News & Commentary

August 26 is Women's Equality Day, commemorating the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote 94 years ago. Unfortunately, we are still a long way from full equality for every woman. The mainstream conversation about women's rights over the last century has at best left behind, and at worst ignored, intersectional identities (women of color, transgender women, poor women, immigrant women, etc.). For example, we often see the data that women who work full time earn, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar men earned. But the figures are astoundingly worse for women of color. African American women earn only approximately 64 cents and Latinas only 54 cents for each dollar earned by a white male.

I spent this past weekend in Downeast Maine, tabling at the 40th Annual Machias Wild Blueberry Festival. I drove through Penobscot, Hancock, and Washington counties and arrived in the Machias area late Friday afternoon. The Wild Blueberry Festival is one of the most popular festival events in Washington County, with attendee estimates ranging from 15,000-22,000. This was the ACLU of Maine’s first time participating in the festival. This was also my first time Washington County. I was looking forward to the opportunity to meet both current and potential ACLU members and to talk about the work our organization has been doing across the state.

Recently, two pro-choice groups in Texas released audio evidence of anti-abortion leaders encouraging their activists to track the license plates of clients who access the abortion clinics they protest. The audio, found here, was recorded during an August 4, 2014 Texas Alliance for Life training. In the recording, anti-abortion leaders acknowledge that one of the reasons they stake out clinics is so that they can “track who works there." According to Karen Garnett, executive director of a pro-life organization in north Texas, tracking “the license plates coming into any abortion clinic” using a “kind of…sophisticated little spreadsheet” is a “totally legal” way to make sure abortion doctors have state-regulated hospital admitting privileges. Garnett goes on to say that anti-abortion activists can also use license plates to track women who are accessing the abortion facilities. Tracking patients’ license plates will allow them to know whether or not a client returns to the abortion facility. In the audio, the trainers lay out several other intimidation tactics activists can use, including: identifying and monitoring patients, providers, and clinic staff; obstructing pathways to clinics; tracking the physical descriptions of patients and their vehicles; and using tax records to find new locations of abortion facilities. 

Another win has been declared for reproductive rights this week. On Monday, a federal judge declared an Alabama law that restricted women's access to abortion was unconstitutional. HB 57 required that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The bill, similar in nature to bills in Texas and Wisconsin, would have forced three out of five abortion providers in the state to cease providing abortions. The judge called these potential closures a “striking result,” and issued temporary injunction on the law. The judge will solicit comments and feedback from attorneys from both sides before issuing his final ruling.

Finally, some good news in the world of reproductive rights! On Tuesday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against a Mississippi law that would close the state’s lone abortion clinic. The case brought into question the constitutionality of a 2012 law requiring physicians at the clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital. The clinic and Dr. Willie Parker challenged the law, arguing that it interfered with a woman’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion. The three-judge panel ruled that the law was indeed unconstitutional, arguing that closing the clinic means  that Mississippi would be shifting its constitutional obligation to neighboring states and would place an undue burden on a woman’s right to seek an abortion. Physicians affiliated with the clinic tried to obtain admitting privileges at all of the local hospitals, but their requests were denied. An injunction was put in place to keep the clinic open while the case was being decided. The ruling upholds that injunction. 

Two weeks ago, Mallory Loyola became the first woman to be arrested as a result of Tennessee's new law criminalizing pregnant women. In April, Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill that allows a woman to be charged with criminal assault if she uses narcotics during her pregnancy. The law went into effect early July. One week after the bill was enacted, Mallory Loyola was arrested and charged with assault after she and her newborn tested positive for amphetamine. Amphetamine is not a narcotic.

On Monday, July 14, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued new federal guidance to protect pregnant workers from job discrimination. These revisions are the first the EEOC has made in the last 30 years. The new guidelines make it clear that any form of workplace discrimination or harassment against pregnant workers is a form of sex discrimination and is, therefore, illegal. For the first time, the guidelines clarify an employer's obligations under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

On Tuesday, Congressional Democrats said that they have created legislation that would override the disappointing June 30 SCOTUS decision on the contraceptive mandate. The Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act, drafted in consultation with the Obama administration, is meant to ensure that working women have access to insurance coverage for contraceptive care, even if they are employed with for-profit companies whose owners have religious objections to birth control.

Many of us are still reeling from the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The decision, delivered on Monday, concluded that closely held for-profit corporations do not have to comply with the contraceptive mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. Closely held corporations are, generally, corporations that have more than 50% of their outstanding stock owned by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year. The majority opinion in the decision states that complying with the contraceptive mandate stands in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a federal law that states that the government cannot pass laws that substantially burden the practice of religion. In her dissent, Justice Ginsberg called the ruling “a decision of startling breadth.” For a thorough explanation of the ruling, read Rachael’s blog about Monday’s decision.