News & Commentary

This Wednesday, May 13th, the Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on two anti-abortion bills.  Testimony for the two bills will be heard at 1:00 in Room 438 in the Statehouse. If you’re able to join us on Wednesday, please wear pink to show your support for defeating these bills. 

A few weeks ago, Girls actress Jemima Kirke shared her abortion story with Draw the Line – a national campaign launched in 2012 by the Center for Reproductive Rights. Her abortion narrative is common – her life wasn’t “conducive for raising a happy, healthy child.”  Kirke was frank about her experience, focusing on the financial toll seeking an abortion took on her, as well as the isolation that she felt after the abortion. Kirke’s shame about being pregnant drove her to pay for her abortion procedure out of pocket. Paying for the abortion herself meant emptying her bank account and forgoing the anesthesia because she couldn’t afford the additional cost. Towards the end of her video Kirke makes a profound statement, linking stigma to the inaccessibility of abortion: "It's the obstacles and the stigma that makes [abortion] not completely unavailable...and that's the tricky part. We think we have free choice...but then there are these little hoops we have to jump through to get them."

This week the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee of the Maine Legislature will consider LD 113, An Act to Reduce the Penalties for Certain Drug Offenses, sponsored by Senator Katz of Augusta. This bill is an important step towards recognizing and treating drug addiction as a public health rather than criminal justice issue and will be impactful in decreasing criminal justice involvement in Maine. Passage of this bill is a priority for the ACLU of Maine.

Last week, CNN’s Jessica Ravitz published a piece reflecting on the status of women in the U.S., as compared to other countries in the world. Ravitz wrote the piece to draw attention to “Equal Pay Day” – the date that symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what a man earned in the previous year.

Update: LD 1013 becomes law!

The Eighth Amendment of our Constitution explicitly prohibits any cruel or unusual punishment from being imposed, and yet, we see examples of this throughout our criminal justice system. From use of the death penalty to solitary confinement and inadequate provision of medical care, America's enormous prison system has a reputation for its terrible conditions.  

UPDATE: The bill's sponsor has announced he will withdraw the bill!

Indiana has been in the news a lot recently, and, other than the NCAA basketball tournament, none of it has been good.

Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right — and that includes recording police and other government officials as they carry out their duties. Read my blog post about this right, and our lawsuit to protect it, over at the New England First Amendment Coalition.