Tag: women's health
Women Share Abortion Stories With Supreme Court Justices

Women Share Abortion Stories With Supreme Court Justices

By Michael Doyle, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Claudia Polsky, a Harvard graduate who directs an environmental clinic at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, had an abortion.

So did Amy Oppenheimer, a former California administrative law judge. Decades ago, while studying at Stanford, Dr. Carol McCleary, too, had an abortion.

And now, in an unusually personal move, th

“Carol has no regrets about her decision to have an abortion,” attorney Michael Dell wrote in a new brief, referring to McCleary. “She cannot imagine having her current career in neuropsychology, or marrying her husband and having their children together, had she been forced to have a child as an undergraduate.”

McCleary, now director of neuropsychology at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, joined actress Amy Brenneman and eight other women in revealing their abortions as part of the brief prepared by Dell and the firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel.

Polsky and Oppenheimer were among 113 women who put their names on a like-minded brief prepared by attorney Allan J. Arffa and the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

“I joined the brief, and recruited a number of other women lawyers to join, because reproductive rights are at a crisis point in the United States,” Polsky explained in an email.

Both amicus briefs seek, among other goals, to put sympathetic human faces on the abortion access question now looming before the high court in the case called Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole.

In particular, the latest briefs may be tuned to the frequency of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a swing vote on the nine-member court populated by five Republican appointees and four Democratic appointees.

“It seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained,” Kennedy wrote in a 2007 decision.

The case, to be heard March 2, tests a 2013 Texas law that requires abortion clinics to meet the same standards as surgical centers, and requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.

Underscoring the stakes, 45 amicus briefs were filed this week with the Supreme Court opposing the state law. That’s a significantly higher-than-average number, and they include filings from the states of California and Washington as well as cities such as San Francisco and 163 members of Congress.

“I would love it if all women in elected office who have had abortions would so state during relevant debates, because I think this would substantially change the legislative conversation,” Polsky said.

Some already have.

During House debate in 2011 over Planned Parenthood funding, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., cited her own health-related abortion. Former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis joined former Seattle City Councilwoman Judy Nicastro in a brief this week recounting their abortions.

Others are newer to the spotlight.

Oppenheimer, now working as an attorney in Berkeley, said Wednesday that she had not been public about her abortion before joining the amicus brief, nor had she discussed it with her two adopted children.

“I am amazed that as a society we have come to a place where people feel a need to be more secretive about having had an abortion than about sexual orientation,” Oppenheimer said in an email. “I don’t think it benefits our society for people to feel a need to be secretive about either.”

Supporters of the Texas law will get their turn, as well, when their amicus briefs are due in several weeks. These will include personal accounts from women who have come to regret their past abortion decisions.

“Our goal is to now collect a hail storm of declarations (to) show the court the size of the problem caused by abortion and how it hurts women,” the conservative Justice Foundation says on its Operation Outcry website.

Any of the personal stories, whatever their intended moral, are probably unlikely to change the minds of the four justices most fervently opposed to abortion or the four considered most sympathetic to a woman’s right to choose.

The 79-year-old Kennedy, though, has had a foot in both camps, and many advocates are courting him in a case that revolves, personal experiences aside, around whether Texas has imposed an “undue burden” on women’s access to abortion.

More than 40 Texas clinics were providing abortions in 2012, prior to the law. The number of clinics subsequently dropped by nearly half and, according to Whole Woman’s Health, the law if given full effect “would eliminate more than three-quarters of Texas’s abortion facilities and limit the capacity of the remaining few.”

(c)2016 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Alisa Ryan via Flickr

Texas Law Sharply Curbs Access To Abortion, Clinics Tell Supreme Court

Texas Law Sharply Curbs Access To Abortion, Clinics Tell Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Texas abortion regulations do not improve medical safety and reduce access to the procedure, women’s healthcare providers told the U.S. Supreme Court as part of their appeal challenging a 2013 state law that imposed new requirements on abortion clinics.

Their brief, filed late Monday in one of the top court’s most closely watched cases this session, said the law’s requirements would force the closure of more than 75 percent of facilities that perform abortions in the state and prevent new ones from opening.

Lawyers for Whole Woman’s Health and other clinics argued that law imposes an undue burden on women seeking to end their pregnancies, in violation of Supreme Court decisions protecting abortion rights.

The healthcare providers are challenging a state law that forces Texas clinics offering abortions to have hospital-grade facilities and requires physicians to obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles (48 km).

A federal trial judge declared the requirements an unconstitutional burden on women’s access to abortion, but the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed that decision.

The new appeal will be heard by the nine justices on March 2, and a ruling in the case is expected by the end of June, likely evoking social, religious and political tensions ahead of the November U.S. election.

Texas state officials defending the regulations have until the end of January to respond to the challengers. In previous filings, they have stressed that U.S. states have an interest in protecting the health of a woman seeking an abortion and urged courts to defer to legislative authority.

The Supreme Court has long been divided on abortion rights, which date to a 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, declaring that women have a constitutional right to end a pregnancy. Its justices last took up an abortion dispute in 2007, when they upheld a ban on a late-term procedure critics called “partial birth abortion” in a 5-4 vote.

Lawyers for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the clinics, in their filing said that more than 40 clinics operated in Texas before the 2013 law. Afterward, nearly half closed. If the costly hospital-grade requirements stand, many more would shut down, they said.

The clinics said complications from abortion are rare and that the law provides no health benefits, adding that Texas singled out abortion for heightened medical regulation “even though it is safer than many other common medical procedures.”

The case is Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 15-274.

(Reporting by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Susan Heavey and Cynthia Osterman)

Photo: Physician’s assistant Celena Pollock works at Nuestra Clinica del Valle in San Juan, Texas. Women’s healthcare providers have filed a suit with the Supreme Court alleging that the restrictions place an undue burden on women and violate the law.

Championing Planned Parenthood, One Classmate At A Time

Championing Planned Parenthood, One Classmate At A Time

Three weeks ago, I was standing in a Cleveland crowd of Planned Parenthood supporters, when 19-year-old Claudia Stadler walked up and introduced herself as a peer educator for the organization.

“Peer educator?” I said. “Where do you teach?”

She smiled. “Everywhere.”

Stadler is a freshman at John Carroll University, a private college near Cleveland. (Our youngest daughter graduated from JCU in 2010.) The more I thought about Stadler talking about women’s reproductive rights on a Jesuit college campus the more curious I became about her willingness to do it.

“My mom had a huge influence on me regarding my activism,” she told me this week. “She’s a nurse now, studying to be a midwife, so she’s always been on the medical side. It’s the social justice side that affects me and my friends.”

Her mother, Katie Stadler, told me she was marching for women’s reproductive rights long before Claudia was born. She is not surprised that her only daughter has taken up the cause — and with a crusader’s heart.

“Ever since she was very little, Claudia has stood up for what she believes,” Katie said. “She will not stand down.” She laughed. “Ask her brothers.”

Still, Claudia attends college, where a lot of the students are more conservative than she. How does that work out? I wondered.

They’re not so different, she said.

“I grew up in the most open and liberal community (Lakewood, Ohio), but there were still a lot of kids who were reluctant to bring up issues of reproductive health. I think sexually transmitted disease and even birth control is kind of an awkward discussion at times.”

That’s where her training comes in. She looks for opportunities that naturally bubble up in conversations.

“Sometimes someone will say, ‘Oh, you work for Planned Parenthood,'” she said. “I tell them, ‘Yeah, but I’m not sure you know what Planned Parenthood does.’ The conversation starts there.”

Recently, she gave a speech about Planned Parenthood for a class. After she had finished, a male student asked a question parroting false claims repeated over and over by some of the Republican presidential candidates: “How do you feel about all the fetuses they’re selling?”

Claudia didn’t flinch. “I told him that wasn’t true. Because it’s not. … A lot of people don’t do the research. I feel like I’m educating a lot more students now than I did in high school.”

She is never afraid to start that conversation. “I don’t get nervous, but I sometimes feel the judgment. It doesn’t stop me. Honestly, I love doing this.”

Kelly Novak was one of Claudia’s instructors for the peer educator training. Novak started as a patient of Planned Parenthood, at the age of 25. “I had such a great, supportive experience in a time of crisis,” she said. “I walked out of that building and said, ‘I’m going to work there one day because that’s how people should be treated.'”

Novak is now director of education and outreach for Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and runs the training for adolescent peer educators.

“They learn how to talk about birth control, sexually transmitted diseases and healthy relationships, about boundaries — ‘what are deal breakers for you?’ We also talk a lot about consent.”

Peer educators get age-appropriate instruction, she said. “Our mantra is ‘facts, not fear.’ One thing we emphasize is how to know their audience and how to find common ground.”

That notion of “common ground” has often struck me as an impossible goal in debates about abortion rights. But Novak’s definition is instructive — and makes me wish Planned Parenthood offered peer education for adults.

“Common ground is where everyone feels included in the conversation. I think of common ground as a safe and inclusive space in which we can engage a spectrum of viewpoints. If you want to get your message across, you have to be thoughtful about how we start the conversation and how we end it.”

Last Friday, police say, Robert L. Dear Jr. killed three people and wounded nine at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Novak was sitting at her desk at Planned Parenthood when she first heard the news.

She described her reaction in halting language, a series of blurbs: “Hand over my mouth. Tears in my eyes. Heart pounding with worry for my colleagues. … You knew right away that something had gone terribly wrong. The environment has been getting hotter and more intense. This was your worst fear coming to pass.”

Claudia and Katie Stadler were in the kitchen of their family home. “We were trying immediately to get more information,” Katie said. “I honestly didn’t feel shocked, as horrible as it was. We had just watched a documentary about Dr. (George) Tiller,” she added, referring to an abortion provider who was murdered.

I asked Claudia whether the shootings in Colorado would have any impact on her willingness to speak out for Planned Parenthood.

She didn’t hesitate. “It makes me feel more emboldened.”

I shared that with her mother. “Wow,” she said. “That brings tears to my eyes. Oh, wow.”

She took a breath. “Of course, as a mother, the shootings made me pause. But she…”

Her voice trailed off, and for a moment we were silent, both of us grateful for a young woman named Claudia who will not stand down.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. She is the author of two books, including …and His Lovely Wife, which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2015 CREATORS.COM

A sign is pictured at the entrance to a Planned Parenthood building in New York August 31, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Let Pharmacies Prescribe Birth Control

Let Pharmacies Prescribe Birth Control

Back in 1933, Rep. Walter Pierce of Oregon introduced a bill in Congress to let doctors discuss birth control with their patients. The need for such a bill showed how controversial the subject was. But this was the heart of the Great Depression, when impoverished Americans could barely feed the children they had.

Oregon, along with California, is again ahead of the curve in promoting women’s access to contraceptives. Both states will soon let pharmacists dispense the pill, patches, and other hormonal contraceptives without a doctor’s prescription. This is a major advance for the following reasons:

–Logistics. Needing a prescription from a physician requires having a physician. Many women don’t, and those who do must often wait for appointments. Or they may have had a recent checkup and want birth control without going through the other unpleasant procedures in a gynecologist’s office.

–Cost. It’s a cheaper way to obtain birth control.

–Convenience. The United States has a very high percentage of unintended pregnancies. Many are the result of women being unwilling to jump through the hoops to secure birth control before having sex. The hurdles of convenience, cost and logistics are higher for poor women.

Please spare us the lectures on personal responsibility. The objective here is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Some argue that these state laws don’t go far enough in “freeing” the pill. They want it sold over the counter just like aspirin and toothpaste.

Hormonal contraceptives are already sold over the counter in much of the world — in nearly all of Asia and Latin America and in most of Africa. A prescription is still required in Canada and in western Europe, with the interesting exception of Portugal.

One can argue for requiring some sort of prescription, at least for the time being. Health insurance generally doesn’t cover over-the-counter medications but will pay for prescribed contraceptives. The federal Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, takes forever to approve over-the-counter medications (another problem that needs fixing).

Although these contraceptives are generally very safe, they can cause complications for a few women. Both Oregon and California will ask pharmacists to have women fill out short questionnaires to help determine whether hormonal birth control poses any risks to the patient.

Arizona, Idaho and New Mexico have shown an interest in following the Oregon and California example. Washington state already lets pharmacists prescribe contraceptives, but only under special agreements with physicians; they can get complicated.

As we look forward to more easily obtainable birth control, we can also observe the past at work in a case now winding through the U.S. Supreme Court. It is the umpteenth challenge to the Affordable Care Act requirement that employers provide coverage for birth control. (Houses of worship are already exempt.)

The plaintiffs this time are the Little Sisters of the Poor in Baltimore. They argue that the Obama administration’s accommodation for religious nonprofits opposed to contraception, such as theirs, is too burdensome.

In truth, all they have to do is fill out a short form saying that birth control violates their religious beliefs and they won’t have to pay for it. The group says doing even that makes them “complicit” in the alleged immorality tied to birth control.

Americans have to agree on certain principles, and access to birth control is widely accepted, including among Catholics. In this world of increasing religious diversity, many principles will conflict with theological teachings. In short, Obama has stretched religious accommodation far enough.

Back to the future, thank the American West for leading the way toward curbing unwanted pregnancies — the results of which no one of faith or otherwise wants. Letting pharmacies prescribe contraceptives should become law across the land.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2015 CREATORS.COM

Photo via +mara

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