Womenstake

Montanans for Sense

by Darsana Srinivasan, Fellow 
National Women’s Law Center

A Montana anti-choice ballot initiative that would have changed the definition of “person” in the Montana State Constitution to "a human being at all stages of human development or life, including the state of fertilization" won’t be on the state ballot in November. 

Not only would such a constitutional amendment ban abortion, but it would confuse the legal issues surrounding contraception, miscarriage, and assisted reproductive technologies.  Hopefully reflecting what a bad idea it is to grant personhood to a fertilized human egg, fewer than half the required signatures were gathered for the proposal, and even the Montana Catholic Bishops refused to endorse it!

On Wisconsin!

by Darsana Srinivasan, Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

The Wisconsin Supreme Court just refused to review the lower courts’ decision to uphold the Wisconsin Pharmacy Board’s ruling sanctioning Neil Noesen for his egregiously unprofessional behavior in refusing to fill, transfer, or return a woman’s prescription for birth control.

If you remember, Noesen refused to leave the pharmacy when asked, went limp in protest and ultimately had to be carried out by police in a wheelchair -- looks like his legal appeal wouldn’t stand up in court, either!

Pharmacy Refusals 101: Go Wisconsin!

by Darsana Srinivasan, Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

Dear Wisconsin, 

Thank you for being so awesome this past month. If I had a Cheesehead hat I’d wear it around the office for you. 

First, Gov. Jim Doyle signs into law a bill to help rape and incest survivors get timely information about and access to emergency contraception (EC). Hospitals would be required to “immediately provide” EC to sexual assault survivors who request it, and provide information about EC that is “medically and factually accurate and unbiased.” 

Then, Wisconsin state court upholds the decision to discipline pharmacist Neil Noesen who, exasperatingly, not only refused to fill a prescription, but refused to follow refusal protocol that would have allowed him to avoid filling a prescription but still ensure that patients received proper care. I’m happy the court agreed that abandoning a patient, playing keep-a-way with her birth control prescription, and forcing her to miss a dose of her medication is a gross violation of a pharmacist’s standard of care. 

You’ve done good for women’s health. Keep it up!

P.S. If you’d like to know what other states are up to regarding pharmacy refusals and contraception, take a look at our newly updated Pharmacy Refusals 101!

It's Back Up Your Birth Control Day!

by Darsana Srinivasan, Health Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

BUYBC Day is part of a larger campaign sponsored by over 100 organizations, including the National Women’s Law Center. The campaign is about improving access to and education about emergency contraception (EC), one woman at a time. This year’s theme focuses on the barriers low-income women face trying to obtain EC. For example, EC is expensive but insurance companies do not cover drugs that are over-the-counter like EC, and only a few states give Medicaid coverage of EC without first requiring a prescription, thus delaying access to this time-sensitive method of pregnancy prevention.

Do you know how to celebrate BUYBC Day? It’s simple: Go stock your medicine cabinet with EC and encourage your friends and family to do the same! I know we all like to procrastinate, but in this instance wouldn’t you rather have it on hand instead of waiting for the risk of an unintended pregnancy to take you by surprise? If you’re 18 and over you can get it over-the-counter at most pharmacies. And remember, you don’t have to be female to buy it—this means male friends and boyfriends can help celebrate, too!

Pharmacy Refusals 101: Somebody Get Missouri a Dictionary!

by Darsana Srinivasan, Health Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

A whole new slew of bills that allow pharmacies and pharmacists to refuse to dispense otherwise valid requests for contraception have been introduced this legislative session. 

Among the most ill-advised of these bills is Missouri House Bill 1625 that permits a pharmacist to refuse to dispense a “drug or device that is an abortifacient, including but not limited to the RU 486 drug and emergency contraception…." As a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial points out, their redefinition strategy is all wrong. One more time for the Missouri State Legislators: Emergency Contraception, or Plan B, was approved by the FDA as contraception and is accepted as such by the medical community. Furthermore, RU-486, the so-called abortion drug, isn’t even sold through pharmacies—its inclusion was obviously intended to confuse the issue of emergency contraception. Women, in Missouri or elsewhere, aren’t getting drug store abortions.   

For a more thorough rundown of states doing an end run around the women’s health care needs, see our newly updated Pharmacy Refusals 101!

Who're You Calling Racist?

by Darsana Srinivasan, Health Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

This is one of those stories you just wish didn’t happen: a Planned Parenthood of Idaho fundraiser has been recorded being apparently receptive to a racist donor who wanted his money to be used exclusively to abort the fetuses of black women. The “racist donor” was an actor from the anti-choice magazine The Advocate (no affiliation with the LGBT Advocate) who was secretly taping the poorly-trained Planned Parenthood employee (who clearly deserves disciplinary action and a primer on progressive values). But, I’m pretty sure this isn’t quite the victory anti-choice proponents think it is—because when it comes to racial intolerance the anti-choice movement has a lot more explaining to do.

The architects of the incident clearly hoped to sow anti-choice sentiment and mistrust in communities of color. As Feministing pointed out, there are other organizations out there like the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) whose anti-choice strategy is to link abortion with slavery and genocide, and obfuscate the pro-choice community’s inherent pro-equality politics. Yeah, so Margaret Sanger wrote a bunch of horrible racist things, but she was a product of the early twentieth century’s eugenics movement.

Policy Directs Boys' Parents Be Notified About Pregnancy…Wait, No.

by Darsana Srinivasan, Health Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

Only female students in Maryland’s Howard County schools will be subject to a new regulation that requires school officials to notify their parents if they are pregnant. Specifically, the policy compels any school employee to invade the young woman’s privacy and report her to the school nurse or counselor when they suspect she is pregnant. The school nurse or counselor then confirms the pregnancy (whether by the student’s own admission or even more physically invasive means is unclear) and then tattles to the parents. 

As with many misguided and sexist policies, the legal status of the new school regulation is unclear since Maryland’s Minor Consent Law clearly states that “a minor has the same capacity as an adult to consent to treatment for or advice about … pregnancy….” However, the Chairman of the Board of Education supports the policy, noting that “[p]arents have a right to that information”— apparently even at the expense of educating female students in an environment that respects their privacy.

The First Step to Dismantling Abortion Rights

by Darsana Srinivasan, Health Fellow
National Women's Law Center

The Colorado Supreme Court has cleared the way for anti-choice group Colorado for Equal Rights to propose an amendment to the Colorado constitution to define the term “person” to include "any human being from the moment of fertilization." Proponents of the initiative must now collect 76,000 signatures to get the measure on the statewide ballot for 2008.

Just to be clear, if adopted this means that a single, fertilized egg would have the same constitutionally protected rights as, well, people, with regards to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process under state law. So, along with raising a host of questions regarding stem-cell research, in-vitro fertilization, and even contraception, it raises the obvious question of how to balance the rights of these microscopic “persons” with the women they reside in and therefore clearly implicates abortion, right? Well, misleadingly, nothing in the title or language of the amendment mentions abortion, despite Colorado for Equal Rights’ strong anti-abortion stance. This isn’t a simple human rights amendment as the Colorado Supreme Court found, despite arguments to the contrary from choice organizations that highlighted the far-reaching consequences of the measure.

Hopefully Colorado’s registered voters will read between the lines and check the proponent’s anti-choice rhetoric before endorsing the ballot initiative.

Despite its disingenuous methods, the Colorado ballot initiative is simply a subtler approach to what several states have been trying to do — ban abortion. The ballot measure is the first step in creating a legal framework to dismantle abortion rights in the state. Others anti-choicers are making similar plays across the country: Montana State Representative Rick Jore wants his own personhood-begins-with-conception ballot measure, and even at the federal level there are measures defining personhood at fertilization, like Representative Ron Paul H.R. 2597, The Sanctity of Life Act.

To see what other states have been trying to chip away at your right to a legal abortion take a look at our abortion ban fact sheet.