Reproductive Health & Rights

Just because something has been policy for many years doesn’t make it a good policy. I’ve got a whole list I could go through (not letting women vote, not letting gay people marry, the whole “separate but equal” thing). Add to that list the Hyde Amendment.

What’s the Hyde Amendment? It is an amendment added to the yearly federal funding bill that bans Medicaid from covering abortions with federal money except in the narrow cases where a woman is a survivor of rape or incest or when her life is endangered. Added 37 years ago by Representative Henry Hyde, this harmful rider has been hurting low income women ever since. Read more »

In a unanimous decision in Autocam v. Sebelius, the 6th Circuit held that a for-profit, secular company is not a ‘“person’ capable of ‘religious exercise’” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) (RFRA is a federal law that protects an individual’s exercise of religious freedom from substantially burdensome laws where the government did not have a compelling interest in passing the law). Based on this holding, the Autocam companies – Michigan-based manufacturers of auto and medical supplies – can’t bring a RFRA challenge to the Obamacare rule requiring health insurance plans to cover the full range of birth control methods. Oh, and the 6th Circuit held that Autocam’s owners also can’t challenge the rule under RFRA because the birth control requirement is on the company, not the owners.

This means that Autocam’s female employees and dependents will not have access to coverage for the birth control method that’s appropriate for them, without cost sharing. In other words, they finally get to take advantage of this fabulous Obamacare benefit that many of us have been enjoying for a year now. Read more »

Conestoga Wood Specialties is one of the almost 30 plus companies challenging the contraceptive coverage benefit. Conestoga has been arguing that, as a secular, for-profit corporation, it can exercise religious beliefs and that it should be allowed to impose those religious beliefs and the beliefs of its owners on its employees. Today, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said, quite simply, “no way!”  

The court’s decision makes three important points: (1) Conestoga, as a for-profit, secular corporation, cannot exercise religious beliefs; (2) the Hahns, Conestoga’s owners, cannot impose their religious beliefs on their employees through their company; and (3) the decision does not disrespect the Hahns’ religious objections to contraception. Read more »

Déjà vu, anyone? Less than two weeks ago, we saw the North Carolina Senate pass HB 695, a sweeping anti-abortion measure that could have left just one clinic in the state. But Governor McCrory threatened to veto the bill after it passed the Senate, citing problems with both the bill’s process and content. So last Thursday, anti-abortion legislators were at it again.

They passed a very similar bill, SB 353, that changed the content only slightly. But the process was still a problem – like the first bill, the new version contains extreme abortion restrictions tacked on to completely unrelated matters. The first one was tacked onto a bill prohibiting the use of sharia law. This one? Tacked onto a bill relating to motorcycle safety. The current bill was introduced in committee on Wednesday without public notice and quickly moved to the floor, where it passed the next day. Now it heads to the state Senate for consideration, where it is expected to pass. Read more »

On Friday, the Texas Senate passed sweeping anti-abortion restrictions, that unconstitutionally ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and will unnecessary require abortion clinics to meet the standards set for hospital style-surgical centers, among other provisions. The bill now awaits Gov. Rick Perry’s signature. Once signed, it will force most of Texas’ 42 abortion clinics to close. This is certainly a sad day for women’s health. Read more »

Turns out Texas and Ohio are not alone in launching last minute attacks on women’s health care – North Carolina now joins the ranks. In North Carolina, anti-abortion legislators are flying under the radar by tacking on egregious abortion restrictions to a completely unrelated bill. HB 695 was essentially a ban on applying foreign law and in particular Sharia law in North Carolina matters. Yet, overnight this bill was transformed into a sweeping anti-abortion bill, which contains multiple provisions that weren’t otherwise moving through the legislature.

The bill popped up in the State Senate without public notice on Tuesday evening and today the Senate passed the bill. The bill attempts to shut down abortion clinics by imposing unnecessary, costly, and burdensome requirements – just one clinic in the state could meet the requirements. Read more »

Governor Rick Perry has called for yet another special session in an attempt to pass a sweeping abortion ban. In his words, because "Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn." What we’ve seen from Texas in the last week shows just the opposite: that Texans value a woman’s personal decisionmaking and don’t want politicians interfering. In light of his decision to try again to effectively outlaw abortion in Texas, it’s worth looking back on how concerned lawmakers and citizens were able to stop him so far. Read more »

The NWLC interns are ready for a summer of advocacy after spending an inspiring day with some of the most prominent leaders in the reproductive rights field at the recent Reproductive Law & Policy 101 Training. Hosted by NWLC and Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ), the annual training brought together over 50 law and graduate interns from various D.C. organizations. Sessions covered an array of timely reproductive health issues and included both substantive and skills-building components. 

The day kicked off with introductory comments from current Georgetown Women's Law & Public Policy fellow and chief coordinator for the event, Shari Inniss-Grant (NWLC) and current LSRJ fellows Jeryl Hayes (The Black Women’s Health Imperative) and Christine Poquiz (The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum). They shared the goal that has guided the history of the reproductive justice movement and the related work of both NWLC and LSRJ — that women have the right to have a child, to not have a child, and to parent the children they have.  Read more »

Yesterday, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed into law a ban on insurance coverage of abortion in the new insurance marketplaces set up by the health care law. This bill makes it impossible for Pennsylvanian women to purchase comprehensive insurance coverage that includes abortion in the new exchange — even women whose health may be seriously at risk because of their pregnancy.

Pennsylvania now becomes the 22nd state to prevent women from obtaining the health insurance they need. Read more »

H.R. 1797 is still a really really bad bill. It imposes a federal ban on almost all abortions after 20 weeks. It has no exception for when a woman’s health is threatened, or when there is a severe fetal anomaly. The one exception in the original introduction only applied to when a woman was on her deathbed from a physical illness (suicidal? sorry not good enough). The bill is an unconstitutional whopper – a paternalistic piece of legislation that cruelly ignores the lives of women it will affect. But don’t just take my word for it, see it for yourself. Just see how the bill’s sponsors view sexual assault, and its victims…

This is last week: House Judiciary Committee holds mark-up of H.R. 1797. During said hearing, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Trent Franks, makes now infamous comment that pregnancy does not often result from rape. Franks makes this comment just before every Republican committee member votes against an amendment that would have included an exception for rape or incest. Committee members complain that the exception doesn’t include a reporting requirement.

Next up – huge fallout from Franks’ comments, Washington Post gives him four pinocchios for his statement. House leadership scrambles. Bill is taken out of Franks’ hands, and given to a female Republican to manage on the floor. But what else can be done to get bill back on track? That’s right -- add that pesky rape/incest exception on a late Friday afternoon.

But the exception itself shows how bill sponsors really don’t get it. And think we really are stupid. That the public won’t see through this crass political calculation. Should we feel good about this bill now that it includes an exception for rape and incest THAT REQUIRES FIRST THE SEXUAL ASSAULT TO BE REPORTED? Read more »