has never given birth. My intention with this project was to better understand my cycle and the changes in my cervix throughout the month. As a doula and student midwife, I used this project to help me see how a cervix might look different throughout the cycle in the absence of vaginal infections and to understand speculum exams.”
Another Sign of the Financial Crisis: We know advertising standards have loosened over the years, but it took an economic downturn for some media outlets to let alcohol and sex ads go prime time, reports the L.A. Times.
Food/Access Studies: There’s new research out linking the availability of healthy food and the quality of one’s diet with place of residence. The studies, by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, appear in the March 2009 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the December 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
“Place of residence plays a larger role in dietary health than previously estimated,” said Manuel Franco, MD, PhD, and lead author of the studies, in this release. “Our findings show that participants who live in neighborhoods with low healthy food availability are at an increased risk of consuming a lower quality diet. We also found that 24 percent of the black participants lived in neighborhoods with a low availability of healthy food compared with 5 percent of white participants.”
Paging Mr. Whipple: A Toilet Paper Crisis: “The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm,” writes Leslie Kaufman at The New York Times.
“But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.”
Via a tip from a friend of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, we learned that Kaplan review materials (created to help law students preparing to take state bar exams) suggest that a state ban on home birth would be constitutional because “the facts indicate that the regulation was enacted because of public health concerns, [therefore] it does further a compelling state interest.”
The hypothetical scenario provided for the practice question on constitutional law describes a state law requiring all births to take place in hospitals and be attended by physicians, except in emergencies, based on the rationale that infant mortality could be demonstrated (in a hypothetical study) to be higher for home births. In the scenario, a woman has filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of this provision, and wants to have a home birth with a midwife.
The study guide gives the correct answer as “constitutional, if despite the fact that the regulation has a substantial impact on a fundamental right, it furthers a compelling state interest.” The rationale provided is that if the facts “indicate that the regulation was enacted because of public health concerns” then a compelling state interest is furthered by the law and it is therefore constitutional.
We’ll just bypass for now that the name of the hypothetical state is “Aquarius” in the question. You know, because all those women interested in home birth are crazy throwback hippie folks.
I find the suggestion that a state ban on non-hospital births or births not attended by physicians would be found constitutional and allowed to stand quite chilling, and it disturbs me to find the “correct answer” presented in so straightforward a manner with little debate (although that is the nature of study guides). Aside from the problem of the lack of choice for pregnant women in the scenario (which is a huge issue), would the interpretation of constitutionality be correct in such a scenario? Could a state criminalize women for giving birth at home or choosing non-physician providers? For lack of a better description, the whole thing gives me the creeps.
The Kaplan scenario also completely ignores the fact that non-MD professionals (hello, midwives) often attend hospital births – it seems to assume that the only choices in birth are hospital/physician or home/whoever, leaving out the hospital/midwife possibility and framing the central issue as place of birth alone, ignoring the separate issue of choice of care provider and the various options for care providers available to pregnant women.
Do we have any constitutional law scholars in the audience who’d like to weigh in? If you have thoughts for Kaplan, their contact information is available on this page.
Gay Marriage Legal in California, Massachusetts and now Connecticut: The Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday struck down the state’s civil union law with a 4-3 ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. From The New York Times:
The ruling, which cannot be appealed and is to take effect on Oct. 28, held that a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, and a civil union law intended to provide all the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples, violated the constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law.
Striking at the heart of discriminatory traditions in America, the court — in language that often rose above the legal landscape into realms of social justice for a new century — recalled that laws in the not-so-distant past barred interracial marriages, excluded women from occupations and official duties, and relegated blacks to separate but supposedly equal public facilities.
View the full ruling here (PDF). Opponents spoke of steps to enact a constitional ban on same-sex marriage, but on Friday night the plaintiffs in the original court case filed four years ago and their supporters were jubilant.
Garret Stack, 59, introduced his partner, John Anderson, 63, and said: “For 28 years we have been engaged. We can now register at Home Depot and prepare for marriage.”
Group Sues Over Required Ultrasound: The Center for Reproductive Rights has filed a challenge to an Oklahoma law that mandates a woman must have an ultrasound and listen to the doctor describe what her fetus looks like before she have an abortion. And that’s not all:
At the same time, the law prevents a woman from suing her doctor if he or she intentionally withholds other information about the fetus, such as a severe developmental defect. The statute also requires doctors to use a specific regimen for administering the medical abortion pill, despite that regimen being less effective and more costly than the one strongly recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Oklahoma County District Court, says the requirement intrudes on a woman’s privacy, endangers her health and assaults her dignity.
Set to go into effect on Nov. 1, the law would make Oklahoma the fourth state to require the viewing of ultrasounds before an abortion. The other states are Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
South Dakota Abortion Ban 2.0: Lynn Harris of Broadsheeet offers a full, and funny, assessment:
The ban’s primary liability, according to polls, was that it contained virtually no exceptions. But as ringleader Leslee Unruh of Vote Yes for Life said at the time, like Jason popping up out of Crystal Lake, “We started something here in South Dakota.” And now, as you may have heard, abortion opponents there are aiming to get the job done. Which means: The ban is back (PDF), in sheep’s clothing. It now makes convoluted exceptions for rape, incest and, when there is a full moon and Mount Rushmore spouts Strawberry Quik, the health or life of the woman.
Unruh (who says that over 90 percent of women seeking abortion are using it as “birth control”) calls Abortion Ban 2.0 “more moderate, more reasonable, more of a middle ground.” Yeah … no.
Birth Control Watch: While some voters think access to birth control is not a political issue, those of us who follow the activities of the Bush administration and legislatures around the country know better. Birth Control Watch has a great section on federal and state proposals that will limit our individual decision making and access — it’s called extreme schemes.
An excellent resource to pass along, it includes information on Colorado Proposition 48, a constitutional amendment that seeks to establish legal personhood from the moment of fertilization (which even self-described “pro-life” Catholic Gov. Bill Ritter opposes), and the proposed HHS regulations that would limit patients’ access to information and services.
The two-minute activist gives a concise run-down of actions you can take, and the press room tracks related stories.
Speaking of the HHS regulations, more than 150 Congressional Democrats stated their opposition in letters to HHS. The Senate letter concludes that the proposed rule is “damaging to the health care needs of women, their families and all Americans and will only serve to cause havoc, not clarity, among employers and employees in the health care field.”
Courts Failing Domestic Violence Victims: “For every man convicted in a Cook County court of beating his wife or girlfriend, five men brought in on similar charges walk away legally unscathed. And despite official promises to help women pursue abuse complaints, that conviction rate is only getting worse,” reports the Chicago Tribune.
The Trib also looks at a specialized unit of the Cook County state’s attorney office with a much higher conviction rate. The unit, Target Abuser Call, employs a more intensive investigatory approach for the most serious cases.
Plus: Programs for batterers are underfunded but should be supported to break the habit of abuse, say domestic violence experts. “No matter how many women you take in, it isn’t going to cure the problem,” said Toby Myers, vice chair of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Plus: A judge in Canada tells a woman not to bother calling police if she goes back to her partner. via Feministing
Nobel Prize Winners: The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Harald zur Hausen of Germany, who discovered the human papilloma viruses that causes cervical cancer, and Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, French researchers who discovered HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi later told President Nicolas Sarkozy that they fear the world financial crisis will affect funding to fight AIDS.
One-Year Distribution Update On Gardasil: “About a quarter of the nation’s teenage girls received the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil last year in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday,” reports the L.A. Times.
The Realities of Addiction: Writing in the Washington Post, Jacqueline M. Duda shares the painful story of her daughter’s drug addiction and death — including the difficulty the family had finding adequate medical treatment for addiction.
“Surely, we thought, college-educated suburbanites like us could locate professional help: drug counselors, doctors, therapists specializing in addiction. Surely detoxification centers would treat desperate addicts and work out a payment plan. Surely we could check her into some kind of residential treatment program with a minimum of delay,” writes Duda. “We were wrong.”
PSA to Raise Awareness Around “That’s So Gay”: “For the first time since the Advertising Council was founded in 1942, the organization — which directs and coordinates public service campaigns on behalf of Madison Avenue and the media industry — is introducing ads meant to tackle a social issue of concern to gays and lesbians,” writes Stuart Elliot in The New York Times.
The campaign, created pro bono by the New York office of Arnold Worldwide, urges an end to using derogatory language, particularly labeling anything deemed negative or unpleasant as “so gay.” That is underlined by the theme of the campaign: “When you say, ‘That’s so gay,’ do you realize what you say? Knock it off.”
There will be television and radio commercials, print and outdoor ads and a special Web site devoted to the campaign (thinkb4youspeak.com). Some spots feature celebrities, the young actress Hilary Duff and the comedian Wanda Sykes, delivering the message.
Linda Hirshman, a lawyer whose most recent book is “Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World,” addresses that question in this Washington Post piece. Here’s the frightening intro:
In the 1980s, when abortion was severely limited in then-West Germany, border guards sometimes required German women returning from foreign trips to undergo vaginal examinations to make sure that they hadn’t illegally terminated a pregnancy while they were abroad. According to news stories and other accounts, the guards would stop young women and ask them about drugs, then look for evidence of abortion, such as sanitary pads or nightgowns, in their cars, and eventually force them to undergo a medical examination — as West German law empowered them to do.
Sounds like a nightmare of a police state, doesn’t it? Like something that could never happen in this day and age — and certainly not in the United States? But depending upon the outcome of this presidential election, it could happen here. This is how.
Plus: Hirshman today hosted an online discussion about the restrictions states may place on abortions and women seeking them if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
In a proclamation recognizing that Alaska has “the highest per capital occurrence of sexual assault in the nation at 2.5 times the national average,” Gov. Sarah Palin earlier this year proclaimed the month of April “Sexual Assault Awareness Month.”
But her record still doesn’t show that she gets it.
As mayor of Wasilla, where she served for two terms between 1996 and 2002, Palin hired a police chief with a highly offensive and unusual attitude toward crime investigation: making victims of sexual assault pay for their own forensic exams as part of the crime investigation.
In 2000, then Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles signed legislation that put an end to police departments billing victims for the tests, but the Wasilla police chief was none too happy about the switch. From the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (May 23, 2000):
The new law makes it illegal for any law enforcement agency to bill victims or victims insurance companies for the costs of examinations that take place to collect evidence of a sexual assault or determine if a sexual assault did occur.
We would never bill the victim of a burglary for fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence, Knowles said. Nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies.
While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.
Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.
In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.
According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.
Yes, we’re talking about that little money. But besides that, the police department didn’t charge other crime victims for evidence gathering and testing. Just those whose bodies happened to be part of the investigation.
I suppose one might appreciate the attempt to charge the insurance company instead of the victim — unless of course the victim didn’t HAVE health insurance. And even if the victim did, could you imagine adding working out the billing with your insurance company to the list of things you have to deal with after being raped? And what happened if the victim couldn’t come up with the money for the test?
This is mind-boggling on so many levels. Just one more question for Palin, who also doesn’t believe women who are victims of rape or incest should be allowed the choice of having an abortion …
Marxavi Angel Martínez is a 23-year-old library employee in North Carolina who has been arrested on charges of using a dead person’s Social Security Number. Martínez was brought to the United States legally at three years of age, but her parents overstayed their Visas. Martínez was then raised in the United States, becoming an honor student, cheerleader, library clerk, and now mother.
It’s this last item that appears to have sparked Martínez’s arrest, raising concerns about medical privacy and the potential to scare immigrants away from seeking care. Martínez, you see, received prenatal care at the Alamance County (NC) public health department. According to reports, “Alamance County Health Director Barry Bass said that during a recent State Bureau of Investigation inquiry into his health department, a judge ordered him to release the records of about five patients, one of whom was library worker Marxavi Angel Martínez.” Another source reports that “The sheriff has suggested that the librarian’s arrest was related to her care at the health department.”
Physicians and public health officials have responded to object to the chilling effect this may have on residents – legal citizens or otherwise – and their communities when seeking health care is discouraged because of fears of arrest and deportation. According to the Charlotte News & Observer, “several doctors…said that if patients become afraid to seek care, infectious diseases could spread, infant mortality could rise, and emergency costs could increase.”
Regarding privacy, one doctor interviewed for the piece explained:
“Whether you’re legal or illegal, it’s always been assumed that your medical information is private and can’t be used against you,” said Dr. Christopher Snyder III of Concord, president of the N.C. Academy of Family Physicians. “The doctor-patient relationship is sacred, and I’m not sure that has really been challenged until now. We’re in uncharted territory.”
NPR also has recent coverage of doctors’ concerns. We described another incident with similar potential effects in July, when an immigrant was stopped while driving home from a prenatal care visit in Nashville, TN. Although the officer had discretion as to whether to make an arrest, the very pregnant Juana Villegas was taken in and interrogated on her immigration status, ultimately being shackled to the bed during much of her labor and denied access a breast pump following the birth when she was returned to jail.
Related: Some librarians are also objecting to the arrest of Ms. Martínez. REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, has written a letter of protest, and addresses the use of another public service – the library:
“The manner in which she was arrested is deplorable; the place where this arrest took place is unthinkable: The Graham Public Library where she worked! The library—a traditionally safe space for the public—was transformed, in this instance, to a dangerous place where anyone can be arrested for their immigrant status.”
Thanks to local advocate Tim Chavez, the treatment of Juana Villegas DeLaPaz after she was stopped by a Berry Hill, TN police officer has become public. This incident began just a couple of streets away from my Nashville home, and has only been covered by one of our mainstream media outlets at last check.
According to Tim’s report, Juana Villegas DeLaPaz was pulled over by the Berry Hill police as she was leaving a prenatal clinic with her three children in tow. Although her car was registered and she had identification, she did not have a current driver’s license (which are no longer available to undocumented immigrants in Tennesse). The officer reportedly asked her to call someone to come and drive them all home, but then decided to arrest her. She was handcuffed and taken to jail.
In a follow-up post after speaking with DeLaPaz’s attorney, Chavez provided these additional details.
“Sgt. Coleman…made pregnant Juana wait in a hot car for an hour. When the other driver arrived, Coleman then told Juana that if she didn’t get out of the car into his police vehicle in two seconds he would put her in handcuffs. She told Coleman that she was supposed to deliver in three days, but it made no difference.”
Tim reports that during her U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) interview, it was determined that she had previously undergone deportation a decade prior, so she was kept in jail on the “driving without a license” charge and an ICE detainment. Then this happened:
“On 7/5/08, her water broke at approximately 10 p.m and she was taken by ambulance to General Hospital about an hour later. She gave birth on 7/6/08 at 1:03 a.m. She received excellent and compassionate care at Nashville General.”
“During her stay there, the guard (I believe it to have been sheriff’s personnel — wore a “green uniform”) disconnected the phone so that she could make no outgoing calls. She did not see her husband the entire time she was there. She was ankle-cuffed to the bed at all times (except when she was released to take a bathroom break).”
After giving birth, DeLaPaz had her ankles recuffed and had this to contend with:
“When the nurse requested the cuffs be removed to enable a better job of self-administering personal hygeine, the guard refused. The nurse became upset, but the guard callously said, ‘I’m just doing my job.’ She was discharged on 7/8 at 4 p.m. The nurse gave her a breast pump, but the sheriff’s guard refused to let her use it or take it with her from the hospital.”
Two days after giving birth, she was returned to jail. Having been initially jailed on July 3rd, DeLaPaz was released on July 10th.
Chavez has considerable discussion at Political Salsa of how the 287g program, which permits involvement of state and local law enforcement in immigration issues, has affected this case. As I mentioned in a post at Women’s Health News, this event sends a message to the community of immigrant women that there will be no discretion, no compassion, that they risk being jailed, giving birth in custody, and having their baby taken away if they take the simple step of leaving their homes to seek medical care while pregnant.
This was not a violent crime – this was simply driving without a valid driver’s license, mixed in with some anti-human sentiment. This woman presumably did not pose any immediate threat to society by being allowed to finish her pregnancy outside of a jail cell and spend precious time with her newborn. And yet, she was not allowed this, she was not respected as a human being. Neither was her infant.
Unfortunately, there are instances all over the country in which pregnant and/or immigrant women are treated inhumanely by those following procedures – when they are jailed instead of offered medical assistance for a drug addiction, when they miscarry and police tip lines get set up to rat them out (for something that isn’t illegal, as happened in West Virginia), when imprisoned women give birth with inadequate care and in shackles, when they try to get help for suspicious bleeding during pregnancy but are jailed and miscarry (as happened under police supervision in Florida). Please see the National Advocates for Pregnant Women and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health for more discussion of related issues.
Wide Disparities in Health Care by Race and Region: “Race and place of residence can have a staggering impact on the course and quality of the medical treatment a patient receives, according to new research showing that blacks with diabetes or vascular disease are nearly five times more likely than whites to have a leg amputated and that women in Mississippi are far less likely to have mammograms than those in Maine,” reports The New York Times.
The study was conducted by researchers at Dartmouth and was commissioned by the nation’s largest health-related philanthropy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which announced a three-year, $300 million initiative intended to narrow health care disparities across lines of race and geography.
Repairing the Damage, Before Roe: “With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside,” writes Waldo L. Fielding in this op-ed. “When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe ‘bad old days.’ Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.” Read on.
Legal Effects of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples: The San Francisco Chronicle has a comprehensive run-down of the legal and financial changes same-sex couples face if they get married in California.
Plus: What happens to the status of couples already married if the November initiative to ban same-sex marriage passes? Expect heavy litigation and a decision ultimately decided by the California Supreme Court, says UCLA law professor Brad Sears.
Paying for Health Care in Retirement – Good Luck: “I write about health care, and still the realization hit me like a ton of bricks today after I put down a just-released report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. None of the presidential candidates have been talking about how to fix Medicare," writes Judith Graham at the Chicago Tribune.
Here’s the sobering EBRI report (PDF), effectively titled: “Savings Needed to Fund Health Insurance and Health Care Expenses in Retirement: Findings from a Simulation Model.”
On Becoming a Woman: In case you were looking for some, er, real-life advice, Blinky has excerpts from this 1950′s guide. Here’s analysis from Echidne, who calls it “a fascinating trip into the sexual politics of the past.”
“On the other hand,” she adds, “almost everything in those excerpts is advocated in this country somewhere, right this very moment. Abstinence is the responsibility of girls, for example. Women gentle and home-directed while men are strong and outer-directed? I was just told this by a liberal guy.”
Speaking of Abstinence: The National Abstinence Education Association has launched a $1 million campaign to recruit 1 million parents to “lobby local schools to adopt sex education programs focusing on abstinence and to work to elect local, state and national officials who support the approach,” reports the Washington Post.
The campaign comes as Congress is debating whether to authorize about $190 million in federal funding for such programs, which have come under increasing criticism because of a series of reports that concluded they are ineffective. Such criticism has prompted at least 17 states to refuse federal funding for such programs.
The group hopes to counter that trend, in part with a provocative video that asserts that comprehensive sex education encourages sexual activity by teenagers and a Web site that offers advice to parents about sex education.
Plus: Five days later, the same WaPo reporter, Rob Stein, wrote a page-one story about a new study by the Centers for Disease Control that found “a decade-long decline in sexual activity among high school students leveled off between 2001 and 2007, and that the rise in condom use by teens flattened out in 2003.”
The new figures renewed the heated debate about sex-education classes that focus on abstinence until marriage, which began receiving federal funding during the period covered by the latest survey and have come under increasing criticism that they are ineffective.
“Since we’ve started pushing abstinence, we have seen no change in the numbers on sexual activity,” said John Santelli, chairman of the department of population and family health at Columbia University. “The other piece of it is: Abstinence education spends a good amount of time bashing condoms. So it’s not surprising, if that’s the message young people are getting, that we’re seeing condom use start to decrease.”
Not surprisingly, proponents of abstinence-only programs blamed comprehensive sex-ed.
Hands Up if You’ve Experienced Street Harassment: The F-Word is gathering comments here, in response to comments here.
Breast Cancer News from ASCO Conference: Several breast cancer-related studies presented at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago are summarized here by Daily Women’s Health Policy Report. Meeting abstracts from the conference are available here.
Eat Locally, Think …: “The local food movement typically has been about improving the health of the planet,” writes Tara Parker-Pope. “But now researchers are trying to find out if eating locally farmed food is also better for your health. A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a grant to study the public health impact of moving toward a local, sustainable food system.”
Chicago can’t hold a carrot stick to California when it comes to the availability of locally grown produce, but the farmers markets rock during the summer and fall. How ’bout where you live?
If I Could Be Anywhere Right Now: It would be here.
New York Governor Faces Suit Over Same-Sex Marriage Order: “An Arizona-based conservative Christian group said on Friday that it planned to sue Gov. David A. Paterson to block his directive to state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside New York,” reports The New York Times.
The group suing is the Alliance Defense Fund, which was founded by the Rev. James C. Dobson and others, all of whom are for limiting marriage to heterosexuals. The story also discusses how Senate Republican leaders plan on responding to the governor’s directive. Read our earlier post about plans in New York to recognize (but not yet allow) same-sex marriage.
The Rest of Us: In today’s Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Rebecca Steinitz describes how mothers without an army of nannies and who have not “opted out” make it through summer vacation.
[I]t’s neither superwomen nor supermoms that I see when I drop my younger daughter off at school. While the first-graders zoom around us, I strategize about summer vacation with the preschool teacher and the nurse, the freelance film producer and the nutritionist who’s currently managing her husband’s plumbing business, the law professor and the stay-at-home moms — not to mention the dads. And, tales of mommy wars notwithstanding, we’re all talking to one another.
Do I live in some anomalous corner of working motherhood? I don’t think so. Despite frequent sightings of weekday-morning stroller-pushing moms and the much-ballyhooed dip of about a percentage point in the rate of women in the workforce between 2000 and 2004, statistics show that more than two-thirds of mothers work.
The story is chock-full of good statistics. Give it a read.
Do All Women Have the Right to Become Mothers?: “In many ways, access to and the affordability of infertility treatments speaks to our society’s view of who is considered worthy of motherhood,” writes Pamela Merritt at RH Reality Check.
Decades after eugenics was debunked and fell out of favor as a movement to “improve society,” the residue lingers: there is a strongly held belief that pregnancy and income should be connected. President Reagan tapped into that sentiment with his infamous comment about a “welfare queen,” but the core belief is as old as the American Dream: people who are poor are considered lazy, deserving of poverty and undeserving of anything it takes money to buy. Low-income women who are faced with infertility and seek treatment are suspected of trying to work the system and defraud society.
Plus: On Tuesday, June 3, RH Reality Check and Americans for UNFPA will host an online forum at 1 p.m. on global women’s health and the Republican and Democratic Party platforms. “Are the World’s Women Part of Our Political Agenda?” kicks off with a video statement from Anika Rahman, Americans for UNFPA president, and the insights of Democratic and Republican activists about their parties’ treatment of women’s issues. Rahmam will monitor the comments section through 4 p.m. to follow the discussion and respond to ideas on how to prioritize women’s health internationally.
Two Kinds of End-Of-Life Care: “There are two starkly different paths toward death in New York City’s hospitals, one for patients at elite private institutions, another for those at public hospitals, according to new data compiled as part of a consumer rating system,” reports The New York Times. Anemona Hartocollis and Ford Fessenden write:
Most elderly patients in their last two years of life have more intensive treatment, more tests, more days of hospitalization — and more out-of-pocket costs — at private teaching hospitals like N.Y.U. and Lenox Hill than their counterparts at Bellevue and the city’s other municipal hospitals, which have historically served the neediest New Yorkers. [...]
The rankings, compiled by Consumer Reports from a 15-year research project based at Dartmouth College, have huge implications for administrators, doctors and patients as they consider which model of care is best for those suffering from chronic, fatal illnesses like cancer, congestive heart failure, lung disease and dementia.
The study does not address the question of whether longer stays and more intervention prolong patients’ lives, and the Dartmouth researchers argue, in general, that less-aggressive treatment does not change.
Holy Smokes!: New York state on Tuesday will almost the double the tax on cigarettes — to $2.75 from $1.50, putting the price of a pack of cigarettes in New York City to around $8.50 (that also includes a $1.50 city tax).
From City Room: "It’s not clear whether the messages will have much effect on die-hard smokers, but social scientists have concluded that raising the cost of cigarettes has been a strong factor in bringing down the smoking rate. The city believes that cigarette-tax increases in 2002 helped bring about a 21 percent drop in adult smoking and a 52 percent drop in smoking among public high school students in the city."
Did You Have an Abortion in Iowa?: If so, and if you experienced financial barriers at any point in the process, the Emma Goldman Clinic would like to hear about your experience. The information (which can be kept anonymous) will help the clinic in their work to provide assistance to women in similar situations.
Insight and Action: The website of the International Center for Research on Women is a terrific resource for background, research and advocacy information on issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty reduction and violence against women.
The organization also features a special section on child marriage, which includes this photo exhibit as well as this six-minute video with images taken by award-winning photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair that depict the lives of girls in Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nepal who marry as children.
Screening for Domestic Abuse: Erin Marcus, associate medical director of the Institute for Women’s Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, writes in The New York Times about the need for better methods to screen patients for domestic abuse.
"Those who support routine questioning say domestic violence is as or more common in women than many diseases for which doctors regularly check, including breast and colon cancer, and its health risks are well documented," notes Marcus. "Despite these recommendations, screening for domestic abuse in seemingly healthy women is nowhere near as widespread among doctors as testing for breast cancer or high cholesterol."
Who is the EPA Protecting Again?: Here's a story I meant to highlight earlier — an Environmental Protection Agency official told a Senate committee hearing in May that there’s "a distinct possibility" the EPA would not limit the amount of perchlorate, a toxic ingredient of solid rocket fuel, that is allowable in drinking water. Percholate is found in food crops, as well as human breast milk and baby formula. The L.A. Times has coverage of the EPA sitting on its hands:
State officials and water suppliers across the nation have been waiting for the EPA to set a standard for several years because perchlorate has contaminated the water supplies of at least 11 million people. Last
year, California, impatient with the EPA’s indecision, set its own standard.
Benjamin H. Grumbles, the EPA’s assistant administrator for water, said the EPA would decide by the end of the year whether to regulate perchlorate. Scientific studies have shown that the chemical blocks iodide and suppresses thyroid hormones, which are necessary for the normal brain development of a fetus or infant.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the committee, is understandably ticked:
"Congress will not sit idle while EPA fails to adequately protect our children. We must step in to require action that will ensure that our children and families can turn on their taps and be assured that what comes out is safe to drink," Boxer said.
Much of the water contamination comes from military bases and aerospace plants, as well as fireworks companies.
The Pentagon and its contractors for years have been lobbying against a federal standard, saying there are no proven health effects at levels to which people are exposed, and that cleaning up perchlorate could cost billions of dollars.
Much news to cover this week concerning same-sex marriage on opposite coasts. First up, wedding bells will ring for gay and lesbian couples in California starting June 17, the first day marriage licenses can be issued.
That day was decided upon by the state’s Office of Vital Records, in order to allow the state Supreme Court the maximum time to consider any challenge to its ruling before it takes effect, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Office of Vital Records also announced how the new marriage forms will be worded — the forms refer to applicants simply as “Party A” and “Party B.”
And here’s more good news in California: The statewide Field Poll that has been conducted in that state for 30 years found, for the first time ever, a majority of voters support same-sex marriage. The majority was slim — only 51 percent — but it’s still a big step. Back in 1977, when the Field Poll first asked the question, only 28 percent favored same-sex marriage.
“This is a milestone in California,” Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director, told the Chronicle. “You can’t downplay the importance of a change in an issue we’ve been tracking for 30 years.”
View the full poll (PDF), which breaks down responses by age, region, party, political ideology and religion.
New York, meanwhile, is poised to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Gov. David A. Patterson acted on a directive issued by legal counsel May 14, which notified state agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”
The directive cited a Feb. 1 ruling by a State Appellate Court in Rochester that Patricia Martinez, who works at Monroe Community College and who married her partner in Canada, could not be denied health benefits by the college because of New York’s longstanding policy of recognizing marriages performed elsewhere, even if they are not explicitly allowed under New York law. The appeals court said that New York must recognize marriages performed in other states that allow the practice and in countries that permit it, like Canada and Spain.
Monroe County filed an appeal with the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, but it was rejected on technical grounds. The county has not decided whether to file another appeal, a county spokesman said on Wednesday. The Court of Appeals has previously ruled that the state’s Constitution did not compel the recognition of same-sex marriages and that it was up to the Legislature to decide whether do so.
Groups that oppose gay marriage said the governor was essentially trying to circumvent the Legislature.
“It’s a perfect example of a governor overstepping his authority and sidestepping the democratic process,” said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a national organization opposed to same-sex marriage. “It’s an issue of public policy that should be decided by the voters.”
Gay rights advocates, however, applauded Mr. Paterson, saying the broad directive would make it clear that gay couples wed in other states were entitled to all of the benefits of marriage in New York and relieve them of the burden of challenging or suing individual agencies.
The majority leader of the State Senate, Republican Joe Bruno, told the Times on Thursday “that he and his staff would look at whether the governor had violated the checks and balances that stand between the executive and the legislative branches. But he stopped short of saying that Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, had overstepped his authority. ‘There’s a constitutional question here,’ Mr. Bruno added.”
State agencies are going to have to revise “as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses,” according to the Times.
Some gay New Yorkers may be packing their bags for California next month — or Canada. While marriages performed in Massachusetts would be recognized in New York, Massachusetts doesn’t allow same-sex couples to marry there if their home state prohibits same-sex unions. For New Yorkers, that might just be a matter of time — if the Republican-controlled Senate quits stalling.
Advocates of same-sex marriage were quick to note the irony of New York’s position.
“If you’re going to treat us as equals, why don’t you just give us the marriage license?” said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda. “So this is a temporary but necessary fix for a longer-term problem, which is marriage equality in New York State.”
NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports that Supreme Court Justice David Souter, 69, plans on retiring at the end of the current court term:
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