News & Commentary

Each week we will provide you with a rundown of top news stories and must-read articles.

This post originally appeared on aclu.org.

Each week we will provide you with a rundown of top news stories and must-read articles.

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear the most important reproductive rights case in decades. The lawsuit challenges two provisions of Texas law that make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for some women to have an abortion. One requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic; the other requires abortion clinics to meet the standards for an ambulatory surgical center.

All of us at the ACLU were shocked and saddened by the shooting at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs on Friday, November 27. Our hearts go out to the family and friends of those who were lost in this terrible tragedy – Jennifer Markovsky, Ke'Arre Stewart and Garrett Swasey – as well as the nine other people who were injured in this attack and the employees and patients of Planned Parenthood whose lives will be forever changed by what they experienced.

The ACLU of Maine filed a lawsuit this week to ensure that all women, regardless of their income, are able to exercise their constitutional right to choose whether and when to have children.  The lawsuit challenges a Maine regulation that denies coverage for abortion for eligible women who use Medicaid services.

In the 1920s, the ACLU defended Mary Ware Dennett, a birth control pioneer whose sex education pamphlet was deemed obscene and whose work helped lead the way for the organization that would become Planned Parenthood. 90 years later, we are proud to work alongside our friends at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to ensure that every Maine woman can make the best decisions for herself and her family about her reproductive health. 

Wondering how your place of employment affects your contraceptive coverage? It’s been a year since the Supreme Court ruling on the Hobby Lobby case and, just last Friday, the Obama administration finalized rules that will allow women working for particular religious non-profits and corporations to still receive coverage for their contraceptives. With these new rules in place, employees in need of contraceptives will still have access to insurance plans that cover contraceptives, even if their employers have religious objections.

As I wrote in an op-ed in the Press Herald on Sunday, the Constitution makes it clear that the bills – now totaling 71 – languishing on Governor LePage’s desk are now law. That includes six new laws we worked hard to pass that protect civil liberties in Maine. Here’s a look at them: