Migration Category: National Old Site

US District Court Judge Karen Schreier blocked a law in South Dakota requiring that women undergo a 72 hour waiting period and mandatory counseling from a crisis pregnancy center (CPC) before obtaining an abortion. Schreier’s preliminary injunction will prevent the law, scheduled to take effect July 1, from becoming effective while it is being challenged in court. Attorneys from Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the lawsuit in late May against the law.

Judge Schreier found the provision requiring that women receive counseling at a CPC was likely unconstitutional, stating, “Forcing a woman to divulge to a stranger at a pregnancy help center the fact that she has chosen to undergo an abortion humiliates and degrades her as a human being. The woman will feel degraded by the compulsive nature of the Pregnancy Help Center requirements, which suggest that she has made the ‘wrong’ decision, has not really ‘thought’ about her decision to undergo an abortion or is ‘not intelligent enough’ to make the decision with the advice of a physician.”

South Dakota is the first state in the country to mandate a 72 hour waiting period, although 25 states currently require a 24 hour waiting period. If the law takes effect, women seeking abortions could have to make multiple trips to South Dakota’s only abortion provider in Sioux Falls.

Currently, there are an estimated 3,500 CPCs nationwide, most of which are affiliated with one or more national umbrella organizations. CPCs often pose as comprehensive health centers and offer “free” pregnancy tests. Some CPCs coerce and intimidate women out of considering abortion as an option, and do not offer women neutral or comprehensive medical advice. Often CPCs are run by anti-abortion zealots who are not licensed medical professionals.

Kansas has closed two of its three abortion providers after they failed to comply with a long list of arbitrary and hastily-imposed state regulations for abortion providers. The third provider, run by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, received a last-minute approval after initially being told that it too had been denied a license.

The Center for Women’s Health, operated by Dr. Herbert Hodes, Md and his daughter, Dr. Tracie Nauser, MD, is in court today seeking an injunction in an effort to keep their medical practice (which has been operating over 30 years at the same site in Kansas City) open. Dr. Hodes and Dr. Nauser in a long interview last night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show said they were given the new regulations on June 13. They then submitted their application for a license on June 14. One June 20, they were given new architectural regulations, issued not by the Department of Health but by the Attorney General. They considered these “sham” regulations and “restrictions no one could comply with.” In the words of Dr. Nauser, “[they are] trying to keep the Kansas legislature and Brownback out of women’s uteruses and lives.”

As a result of a new state law, signed by Governor Sam Brownback (R) in May, abortion providers must now be licensed by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which is authorized to regulate buildings and equipment for abortion clinics and to conduct inspections of the clinics twice yearly. The new regulations were sent out in mid-June by Brownback’s administration to abortion providers, which were then required to comply by July 1. The list of requirements is approximately 36 pages and stipulates hundreds of details including the minimum square footage of janitors’ closets and the temperature range for procedure and recovery rooms (68 to 73 degrees and 70 to 75 degrees, respectively).

Milwaukee public schools sent layoff notices to 519 public school employees, including 354 teachers yesterday. Superintendent Gregory Thornton attributes the layoffs to the $84 million cut to Milwaukee public schools in the two-year state budget, which Republican Governor Scott Walker signed last weekend. The budget cuts will amount to approximately $200 less per student in the school district.

Dr. Thornton said in a press statement, “This is a difficult time for the employees affected, for their families, for the City of Milwaukee, and for us. We are losing good people.” He indicated that the cuts will likely result in larger class sizes and the use of older textbooks. The district also cut school summer options and halted all “noncritical” building maintenance.

At a press conference, Thornton issued a request that members of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association contribute 5.8 percent to their annual pensions. Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, indicated the group’s opposition to this.

According to a study done by Sian Cutris et. al. of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill entitled “Contraceptive Discontinuation and Unintended Pregnancy: An Imperfect Relationship,” more than 40 percent of women in six developing countries – Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Kazakhstan, Kenya, the Philippines and Zimbabwe – discontinue use of their contraceptive method within one year. The study, published in International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, found that the three most common reasons for contraception discontinuation in each country were the desire to get pregnant, contraceptive failure, and side effects.

The researchers propose that increasing the proportion of couples who successfully use a contraceptive method or switch to a successful method is critical in preventing unintended births, as well as reducing induced abortions. The study recommends that in order to keep the unintended pregnancy rate low, it is necessary to identify women who want to avoid an unintended pregnancy and help them to continue to use a contraceptive method successfully.

Today, 12 jurors in Charlotte, N.C., found anti-abortion extremist leader Flip Benham guilty of criminally stalking a Charlotte-area physician who performs abortions. This is the second time Benham, who is director of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, was convicted for conduct that caused a person to fear for their safety or the safety of their family.

“For too long, Benham and his organization have been able to stalk and terrorize abortion providers and their families with impunity,” said duVergne Gaines, legal coordinator for the Feminist Majority Foundation, who attended the 5-day trial. “They have distributed WANTED posters and engaged in other outrageous conduct in an attempt to intimidate doctors out of providing safe, legal abortions for women here in Charlotte,” continued Gaines.

“This trial and its outcome are important,” said Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “We hope this verdict will encourage other district attorneys and the Department of Justice to prosecute extremists who, like Benham, are terrorizing abortion doctors across the country,” continued Spillar.

In addition to the guilty verdict, the Judge entered an extensive protective order preventing Benham from entering the residential community where the doctor lives, and from coming within 500 feet of the doctor’s office and the two women’s health clinics where he performs abortions. Additionally, Benham is prevented from contacting in any manner the doctor and his family, and from publishing WANTED posters or other materials, including on his website or online, that reference the doctor or his home or office address. Benham has entered a notice of appeal of the verdict. However the protective order will remain in force until the appeal is heard.

See the press release for more information.

Catherine Ferguson Academy announced Thursday just hours before a scheduled protest of its proposed closing that its doors will remain open. After an order by Detroit Public Schools’ Emergency Manager, the Catherine Ferguson Academy (CFA) was set to permanently close today, June 17. CFA is a high school for pregnant teens and young mothers and is one of only three like it in the country. It boasts a graduation rate of 90% with all graduates continuing on to college. Established in 1986, CFA also provides early education and day care. The young women maintain a farm on school grounds and receive parenting classes as well as support to graduate and continue with higher education.

The school is now set to become a charter school and was purchased yesterday by Evans Solutions. Blair Evans, who runs the charter, promises to keep all programs intact. Two other public schools were purchased by the company, while seven public schools had to close permanently.

In April, Detroit’s Emergency Financial Manager, Roy Roberts, called for closure of the school, along with 17 others. Facing a $327 million deficit, Detroit Public School were targeted for budget-saving measures. On Friday, April 15, several students were arrested while peacefully occupying the school after hours in protest.

According to Principal Asenath Andrews, there has been tremendous support from the community in Detroit “I am overwhelmed with relief that I didn’t have to start over,” Andrews said. Later, she told students and staff at the school: “I want to give credit to everybody. … This school will be available to girls in the future.”

Not all supporters of Catherine Ferguson are happy about the school’s chartering. Some teachers say that because they will no longer be a part of the teacher’s union, they may no longer be able to afford to continue teaching there. Detroit school board member Elena Herrada said “This could have been left a public school if they hadn’t let so much money go out over the years. The fact is we shouldn’t be celebrating this.”

Despite two recent scandals involving child sex abuse by priests, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops voted to make only minor changes to the church’s abuse policies at a gathering in Bellevue, Washington on Thursday.

“The changes are paltry, belated and largely insignificant,” David Clohessy, Executive Director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told Reuters before the vote.

“Unfortunately, like almost everything the hierarchy does on abuse, there are no penalties whatsoever for ignoring or concealing child sex crimes. Bishops continue to try to depict this crisis as being isolated cases in isolated places, rather than what it is: a truly widespread, ongoing crisis.”

The church adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002 after a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by the Boston Globe uncovered a long history of abuse and cover-ups by the Catholic hierarchy. More than 5,000 priests in the US have been accused of sex crimes involving children, according to BishopAccountability.org.

Earlier this month a bishop in Kansas City apologized to parishioners for failing to take action against a priest suspected of sexual improprieties. Rev. Shawn Ratigan was arrested on May 19 on child pornography charges. A Catholic school principal had sent a memo to diocesan officials detailing her concerns about Ratigan a year before. In Philadelphia, a grand jury accused Cardinal Justin Rigali of allowing at least 37 priests accused of improprieties to remain in the ministry. Both church leaders failed to report the allegations to sex abuse “review boards” set up under the 2002 rules.

The New York State assembly approved a same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday and is likely to face a vote in the Senate on Friday. Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) introduced the bill where the Assembly voted 80-63 in favor of the marriage equality bill. The bill faces a much closer vote in the Senate, where support from only one more senator is necessary for it to pass. The state Senate had rejected a similar bill in 2009.

The bill, called the Marriage Equality Act, would grant same-sex couples the right to marry “as well as hundreds of rights, benefits and protections that are currently limited to married couples of the opposite sex,” according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. New York does not currently grant same-sex marriages, though a 2008 appellate court upheld the right of same-sex marriages to be recognized if they are performed in other states. A recent Siena poll found that 58% of New Yorkers support same-sex marriage. Assemblyman Charles Lavine, a Democrat who voted in favor of legalizing gay marriage, said “Only second-class states have second-class citizens.”

Same-sex marriage licenses are currently granted by five states – Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire – and the District of Columbia, and several other states allow civil unions. The issue is also currently being debated in California and New Jersey.

Yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 to overturn Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi’s decision to strike down a state law limiting the collective bargaining power of public sector unions to negotiate for benefits, hours, and working conditions. The state Supreme Court ruled that the state Legislature had not violated the Wisconsin Constitution.

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO issued a statement against the ruling: “The inability of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to separate partisan politics from the well-being of Wisconsinites is the latest indication that citizens do not have a voice in the state.”

In May, Sumi stated in her decision that Republican lawmakers violated the Wisconsin Open Public Meetings Law requiring that 24 hours’ notice be given prior to a meeting. At the time, the Republican senators voted in conference to strip the House bill of its spending measures to bypass the Senate 60 percent quorum. The Republican senators then voted 18-1, with only Republicans voting because, in protest, the Democrat senators left the state in an effort to prevent the vote.

Yesterday the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of Texas medical providers challenging Texas’ new abortion ultrasound law, which requires that women seeking abortion services obtain and view an ultrasound. The Center for Reproductive Rights claims that the law violates patients’ and doctors’ First Amendment Rights by requiring “physicians to violate basic standards of medical ethics by compelling them to disregard the wishes of patients who do not want to receive this information.”

The law requires that doctors show the woman the ultrasound. If the woman refuses to view the image, the doctor must describe it in detail and play the sound of the fetal heartbeat, if a heartbeat is present. Following the ultrasound, the woman must then wait a 24 hour period before obtaining an abortion. Women who live over 100 miles away from an abortion provider would only be required to wait two hours.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, stated, “This law barges in on the doctor-patient relationship. When you go to the doctor, you expect to be given information that is relevant to your particular medical decision and circumstances, not to be held hostage and subjected to an anti-choice agenda…This law is patronizing to women in Texas. It is based on outdated stereotypes that women are too immature or too incompetent to make important decisions.”

In Vermillion Parish, Louisiana, the school board voted unanimously to end a program at Rene Rost Middle School (RRMS) that separated girls and boys in core curriculum classes for the past two years. The school board announced that because not enough parents had enrolled their children in single-sex classes, it would discontinue the program. The school board’s decision came just as the ACLU was about to file with the District Court to suspend the program on the grounds that RRMS lacked adequate justification for segregating students by sex and violated Title IX, a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all levels of education.

ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Marjorie Esman clarified, “The law is clear that educational opportunities for students cannot be determined by gender without an exceedingly persuasive justification. Just as students may not be divided by race, they must not be forced into sex-segregated classes, because equal opportunity means that all must be treated equally.”

In 2009, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, the ACLU of Louisiana, and the law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton filed a lawsuit in Vermilion Parish on behalf of two girls placed in sex-segregated classes at Rost against their parents’ wishes. The Feminist Majority Foundation is currently working to rescind the 2006 Bush-era Title IX regulations that make it significantly easier to allow single-sex classrooms in public schools (pdf).

A poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute, which examines the views of Millennial Generation on abortion, revealed that the Millennial Generation, people ages 18-29, are more likely than other age cohorts to support having an abortion provider in the community. However, the Millennial Generation is no more likely to believe that abortions should be available in all cases.

The poll indicated that 58 percent of those surveyed believed that communities should have a health care professional available to provide legal abortions. Those who reside in metropolitan areas were more likely than those in rural areas to believe that abortion services should be available in the community.

Moreover, 19 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all cases and 37 believe that it should be legal in most cases. By contrast, 14 percent believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases and 26 percent in most cases.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president for public policy and communications at Planned Parenthood, stated, “It Is also heartening to see that there is no gap in support among young people on issues they consider as basic human rights with support for marriage equality reaching similar majority support levels for abortion rights.”

Two studies from the Guttmacher Institute revealed the importance of offering women contraception after they obtain abortion services. The studies note that abortion patients are at high risk for additional unintended pregnancies.

The first study, “Patients’ Attitudes and Experiences Related to Receiving Contraception During Abortion Care,” conducted by Megan Kavanaugh et al., found that 66 percent of women who sought abortions stated that they wanted to leave with contraception. Moreover, of the women who had obtained an abortion in the last five years, two-thirds had been given a form of contraception at the abortion facility.

Adam Sonfield, in Abortion Clinics and Contraceptive Services: Opportunities and Challenges,” specialized abortion clinics, or those in which 50 percent or more of patients’ visits are for abortion services, performed 70 percent of all abortions in 2008, although they accounted for only 21 percent of abortion providers. Sonfield states that specialized abortion clinics may be “especially well-suited to provide the most effective contraceptive methods on the market,” such as IUDs, contraceptive implants, and surgical sterilization. Nevertheless, providing these services would place significant financial challenges on the specialized clinics.

A report conducted by Saul Hoffman, Ph.D. of the University of Delaware, released yesterday by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, revealed that in 2008, teen pregnancies cost taxpayers $10.9 billion, which includes a $2.3 billion increase in public-sector health costs and $2.8 billion in increased welfare costs. The costs of foster care, incarceration, and lost tax revenue also factor into the total.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that approximately 409,840 babies were born to women between 15 and 19 years old in 2009. Between 2007 and 2009, the teen birth rate decreased 8 percent to 39.1 births per 1,000 teens between the ages of 15 and 19. For teens 18-19 years old, the birth rate fell in 45 states and decreased overall six percent, which represents the greatest decline in one year since 1972. According to the report, the reduction in the teen birth rate saved taxpayers approximately $8.4 billion in 2008 alone.

At the 2011 UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS, sponsored by UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNESCO, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), world leaders announced the launch of a Global Plan to eliminate HIV infections in children by 2015 and to help already-infected mothers. The plan aims to address the needs of HIV-positive pregnant women and their children.

The Global Plan noted that “In 2009, 370,000 children became newly infected with HIV globally and an estimated 42,000—60,000 pregnant women died because of HIV.” By contrast, the mother-to-child transmission rate in high-income countries was around zero. Moreover, approximately 15.7 million women worldwide over age 15 were living with HIV and about 1.4 million of them became pregnant in 2009.

Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of UNFPA, emphasized the need to alter gender norms and reduce gender-based violence as part of HIV prevention efforts. Osotimehin clarified during the AIDS Summit, “I would like to stress that access to resources remains a critical challenge for scaling up gender-responsive HIV programming. In fact, I think the biggest game changer that we need is increased commitment, political will and adequate resource investments to address gender inequality as part of the HIV response, translated into adequate resource investment.”

An anti-immigration bill passed in Alabama may make the state the harshest in the country on immigration. The bill, H.B. 56, was passed by large margins in the Alabama Senate and House of Representatives last Thursday. Governor Robert Bentley (R) is expected to sign the bill into law today. Similar to Arizona’s SB 1070, the bill mandates that police investigate and detain anyone believed to be undocumented.

The bill goes beyond Arizona’s anti-immigration law by additionally attacking education rights. The bill requires parents and students in primary and secondary schools to prove their immigration status to the schools with affidavits. Public schools in Alabama are required to publish figures on the numbers of immigrants who are enrolled in school, as well as any additional costs to the school due to the education of undocumented immigrant children. The law also bars undocumented immigrants from enrolling in any public college after high school.

Criminalizing nearly every aspect of their lives, the bill also makes it a crime to rent housing to undocumented immigrants and bars businesses from receiving tax deductions on any wages they receive. The chief sponsor of the bill, Republican Representative Micky Hammon argued, “This is a jobs-creation bill for Americans.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with other civil and immigrant rights groups are planning to challenge the bill if it becomes law. Cecilia Wang, director ACLU immigrant’s rights project, calls the bill “outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional.” “The bill invites discrimination into every aspect of the lives of people in Alabama,” she said. “We will take action if the governor signs it.”

After an order by Detroit Public Schools’ Emergency Manager, the Catherine Ferguson Academy will permanently close June 17. Catherine Ferguson Academy (CFA), established in 1986 and one of only three like it in the country, is a high school for pregnant teens and young mothers. CFA provides early education and day care, the young women maintain a farm on school grounds, receive parenting classes as well as support to graduate and continue with higher education.

In April Detroit’s Emergency Financial Manager, Roy Roberts, called for closure of the school, along with 17 others, during the summer of 2011 unless an acceptable proposal was made to convert it to a charter school. On Friday, April 15, several students were arrested while peacefully occupying the school after hours in protest. This week it was announced by the Emergency Manager that CFA would close this month.

CFA boasts a 90% graduation rate with all graduates continuing on to college. According to Principal Asenath Andrews, there is tremendous support from the community in Detroit and they have made several attempts to demonstrate the school’s value to the community. “They tried everything: talking to the media, sending letters, even sending fruit from the school’s garden, nothing worked. This is just another example of how the United States isn’t a democracy. How the working class doesn’t have a voice.”

This news comes in the same week that the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released findings that the state of Michigan’s economy grew 2.9% last year, and economists declare Michigan’s recession over and in a state of recovery and growth.

On Monday, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (NY-28) and Senator Kristin Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Military Access to Reproductive Care Act (MARCH) that would remove the ban preventing servicewomen from obtaining an abortion in cases of rape and incest. Anu Bhagwati, executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), indicated her support for the measure: “This legislation would not only restore abortion coverage to our military women who are survivors of rape and incest, but it would also bring the Department of Defense in line with the policy that governs other federal programs.”

Currently, Department of Defense policy does not permit military health insurance to cover abortions, even in cases of rape. It also prohibits military women from using their private money to obtain abortion services in US military facilities.

Congresswoman Slaughter stated, “As our servicewomen risk their lives defending our country, it is deeply unfair that they are denied the rights of the Constitution that they defend. Imagine being a victim of rape on a United States military base overseas being denied the abortion coverage, and then having to turn to a potentially unsafe local facility. It’s preposterous and incredibly unjust to the women who serve our country so proudly each day.”

According to a 2003 study by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, at least one-third of all women veterans have experienced rape or sexual assault during their service, primarily from US service personnel, and thirty percent of military women experience domestic violence. Moreover, rape occurs in the military nearly twice as often as in the civilian world.