A 29-year-old woman is suing a Tennessee sheriff for $1.5 million, claiming he violated her Constitutional rights when he denied her access to an abortion while she was in jail.

The Tennessean reports that Kei’Choura Cathey was arrested in July 2015 on robbery and murder conspiracy charges in Maury County. She found out that she was pregnant roughly two weeks later. Cathey alerted Maury County Sheriff Bucky Rowland via her lawyer that she wanted to have an abortion, but claims that Rowland told her that his department would not pay to transport her to the clinic unless the abortion was medically necessary or the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.

Cathey wasn’t able to post bail until January 2016, and by then it was too late to have the procedure. The child was born in April.

Sheriff Rowland disputes her account. “The lawsuit is not correct,” Rowland told the Daily Herald on Tuesday. “We did offer her transportation to and from, if she elected to go through with the procedure. We were not going to take her and pay for the procedure. We felt like it was an elective procedure. We did not feel like the taxpayers should pay for it.”

“Her health and her life [were] not in jeopardy,” Rowland said. “No other circumstances came into play, except she wanted to have an abortion. If she wanted to pay for that, that was up to her.”

The lawsuit was filed December 29 in federal court in Nashville. Cathey alleges in the complaint that Rowland violated her Eighth Amendment rights by inflicting cruel and unusual punishment, as well as her 14th Amendment rights.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Doe v. Arpaio that an Arizona woman had a Constitutional right to get an abortion off jail grounds.

Imprisoned women have a legal right to obtain an abortion if they want one; however, women receiving non-life threatening abortions are often left financially responsible for the appointment and transportation, regardless of whether or not they are able to pay. Jail and prison policies regarding pregnancy-related health care and abortions vary from state to state.

While the ACLU has often represented women in cases where they believe their right to an abortion was infringed upon, the non-profit is not involved in Cathey’s pending case against Maury County.

Cathey is asking for $150,000 in actual damages and $1.35 million in punitive damages.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Jailed Tennessee Woman Claims She Was Denied an Abortion, Sues Sheriff appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Donald Trump “Art” Installments Causes A Stir

“The Emperor Has No Balls.” That’s what the plaques say under the true-to-size sculptures of a naked Donald Trump that have suddenly appeared in parks across the United States. These statues were obviously meant to mock the hell out of the Republican nominee.

Naked Donald Trump statue leaves New York in giggles https://t.co/STBfXwxkfg pic.twitter.com/fWNYwGiJgT

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) August 18, 2016

One park, however, did not get the joke and ripped the statue out of the ground almost as soon as it was installed. New York City Parks and Recreation released a statement which, no matter how carefully worded it is, is QUITE the statement: “NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.”

Take that as you will. NYC Parks took the statue down Thursday.

Rant Crush

RantCrush collects the top trending topics in the law and policy world each day just for you.

The post RantCrush Top 5: August 19, 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

The city of San Francisco recently approved a measure guaranteeing fully paid parental leave for the birth or adoption of a child for up to six weeks. With this new policy, San Francisco becomes the first city in the United States to offer 100 percent of a worker’s salary during parental leave. While this is a major step for the “City by the Bay,” the fact that San Francisco is the first to make paid leave mandatory is also a troubling sign for the rest of the country.

Read on to find out what exactly San Francisco’s law means, who is following the city’s lead, and why the United States lags so far behind other countries.

San Francisco’s Parental Leave Policy

San Francisco’s policy guarantees an employee his or her full salary during the six-week parental leave period. However, this policy actually builds on a plan that already exists within the state of California. California’s state policy guarantees 55 percent of an eligible worker’s salary for the same period, funded using employee contributions and administered using an insurance fund. Essentially, San Francisco’s policy promises the other 45 percent, but this time, the employer pays the cost.

Like minimum wage increases, San Francisco’s new policy will not take effect immediately. Instead, it will be phased in beginning in 2017, when companies with 50 or more employees will be required to meet the new standard. Companies with 35 employees will follow in July of the same year and finally those with 20 or more employees in 2018. Eligible workers will have to work at least eight hours a week, spend at least 40 percent of their work week in San Francisco, and wait 180 days after being hired in order to be covered by the policy.

The video below provides some additional detail on San Francisco’s new policy:

Similar Programs

While San Francisco and California’s system is the most comprehensive, other states and cities have similar plans. Three states have long had their own policies in place: New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Washington. Like California, New Jersey’s policy covers six weeks while Rhode Island’s guarantees only four.

Like California, these states, with the exception of Washington, created their policies as an extension of existing short-term disability programs. The programs are largely based off of short-term disability programs that only five states have in place. The programs are funded by withholding a small portion of employee wages each paycheck, much like Social Security. Washington  passed a law for paid family leave but state legislators have yet to fund the effort, which has prevented its implementation.

In addition to these states, New York recently passed a program of its own. New York’s policy covers employees, both part-time and full-time, for up to 12 weeks. Furthermore, there will be no exemptions for small businesses and employees will only need to be with a company for six months to be covered. The program is funded through an insurance model, which involves taking small payments for the program from each worker’s paycheck. In this sense, the policy is a lot like the ones in states that built on existing short-term disability insurance programs.

New York’s paid leave plan will, like San Francisco’s, be implemented gradually–the full 12 weeks of leave and 67 percent of pay will not be guaranteed until 2021. One of the New York plan’s greatest strengths is its job protection component, which prevents someone from losing his or her job for taking leave. This expands on current federal law, which guarantees full-time employees’ job protection and 12 work weeks of unpaid leave.

The accompanying video looks at New York’s policy:

While these programs are a start, only five states have them and the programs that do exist still leave the United States behind most of the developed world. Even Bangladesh, which is not a country typically associated with progressive social rights, has a mandatory 16-week policy. However, for stronger programs to be enacted in the United States, it will likely have to start on the federal level and right now that doesn’t seem probable.

Problems with the System

There are several problems with the current state of family leave in the United States beyond the lack of paid leave in most places. This starts at the federal level with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which was passed back in 1993. While the FMLA does guarantee up to 12 weeks of leave for parents for childbirth or adoption, to care for an ill family member, and for an illness that prevents someone from working, the leave is unpaid. Even this unpaid leave comes with caveats, as it only applies to employees who have worked at their current company for over a year, have worked more than 1,250 hours in the past 12 months, and work at a company with more than 50 employees.

Democrats in Congress have proposed a law that they hope will fill in the holes left by the FMLA. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act last year. This bill calls for the federal government to guarantee up to 66 percent of a worker’s income for 12 weeks in the case of serious illness or a new child. This would cover all workers regardless of how long they have been employed, the size of the business, or any of other existing limitations. To fund this leave the bill proposes a new payroll tax of 0.2 percent, which would be about $1.50 for a typical worker based on an estimate from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Unfortunately, it is pretty unlikely that this bill will make its way through Congress, especially with a Republican majority in control of both houses that seems unlikely to take up the bill. Even a Republican alternative, proposed by House leader Paul Ryan, seems unlikely to gain traction due to Congressional Democrats’ criticism that it would attack essential worker’s rights.

The following video looks at some of the problems with the existing system:

Resistance

The United States is the only industrialized country and one of just three countries in the world to not guarantee some type of paid parental leave. Attempts to change the status quo in the United States have often been met with backlash. In California, for example, the Chamber of Commerce labeled it as potentially the number one killer of jobs when the bill was passed. The National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Society for Human Resources management are also opposed to forcing companies to offer paid leave. This sentiment has been echoed all over the U.S. by many small businesses as well, where fears of costs are too great to garner support.

All this negativity, though, may not be well-founded. A 2011 survey in California, taken six years after the state implemented a family leave program, found that 90 percent of companies felt that the policy had either a neutral or positive impact on the work environment. Even more telling, this positive effect was seen at higher levels among small businesses relative to large ones, despite fears of overwhelming costs.

Gender Bias

Another major issue in the fight over paid parental leave is that it is seen as a women’s issue, and not an issue for both parents. Unsurprisingly, in a country that does not offer paid leave to mothers, the United States does not give the option to new fathers either. This is another characteristic that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world–47 percent of countries offer leave to fathers as well as mothers.

Giving men time off allows them to help with childcare duties and also enables women to improve their health and sustain their careers, as evidenced in countries with well-established programs like the ones in Norway and Sweden. Without paid leave for men, most of the childcare responsibility is placed on mothers, often forcing them to take more time off from work, which can make returning to the labor force even more difficult. Unpaid leave also has a significant effect on single mothers who must both care for their children and work in order to make ends meet.

Without the option to take paid leave, some women and men are forced to put off having children until a later age when they are more financially established. However, waiting longer to have children risks increasing fertility problems. While these concerns have been somewhat reduced through improved egg-freezing methods, which companies like Facebook have promised to help pay for, in-vitro fertilization is still not always effective and can be particularly expensive.

Conclusion

Efforts to implement a more comprehensive family leave system have regularly run into a number of arguments for why it should not be done–it will hurt small businesses, it is too expensive, and so on. The issue has also become increasingly gendered, as opponents claim that only women need time off. However, none of these arguments hold water. Paid time off is important for both men and women and most plans also seek to cover medical and family emergencies as well.

Yet the resistance remains, and the United States remains an outlier among developed countries. Part of this is due to an antiquated piece of federal legislation that offers time off but little else, including no pay. While many state and local governments have taken it upon themselves to address the issue, these policies are far from widespread in the United States. In order to implement a comprehensive paid family leave program, Congress will need to take action at the federal level. This will inevitably require more taxes, but a program of this nature may be necessary to ensure the United States remains competitive in the world economy.

Resources

Proskauer: San Francisco Approves City Ordinance Providing For Fully Paid Parental Leave

United States Department of Labor: Family and Medical Leave Act

New York Magazine: New York Just Created a Revolutionary New Family-Leave Policy

NPR: Is It Time To make Medical and Family Leave Paid?

Govtrack: Summaries for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act

Time: Company-Paid Egg Freezing Will Be the Great Equalizer

Bustle: Paid Paternity Leave Is Essential For Gender Equality. Why Is The United States Taking So Long To Catch On?

The Atlantic: Work in the Only Industrialized Country Without Paid Maternity Leave

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post It Takes a Policy: The Fight Over Paid Family Leave in the United States appeared first on Law Street.

We’ve been over this, but apparently it requires repeating: being raped doesn’t make you immune to getting pregnant. That is fundamentally not how the female reproductive system works. Yet, in a nice case of deja vu, Idaho State Representative Pete Nielsen opined about how women usually don’t get pregnant from rape–a nice reminder of similar comments made by failed 2012 U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin.

Nielsen’s comments about the likelihood of pregnancy resulting from rape were made during an Idaho State House committee hearing on a bill that would require abortion providers to tell women where they can get a free ultrasound. One of the issues with that provision is that it may mean that many women get referred to more “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are well known for trying to scare women away from getting abortions, and rely on false scientific claims. Additionally, the bill provides no exceptions for rape and incest, and to that point, Nielsen stated:

Now, I’m of the understanding that in many cases of rape, it does not involve any pregnancy because of the trauma of the situation. That may be true with incest a little bit.

When he was asked if it was impossible for a victim of rape to get pregnant, he said:

No, no, I just think that it’s much more difficult, because of the trauma, that the body itself is not going to accept, like it would in consensual sex.

When asked to elaborate, he admitted that he wasn’t very confident about his information, stating:

That’s information that I’ve had through the years. Whether it’s totally accurate or not, I don’t know. I read a lot of information. I have read it several times. … Being a father of five girls, I’ve explored this a lot.

There are a lot of issues here–first of all, there is literally no scientific evidence that women are less likely to become pregnant if they’re victims of rape or incest as opposed to consensual sex. While this idea has long been a popular myth, it’s been proven utterly untrue. In fact, some studies indicate that it’s actually more likely that a woman who has been raped will get pregnant (although it’s also unclear why that is.)

Back in 2012, Todd Akin’s similar comments about “legitimate rape” at least in part contributed to his failed Senate campaign. Nielsen is now receiving plenty of criticism for his comments, but the bill that his committee was debating did pass. The issue is that it passed based on a vote from at least one person (Nielsen) who has absolutely no understanding of how biology or conception works. But I guess that’s just the state of politics now–doubting scientific evidence and passing dubious bills.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Deja Vu: Another Republican Lawmaker Doubts you Can Get Pregnant from Rape appeared first on Law Street.

The World Health Organization’s director general, Margaret Chan, recently warned her executive board and the world that the Zika virus is posed to “spread explosively” throughout North and South America this year. Another WHO officer suggested that three to four million new infections are likely in that time frame.

The Zika virus, (pronounced ZEE-kuh) named after the Ugandan forest where it was first discovered, is transmitted by mosquitos. When Brazil reported its first case of Zika in 2015, it marked the first instance of the illness in the Western Hemisphere.

While the illness poses a threat to the countries it affects, the Zika virus isn’t much of an immediate concern for people living in the United States. The Aedes mosquito which carries the virus is native only to parts of Florida, and prefers the warmer climates of South America and Mexico. A person who is infected with Zika by a mosquito may experience a mild fever, a skin rash, and conjunctivitis, lasting up to a week. At first glance, Zika’s symptoms are indistinguishable from and not much more threatening than influenza.

This map shows how over time, the virus has moved from mosquito populations across oceans.

MAP: The spread of the Zika virus http://t.co/4vFT5ok6R0 pic.twitter.com/L3FPytZqts

— Post Graphics (@PostGraphics) September 21, 2015

Zika’s effects, however, are more than skin deep. For one, many countries with inadequate health services may see symptoms worsen. But the far more concerning result of these infections is the effect of the virus on the next generation. Many doctors share concerns that the children of mothers who have contracted Zika during pregnancy are born with a condition known as microcephaly. The connection between the virus and the condition was only made recently, as doctors in Brazil found the virus in the placentas of affected children, and in one autopsy of a baby who died.

Microcephaly, literally meaning “small head,” is a birth defect/condition in which stunted or abnormal development of the brain during gestation causes a child to be born with a smaller head than is healthy. Children born with microcephaly often experience developmental delays, difficulties with coordination and balance, and mental retardation, among various other physical ailments, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The main prevention advice being dispensed by health organizations like WHO is to avoid mosquito exposure by using mosquito nets and insect repellent. One doctor went as far as to instruct women in affected areas to not get pregnant, and women of child-bearing age who may have children are advised against traveling to these areas.

This level of attention is reminiscent of the Ebola scare of from 2014 to 2015, and word of such a widespread outbreak leaves many wondering if they should be fearful for their health. A recent Center for Disease Control report that a dozen travelers returning to the United States had the Zika virus further fanned the flames of concern.

The ramifications of an outbreak as large as WHO is predicting could be heartbreaking–if any the millions of affected women become pregnant, their children are at great risk of conditions which would lower their quality of life. President Barack Obama has urged the rapid development of vaccines and treatments  for Zika infections among American doctors, but the fate of millions will rest on careful prevention and hopefully, medical advances.

Sean Simon

Sean Simon is an Editorial News Senior Fellow at Law Street, and a senior at The George Washington University, studying Communications and Psychology. In his spare time, he loves exploring D.C. restaurants, solving crossword puzzles, and watching sad foreign films. Contact Sean at SSimon@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Meet Zika: The World’s Next Health Crisis? appeared first on Law Street.

In 2011, a personal injury complaint was filed in regards to Mirena, an intrauterine device (IUD) manufactured by Bayer Healthcare, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Since then, over a thousand lawsuits have been filed against the manufacturers of Mirena. Some Mirena users have suffered from uterine perforation, inflammation, organ damage, and a host of other medical complications. The Mirena IUD is Bayer’s most popular model worldwide, and the company markets the product as safe and efficient. Yet as the number of lawsuits continues to rise, Mirena’s reputation may take a hit. Take a look at the details behind Mirena and why these lawsuits are making the news.

Mirena by the Numbers

The three hormonal IUDs available in the United States: Skyla, Liletta, and Mirena. Both Skyla and Mirena are manufactured by Bayer while Liletta was developed by Actavis and Medicines360 specifically to be low cost and available to public health clinics. According to Mirena’s official website, Mirena is recommended for women who have already had a child. The IUD is marketed as a “hassle free” form of birth control for busy moms. The major benefits of the IUD are that it is effective, convenient, reversible (the IUD can be removed if you wish to become pregnant) and estrogen free (the IUD utilizes progestin).

However, in 2009, the FDA issued a warning letter to Bayer, arguing that the Mirena advertising campaign exaggerated the efficacy of the device, misleading consumers. The FDA singled out certain advertisements that failed to describe any of the risks associated with IUDs and sent a letter requesting the immediate termination of specific websites. The letter was meant to serve as a larger warning towards Bayer for future advertising campaigns: do not overstate Mirena’s positive effects while minimizing its negative impacts.

Despite the 2009 warning from the FDA, Mirena sales continued to rise. Once implanted by a medical professional, the Mirena IUD is expected to last for up to five years. Each Mirena IUD costs $800, which has generated over a billion dollars in revenue for the manufacturers. The risks of side effects for Mirena users is equivalent to the risk that oral contraceptive users face so many women who once relied on oral contraceptives have transitioned to the IUD, expecting minimal changes in their physical health. For the vast majority of women who have made that switch, that has held true–IUDs including Mirena largely are safe and effective forms of contraception. However, the plaintiffs in the the lawsuits filed against Mirena have experienced side effects including perforation of the uterus, pelvic inflammatory disease, and ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus). The most common complaint among the plaintiffs is device migration, during which the IUD shifts and eventually presses against organs or blood vessels, sometimes causing internal damage.

The Nature of the Lawsuits

Bayer is being sued in multiple states by thousands of plaintiffs, after more than 45,000 adverse event reports. These event reports usually involve medical side effects once the IUD has been inserted, but several cases have been filed regarding removal of the IUD. Mirena removal is meant to be simple but some women have needed surgical procedures to remove the device. These lawsuits are currently being filed on an  individual basis and in 2014, the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation chose not to consolidate multiple claims into one. The differing nature of the claims against Mirena (uterine perforation, increased risk of neurological damage and painful surgical removal, to name just a few) make it difficult to consolidate the claims into a single case. However, as the number of lawsuits increases, the possibility of a class action suit has not been ruled out. According to Lawyers and Settlements,

A refusal to centralize lawsuits at this stage does not mean that the lawsuits will never be centralized. Plaintiffs in Lipitor lawsuits faced a similar situation in 2013, when their request to have lawsuits centralized was denied. At the time, the panel ruled that with only five lawsuits and 24 potential tagalongs, there was no need to consolidate. By 2014, however, the number of lawsuits had increased to 56, with 170 potential tagalongs. At that point the request to consolidate was approved. As of August 2014, there were approximately 1,000 Lipitor lawsuits filed.

If a sufficient number of Mirena users come forward with similar complaints, their cases could be combined into a single class action suit against Bayer. However, because Mirena is still a relatively new product, it may take years before a sufficient number of users come forward with similar complaints. There have been multiple online forums set up for women to discuss Mirena effects, including one established by famed activist Erin Brokovich, but for the time being, efforts to consolidate Mirena claims are at a standstill.

What Does this Mean for Bayer?

Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals is a speciality pharmaceutical company that works in General Medicine, Hematology, Neurology, Oncology and Women’s Healthcare. Bayer Healthcare is one of 289 subsidiaries of the Bayer Group, based in Germany. As the parent company of Mirena, Bayer is being held liable for virtually all of the personal injury claims involving the product. Most plaintiffs have chosen to sue Bayer rather than their doctor, arguing that their medical side effects come from the IUD itself not from a poorly performed insertion. When the FDA submitted its 2009 letter to Bayer, it stated that Bayer had overstated the efficiency of the product (making unsubstantiated claims), omitted information about the risk of the product and ultimately made a serious of false or misleading statements in its advertising campaign. Bayer has claimed it was not aware of those side effects and that its marketing campaign should not be considered irresponsible.

Other Legal Concerns 

Besides the Mirena lawsuits, Bayer is also involved in a host of lawsuits regarding its birth control pill, Yaz. Research found that blood clot risk could be higher in women who used Yaz compared with women who used other oral contraceptives, and Yaz has been linked to many injuries and dozens of deaths. This is largely due to the presence of drospirenone in Yaz, which was found to “increase the risk of an embolism or thrombosis by up to three times compared to previous generations of contraceptive pill” according to DW.

A study in Denmark assessed the data of 1.6 million Danish women who took a drospirenone contraceptive pill for several years and found that the “risk of a heart attack or stroke was higher in these women than those using a non-hormonal method of contraception.”

Plaintiffs argue that Bayer downplayed the risks of the drug and exaggerated the benefits. There are further claims that the Bayer team did not complete sufficient research during product testing and failed to issue a recall once the side effects of the drug became apparent. The FDA has at least somewhat supported these claims, as it sent a warning letter to Bayer in 2008 discussing misleading marketing techniques used to sell Yaz. As of last year, Bayer had settled 8,250 cases for $1.7 billion but there are still lawsuits pending in national and state courts across the country. Onlookers point out that the number of settlements Bayer has made in the Yaz case may be promising for the plaintiffs in the Mirena cases. When Bayer’s oral contraceptives and IUD have come under significant criticism, both from the FDA and from individual users, the company has the potential to lose credibility. 

Conclusion

IUDs are a largely effective and safe form of birth control and a growing number of physicians have been recommending them to women. However, the lawsuits against Mirena should not be ignored and the manufacturers should strive to correct errors in their products in order to reduce the medical risks of their IUD. The lawsuits against Mirena do not only affect Bayer, they also affect the reputation of all versions of the IUD across the United States. If drug companies use misleading advertising to sell their products, the number of adverse event reports (and the lawsuits that accompany them) will swell in size. Birth control should not inspire fear in young women but should instead be seen as a safe and effective choice. Pharmaceutical companies have a duty to these women to present them with safe and effective products and to fully explain the medical risks associated with any form of birth control–we’ll have to see what the courts decide when it comes to whether or not Bayer took on that responsibility appropriately.

Resources

Primary

FDA: Notice of Violation Letter

FDA: Warning Letter

Additional

Injury Lawyer News: Mirena IUD Named in California Injury Lawsuit

Newsweek: The Courtroom Controversy Behind Popular Contraceptive Mirena

Lawyers and Settlements; More Mirena Lawsuits Expected with New Study

Drug Watch: Manufacturer:Bayer

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: IUDS: Access for Women in the United States

Deutsche Welle: Bayer Sued over Controversial Contraceptive Pill Yasminelle

The Richmond Legal Examiner: FDA to Review Essure Birth Control Device

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Legal Battles over the Mirena IUD: What’s Next? appeared first on Law Street.

The miracle of childbirth morphs into a financial nightmare for mothers without insurance or without maternity coverage in their insurance. While we all know having a baby involves much more than a visit from the stork, you might be shocked by the convoluted web of hidden costs and insurance infrastructure behind pregnancy and early motherhood in the United States. The system favors planned pregnancy and hits unintended mothers hard with unexpected costs and complications.

A woman planning for pregnancy will surely have done her insurance research, selecting a plan to cover the services she wants for pregnancy, delivery, and the baby’s first months. Her monthly insurance premiums will probably run a few hundred more dollars per month, but she’ll be pretty well taken care of. But what happens to those who find themselves pregnant without insurance or locked into plans without maternity coverage? Let’s find out. (Hint: it’s expensive.) And since the CDC estimates about half of all pregnancies in the United States occur unplanned, many women could be burdened with heavy financial woes.

Babies: You Pay for Way More Than Onesies, Diapers, and Toys

How much does having a baby cost? WebMD gives an estimate of up to $15,000 for hospital costs alone. A report from Young Invincibles provides the whopping range of $10,000-$20,000 for delivery, not counting potentially expensive complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Finally, a Truven Health Analytics study put the bill for uninsured vaginal births at a crippling $30,000, and uninsured c-section births broke the bank at $50,000 and up. Estimates fluctuate so much because every little service involved in an American pregnancy gets nailed with a different price hinging on a number of factors. This means that every woman can wind up with a different bill depending on the care she needs, the care her baby needs, her insurance or lack thereof, the hospital she chooses, and even where she lives. This makes planning ahead challenging for both insured and uninsured women.

Even talking directly to service providers might not help matters much. In a New York Times article, Elisabeth Rosenthal recounts the struggle of one uninsured expectant mother trying to get answers:

When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office at first said it did not know, and then gave her a range of $4,000 to $45,000. ‘It was unreal,’ Ms. Martin said. ‘I was like, How could you not know this? You’re a hospital.’

Pregnant women might not be able to get exact numbers, but they can expect their baby bills to be pricey.

To put it all into perspective, when Kate Middleton gave birth to Prince George, the bill was only $15,000 and Kate enjoyed a private suite, chefs, and other amenities uncommon in American maternity wards. Where Americans itemize every cost, other countries put a lump-sum premium on births.

Additionally, mothers face many other costs to “having a baby” other than just giving birth. There’s a whole slew of services involved in prenatal care like ultrasounds and other diagnostics tests moms and babies need to stay healthy. If you have maternity coverage through your insurance, many or all of these services will probably be covered. But if you’re uncovered, you could spend up to $2,000 on prenatal care alone. And the payments don’t stop after you’ve given birth. Both new baby and mom could require specialized postnatal care. If you need that, you might have to bump your tab up by a couple grand more.

The Complications of Coverage

Most individual health plans (outside of employer-sponsored healthcare) don’t include maternity coverage. Many women could easily have insurance that lacks maternity care without realizing it. They could also have maternity coverage they haven’t studied closely in the absence of baby plans, leading to many unexpected costs. Investigating maternity insurance is a formidable task, as you have to look at every detail on what the coverage will pay for before, during, and after the actual birth. Even if you do serious calculations for what percentage of the different services will be covered, you could still be surprised by the final bill as costs of medical care can change with the market.

Can you get coverage if you become unexpectedly pregnant?

The short answer? Kind of.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) made it possible for women to sign up for pregnancy coverage in special enrollment periods. While that’s wonderful,  the coverage doesn’t go into effect until the day the baby is born which doesn’t help the mother at all for care she needs during pregnancy. I did an experiment through Healthcare.gov to see if I qualified for special enrollment under the Affordable Care Act. Sure enough, the questionnaire language read as “had a baby” and not “got pregnant.” At the end of the process, the vague answer I got from the marketplace was hardly what I would want if I were actually a pregnant woman hoping to get coverage:

It looks like you may qualify for a Special Enrollment Period. This means that you can probably enroll in a 2015 health plan through the Marketplace even though the annual Open Enrollment period is over.

The ACA helps when the baby arrives, but not so much with expensive prenatal care and the cost of actually having the baby. Women able to get coverage through special enrollment could still rack up a lot of debt if you don’t have thousands of dollars waiting comfortably in an emergency fund. On the up side, the baby will be covered when it’s born. The ACA does offer an enormous help to women with incomes below a certain amount. Women who qualify can apply to receive coverage through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) at any time during their pregnancy. The women who suffer the most in our system are those who make enough on paper, but lack insurance prior to getting pregnant.

Should you be able to get coverage if you become unexpectedly pregnant?

Different stakeholders’ answers to this question shed some light on why the decision involves too many factors to merit a “yes” or “no” answer. To make the discussion simple, let’s see what two major sides of the argument say.

Advocacy Groups

Advocacy groups including Young Invincibles, Planned Parenthood, and March of Dimes believe women should be able to get coverage for being pregnant (not just having a baby) whenever they want. They affirm since nearly half of all pregnancies are unplanned, we need more flexibility in maternity coverage to keep women and newborns in the United States healthy. In addition to the potential for complications in the delivery room, access to prenatal care could help women with heart conditions, diabetes, or who are at risk of preeclampsia (dangerous high blood pressure during pregnancy) get the preventive care they need to stay healthy and also deliver healthy babies.

If a woman doesn’t have coverage, she might forgo the key preventive, yet expensive, medical services she needs to stay healthy. Advocacy groups find the situation unacceptable and look toward the government for change.

Insurance Companies

Insurance companies say if women can get maternity coverage at any time, more people will wait to get coverage. Insurance company costs would spike and eventually trickle down for others enrolled in their plans to absorb. They also argue more flexible maternity coverage would make predicting costs more difficult as the system could become even less predictable.

To this concern, the nonprofit Young Invincibles released a report saying since the Affordable Care Act’s enactment, more women get insurance and fewer leave out maternity coverage, mitigating these risks for insurance companies in offering more open forms of pregnancy coverage.

So, Plan Ahead…If You Can

According to Healthy People 2020 data, about 30 percent of pregnant women do not receive early or adequate prenatal care. While many factors could claim responsibility for this statistic, surely a lack of insurance or lack of ability to get insurance plays a part. Skipping out on prenatal care puts the mother at risk, triples her risk of having an underweight baby, and increases the baby’s risk of death.

So to summarize…what happens if you’re pregnant without insurance?

• You will probably pay a lot of money to have your baby;
• The ACA will help you change coverage once your baby is born; and,
• Calculating your spending will be a headache.

Our system favors planned pregnancy. If you’re a woman of childbearing age, you can start saving for a rainy (or pregnant) day, pay a few hundred dollars more a month for just-in-case coverage, or join the voices of advocates hoping to achieve more flexibility for one of life’s most beautiful accidents.

Resources

Primary

CDC: Unintended Pregnancy Prevention

Healthcare.gov: Health Coverage if You’re Pregnant or Plan to Get Pregnant

Healthcare.gov: Healthcare Insurance Marketplace

Healthy People 2020: Maternal, Infant, and Child Health

Additional

Kaiser Health News: Pregnant and Uninsured? Don’t Count on Obamacare

Childbirth Connection: Better Maternity Care Could Save $5 Billion Annually

Young Invincibles: Without Maternity Coverage

Parents.com: Hospital Birth Costs

WebMD: What it Costs to Have a Baby

U.S. News & World Report: Health Insurance Premiums to Fluctuate Under Obamacare

Childbirth Connection: The Cost of Having a Baby in the United States

Ashley Bell

Ashley Bell communicates about health and wellness every day as a non-profit Program Manager. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Economics from the College of William and Mary, and loves to investigate what changes in healthy policy and research might mean for the future. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Pregnant Without Insurance? Prepare for a Big Bill appeared first on Law Street.

It’s a new year, and I for one am excited to see what it will bring. No matter what, there will definitely be a lot of legal issues to discuss, debate, and bring changes to all of our lives. The five cases below are the top five to watch in 2015; some have already appeared before SCOTUS and await decisions in 2015, while others will be heard throughout the year. Here are five fascinating Supreme Court cases to watch in 2015.

Anthony Elonis v. United States

Law Street has actually been covering this interesting case for a while–check out our coverage of the case, the University of Virginia law clinic that’s gotten involved, and the all the legalese behind it. The reason we’ve followed it so closely is because it really is fascinating. Anthony Elonis was convicted of threatening multiple people, including his wife, an FBI agent, the police, and a kindergarten class. But these weren’t threats in the classical sense. They were written on his Facebook page in the form of rap lyrics. He claims the posts are art, protected under the First Amendment, and that he never intended to hurt anyone. It will be up to the Supreme Court to decide if such intent needs to be shown when convicting someone of making threats. The case was heard on December 1, 2014, but the court has yet to rule.

King v. Burwell

In King v. Burwell, SCOTUS will yet again be asked to weigh the Affordable Care Act. This time, it’s all about the tax subsidies, and weirdly, the central question in really depends on one word: “state.” The way that the ACA reads, in order for an individual to qualify for a tax subsidy, he needs to be receiving healthcare “through an exchange established by the state.” So, can people residing in states that haven’t set up their own exchanges, but instead rely on the federal program, get those tax subsidies? The IRS certainly thinks so and has been granting the subsidies. It’s an argument based pretty much on semantics, but it could have a huge effect on the ACA itself. This case will be heard in March.

Peggy Young v. United Parcel Service 

This case will ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on how pregnant employees are treated. Peggy Young, formerly a delivery driver for UPS, is arguing that the company violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA). The PDA says that pregnant workers should be treated the same as any other worker who is “similar in their ability or inability to work.” Young and her lawyers argue that other employees who sustain temporary injuries or something of the like are moved to other positions, while she was forced to take unpaid leave. UPS claims that those other workers are given different jobs based on policies that don’t apply to Young, and she was treated the same as she would have been had she sustained an injury out of work. It will be up to the Supreme Court to decide who’s in the right here. The case was just heard in December 2014; an opinion is forthcoming.

Holt v. Hobbs

Holt v. Hobbs will require the justices to look into prison procedures that prevent inmates from growing a beard in Arkansas. The plaintiff, Gregory Holt, wants to be able to grow a half-inch beard in accordance with his Muslim faith. The state is arguing that it could be used to smuggle drugs or other contraband. SCOTUS will have to rule on whether or not those prison procedures violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The question that the justices will consider is whether or not there’s a compelling enough government interest to prevent Holt from expressing his religion. The case was heard in October 2014; the opinion will be issued this year.

Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama

This case centers on the practice of gerrymandering. The justices will have to decide whether or not it was illegal for Alabama to redraw the districts in 2012 after the Census in a way that packed black voters into particular districts. The Alabama Black Caucus says that it relied too much on race when drawing those districts. While partisan gerrymandering is usually legal, racial gerrymandering is not–so the justices will have to decide which actually happened here. This case was heard in November 2014; the opinion is expected in the coming months.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post SCOTUS Cases to Watch in 2015 appeared first on Law Street.

A young woman in Houston, TX, claims that she was just fired for being pregnant. The woman, who worked as a case manager for the personal injury law firm Wayne Wright, reportedly told her employers that she was pregnant and would be requiring maternity leave. She claims that in response, the firm told her that they could not accommodate that request and that she would have to “choose her last day on the job.” Her job has since been terminated.

I could pretend that this is a crazy isolated incident, but I think we all know better than that. The United States takes pretty bad care of its expecting mothers–we are one of just a few countries that does not require paid maternity leave. In case you were curious, the only other nations that do not offer those benefits are Oman and Papua New Guinea.

When it comes to laws preventing employers from firing their employees because they’re pregnant, the United States does have the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. That law is supposed to prevent companies from discriminating against women for being pregnant, past pregnancies, or the possibility of future pregnancies. However, the law is a bit sparse, and has some serious loopholes. According to the law, companies must give women 12 weeks of unpaid leave for medical reasons such as pregnancy and childbirth. However, that law only officially applies to companies with at least 50 employees, and the woman applying for the leave must have worked for the company for at least 12 months. Other parts of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act only apply if the company has more than 15 employees. Experts’ estimates about how many employees are actually eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave range from 20 percent to 59 percent.

This is obviously a very simplistic overview of the legal protections offered by the government to pregnant women–there are other state and local laws in place that provide some benefits. However, those laws are inconsistent and often inadequate. In general, the United States does a pretty miserable job of helping pregnant women keep their jobs.

The woman in Houston who is now suing is notable because if she’s telling the truth, the discrimination waged against her was of a very overt nature. Oftentimes, discrimination against pregnant women, or women who have the potential to become pregnant, is considerably more subtle. Sometimes women not hired or promoted because of they may become pregnant and require some sort of leave. Here’s an example: a husband and wife, both teachers, interviewed for very similar jobs. They both have similar work experience, although the wife also had a master’s degree. She was asked many questions about her personal life, including whether or not she’s planning on getting pregnant. The husband was not asked whether or not he plans to become a father–or really anything about his personal life in general. In a Reddit post about her experience, the aforementioned woman stated:

I was asked ‘Do you have children yet?’ I was taken aback so I just ended up saying ‘Nope, just cats.’ I’m child-free but I knew better than to state that in an interview for a teaching position. I was still nervous and in ‘interview mode’ so it didn’t really hit me until after how shitty it was to be asked that question.

Not only is that question blatantly illegal–Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prevents such inquiries–I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many men asked about their familial intentions in a job interview.

In some cases, the discrimination against young female employees is even less subtle. A few weeks ago, a web developer from Toronto named Lyndsay Kirkham was sitting next to a bunch of IBM executives out to a business lunch. According to her, they went on a bit of a rant about how they don’t hire young women because “they are just going to get themselves pregnant again and again and again.”

It’s also important to note that discrimination against pregnant women hits low-income families particularly hard. Women who work in jobs that require some degree of manual labor–such as retail, or food service, are often not provided the accommodations they need while pregnant. This may even force pregnant women to take unpaid leave, or quit their jobs.

Whether backhanded or overt, the discrimination in this country against pregnant and potentially pregnant women is real. This case in Houston is just one of countless examples, because the laws we have in place simply aren’t enough. Until the United States improves the ways in which it treats pregnant women, what happened at that Houston law firm will happen again and again.

—

Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Ed Yourdon via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post It Happens Every Day: Pregnant Woman Fired for Being Pregnant appeared first on Law Street.

Mallory Loyola became the first pregnant woman to be arrested and charged with assault on her fetus under Tennessee’s new controversial law criminalizing the illegal use of drugs during pregnancy. Loyola was arrested July 8, 2014, one week after the law went into effect. The 26-year-old tested positive for methamphetamine (not technically a narcotic) before being released on bail. If convicted Loyola could be incarcerated for up to a year.

According to the new law, “a woman may be prosecuted for assault for the illegal use of a narcotic drug while pregnant, if her child is born addicted to or harmed by the narcotic drug.” If a woman does not enroll in a treatment program for the narcotic, she would be charged. According to RH Reality Check, a reproductive health news group, “the law was promoted by prosecutors against the recommendations of medical professionals.” Governor Bill Haslam says that the legislation is intended to encourage women to go to treatment centers; however, the effect of the bill may be different from its intended purpose.

Outcomes of Criminalizing Pregnancy

Imani Gandy of RH Reality Check suggests that Black women will be targeted by the law’s enforcement at a disproportionate rate. Based on ugly stereotypes with roots in Reagan-era “crack baby” rhetoric, more scrutiny would be placed on pregnant Black women, Gandy says. Whether or not these prejudices are acted on, there is a structural problem for disadvantaged, minority women.

State Senator Mike Bell explained that in his rural district “there’s no treatment facility for these women there, and it would be a substantial drive for a woman caught in one of these situations to go to an approved treatment facility. Looking at the map of the state, there are several areas where this is going to be a problem.” Healthy and Free Tennessee notes that the state has 177 addiction treatment facilities; yet only two “provide prenatal care on site and allow older children to stay with their mothers, and only 19 provide any addiction care for pregnant women.” For impoverished women, accessing and enrolling in treatment centers will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

There is a discrepancy between the intention of the bill, as suggested by Haslam, and the likely effect of the bill. While it may have been passed to incentivize enrollment in treatment programs, it will likely result in the incarceration of women who cannot access those treatment centers. Because Tennessee did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, the costs of such treatment may be overwhelming. Women who know that they cannot access addiction services will be discouraged from seeking help, lest they be charged with assault and have their children taken away.

Other Approaches 

In response to prenatal substance abuse, Tennessee passed the Safe Harbor Act about a year ago. The 2013 legislation, also signed by Haslam, was designed to ensure that women can access treatment centers without fear of incarceration or having their children removed. The more recent bill not only negates the benefits of the Safe Harbor Act, but regresses Tennessee even further.

This heavy-handed approach to prenatal substance abuse hints at another discrepancy: addiction is viewed by some as a disease, and by others as a crime. While the state and the governor embrace the latter with the passage and enforcement of this law, the federal government has taken a different approach.

Michael Botticelli, acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, spoke about the federal government’s broad strategy in response to the recent Tennessee law: “Under the Obama administration, we’ve really tried to reframe drug policy not as a crime but as a public health-related issue, and that our response on the national level is that we not criminalize addiction.” The politics of considering substance abuse a criminal offense rather than a disease is amplified by the politics of federal-state relationships.

Support for the Law

The Tennessee Medical Association was supportive of the Safe Harbor Act, yet its president, Dr. Doug Springer, recently spoke out in favor of the new law. “The misdemeanor means it can be expunged by a judge, it means that the [Department of Human Services] doesn’t take your baby away. It has nothing to do with an application for a job because it doesn’t interfere with your job prospects, and that’s really important,” says Dr. Springer. Obviously, if a mother is incarcerated, she and her baby could not be together. But if the law makes it easy for the offense to be expunged, incarcerated mothers may not have to go through as many obstacles as other ex-convicts.

Because the law is so new, Mallory Loyola’s outcome will set precedent. The law is set to expire after two years, at which time Tennessee will evaluate its effects.

—

Jake Ephros (@JakeEphros)

Featured image courtesy of [Greyerbaby via Pixabay]

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post First Pregnant Woman Arrested Under Controversial Tennessee Law appeared first on Law Street.

Most of us remember Todd Akin, former Missouri Senate candidate, for his comments about how women cannot get pregnant if they are “legitimately raped.” Unfortunately for him, and for everyone who has to deal with his moronic comments, the fiasco hasn’t ended there. In a recent attempt to explain his 2012 comments, all he did was dig himself into a deeper hole. It’s probably time to just stop talking, Mr. Akin. I mean, I’ve heard from doctors that if you legitimately have stupid thoughts, you won’t say them because your mouth has the ability to shut the whole thing down. Or, in this case, your hand will lose its ability to write a book if you plan to write legitimately ridiculous words.

In his new book (how did he get a publishing deal?), Firing Back, Akin defends his infamous 2012 “legitimate rape” comments and blames the evil media for spinning the whole thing. Someone needs to explain to Akin what spinning means, because he obviously doesn’t know. The media saying exactly what a politician says during an interview is not spin, Mr. Akin. That’s what we call “reporting the facts.”

In what I am sure is a positively invigorating piece of literature, Akin tries to educate his readers about what “legitimate rapes” are. You see, some rapes are not “legitimate” because some women falsely accuse, and when he spoke about a woman’s body shutting “that whole thing down,” he didn’t mean the reproductive system battening down the hatches. Rather, he was referring to rape-related “stress” inhibiting her ability to get pregnant. He does concede that perhaps his wording was a little off.  I feel like I need a Todd Akin Dictionary of Rape Terms to understand this guy’s insane reasoning.

Well, almost…

His comment brings up so many questions: what exactly is “illegitimate rape?” When a woman rejects sex sarcastically? When her attacker rapes her in a certain location? As far as I, and hopefully most other people with common sense know, uteri and fallopian tubes don’t have the capability of self-realization. I’ve never heard a case of ovaries yelling, “We’re under attack! Shut the whole thing down!” to their reproductive-system comrades.

Reviews say that the take away from his new book is that despite his apology immediately following the comments in 2012, Akin is legitimately not sorry. Apology redacted.

But not actually…

—

Marisa Mostek (@MarisaJ44) loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured Image Courtesy of [Jennifer Moo via Flickr]

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Todd Akin Needs to Legitimately Stop Talking appeared first on Law Street.

Don’t get pregnant in Nebraska, ladies. Back in January 2011, Republican State Senator Lydia Brasch introduced legislative bill 690. The bill mandated that if a woman under the age of 18 wanted to abort a pregnancy, she must receive written permission from a parent or guardian. Otherwise, no abortion procedure for you, sweetheart. Good luck with that!

LB 690 was a wild success in the Nebraska legislature. It passed by a landslide in May 2011, and was signed into law the very same day. These kinds of bills are called “parental consent” bills by the anti-abortion lobby. But for those of us who believe in Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose?

This is just a straight-up, anti-abortion bill.

Why? After all, abortion is still legal in Nebraska, even after LB 690’s passage. No big deal, right? Wrong. Anonymous 5, a 16-year-old Nebraskan ward of the state who was denied her right to an abortion this week, can personally tell you that it’s a very, very big deal.

At a hearing back in July, Anonymous 5’s parents were stripped of their parental rights because they had been abusive and neglectful of their three children. Anonymous 5 and her two younger siblings were placed in foster care, under the legal protection of the state. At this same hearing, Anonymous 5 informed the judge that she was 10 weeks pregnant, and wanted to get an abortion.

She was, to put it lightly, in a pickle. She needed written parental consent, but legally, she no longer had any parents. What to do? Her only option was to ask a judge for permission to circumvent LB 690—something young girls are supposed to be allowed to do, in cases of medical emergency or abuse.

But that really didn’t work out for her. This week, the Nebraska court made a final decision on her abortion request, ruling that she had not sufficiently proved that she had been a victim of abuse, and—most importantly—she had not proved herself to be mature enough to decide that she wanted an abortion.

That’s right, folks. The Nebraska court ruled that a 16-year-old girl was not mature enough to have an abortion. But, she’s mature enough to become a mother!

Because that makes a lot of sense.

Especially considering that Anonymous 5 had some really good reasons for not wanting to give birth to a child. Besides the obvious factors—she’s a high school student without the financial or emotional resources to be, in her words, the kind of “mom [she] would like to be right now”—a very religious foster family is currently housing her and her two young siblings. Anonymous 5 expressed concern that she would lose her foster placement if her foster parents found out about the pregnancy.

Meaning that, in this case, adoption is not a viable option. The mere act of carrying this child to term could cause Anonymous 5 and her siblings to wind up homeless. And haven’t they already been through enough, after growing up in an abusive, neglectful household?

You’d think so, but the Nebraska judge didn’t agree. He denied Anonymous 5 the right to make this deeply personal choice by herself, and instead, decided for her, ruling that she would not be allowed to receive an abortion in the state of Nebraska.

So, what does this mean for LB 690, and other parental consent bills like it?

It means that they have the power to deny young women access to abortions. That’s a really big problem. But perhaps more importantly, these bills take the right of bodily decision-making away from young women, and hand it over to someone else.

And that’s just not OK. Every person, regardless of gender, needs to be able to choose what happens to his or her (or zir!) body. How would you like it if someone else had the power to decide what hairstyle you should wear, or how provocative your clothes should be, or what you could eat, or when you could sleep?

You’d hate it. You’d get angry and frustrated. You’d feel powerless. And these feelings would be in response to relatively trivial kinds of control.

I mean, seriously, everyone freaked out when Mayor Bloomberg tried to control how big our sodas could be.

So, can you imagine how powerless you’d feel if someone else forced you to grow a child inside your abdomen for nine months, after which, you’d have to literally tear your body apart trying to expel it? And then, you’d either have to raise it for the next 18 years, or make the heart wrenching decision to hand that responsibility off to someone else?

That’s not trivial. That’s a life-altering kind of control. It’s too important to be placed in someone else’s hands.

Walter White, for the win.

Only the person who’s pregnant can make that call. It’s a deeply personal decision, and one that she’ll have to live with forever. Simply put, women need to be in control of their own bodies.

And the fact that, in 2013, this concept still hasn’t sunken in is horrifying. How far have we really come from the days when women’s bodies were bought and sold by men through marriage—when women were nothing more than property?

Not far, apparently, when a man in Nebraska has the power to decide what’s going to happen inside of Anonymous 5’s body.

So, whaddya say, folks? Can we stop controlling and policing women’s bodies, so that no one else ever has to go through what Anonymous 5 did this week?

I really hope so.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Rudy Eng via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post If You Got Mad About the Big Gulp Ban, Get Mad About This appeared first on Law Street.