Are you a Netflix user or a fan of the podcast “Serial?” If so, then you’ve definitely heard of the Innocence Project–it’s been a part of Steven Avery’s story in “Making a Murderer,” and the Innocence Project has been investigating Adnan Syed’s case in “Serial” as well. The Innocence Project is a non-profit organization that strives to find the truth when prisoners continually maintain their innocence after they’ve been incarcerated. In the last several decades, it has become all too clear that the American justice system isn’t without its flaws, which sometimes leads to wrongful convictions. It is these wrongful convictions that the Innocence Project strives to fight in hope that they will lead to law revisions in each state. But what exactly is the Innocence Project? Read on to find learn more.

How Did the Innocence Project Get Started?

The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld as a legal clinic, but later turned into a nationwide project. It was founded after the release of a landmark study by the US Department of Justice and the US Senate that found that 70 percent of wrongful convictions are because of eyewitness misidentification of perpetrators. This study was revised in 1999 to become the manual for law enforcement regarding eyewitness testimony. The Innocence Project became a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2003 after maintaining its role as a legal clinic at Cardozo for more than a decade.

Both Scheck and Neufeld were law professors at Cardozo and also worked as defense attorneys when they founded the Innocence Project. They are known nationwide as being part of the O.J. Simpson defense team who fought his double homicide charge in 1995. Notably, Simpson was found not guilty in that case in one of the most infamous invocations of reasonable doubt in US history; his defense team, including Scheck and Neufeld, have achieved notoriety in the years since.

Misidentification by Eyewitnesses

Since the original study in the early 1990s on the tendency for eyewitnesses to misidentify perpetrators of crimes, many more studies have been released that continue to corroborate those facts. Eyewitnesses have become notoriously unreliable. They often remember small details but not the big picture, and they are beginning to be treated as less valuable than hard forensic evidence in court cases. This is a big win for the Innocence Project, which has been trying to reform laws in each US state since its inception.

There are two ways that the Innocence Project is trying to reform laws to help prevent wrongful convictions. First, it is trying to make sure that DNA testing is accessible to all sectors of law enforcement, no matter how remote or small. This will help take the burden off of eyewitness testimony in trials. Second, by compensating the wrongfully convicted after they are freed, the justice system pays for its mistake. This should make law enforcement and the court system more interested in convicting the guilty party and should prevent more wrongful convictions in the future.

Looking to the Past

Criminal Justice Degrees Guide compiled a list of ten infamous wrongful executions that could have been prevented by the Innocence Project. The list includes Claude Jones, who was executed for killing a liquor store owner based on the testimony of his friends and a hair found at the scene. The hair was later proven to have been the owner’s—not Jones’—by DNA evidence after Jones had already been executed. Another sad example is the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for killing his three young daughters in a house fire. Arson investigators testified that the fire was intentional, even though Willingham appealed for years. Five years after Willingham was executed, it was determined that the arson investigators used flawed science in their investigation; this could mean that Willingham may be the first officially declared wrongful execution in the state of Texas. These are just two of many sad cases of wrongful executions, which was part of the drive to form the Innocence Project in the first place.

What Methods are Used to Exonerate Prisoners?

In most cases, prisoners are exonerated based on DNA evidence. The majority of the cases that are taken on by the Innocence Project had convictions that occurred before DNA was regularly tested. Therefore, the lawyers affiliated with the Innocence Project generally move to have evidence looked at again so that anything available can be tested for DNA that may have been overlooked originally. An interesting and important point to remember is that, as long as it is not contaminated, DNA evidence can be preserved for decades. This is especially true with blood and other bodily secretions and hair follicles.

Other forensic evidence may be used to exonerate prisoners as well. In one case, blood type should have proved that the convicted person couldn’t have done it from the beginning; he was eventually exonerated on that evidence. In other cases, the real perpetrator was caught and confessed, exonerating the falsely imprisoned. In one final example, a judge found that a prosecutor willingly withheld evidence of innocence and overturned a prior conviction.

Success Stories

So far, there have been 337 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States, along with seven cases where falsely convicted prisoners were exonerated by other means. In many of the cases, the convicted person spent more than a decade behind bars before DNA evidence or other evidence was able to exonerate him. Some even spent time on death row.

Oddee tallied ten of the worst wrongful conviction cases, and it’s easy to see how lawyers can become very passionate about the Innocence Project. William Dillon, for instance, served 27 years for murder, but was released when DNA evidence proved he wasn’t the killer. Kirk Bloodsworth spent nine years in prison—two of those on death row—before DNA testing excluded him. Robert Dewey was freed from a life without parole sentence because of a blood stain on his shirt that supposedly linked him to a murder; 17 years later, that blood was tested for DNA and it was concluded that it was not the victim’s blood. These are only three examples, but they show how the story usually goes when the Innocence Project is successful.

How Does the Innocence Project Work?

The Innocence Project works in a fairly set pattern each time it gets involved in a post-conviction case. Often, the convicted person or the person’s family reaches out to the Innocence Project members, asking them to take a look at the person’s case; other times, the Innocence Project independently hears of a case and offers to take it on. Once the Innocence Project takes on a case, its lawyers work tirelessly to get the evidence reviewed again and to get the case back in front of a judge for reassessment. This process is rarely quick—more often than not, it takes years for the Innocence Project to prevail in a case. There are two end goals that the Innocence Project is always working toward: freeing the wrongly convicted person, and reforming laws that prevent justice in each state where they work.

In concurrence with its work to free the wrongfully convicted, the Innocence Project also continually works toward reforming the justice system in order to prevent future wrongful convictions. This includes strategic litigation, where lawyers on the Innocence Project team work through the legal system to bring attention to the causes of wrongful conviction. Once the causes are made known, the Strategic Litigation team usually works with the Innocence Project’s Policy department to start petitioning to change laws in order to prevent future injustice in the court system.

The Innocence Project in the News

So, why have you been hearing of the Innocence Project in pop culture recently? There are two likely reasons: “Serial,” the ultra-popular podcast from NPR, and “Making a Murderer,” Netflix’s sensational documentary that was released in December 2015.

In the last episode of the first season of “Serial,” Sarah Koenig talks to Deirdre Enright, who leads the Innocence Project clinic at the University of Virginia Law School. Enright said that her students have opened an investigation into Adnan Syed’s conviction, and they have identified another potential suspect. This is entirely separate of the appeals process that Syed is currently going through in the state of Maryland, but will definitely help his case should he get a new trial.

The Innocence Project has been even more prominently featured in the news in the case of Steven Avery, the man who is the subject of “Making a Murderer.” Avery is actually featured on the Innocence Project’s website, because he is a success story for them—he was exonerated after being convicted of the attack and rape of a jogger in 1985. He spent 18 years in prison for that crime before DNA evidence freed him—and two years later, he was back in court, this time facing murder charges in the death of Teresa Halbach, a photographer who was last seen on Avery’s property. He and his nephew have been in prison for that crime for the last 9 years, and the Innocence Project is again involved in Avery’s case.

The Medill Justice Project at Northwestern University–formerly the Medill Innocence Project–has also been in the news in the last year, but for a completely different reason. In February 2015, a man was freed from prison after serving 15 years for a crime he did not commit–but he alleges that he was put in prison after a coerced confession to one of the professors who led the Medill Innocence Project. When he was imprisoned, another man was freed, and it is postulated that the original man was the actually perpetrator. This was very unfortunate press for the Innocence Project, but the program has since been under reform. The Medill Justice Project is now being led by a former investigative reporter for the Washington Post, and has continued to do good work despite the lawsuit.

Conclusion

In the two-plus decades that the Innocence Project has been working toward freeing the wrongfully convicted, it has grown and had many success stories. What started as a small law school clinic in New York, is now a nationwide non-profit with 344 success stories. Forensic evidence has become standard in court cases now, but there are still many prisoners who were convicted based on more circumstantial evidence, like eyewitness testimony. Humans make mistakes, and that has become apparent as the Innocence Project continues to free wrongfully convicted criminals throughout the country. The greater goal now, after two decades of working on individual cases, is to reform laws in each state that allow eyewitness testimony to put away people for crimes in the first place.

Resources

Primary

US Department of Justice: Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement

State of Washington: Eyewitness Identification Procedures: Legal and Practical Aspects

The Justice Project: Eyewitness Identification: A Policy Review

Additional

The Atlantic: Making a Murderer: An American Horror Story

Virginia Lawyer: Behavioral Science Research Leads to Department of Justice Guidelines for Eyewitness Evidence

Oddee: 10 of the Worst Wrongful Imprisonment Cases

Criminal Justice Degrees Guide: 10 Infamous Cases of Wrongful Execution

Time: The Innocence Project Tells Serial Fans What Might Happen Next

Huffington Post: 7 Terrifying Things ‘Making a Murderer’ Illustrates About American Justice

The Washington Post: Where Do the Cases at the Center of Netflix’s ‘Making a Murderer’ Stand Now?

Columbia Journalism Review: How the Medill Justice Project has Thrived Following Controversy

The Daily Beast: The Innocence Project May Have Framed a Man for a Crime He Didn’t Commit

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Innocence Project: A Shot at Redemption in the U.S. Criminal Justice System appeared first on Law Street.

I was in an airport in New York City when I first heard that Sean Penn wrote a 10,000 word piece on El Chapo for Rolling Stone, which may have led to El Chapo’s recapture. The place was significant to me because I had spent the last two weeks in the city that never sleeps, where some of the country’s best journalists live and write and report the news. My first thought was, So Sean Penn writes now? Huh.

In reading the article, I had a hard time getting past the line where he says he never learned how to use a laptop and wasn’t sure they were made anymore. The article was cheesy. It was poorly written. It did nothing for me. But it got me thinking about journalism as a whole–that’s when I started to pay attention.

When sensational things like this happen–where a famous person and an infamous person meet in secret for an article in Rolling Stone, for example–I find that it’s more important to pay attention to the aftermath than to the actual event. In the aftermath of this article being released, there were comments from all sides on every single news outlet that I watched. Many began by covering the recapture of El Chapo and the plan to extradite him to the United States so that he can’t escape from prison again (you really need to step up your prison game when you’re holding drug lords, Mexico). Inevitably, though, they always eventually started talking about Sean Penn and playing clips from an interview he did with Charlie Rose on “60 Minutes.” That is when things get interesting.

According to the interview, Sean Penn is sad about the state of journalism. He says, “’Journalists’ [the air quotes are his] who want to say I’m not a journalist, well, I want to see the license that says that they’re a journalist.” (The emphasis is also his.) He doesn’t seem to grasp where he’s sitting and who he’s talking to, and that’s what’s making people–especially other journalists–angry.

First of all, to those who say that Sean Penn has never written anything–he has. His IMDB page shows that he has six writing credits, including two screenplays. He has also used his fame and his political and social beliefs to have editorials published in The Washington Post and The New York Times, along with other publications. He has interviewed controversial world leaders such as Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez. He has never seemed to find his footing, however, amongst the journalistic community.

Second, consider who Sean Penn is talking to on “60 Minutes.” Charlie Rose holds a law degree from Duke University. He has won awards for his journalism, including an Emmy Award for his interview with Charles Manson and a Peabody Award for his interview with Jimmy Carter while he was president. Sean Penn was insulting journalism in front of a successful and revered journalist. He was asking to see Charlie Rose’s “journalism license” as he sat right in front of him.

Charlie Rose, for his part, remained calm and collected about the whole thing, never showing offense to the ridiculous things that Sean Penn said about journalism. The interview, as a whole, did not show Sean Penn in a great light. He seemed selfish, dismissive, and defensive. He said that no one understood him. He tried to make it into everyone else’s fault that his Rolling Stone article “failed.”

This, to me, is what makes it clear that Sean Penn isn’t a journalist, even though he wants to be. Journalism (in most cases) is about reporting facts in a way that makes a story enticing to read or watch. It isn’t about making a point–it’s about revealing something new that people at large are interested in. No, you don’t need a license, but you need generally need a college degree and an understanding of what the end goal is. An interview with El Chapo could have been a very interesting piece of journalism. It had the potential to become something big and important, like interviews with criminals that reveal some of their motivations and tendencies. What Sean Penn did was write an extremely long self-indulgent essay for a magazine that was as much about him as it was about his subject. In addition, he let El Chapo review the piece before it went to press. Sure, he wrote something for a magazine. I guess that makes him a journalist. But what he wrote wasn’t journalism. It was a bizarre memoir. That’s the difference.

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is Sean Penn a Journalist? appeared first on Law Street.

The year 2015 will be marked by many advances for the transgender community, both in the media (hello Caitlyn Jenner) and in legislatures across the United States and the world. All in all, 2015 was a year when transgender rights came further into the forefront of our daily lives and vocabulary. But there was a dark side to 2015 as well. Somehow, even though trans rights were gaining ground, it was still the year with the most trans murders on record. Read on to learn about the transgender murder crisis in 2015.

Why Are Trans People Getting Murdered?

Many of the trans people who were murdered in 2015 were victims of hate crimes. Even worse, the majority were perpetrated against transgender women of color.

Hate crimes, specifically those against people identifying with a certain gender, have occurred for years. But these crimes came into the spotlight in 2009 when Congress passed the Matthew Shepard Act, which added gender identity to the list of possible motivations for hate crimes. The act also requires the FBI to track statistics on gender identity-motivated hate crimes, but those statistics rely on voluntary reporting from law enforcement agencies and many believe that they are grossly underestimated. These crimes may be undercounted because police officers may not report the murders of trans people as hate crimes–or treat these murders like hate crimes–because their gender is often misidentified.

Who are the victims?

Some of the victims, such as Mercedes Williamson and Keyshia Blige, were killed by strangers in the typical sense of a hate crime–people who didn’t want someone different, or outside of their norm, in their community. There is also a subset of these murders that were committed by loved ones. Around half of the transgender murders in 2015 were committed by people who knew their victims. Two examples include Yazmin Vash Payne, who was killed by her boyfriend after an argument, and Bri Golec, who was stabbed to death by her father.

How Many Trans Murders Were There in 2015?

According to the Human Rights campaign, there were at least 21 murders specifically of trans individuals in the United States in the first 10 months of 2015. But these are only the murders that were reported and identified by that group, and only includes part of the year. Other counts put that statistic higher, but the fact of the matter is that based on the available data, we do not know how many trans murders occured. Even then, the 21 identified by the Human Rights campaign marks a notable increase from previous years. In 2013, there were at least 19 murders of trans people and in 2014, there were at least 13.

The true number is almost certainly higher. There have been many articles in the last couple of months detailing the attacks and profiling the victims of these attacks, which flips the normal crime story on its head (since most crime stories talk only about the perpetrator rather than the victims). These profiles and articles were mainly released before November 20, which is the Transgender Day of Remembrance in the United States. There were also protests surrounding the Day of Remembrance where people lay in the streets, feigning death in order to draw attention to this seemingly invisible problem.

Official hate crime statistics from the FBI for the 2015 calendar year won’t be released until later in the year, but that only includes incidents identified as hate crimes and are widely regarded as an undercount of the actual number.

Why the FBI Stats are Lacking

According to the hate crime statistics released by the FBI last November for the 2014 calendar year, there were only 109 gender-identity motivated hate crimes, of which only 23 fit into the FBI’s violent crime category. However, the FBI’s hate crime numbers are thought to be considerably lower than the actual number of offenses. This is because the statistics are voluntarily submitted by law enforcement agencies, many of which reported zero hate crimes in 2014. The Human Rights Campaign even identified crimes that should have been considered hate crimes but were not appropriately reported. In fact, the FBI’s 2014 statistics indicate that of the 4,048 total hate crimes classified as “crimes against persons,” only four were murders, and that includes all potential bias motivations, not just gender identity.

While each jurisdiction has its own reasons for the differing data submissions to the FBI, problems with the statistics could be due to the fact that these crimes may look like accidents. Also, murders aren’t typically considered hate crimes when they are committed by a family member, friend, or partner. Police may also have trouble identifying victims as transgender in the first place, making it harder for data to be accurately gathered–many of the victims identified by the Human Rights Campaign weren’t identified as transgender by the police or media. For these reasons, among others, these murders aren’t being thought of or investigated as hate crimes and are not being reported to the FBI as such.

There is little that the FBI can do about this–it relies entirely on information provided by law enforcement across the country. So it doesn’t matter how many protests take place–as long as law enforcement doesn’t consider these murders to be hate crimes, they will not be included in the FBI’s statistical reports. However, this also provides a glimmer of hope for the trans and LGBTQ community at large. The number of crimes that are classified as hate crimes is getting larger each year, including the number of hate crimes motivated by a person’s gender identity. In fact, 2014’s number is triple the amount of reported hate crimes motivated by gender identity in 2013. The rate of murders against transgender people may not change that much from year-to-year, instead, they may be getting reported more regularly. Therefore, there is hope that the statistics that the FBI releases may be much closer to accurate in the future.

What Can Be Done?

There are several things that can be done to decrease the number of transgender murders in the future. The first is already underway–the FBI has begun keeping track of statistics for hate crimes involving gender identity. The FBI only started gathering statistics on gender identity motivated hate crimes five years ago. There is a lot of room for growth in how the FBI gathers the information for these statistics, but improvement has so far been made each year. Hopefully, these hate crime statistics will give the country–including law enforcement and legislators–an idea of what is happening in the United States and what else needs to be done to protect transgender people. Congress recently created a Transgender Equality Task Force to help identify issues that transgender people face, which according to advocates should include tracking incidents of violence.

Allies and education are other key ways to prevent the murders of transgender people in the future. When any marginalized group of people has allies on their side, it is easier to fight back. Allies, in this case, are people who do not identify as transgender but who support the causes important to transgender people, such as safe spaces and the legal right to be recognized as an individual’s identified gender. Education about what it is like to be transgender is another small thing that can go a long way. Both trans people and allies can work to educate people throughout the country, hopefully helping develop a broader sense of understanding of what it is like to be transgender and what kinds of rights transgender people are still fighting for.

A Look at the Numbers

There is some good news: trans support in the United States is increasing. In April 2015, the Human Rights Campaign noted that the number of people who say they know a transgender person is up 5 percent from the previous year, and 66 percent of those people look favorably on their transgender acquaintances. The percentage of people who were polled by YouGov as saying that they believe being transgender is immoral is down to 31 percent. While it’s still unclear what the actual transgender population is in the United States–FiveThirtyEight postulates that many of the people who claim to not know any transgender people likely do–each person’s choice on how broadly to share their personal life differs.

All of these statistics show a changing tide in the fight for transgender rights, and also show that younger generations are even more likely to support transgender rights and fight for an end to violence against the trans population.

Conclusion

In 2015, there were at least 21 transgender women who were the victims of murders across the United States. 2015 also marked the highest number of murders against transgender people on record. These murders were committed by both strangers and loved ones of the victims, and they have been classified as hate crimes by activists and by the people who were close to the victims. But until law enforcement consistently reports on the set of criteria that would classify transgender murders as hate crimes, the statistics that the FBI is required to release each year will fall short of being accurate. While we do not yet have reliable statistics about murders and hate crimes against transgender people, as awareness increases that will likely improve. While there are many ways to support transgender people–including activism–the most effective way to shrink the number of murders in the future is to compile and release accurate statistics that would show these crimes for what they are. Until then, these sad and gruesome crimes will continue to occur, and transgender people will continue to be victimized.

Resources

Primary

The Federal Bureau of Investigation: FBI Releases 2014 Hate Crimes Statistics

The Federal Bureau of Investigation: Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 Brochure

Additional

The New York Times: Obama Calls for End to ‘Conversion’ Therapies for Gay and Transgender Youth

Vanity Fair: Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story

Rolling Stone: The 5 Best and Worst Trans Moments of 2015

Slate: Five Things Trans People Teach Us All About Ourselves

Huffington Post: Lives Guided By Fear: In Honor of the Transgender Day of Remembrance

Human Rights Campaign: Addressing Anti-Transgender Violence: Exploring Realities, Challenges, and Solutions for Policymakers and Community Advocates

Huffington Post: What Does Transgender Day of Remembrance Mean to the Trans Community?

Broadly: ‘He’s Not Done Killing Her’: Why So Many Trans Women Were Murdered in 2015

Broadly: A Crisis of Violence: Transgender Murders Increased 84% This Year

Vice: Trans Women of Color Face an Epidemic of Violence and Murder

Fusion: 20 Trans People Were Murdered This Year. This is What Happened.

Mother Jones: It’s Incredibly Scary to Be a Transgender Woman of Color Right Now

Time: Why Transgender People Are Being Murdered at a Historic Rate

Rolling Stone: More Trans People Have Been Killed in 2015 Than Ever Before

Crime Museum: History of Hate Crime

The Williams Institute: Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults

USA Today: Transgender People Face an Alarmingly High Risk of Suicide

Think Progress: As 2015 Sees a Record Number of Documented Transgender Murders, a Glimmer of Hope

Human Rights Campaign: Survey Shows Striking Increase in Americans Who Know and Support Transgender People

YouGov: One-third Think it is Morally Wrong to be Transgender

FiveThirtyEight: Most Americans Say They Don’t Know a Transgender Person – But Many of Them Probably Do

Huffington Post: The Kids Are All Right with Transgender Rights

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Transgender Murder Crisis: Why Were There So Many Killings in 2015? appeared first on Law Street.

While perusing my Twitter feed the other day, I came across a ridiculous tweet from Cosmopolitan magazine that got me thinking about weight in the workplace:

Ashley Benson Responds to Hollywood Saying She's "Too Fat" https://t.co/eODHBO3ikX pic.twitter.com/LIDUjPdwLL

— Cosmopolitan (@Cosmopolitan) January 4, 2016

A little background—Ashley Benson is one of the four stars of the hit ABC Family show “Pretty Little Liars”—and believe me, she is nowhere near fat. In fact, she even admits that she’s a size 2 in both the short Cosmo piece and the longer article that it is based on, which appeared in Ocean Drive.

This all begs the question—since when was a size 2 too fat?

Well, Hollywood is a terrible and subjective sort of beast. Benson is not the first young woman in show business to make a comment about someone saying she is too fat. Jennifer Lawrence, for instance, has always been outspoken about her love for food, and she has said on more than one occasion that she is considered a “fat actress.” As with Benson, Lawrence is definitely not fat. She is, however, curvy in that effortless way that makes her a bombshell.

So is Hollywood saying that skinny (i.e. without curves) is perfect and curvy is fat? What about the average woman in the United States, who is 5’ 4” and weighs 166 pounds?

It caused me to take a step back and think about the fact that Ashley Benson’s and Jennifer Lawrence’s workplaces are Hollywood. Their sources of livelihood are their acting chops and their appearances. So, when thought of in that way, wouldn’t being turned down for a part because you are “too fat” be considered workplace discrimination?

Surprisingly, no. There is really only one state in the United States–Michigan–that has any sort of law about weight discrimination in the workplace, and even then, it’s really difficult to prove in a courtroom. In 2013, a large number of cocktail waitresses tried to sue a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey for forcing them to do weigh-ins and lose weight on a regular basis, and they lost. Overweight and obese people–and those are subjective terms, since everyone who isn’t a medical doctor has a different opinion on what constitutes an obese person–are not a protected class. This means that, legally, workplaces can discriminate against obese job applicants and employees.

Think about that for a minute.

While “overweight” people probably can’t be fired from a job they already have–there has to be a reason for firing someone, since unlawful termination is easier to prove than other types of workplace discrimination–there have been studies that have shown that hiring managers are significantly less likely to hire an “overweight” person than a skinny person. In addition, skinny or otherwise attractive employees are more likely to get promoted and receive pay raises, whereas heavier employees are more often passed over or forced to work extra hours to get the same benefits, promotions, or compensation.

When all of this is put together, the conclusion is a dreary one. Yes, weight does matter in the workplace, even if you aren’t an actress or a model. Being considered fat or overweight may keep you from getting a job, and if you already have a job, it may keep you from advancing in your career. You’ll likely have to work harder to earn what you believe you deserve. It’s a troubling world that we live in, where people’s subjective opinions about what others should look like affect their employment opportunities, even when they aren’t famous actresses. Reality, unfortunately, isn’t known for being nice to people.

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Does Weight Matter in the Workplace? appeared first on Law Street.

Have you ever made a mistake that affected people at work? I’m willing to bet that you have. I have–I used to work in the Chemistry stockroom at a major university–I think that’s all I need to say. In some lines of work, meteorology, for example, mistakes are part of the day to day, and people don’t say much when something is flubbed a little bit. On the other hand, there are careers where mistakes cost lives–like surgery. Watch “Grey’s Anatomy” and you’ll know that, fiction aside, mistakes happen there, too. It’s rare, though, that a mistake at work will cause public ridicule.

Unless your job is hosting the Miss Universe pageant, I suppose.

The internet has been having a field day with the fact that Steve Harvey, the host of “Family Feud” and this year’s Miss Universe pageant, announced the wrong winner at the conclusion of the 2015 pageant that took place on  December 20 in Las Vegas. He awkwardly apologized on live television while last year’s Miss Universe took the crown and sash off of one stunned young woman, Miss Colombia, and then put it on another: Miss Philippines.

Entertainment Tonight has covered much of the aftermath, revealing that Steve Harvey is likely to continue hosting Miss Universe for several years, as stated in the contract that he signed just days before this year’s pageant. It’s also been revealed how he made his mistake–he didn’t rehearse who had won. He read the name off the cue card and then kept reading, seeing that his revealed winner was actually the first runner up. Harvey has reportedly apologized to both contestants. ET also revealed that Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, has accepted her “destiny,” as she calls it, and loves that the entire world is talking about her country. She then took the high road and congratulated the new Miss Universe, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach from the Philippines.

That’s all well and good, but let’s take a step back and think about this in a different way–the power our mistakes have to stay with us.

For example, many of you listened to the first season of the sensationally popular podcast, “Serial,” I’m sure. There were many aspects of the story that host Sarah Koenig explored, but one of the most cut and dry seemed to be this–Adnan Syed’s original attorney, Cristina Gutierrez (no relation to Miss Columbia), allegedly messed up his case. Her “flub” (if we can call it that) was one of those that changed someone’s life. Rather than taking a crown and year of publicity and appearances away from someone, her mistakes took away someone’s freedom (maybe–one can never be sure, but other lawyers have been outspoken in the fact that, had Syed’s case been presented properly, he would have never been convicted in the first place). The unfortunate aspect of this part of the “Serial” story is that Gutierrez died in 2004, so she can neither explain what was going on in her head at the time nor apologize to Syed, his family, or Hae Min Lee’s (the victim’s) family.

And, like in the case of Steve Harvey, the internet (and other podcasters) are giving her a really hard time. In fact, her son has even made a statement to a reporter at the Baltimore Sun defending his mother and her actions because of all of the attention “Serial” pointed at his mother. But the internet is unforgiving, in both the cases of Cristina Gutierrez and Steve Harvey.

It begs the question—can mistakes ever be forgotten online, or will they always haunt us?

Well,  it certainly seems that the memes and videos surrounding Steve Harvey are here to stay. Poor Cristina Gutierrez—whether or not she flubbed Syed’s case, nothing can be changed now. Even if he successfully wins his appeal, he still lost at least 16 of his best years to a life sentence in a Baltimore prison. Now that “Serial” has brought her seemingly small murder case to the big time, her name will most likely be forever be tarnished in the internet’s eyes. These two examples show us that, while the internet may forgive (such as in the publishing of the apologies released by Harvey), it never forgets. Sure, Steve Harvey is a celebrity; but Cristina Gutierrez was not. She was a regular person who was thrust into the spotlight after her untimely death in a way that would likely embarrass her if she was alive to see it. It’s a good example to everyone else—watch what you say and do. In the age of the internet, you seemingly can’t take it back.

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Steve Harvey, Miss Universe, and Mistakes in the Internet Age appeared first on Law Street.

For many couples, being unable to conceive naturally is a heartbreaking piece of news. Many turn to in vitro fertilization (IVF), which is successful about 30 percent of the time. However, when in vitro is successful, most couples have frozen embryos leftover and are asked what they would like to do with them. The majority of clinics offer four options: embryos can be donated to scientific stem cell research; they can be kept on ice for a several hundred dollar yearly fee; they can be destroyed by the clinic; or they can be donated to other families who struggle with infertility. This last option is called embryo adoption, or “snowflake” adoption. Embryo adoption is a largely unknown practice that has been gaining both notoriety and applause for its ability to help more couples go through the process of pregnancy and birth, giving them children who are not genetically related to their birth parents. Read on to learn about the background of frozen embryo adoption, the regulations on it, and what to expect moving forward.

What is frozen embryo adoption?

The process that leads to frozen embryo adoption usually begins with in vitro fertilization. It is often a practice for the doctor to harvest as many eggs as possible from the woman, thereby creating the maximum amount of fertilized eggs. A few of these embryos are implanted in the woman’s uterus, and the rest are frozen for later use. “Later use” refers to another round of IVF, either because the first round failed or because the couple wanted to expand their family some more. So what happens when a couple decides that their family is big enough? This is where embryo donation–and then adoption–sometimes comes into play.

The embryo donation and adoption process is pretty straight-forward–a couple who decides they want to donate their extra embryos after in vitro fertilization does so, and a couple (or a single woman, although some embryo adoption agencies only allow married couples to adopt frozen embryos) who wants to adopt embryos has them implanted into the woman’s uterus. Hopefully, the implantation takes. Then, a baby is born that is genetically the child of the donor couple.

What is responsible for the rise in frozen embryo adoptions?

The internet is rife with stories of couples who have struggled with infertility. It is a hardship that creates internet bonds between blogging wives and mothers, and fathers and husbands. Infertility is a deeply personal struggle, yet many people find that sharing that struggle online gains them the understanding that they can’t find in their offline life. In many stories of frozen embryo adoptions, this is how it starts. Maybe IFV was unsuccessful. Maybe the couple in question didn’t have the money for IFV at all. Maybe there is a woman who never found that perfect partner in life, and wanted to have a baby anyway. The reasons vary, but a fair number of the stories have similar beginnings–someone who is interested in an alternate path to having children sees an online posting, and then the embryo adoption process begins. A well-publicized example of this is the case of Glenda Lyons, Susan Lindeman, and Dana MacMillan, who all found each other on infertility message boards and are all raising children who are genetically Lyonses, although each family lives in a different part of the country. Their very unique story was documented in a 2009 article in Good Housekeeping.

There are of course many other ways for this process to occur as well. There are private companies that match donors with potential adoptive parents, such as BlessedWithinFertility. That process works much like a dating matchmaker, where the private company works as a consultant to arrange the perfect match between embryo donors and recipients. Clinics that offer embryo adoption have also been on the rise, building off of the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program, which began in 1997. The Department of Health and Human Services also has a grant program  to provide funding for clinics that offer embryo adoption as one of their services, and is working to increase public awareness.

It’s important to note that adoptive parents do not need to suffer from fertility issues in order to adopt frozen embryos–that is just the most common reason for deciding to pursue this particular route toward conceiving a child. There are very few guidelines surrounding embryo adoption in the United States, which means that the laws very from state to state. In most cases, anyone can adopt frozen embryos as long as they agree to the terms of the donor. In cases of private adoptions, the donors often set guidelines themselves for what they are looking for in adoptive parents; in the case of the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program, a written application and a home visit are necessary before applicants are paired with donors.

Who can donate a frozen embryo?

The market for frozen embryo donation is almost exclusively made up of couples who have successfully conceived through IFV and have embryos left over, and most embryo adoption websites appear to use rhetoric that is only addressed to couples. This makes the decision to donate remaining embryos an immensely personal decision that presumably many couples agonize over. The donation of embryos helps other couples realize their dream of going through pregnancy and childbirth. However, many couples struggle with the realization that there will be more of their biological children out there in the world whom they may never meet. Because of this emotional and personal factor in the embryo adoption process, many couples opt to choose their own embryo recipients, thereby alleviating some of their fears.

While most embryo adoption agencies target couples who have extra embryos left over, there is also the chance that a single woman successfully underwent IVF with a sperm donor and later will want to donate her frozen embryos as well. Since, in most cases of sperm donation, the sperm donor consents to giving up all parental rights, the woman would have the right to decide on her own what to do with the leftover embryos.

Frozen embryo donation is not the same thing as egg donation. Embryos are already fertilized eggs that have been frozen after the fertilization has been successful; egg donation is only the first part of that process, where eggs are harvested but have not yet been fertilized. While women are often actively recruited to donate eggs and are compensated generously for the time and effort, embryo donors are not compensated for their donation and do have other options for what to do with their leftover embryos.

Why is the frozen embryo adoption process controversial?

There are several reasons why embryo adoption is controversial in the United States, and they range from legal to religious in nature. One big reason is that there are no nationwide laws governing embryo adoption, which leaves the decision to each individual state. So far, ten states have enacted laws having to do with embryo adoption. For example, in Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and Oklahoma, embryo donors have to give up all of their parental rights; in nine states, including Florida, Ohio, and Oklahoma, all decisions must be made in writing. As the topic gains more attention, more states will likely follow suit and regulate the process.

A second controversy falls in the camp of the ethical–if a donor couple decides to do a closed donation (meaning they would give up all right to contact with the recipient and the child), how would the families keep track of each other, and should they? These are just a couple of the reasons why this new process for helping families struggling with infertility is making some people (and lawmakers) scratch their heads in thoughtful silence. Would a federal law help regulate this extremely personal decision? Maybe, but a question asked by many others is whether the government should get involved in this process at all, since it is something that is based on a donor couple’s personal decision.

Are there any controversial supporters?

Many supporters of embryo adoption are devout Christians who oppose abortions. Much of this is based on their interpretation of what frozen embryos are. This makes the option of destroying frozen embryos akin to abortion in the minds of some outspoken supporters of embryo adoption, even if that is not scientifically accurate.

Are there people who oppose frozen embryo adoption?

Yes, there are people who don’t believe embryo adoption is a good idea, but many only balk at the rhetoric used.

To quote Dr. Owen Davis, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM):

You are putting [couples] through a procedure more akin to adopting an actual live child who has attained personhood, and this is really not the same.

In an article by Aljazeera, the ASRM’s ethics committee was quoted saying that the term “adoption” was “deceptive because it reinforces a conceptualization of the embryo as a fully entitled legal being.”

In other words, many who are pushing back against embryo adoptions are doing so because they don’t believe the terms being used to describe the procedure are accurate.

Conclusion

The growing public knowledge of the process of frozen embryo donation and adoption is bringing the procedure into the forefront of public opinion like it has never been before. Since it is still a relatively new procedure–not quite two decades old–there is still much room for growth when it comes to legislation surrounding embryo adoptions. Currently, there is no national standard, and some people find the procedure to be controversial. It is likely that this process will continue as it becomes more common and more laws are added to the books regarding embryo donation and adoption.

Resources

Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program: Snowflakes are Falling

WebMD: In Vitro Fertilization (IFV) and Infertility

Aljazeera America: Embryo Adoption Creates Babies – and Controversy

Good Housekeeping: Siblings of a Sort

Pacific Standard: The Frozen Children: The Rise – and Complications – of Embryo Adoption in the U.S.

NYU Langone Medical Center: Donating Your Eggs

National Embryo Donation Center: Donation – The Gift of Life

NPR: The New Frontier of Embryo ‘Adoption’

The New York Times: Industry’s Growth Leads to Leftover Embryos, and Painful Choices

Huffington Post: Evangelicals Embryo Adoption: Devout Christians Seek a Future for Thousands of Frozen Embryos

The Week: Inside the Rise of Embryo Adoption

USA Today: Couples Give Up Frozen Embryos for ‘Adoption’

Fusion: Enter the Wild West of the Embryo ‘Adoption’ Industry

Time: Get Used to Embryo Adoption

PeanutMom.com: The Embryo Donation Dating Game, Part 2

Legal Match: Sperm Donor Parental Rights and Obligations

Stockholm Law: Embryo Donation or Adoption – Which Laws and Policies Should Apply and Why?

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Frozen Embryo Donation and Adoption: A New Trend? appeared first on Law Street.

Last week, Spotify released its Year in Music, naming the song “Lean On” by Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ as the most streamed song of 2015, or, as the Atlantic called it, the “most 2015 song of 2015.”  This was incredibly shocking to me.

Does that mean that cultural appropriation is the most 2015 thing about 2015? Because if that’s the reality of this year in review, I’m not okay with it.

Let’s talk about this song for a second.

Yes, the song is catchy.  It is considered to be a cross between electronic pop and dance music, and that hook definitely gets stuck in a person’s head. When I first heard it, I thought it sounded almost tribal.  And then I had a life experience that changed how I heard the song.

In the early autumn of 2015, I spent five weeks abroad in Pune, India for work. It was an amazing experience, something I’ll never be able to duplicate. I heard “Lean On” once while I was in India, and it made me stop in my tracks. It suddenly sounded to me like Americans (and Europeans) were trying to imitate the signature sound of Bollywood music. My immediate feelings were both outrage and sadnes–what kind of world is this where people think it’s okay to stereotype cultures so badly?

And I hadn’t even seen the music video yet.

There is a segment of a BuzzFeed video titled “Indians React to American Pop Culture Stereotypes” that discusses this song. There are many responses, but two of the most notable are:

That’s not even an Indian dance step.

and,

Palaces and poor people?  Yes, that is exactly what India comprises of.

I actually thought those reactions were pretty tame, and some of the other reactions were even more forgiving. When I saw the video, all I could focus on was the continual thrusting movement that MØ makes with her hips throughout the entire song. That is not something that is usually appropriate in India, no matter who is dancing around you. And don’t even get me started on the fact that MØ is wearing tiny shorts throughout most of the video–another consistently big no-no in Indian culture, where modesty is practiced and expected from foreigners as well as natives. We are hypersexualized in the United States, and this music video is a perfect example of that.

Say the Atlantic is correct in saying that this was the most 2015 song of 2015–does that mean that our year was marked with cultural appropriation?  Actually, it kind of was–the Atlantic even published a helpful dos and don’ts article about it.  Cultural appropriation–and Hollywood is constantly guilty of this–was a big deal this year. From critiques of the costumes worn to music festivals to Aziz Ansari’s show “Master of None,” cultural appropriation being brought to light was a big marker of the year 2015.

While it can be said that most perpetrators of cultural appropriation don’t realize that they are being offensive, I like to hold the optimistic belief that they genuinely don’t understand what they’re doing.  To me, that means there is hope yet. People can learn. People can grow.  There is the chance that bringing all of this to light will make for a better 2016–that is my hope.

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Success of “Lean On” Shows that Cultural Appropriation is Alive and Well in 2015 appeared first on Law Street.

If there’s one person who is sure to always hit us where it’s relevant, it’s Shonda Rhimes. On the mid-season finale of “Scandal” (spoilers ahead, for those who aren’t caught up), Mellie filibusters in front of the Senate for nearly a full day in order to ensure that Planned Parenthood’s funding isn’t considered discretionary, and Olivia aborts Fitz’s child. Even with the trigger warning at the beginning of the episode, viewers were surprised with where the plot took them.

All of this aired just eight days before a gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It occurred in the midst of a lawsuit against the state of Texas for trying to remove Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funding. And it tackled a real-life issue that has been discussed with increasing fervor since the fall—defunding Planned Parenthood altogether. Planned Parenthood remains front-page news, which is rare for an organization that has been around for nearly one hundred years. Yet it stays relevant, and will continue to stay relevant in mainstream media as long as the country is polarized by the subject of abortion. So, here’s a breakdown of all the latest Planned Parenthood stories, and what they mean for the future of the organization and healthcare.

Is Planned Parenthood going to be defunded?

In short, as of right now, it’s hard to say whether Planned Parenthood will still be funded next year.

There are two ways that Republicans could go about trying to defund Planned Parenthood. There is a bill that just passed the Senate that would both remove federal funding from Planned Parenthood for one year and repeal part of the Affordable Care Act. This bill had already passed in the House of Representatives. However, given that it’s part of a bill to repeal Obamacare, President Obama is expected to veto it.

So, if that doesn’t work, it is possible that the defunding would be tacked onto the spending bill that has to pass by December 11 in order for the government to continue functioning.

Why defund Planned Parenthood?

The woman’s health organization has been under fire since several videos were released in July 2015 that imply that baby parts are sold by the organization. Since then, it has been proven that these videos were manipulated by an anti-abortion organization, but the damage had already been done. The president of Planned Parenthood has since had to testify before a congressional hearing, and the threat to defund the organization has become very real.

What would happen if Planned Parenthood is defunded?

If Planned Parenthood is defunded, the results could be disastrous. While it is anyone’s right to decide what side they fall on in the ongoing and ever-relevant debate about abortion, that is only a fraction of the work that Planned Parenthood clinics do across the country. According to its own statistics, 80 percent of its work is focused on preventing unintended pregnancies. Aside from that, it also provides 4.5 million STI tests and treatments each year, including nearly a quarter of a million HIV tests. When Planned Parenthood was defunded in rural Indiana, there was an explosion of HIV in the county. For many women, Planned Parenthood is the only source of STI testing, birth control, and other women’s health services available to them. Defunding Planned Parenthood would take those services away from the five million people who visit clinic locations each year.

Arguments for Defunding Planned Parenthood

On the flip side, the government funds that are funneled into Planned Parenthood each year have many other worthy recipients. Jeff Duncan, a Representative from South Carolina, said that the Boys and Girls Club, for example, only gets a fraction of the funds that Planned Parenthood gets each year. There is also the argument that there should be fewer government-sponsored programs all together, and Planned Parenthood is just another program that should be funded in another way.

However, no matter how it’s stated, it comes down to this—pro-lifers, and even some pro-choicers, don’t think that the government should fund any organization that has anything to do with abortions, even if it is illegal for federal funds to pay for abortions themselves. In this belief system, Planned Parenthood shouldn’t be a government-funded agency, and therefore defunding the organization would free up tax dollars for other uses.

What’s going on with Planned Parenthood in Texas?

Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, announced in October that the state was going to remove Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funds. In return, Planned Parenthood and ten patients are suing the state of Texas in the hopes of stopping officials from cutting off the Medicaid funds that allowed the patients to be treated at Planned Parenthood locations. Texas is the fourth state, following Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana, to be involved in such a lawsuit this year.

Abbott made his announcement after the uproar that the July 2015 videos caused. The videos depicted supposed Planned Parenthood officials discussing selling aborted fetal parts for research, including staff members at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which is located in Houston, Texas.

Does Planned Parenthood stand a chance of winning the lawsuit?

This lawsuit could go either way.

In Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas, the state had to stop proceedings to remove Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funds until officials looked into the matter more closely. This means that there is a chance that the removal is unconstitutional, or breaks some kind of law for restricting federal funds. Federal health officials did warn the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in October that removing Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funding could be a violation of United States law.

This is also not the first time that Planned Parenthood has sued the state of Texas. In 2012, Texas Republicans removed Planned Parenthood from the Texas Medicaid Women’s Health Program. The state of Texas argued that the federal government gave individual states the right to decide how to allocate federal Medicaid funds, and Planned Parenthood eventually lost the lawsuit.

As of November 23, 2015, the state of Texas had not yet received legal papers in the lawsuit. Once papers are received, the case will likely end up in front of a federal judge.

What about the shooting in Colorado Springs?

On Friday November 27, 2015–Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving best known for shopping deals—there was a fatal shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Three were left dead and nine injured in the shooting, and one of the deceased was a police officer. After a five-hour standoff with police, the shooter was taken into custody.

As of right now, the exact motive for the shooting is unknown. Robert L. Dear was arrested and appeared at a hearing on Monday November 30 wearing a security smocked designed to prevent suicides. Allegedly, when Dear was arrested, he uttered “no more baby parts,” but police have not been forthcoming with any other information.

How does this affect where Planned Parenthood stands?

The spotlight right now is on the potential Presidential candidates. None of the Republican candidates specifically addressed the attack until Saturday, a full day after the events took place, and then, it was on Twitter, and the statements were vague. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders released supports of sympathy. President Obama, meanwhile, stated his continued frustration with gun violence in the U.S.

The Senate voted this week on the bill that will defund Planned Parenthood, and while it was successful, it goes before President Obama now. Additionally, Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, has stated that Republicans are no longer planning to force a government shutdown over the defunding of Planned Parenthood, something they had been threatening to do in early November. However, the status of Planned Parenthood’s funding remains to be seen.

How is all of this related to a prime-time television show?

Shonda Rhimes is not a woman who shies away from controversial issues, as the midseason finale of “Scandal” clearly showed us. It is Rhimes’ relevancy that strikes a nerve with viewers. She was able to show a scenario playing out in the Senate–which is exactly where the bill that may defund Planned Parenthood for a year sat at the time–when a Republican junior Senator from Virginia filibusters so that funding for Planned Parenthood is not downgraded to discretionary. Not only that, but we see Olivia Pope–a strong woman, a character with gumption–in the most vulnerable position a woman can find herself in: on a bed with her feet in stirrups and a doctor between her legs. Put the two women together in a single episode, and you leave your audience with a powerful image.

After the episode aired, Planned Parenthood released this statement:

Tonight, the millions of people who tune into Scandal every Thursday night learned that our rights to reproductive health care are under attack. Never one to shy away from critical issues, Shonda Rhimes used her platform to tell the world that if Planned Parenthood lost funding for contraception counseling, STI testing, cancer screenings, and safe, legal abortion—millions of people would suffer. And this episode wasn’t the first time one of Rhimes’ characters had an abortion, yet tonight we saw one of our favorite characters make the deeply personal decision that one in three women have made in their lifetime. We applaud Shonda Rhimes tonight—and every Thursday night—for proving that when women are telling our stories, the world will pause and watch. We just hope those in Congress—and throughout the nation—who are steadfast on rolling the clock back on reproductive health care access are taking note.

But, further proving the contentious nature of this issue, the conservative Media Research Counsel released their own statement the day after the episode aired:

Hollywood’s liberal values permeate movies and television. Last night’s episode of ABC’s Scandal was pretty much an hour-long advertisement for Planned Parenthood. In the most disturbing scene, the main character has an abortion to ‘Silent Night’ (a hymn celebrating the birth of Jesus) playing in the background. This is Hollywood’s moral depravity on full display.

This particular episode was an interesting juxtaposition when considered side-by-side with what is currently happening in Texas and Colorado Springs. Rhimes showed women making powerful statements about the importance and commonplaceness of women’s health organizations like Planned Parenthood. In the current contentious political climate, “Scandal’s” arc showed a fictional look at some very real issues.

Conclusion

Planned Parenthood will likely always be in the news; such is the case when something as polarizing as abortion is involved. Religious and moral beliefs will cause the country to be split in two on the issue, as has been the case since Planned Parenthood opened its doors one hundred years ago. As long as the issue is relevant, we will continue to see media portray the issue in different lights, both in fiction and in mainstream media. And it is likely that Planned Parenthood and the news surrounding it will stay relevant for a while.

Resources

Primary

Planned Parenthood: Planned Parenthood at a Glance

Additional

Texas Tribune: Planned Parenthood Sues Texas Over Medicaid Removal

Los Angeles Times: Planned Parenthood Sues Texas Over Medicaid Funding

The New York Times: What Defunding Planned Parenthood Would Really Mean

Denver Post: What We Know about the Planned Parenthood Shooting in Colorado Springs

Refinery 29: Scandal Season 5, Episode 9 Recap: The Women Take a Stand

Entertainment Weekly: Scandal Abortion Shock: ABC Hit Slams Planned Parenthood Defunding

NPR: After Planned Parenthood Shooting, Obama Again Calls for Action on Guns

The New Yorker: The Planned Parenthood Shooting and the Republican Candidates’ Responses

The New York Times: For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack

The New York Times: No Shutdown Expected on Planned Parenthood

The New York Times: Planned Parenthood Sues Texas in Dispute of Funding for Clinics

Huffington Post: Indiana Shut Down Its Rural Planned Parenthood Clinics and Got an HIV Outbreak

Slate: The GOP Argument for Defunding Planned Parenthood is Incoherent

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Look for Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood, Repeal Parts of Health Law

The Atlantic: ‘Scandal’ Gracefully Tackled Abortion in Its Midseason Finale

Refinery 29: Planned Parenthood “Applauds Shonda Rhimes” for Last Night’s Episode of Scandal

Daily Signal: Why Haven’t GOP-Led States Defunded Planned Parenthood?

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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