Women’s Independent Press

By Leann Schmidt

American women like to think they have full autonomy of themselves, their bodies, their health and even their right to speak. After all, women here have the right to vote and the right to work. However, as it turns out, women in the United States have lost more rights in 2012 than most people even imagined. While our economy lags, extremist politicians around the United States have made it their number one priority to systematically reduce women’s rights to speak in public forums on issues that directly affect them, including in Congress and in State hearings, and in having their health needs included in their health insurance and making their own health-related decisions. Here are a few examples:

1. On February 16, 2012 in a hotly contested debate over religiously-affiliated organizations being required to include contraception as part of women’s health insurance plans, the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform held a special inquiry on the contraceptive coverage rule as it applies to religiously-affiliated organizations (not churches). The next day the The Washington Post reported that two congresswomen, Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), walked out in protest of the Republican-led hearing after questioning why no women were included on the hearing’s first panel of witnesses. Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) stated that, “The hearing was not just about contraception, but religious freedom.” Issa also stated that the testimony of the female Georgetown University law student proposed by the Democrats was not “appropriate” or “qualified” to speak on the subject of female contraception coverage as it relates to both health and religion. It was clear that while the Committee was exploring the religious values of the church leaders regarding the exclusion of contraception in health insurance plans, female students and working women employed by church-run institutions would ultimately be directly affected by the ruling, and thus, very qualified to speak to the effects of sacrificing what is considered by most Americans to be basic health care in insurance plans for women. The House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform never did allow the female law student, Sandra Fluke, to testify at their hearings. One week later, Ms. Fluke did testify at the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee event on February 23, 2012. No Republicans from the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform were present.

2. In Arizona, women’s ability to receive accurate medical information from their physicians depends largely on the physician, who is protected against civil lawsuits should the physician fail to provide accurate information when the woman electively pays them to screen for birth defects of a fetus, which sometimes results in the mother making a decision regarding abortion. On April 17, 2012 Arizona State Governor Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1359 into law. Per the Arizona State legislature website, the law stipulates that women may proceed with “…civil action for damages for an intentional or grossly negligent act or omission, including an act or omission that violates a criminal law.” However, if a woman seeks information about her pregnancy through fetal testing, which is the primary reason why she would have such testing in the first place, and the doctor fails to provide that information accurately because s/he is negligent and not intentional, then the woman has no civil recourse if she has a child with birth defects, which she may not have had if she had been provided with accurate information and had an abortion; this chain of events is referred to as “Wrongful Birth”. The doctor is protected and she is not. The precedent is that ordinary negligence does not apply to pregnant women in these cases unless it can be proved that the doctor acted intentionally. If the doctor failed to do his or her job through sheer negligence, he or she is safe from civil litigation. The following states specifically prohibit Wrongful Birth claims:

1. Arkansas
2. Arizona
3. Georgia
4. Idaho
5. Kentucky
6. Michigan
7. Minnesota
8. Missouri
9. North Carolina
10. Oklahoma
11. Pennsylvania
12. South Dakota
13. Utah

Several states have taken the Wrongful Birth legislation to new extremes. For instance, if a physician believes a woman may have a constitutionally protected abortion based on the information provided, the physician may withhold information, lie or intentionally deceive her to avoid her doing so, even if it puts the woman’s life at risk. This more severe version of the law has been enacted in the following states:

• New Jersey
• Kansas

These states are using anti-abortion perspectives to legislate, while at the same time minimizing the rights of women to make decisions in favor of protecting negligent physicians who fail to adequately screen for birth defects. It begs the question: Who owns a woman’s body and why is her experience not worthy enough to make negligent doctors responsible for their negligence?

3. Ironically, while the above laws seek to deny women access to information regarding birth defects by means of limiting their civil liability claims, another law seeks to use information as a form of torture to persuade women from having abortions. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Virginia were poised to require the use of an invasive, transvaginal ultrasound and to coerce women to view the ultrasound image by requiring the screen to face them – even against a woman’s will. The theory was that if a woman sees the fetus on the screen, she is less likely to have an abortion (this theory is not a proven scientific fact.) Ironically termed, Pennsylvania’s “Women’s Right to Know Act,” was seen as going too far. Though not passed, Bill 1077 can be viewed in its entirety here. On page 7, the Bill stipulates that the doctor must, “Position the screen so that the patient is able to view the ultrasound test in its entirety, with a view of her unborn child, while that test is being conducted to determine gestational age. The patient is not required to view the screen.” On March 15, 2012, The Huffington Post reported:

Asked if he thinks the bill goes too far to make a woman look at the ultrasound image, Corbett responded, “You can’t make anybody watch, okay? Because you just have to close your eyes. As long as it’s on the exterior and not the interior.”

Pennsylvania’s ultrasound bill, unlike the revised version passed in Virginia, does not specify a type of ultrasound, so the doctor will have to use an “interior” procedure for most first-trimester abortions in order to meet the requirements of the law. An “interior” procedure would require that a probe be inserted into a woman’s vagina. The Pennsylvania House Bill 1077 was not passed.

Evidence that citizens, and subsequently, lawmakers realized that these types of laws were meant to torture and coerce women into not having an abortion, the Virginia House Bill 462, signed into law on March 7, 2012 by Governor Bob McDonnell, incorporates some compassion for a select group of women: “Victims of rape and incest are exempt from the law if the molestation or assault was reported to legal authorities.” It is a fact that not all women report rape or incest. Even still, all women should be exempt from the law. It’s an unnecessary, costly form of torture and state-sanctioned rape imposed on women to further the anti-abortion agenda, and in no way meets the standard of a women’s right to make decisions that are in their own best interest or in their constitutionally-protected right to have an abortion. Virginia backed away from requiring the invasive transvaginal ultrasounds as proposed in Pennsylvania, but did enact a mandatory jelly-to-the-belly version. Also, because many insurance companies are now removing abortions from their coverage, this is a mandatory but unnecessary and uncovered medical diagnostic requirement that would add an additional financial burden on women.

Texas is now the only state which requires an ultrasound for each abortion where the provider MUST display and describe the image to the patient. North Carolina and Oklahoma have also enacted such laws, but are not being enforced due to ongoing court challenges. States which require an ultrasound for each abortion and stipulate that the provider must offer to show the woman the image include:

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Florida
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi

4. Speaking of Texas, this past March, Governor Rick Perry has initiated a forceful attack against Planned Parenthood. Medicaid specifies that no program can supersede the right of the patient to choose a health-care provider. Governor Perry, however, signed a law stipulating that no women in Texas can choose Planned Parenthood with Medicaid funds, a federal program, despite the fact that Medicaid funds already cannot be used for abortion per federal law. According to http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/us/perry-pledges-to-finance-texas-medicaid-womens-health-program.html" target="_blank">The New York Times, Governor Perry insists that Texas will pay for its own program, some $35 million. Due to Gov. Perry’s defiance, over 130,000 Texas women have been affected.

5. On June 16, 2012, Michigan Democratic State Representative Lisa Brown was banned by Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas from speaking at the House for two days after she mentioned the word “vagina” while opposing a sweeping anti-abortion bill on the House Floor, described by male Republican leader Bolger as “emotional remarks,” Her exact words:

This legislation does a lot of things, Mr. Speaker. It regulates business, requiring exorbitant insurance policies to be purchased which will result in clinics closing, causing people to lose their jobs, and denying women their constitutional rights.

Yesterday we heard the representative from Holland speak about religious freedom. I’m Jewish. I keep kosher in my home. I have two sets of dishes, one for meat and one for dairy, and another two sets of dishes on top of that for Passover. Judaism believes that therapeutic abortion, namely abortions performed in order to preserve the life of the mother, are not only permissible but mandatory. The stage of pregnancy does not matter. Wherever there is a question of the life of the mother or that of the unborn child, Jewish law rules in favor of preserving the life of the mother. The status of the fetus as human life does not equal that of the mother. I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?

And finally Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina but no means no.

Michigan State Representative Barb Byrum was also banned. Both representatives stated they were not informed about the ban from the House Leader, nor were they given a reason. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Byrum surmised, “It’s my impression that I’m being banned from speaking as a result of my use of the term vasectomy — a medical procedure.”

In the same article, the Huffington Post reported, “Ari Adler, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Jase Bolger (R-Marshall), said the lawmakers were banned from speaking because of their behavior, not because of their word choice. ‘They behaved in a way that disrupted the decorum of the House,” Adler said. ‘For Brown, it was not the words she used, but the way she used them that resulted in her being gaveled down.’ In Byrum’s case, Adler said, ‘I hate to put it this way, but she essentially had a temper tantrum on the House floor.’”

Byrum pointed to clear gender discrimination: “There have been physical altercations between at least two men on the House floor, and I don’t recall any of them every being banned from speaking,” She went on to summarize, “It’s just unacceptable to silence women when we’re talking about women’s reproductive rights.”

6. On August 3, 2012, CNN reported that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced that New York hospitals may voluntarily join his initiative, “Latch On NYC” to encourage breast feeding instead of using baby formula. Requests for baby formula will now result in giving new mothers information on why breast feeding is more beneficial to her baby than is formula. Mayor Bloomberg believes that women should be informed before making a decision about how to feed their babies, and that hospitals can and should do more to encourage breast feeding rather than giving new mothers a bottle of formula and a take-home gift with more formula (provided for free to the hospital by formula companies). Bloomberg insists that it is a woman’s choice and that for years hospitals have encouraged formula, even when the mother wanted to breastfeed. The formula will now be treated as narcotics, under lock and key. Opponents of this initiative insist that it’s too paternalistic and may result in shaming women who either cannot or who have chosen not to breast feed.

7.  On August 7, 2012, ABC News  reported that Louisiana high school, Delhi Charter School “required students who were suspected of being pregnant to take a pregnancy test. If they refused, or tested positive, they had to be home-schooled.” But what about HIPAA, medical privacy laws, education mandates, etc.? After national public scrutiny, the school changed their policy on August 10, 2012 to meet with the Title IX of the 1972 federal education law, which requires equal educational opportunities for both genders.

The evidence is clear that American women have lost a significant number of rights to their own bodies. Since electing the current congress in 2010, nearly 40% of all US states have enacted laws that seek to diminish women’s right. They include:

1. Alabama
2. Arkansas
3. Arizona
4. Florida
5. Georgia 6. Idaho
7. Kansas
8. Kentucky
9. Michigan
10. Minnesota 11. Mississippi
12. Missouri
13. New Jersey
14. North Carolina
15. Oklahoma 16. Pennsylvania
17. South Dakota
18. Texas
19. Utah

While many women believed the last Congressional election was about improving the economy, they were wrong. The economy is still in a very slow recovery, but the effort to diminish women’s rights has proven to be the real priority of legislators in nearly 40% of US states.

Since the beginning of this year, women throughout the USA have been silenced and treated with sexist language aimed to de-legitimize their concerns at important hearings that directly affect them. Their medical needs have been superseded by superficial laws aimed to remove their right to legal recourse as well as to torture, humiliate and shame them while at the same time placing place the entire burden of population control upon their shoulders, while removing their resources and tools at every turn.

And while it may seem far-fetched, American women must now realize that they’re only one vote away from losing the right to vote in the US. Needless to say, all of the above probably seemed far-fetched – as recently as January 1, 2012.