The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights

[Soon]

When a Country Cracks Down on Contraception: Grim Lessons from the Philippines

Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/201...#ixzz1n9Yi4IoQ

[Corkey]

I don't mean to sound alarmist, there is going to be, if this personhood amendment crap passes, infanticide the likes we haven't seen since before RvW. How on earth can they call themselves pro-life.

[Sparkle]

this is all so deeply disturbing in an "A Handmaid's Tale" way, ...except more so because it is our reality.

[Kobi]

TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A federal judge declared on Wednesday that a Washington state rule requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives against their religious beliefs is unconstitutional.

In a decision with national implications for the role of personal morality in the workplace, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton also imposed an injunction blocking enforcement of the regulation.

Leighton said he struck down the state rule because it trampled on pharmacists' right to "conscientious objection."

The ruling only applies to Washington state but is sure to reverberate nationally, as it comes in the midst of a roiling political debate about a new federal regulation mandating that all health insurance plans - even those sponsored by religious employers - provide free birth control.

Several religiously affiliated universities have sued to block that insurance regulation. Their arguments are similar to those that prevailed in the pharmacy case - namely, that the government has no right to compel individuals to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, a Democrat who had pushed for the pharmacy mandate, said the judge's ruling left her concerned that some women will be denied timely access to emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within a few days of unprotected sex.

Gregoire said she saw "strong arguments" for an appeal of the ruling, though she said no decision had been made.

The lawsuit was brought by a drugstore owner in Olympia, Washington, and two of his pharmacists, all of whom shared the religious conviction that emergency contraceptives are tantamount to abortion because they can block a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.

They refused to stock or dispense the medication, often referred to as the "morning-after pill" or by the brand name Plan B, and sued to block the regulation.

"I'm just thrilled that the court ruled to protect our constitutional right of conscience," one of the pharmacists, Margo Thelen, said in a statement issued through her attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The case stems from a rule adopted by the Washington State Pharmacy Board in 2007 requiring pharmacies to stock and dispense most medications, including Plan B, for which there is a demonstrated community need.

In his 48-page opinion, Leighton noted that Washington permitted pharmacy owners to decide against stocking certain medications for any number of "secular reasons" - because they are expensive, for example, or inconvenient to dispense, or because they simply don't fit into the store's business plan. Yet the rule did not allow pharmacists to assert a religious reason for keeping certain drugs off their shelves.

"A pharmacy is permitted to refuse to stock oxycodone because it fears robbery, but the same pharmacy cannot refuse to stock Plan B because it objects on religious grounds," the judge wrote. "Why are these reasons treated differently under the rules?"

TIMELY ACCESS

The judge also accused the state of enforcing the mandate selectively, noting that regulators had not opened cases against the many Catholic-affiliated pharmacies in the state that also refuse to dispense Plan B.

He suggested that a more logical way to ensure access to the contraceptive - while respecting religious conscience - would be to require pharmacists to refer patients to another drugstore that would fill the prescription if they declined to do it themselves.

The governor, however, has suggested that referrals would hinder timely access to the medication in rural areas, where there might be just one pharmacy for many miles.

Rene Tomisser, senior counsel for the state Attorney General, vehemently disputed the judge's assertion that the regulation was being applied selectively or that it targeted Christian pharmacists in particular.

"From the earliest years of our republic, that a rule that is neutral and general has to be complied with by everyone, even if it affects someone's religious beliefs," he said. He said the Washington rule was intended to ensure women's access to an important and time-sensitive medication and that it was applied evenly to all pharmacies.

Leighton concluded in his opinion that the rules in question "are not neutral," adding: "They are designed instead to force religious objectors to dispense Plan B, and they sought to do so despite the fact that refusals to deliver for all sorts of secular reasons were permitted."

Tomisser acknowledged that the state had not investigated or disciplined Catholic pharmacies for non-compliance, but said that was because they had received no complaints from consumers about those businesses. He, like the governor, said the state would consider an appeal.

While Leighton's injunction technically applies only to the plaintiffs, Becket Fund lawyer Luke Goodrich said that as a practical matter, the state would now find it more difficult to enforce the regulation against other pharmacists.

Last spring, a state judge in Illinois struck down a similar law requiring pharmacies to dispense emergency contraception.

A handful of other states, including California, New Jersey and Wisconsin, have laws requiring pharmacies to fill all valid prescriptions, but loopholes allow pharmacists with moral objections to refer the patient to another drugstore.

Six states explicitly allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives, and several more have broad right-to-conscience laws that provide some protection to pharmacists as well as to other healthcare professionals.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/judge-strik...013210965.html

[Kobi]

At the request of the Gov, after he consulted with doctors and lawyers, the House bill was changed to mandate abdominal ultrasounds, but giving women, requiring a transvaginal one to determine gestational age, the right to opt out of the procedure. The House passed it yesterday. The Senate is to vote on it today.

I'm sure the testimony from womens rights activitists, the parodies on this issue showing Virginia in a foolish light, and the lack of public support also helped.

The "personhood" bill is also supposed to make its way to the floor today.

[Kobi]

Immediately following a Senate committee’s advancement of two abortion-related bills, about 300 people gathered along 9th Street at the state Capitol to decry the measures and rally for women’s rights.

At first, the group, mostly women, gathered on the western side of the street, facing off with a handful of anti-abortion protesters opposite them.

While the hundreds of protesters chanted “Our bodies, our lives” and held a variety of signs, some reading “Stop the War on Virginia Women,” the pro-lifers shouted back, holding posters of fetuses.

Eventually, women’s rights rally moved across the street and protesters stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the sidewalk leading from the General Assembly building to the Capitol, cheering Democratic legislators as they made their way to caucus meetings.

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, sponsor of House Bill 1, the contentious “personhood” measure that would define life as beginning at conception, decided to bypass the gauntlet after being jeered when his bill cleared committee earlier in the morning.

“Even Christ avoided stonings,” he said.

Marshall’s bill advanced to the Senate floor on an 8-7 vote after being amended to specify that that the bill would not prohibit the use of contraception.

“I’m pleased. This is a very simple proposition,” he said of the bill’s advancement, adding that the amendment was fine with him. “If it helps people understand it better, OK.”

Katherine Greenier, director of the Women’s Rights Project with the ACLU of Virginia and one of the rally’s organizers, said she was disturbed by the measure moving forward despite weeks of public denouncement.

“This bill would lay the legal foundation to ban abortion and contraception in the event of a Supreme Court reversal [of Roe v. Wade],” she said, adding that there were “numerous other concerns” with the legislation.

Marshall called claims that the bill would prevent women from undergoing in vitro fertilization “completely disingenuine.”

Another bill, House Bill 462, sponsored by Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell, was amended in the committee to weaken the measure, which originally proposed requiring ultrasounds, including vaginal, for all women about to undergo an abortion.

Under pressure from Gov. Bob McDonnell and the public, the bill was altered in committee to only require abdominal ultrasounds and offer vaginal probes early in a pregnancy.

“The amendment is nonsensical,” Greenier said. “We’re now mandating that a doctor perform a test on a woman, whether she consents or not, that is medically unnecessary. I can’t think of a bigger intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship.”

The staunchly pro-life Marshall said he was disappointed that the ultrasound bill had been altered.

“I think it was a reaction to this screaming out here,” he said, adding, “The women were already undergoing the transvaginal ultrasounds. This is nothing new.”

Asked if he felt like his Republican colleagues were succumbing to public pressure, Marshall said he could only answer for himself.

“I don’t back down from this one,” he said. “There’s no reason to.”

Senate Democratic Leader Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, emerged from the gauntlet to cheers and applause. Asked if the amendments to the two bills made them more palatable to Democrats, he responded: “Hell, no.”

He added: “Republicans are really screwing this place up.”

http://virginiapolitics.tumblr.com/p...res-protest-at
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Senators and most others in attendance were aware of the national attention on the measure and late-night comedy ridicule of the "personhood" bill and other abortion-related measures.

"We are a laughingstock of the world because of things like this," said Sen. Mamie E. Locke, D-Hampton, who opposed the bill. "The individual rights of women are being challenged continuously," she said, calling the issue of a woman's pregnancy a matter between "them, their family and their doctor and their God."

A number of speakers -- including a physician and a mother who has gone through multiple in vitro fertilization procedures -- were concerned that the proposed legislation was not precise enough to safeguard the procedure and provide for all the ramifications of how fertilized eggs would be handled.

Still others wondered whether forms of birth control that prevent fertilization of an egg, or implantation of a fertilized egg in a uterus could become criminal acts.

Proponents of the measure, however seemed ready for this concern. Sen. Stephen D. Newman, R-Lynchburg, proposed an amendment that specified that nothing in the law could be interpreted as "opposing the use of lawful contraception."

The amendment passed on a party-line vote, and a few minutes later, the committee voted to report the bill.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/v...om-ar-1710295/

[Kobi]

RICHMOND, Va. --
UPDATE:

In a stunning turn of events, the Virginia Senate has voted 24-14 to scuttle a bill that would have given fertilized eggs the same legal rights as people.

Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, proposed that House Bill 1, which had passed the Senate Education and Health Committee earlier today on an 8-7 party line vote, be sent back to the committee and carried over to the 2013 legislative session for further discussion and deliberation.

Then Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, the Republican leader of the Senate, rose to support the motion, saying that the issues raised by the bill are more complex and far-reaching than previously thought and merit further study.

The vote effectively kills the bill for the year.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/v...om-ar-1710295/

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Wow this is good news....I think.....for now anyway.