Pennsylvania Judge Removes Injunction Against Woman Seeking Abortion

On August 5, after a delay of a full week, a Pennsylvania judge finally dissolved an injunction preventing a 22-year-old woman from having an abortion. Judge Michael Conahan of the Luzerne County Court ruled that the woman's ex-boyfriend, who filed the suit, had failed to cite any legal authority establishing his right to block her from having an abortion.

The Center for Reproductive Rights represented the woman and filed emergency appeals to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to try and remove the injunction that prevented her from accessing the medical procedure. The intermediate appellate court, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, refused to dissolve the injunction immediately, instead ordering the other side to submit additional briefs the following week. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia denied plaintiff's emergency appeal without prejudice within the same day.

"It is incredible that it took this long for the Pennsylvania courts to recognize my client's established constitutional rights, but we are relieved that the ordeal is finally over," said Linda Rosenthal, a staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel in the case, Stachokus v. Meyers. "An adult woman has a fundamental constitutional right to privacy. There is no excuse for what happened in Pennsylvania."

On July 29, the woman's abusive ex-boyfriend, who had been served with a temporary protection from abuse order, filed the suit to prevent his former girlfriend from terminating the pregnancy. After a full evidentiary hearing on July 31, Judge Conahan ordered attorneys to submit additional legal papers, continuing the injunction and postponing the woman's procedure indefinitely, thereby placing her health in jeopardy.

Although Conahan eventually dissolved the injunction, the case raises larger concerns about the strength and stability of women's access to legal abortions in the United States.

U.S. Supreme Court precedent establishes that a pregnant woman's right to privacy precludes anyone from preventing her from terminating a pregnancy prior to the viability of her fetus. In 1976, the Court first held that a statute requiring a woman to obtain spousal consent for an abortion violated the right to choose previously established in Roe v. Wade. The Court reiterated its ruling in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which held that a man's interest in the fetus could never outweigh a pregnant woman's liberty interest.

State Legislative Strategies Expanding Access to Reproductive Healthcare

Reproductive rights activists are often on the defensive, fighting laws engineered by anti-choice lawmakers and activists. However in recent years, pro-choice advocates have had success promoting four legislative strategies that have expanded women's access to the full range of reproductive healthcare services at the state level.

First, advocates have promoted bills requiring employers who provide prescriptive drug coverage to include coverage of all prescription contraceptive methods approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). So far, 19 states have passed laws with these requirements, and New York only needs the governor's signature to become the twentieth.

"We have made great progress with regard to insurance coverage for contraceptives, and I anticipate continued success in the upcoming state legislative sessions," says Erica Smock, legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

In addition to working on the state level, the Center for Reproductive Rights has been advocating for the passage of a federal bill, the Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act, which would require every state to provide such coverage, making individual state laws unnecessary.

A second strategy has focused on the failure of hospital emergency rooms to provide emergency contraception (EC) to sexual assault victims. In 2002, Washington state enacted a law requiring hospital emergency rooms to provide rape survivors with both information and access to EC. In 2001, Illinois successfully enacted a law mandating that hospital emergency rooms provide rape survivors with information about EC. This year ten states introduced bills requiring hospitals to provide rape victims with information about EC and, in some cases, provide the pills themselves. The Center for Reproductive Rights anticipates that pro-choice advocates, law enforcement officials and advocates for sexual assault survivors will continue to promote these bills in the state legislatures in 2003.

Third on the list are bills that allow pharmacists to distribute EC to women without a prescription. This year, three states introduced bills allowing pharmacists to provide EC to women without a prescription and it is believed that several more will be introduced next session. Currently, three states - Alaska, California and Washington - make EC available over-the-counter without a prescription. In February 2001, the Center for Reproductive Rights petitioned the FDA, on behalf of more than 60 organizations, to make EC available over-the-counter. The FDA is still reviewing the petition.

Improving access to EC is crucial because it is only effective when used within the first 72 hours following intercourse. Women are often unable to reach their doctors within 72 hours, especially if intercourse occurred over a weekend, or if the woman lives in a rural area.

A fourth strategy has focused on protecting abortion clinics from violence. Some states, like Massachusetts, have established protections for any individual entering an abortion clinic, in the form of buffer or bubble zones between these individuals and abortion protestors. At least 15 other states have adopted laws, similar to the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), creating criminal penalties for the use or threat of force against patients and staff of abortion clinics. The need for these laws is still evident - the overall number of violent incidents directed at abortion providers climbed from 215 in 2000 to 795 in 2001. Because this violence still exists, advocates will likely continue to promote these bills on the state level in 2003.

In the coming months, advocates will be devising their 2003 agendas. The Center for Reproductive Rights looks forward to working again with state advocates to help implement their agendas.

"The Center for Reproductive Rights is currently preparing for the upcoming state legislative sessions, formulating a proactive legislative agenda and assessing the results of past efforts," says Smock. "I look forward to working with advocates and organizations on the ground in each state to implement these strategies and to promote access to reproductive health nationwide."

Federal Judge Allows Florida
"Choose Life" Funds to be Distributed

In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied an appeal by the Center for Reproductive Rights to stop the state of Florida from distributing money raised from the sale of "Choose Life" license plates to anti-abortion organizations.

The Circuit Court's decision allows Florida to distribute more than $500,000 to anti-abortion organizations.

"This decision ignores the free speech rights of Florida's pro-choice citizens and organizations," said Brigitte Amiri, the Center for Reproductive Rights attorney who represents the plaintiffs in Women's Emergency Network v. Jeb Bush. "These plates are a form of government sponsored, anti-choice propaganda."

The Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the Florida license plate statute on the grounds that the law violates the free speech rights of pro-choice organizations and motorists and violates the constitutional guarantee separating church from state.

The Florida law prohibits money collected from the purchase of the license plates to be distributed to any agency "that is involved or associated with abortion activities, including counseling for or referrals to abortion clinics, providing medical abortion-related procedures, or pro-abortion advertising." Only organizations that withhold neutral information about abortion are eligible for funds. This type of viewpoint discrimination violates the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.

The statute also unconstitutionally gives religious organizations the authority to distribute state funds raised from the sale of the plates. In several counties, Florida has granted Catholic Charities, a Roman Catholic organization, the right to determine which organizations will receive the funds. By doing so, the Florida government demonstrates a preference for one religion in violation of the constitutional Establishment Clause that separates church from state.

The "Choose Life" funds have primarily been used to fund so-called "crisis pregnancy centers," which use scare tactics and propaganda to dissuade women from choosing abortion.

Court Says Louisiana Abstinence-only Funds Used for Anti-abortion Tactics

In July, a federal district court ordered the state of Louisiana to stop funding religious activities through the state's abstinence-only education program. The court cited evidence that the state and federal abstinence-only education money was supporting anti-abortion rallies and marches.

U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous, Jr. ordered the state to stop funding individuals or organizations that use abstinence-only educational funds to convey religious messages or advance religion in any way.

The decision noted that the Diocese of Lafayette, which received $46,000 from the Louisiana Governor's Program on Abstinence (GPA) since 1999, "used GPA expenditures to support prayer at abortion clinics, pro-life marches and pro-life rallies."

The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union was the plaintiff in the case. The case was the first challenge of the federal abstinence-only education money that was authorized by the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which currently provides more than $100 million a year for abstinence-only education programs. The program is up for reauthorization this year.

Teen Girls May Abandon Contraceptive Services if Parents Notified

In August, a study by Dianne Reddy of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that nearly 60% of sexually active girls under the age of 18 would stop seeking reproductive health services if their parents knew they were trying to get contraceptives.

Approximately 47% of the girls surveyed said they would stop using all sexual health care services if parental notification were required, and 12% said that they would stop using at least some services.

Reddy's study concluded that mandatory parental notification would "impede girls use of prescribed contraceptive services, with the majority of the girls continuing to have sexual intercourse despite restricted access to prescribed services."

The study was based on a survey of 950 single girls under 18 who sought reproductive health services at any of Wisconsin's 33 Planned Parenthood family planning clinics in the spring of 1999. The Journal of the American Medical Association published the study on August 13.

Using the Law to Protect Kenya's Young Women from FGM

When Alice Cherop, a 16-year-old Kenyan girl, fled her home last December to escape female genital mutilation (FGM), she turned to Ken Wafula.

Wafula, a Kenyan lawyer and executive director of the Eldoret-based Center for Human Rights and Democracy (CHRD), is using the law to help an increasing number of young girls in his country protect themselves from FGM.

Wafula petitioned Eldoret's Chief Magistrate for an injunction prohibiting Cherop's mother, Mary Kurgat, herself a practitioner of FGM, from performing the practice on her daughter.

The court granted the civil injunction. Kurgat interpreted the court decision as barring her from performing the practice on any girl. In July, Wafula relays, Kurgat refused to circumcise six other girls.

Wafula's use of civil law to stop FGM is a strategy that complements the government's recent criminalization of the practice. In 2000, Kenya outlawed FGM and imposed a fine of $650 and a one-year prison sentence on anyone who circumcises a girl under the age of 18. "Every person who practices circumcision is becoming wary of the 'profession,' now that it has been criminalized," Wafula told Reproductive Freedom News in an email from Eldoret.

Wafula added, "Both FGM practitioners and parents are quickly finding it difficult to continue the practice."

While types of FGM vary among the communities that practice it, all forms involve cutting of the prepuce, while many include cutting or removing the clitoris and may extend to removal of the outer labia. In some communities, the remaining tissue is sewn shut, leaving only a tiny opening. FGM, which is performed primarily upon children, has been recognized internationally as a violation of the physical integrity of women and girls.

Today, the World Health Organization estimates that between 100 and 140 million women and girls have undergone FGM and as many as two million suffer life-threatening injuries as a result. Most of these girls and women live in one of 28 African countries. Others live in Asia, the Middle East, and immigrant communities around the world, including Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Governments are increasingly using legal strategies - particularly criminal law provisions - to stop the practice of FGM. Ten African countries - Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo - have enacted national laws criminalizing FGM. At least six Nigerian states have also banned the practice.

Legal approaches to stopping FGM are covered in depth in a 2000 publication co-authored by the Center for Reproductive Rights entitled "Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to Laws and Policies Worldwide." The book, written in collaboration with RAINBO and published by Zed Books, identifies legal measures in place to address FGM in 41 countries.

Wafula first employed his legal strategy to protect girls from circumcision in December 2000 when he secured a permanent injunction that kept two sisters from undergoing the procedure. In all, Wafula has won protection orders for 19 girls.

"These cases show that the law can be a tool for girls and women seeking to protect themselves from FGM," says Laura Katzive, a legal adviser for global projects at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Approximately 65 percent of Kenya's communities -- about half of the population -- practice FGM. By 2019, the Kenyan government wants to reduce the number of girls and women who undergo FGM by 40%.

Wafula, meanwhile, is taking his legal strategy one step further. He is trying to raise roughly $46,000 (U.S.) to open up eight legal counseling centers in Kenya's North Rift Valley. A lawyer, social worker and human rights activist would staff each center.

"This will help CHRD create a national girl-child system of legal protection that will address the problem of circumcision through the civil injunctions issued by courts," says Wafula.

BRIEFLY

Teenage Girl in Sierra Leone Dies after Female Genital Mutilation

In late July, a 14-year-old girl bled to death after undergoing female genital mutilation (PDF) (FGM) in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

Freetown law enforcement authorities took Fatmata Koloneh Sesay, who allegedly performed the circumcision, into custody. She is facing criminal charges in the Magistrate Court in Freetown. Sierra Leone has no law specifically prohibiting FGM, but murder or manslaughter prosecutions are pursued when the practice results in death.

"Efforts by law enforcement officials to stop FGM should be accomplished by a range of strategies, including public education and outreach that promote abandonment of the practice," says Laura Katzive, legal adviser for global projects at the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy.

In response to Sesay's death, Sierra Leone's Ombudsman, Francis Gabbidon, said FGM should be banned during an interview with "Salone Tiday," a radio program broadcast throughout the country.

"This act is a clear violation of the rights of the girl child to which Sierra Leone has agreed as a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child," said Gabbidon.

As much as 90% of women in Sierra Leone have undergone FGM. There is widespread support throughout the country for the practice.

European Parliament Report Calls for Strengthening Reproductive Rights

In July, the European Parliament adopted a report calling on European Union member states and nations seeking to join the regional body, to promote reproductive health and rights, including safe, legal and accessible abortion.

The European Parliament adopted the report on sexual and reproductive health and rights by a margin of 280 to 240, with 28 abstentions.

The report calls for EU member states and accession countries-those attempting to secure EU membership-to make abortion legal, safe and accessible and urges these governments to refrain from prosecuting women who have undergone illegal abortions. The report also calls on governments to provide support for pregnant adolescents, "whether they wish to terminate their pregnancy or to carry it to full term."

Several European nations have highly restrictive abortion laws. Poland, an accession country, prohibits abortion except in cases of fetal deformity, threats to the life or health of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest. In Ireland, abortion is illegal except to save a woman's life.

The report also asks governments to promote emergency contraception (EC) by making it affordable, available over-the-counter and a standard component of sexual and reproductive health care. The Parliament's support for EC could help prevent countless unintended pregnancies across Europe.

The report also said governments should promote sexual education through formal schooling, publicity campaigns, telephone help-lines and subsidies for condoms.

The report bolsters the advocacy efforts of activists working in the EU and accession countries, such as Poland and Lithuania, to gain greater government recognition of women's reproductive rights.

"For the first time an international body has made a strong statement recognizing that women's reproductive rights, particularly their right to legal, safe and accessible abortion should be guaranteed by the states," says Wanda Nowicka, executive director of the Federation for Women and Family Planning in Poland and a partner of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

She added, "This resolution highlights the fact that EU parliamentarians care more about the rights, health and realities of Polish women than Polish lawmakers."

Groups Fear Attempt to Limit Family Planning Options in Peru

In late July, Peruvian women's rights groups and the Center for Reproductive Rights, expressed concern that a proposed ban on sterilization as a method of family planning may be a stealth attempt to gradually diminish the family planning options available to Peruvian women. After reports of the proposed ban emerged, the Peruvian Ministry of Health issued an apology for the coerced sterilization of indigenous women during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori. The Ministry also released a report about the violations.

Peru's human rights ombudsman, an independent official, has questioned the accuracy of the Ministry's findings that more than 200,000 women were sterilized during Fujimori's regime and alleges that the report is full of inconsistencies. The ombudsman's office released its own report on coerced sterilization in 1998, when allegations were first released.

Though the Center for Reproductive Rights is pleased that the government of Alejandro Toledo has acknowledged its predecessor's policy of coercive sterilization, concern remains that the apology is part of a right-wing strategy to limit family planning options in Peru.

"If it proves true that the Peruvian government is using these horrific violations as a tactic to diminish women's family planning options, low-income and indigenous women's rights will be violated for a second time," said Luisa Cabal, a Center for Reproductive Rights legal adviser for Latin America. "Women deserve voluntary, comprehensive reproductive health services and the government of Peru has an obligation to ensure access to all methods of family planning."

In 1996, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM) and the Flora Tristan Women's Center, documented various forms of violence against women in Peru's public health facilities. In 1998, the Center for Reproductive Rights and CLADEM followed up with a report entitled "Silence and Complicity," which documented several cases of forced sterilization. The findings of this report and a second CLADEM report on sterilization, prompted the Center for Reproductive Rights, CLADEM and another local organization, to file a case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of a young mother who died from complications resulting from a sterilization procedure. In 2001, the Peruvian government agreed to settle the case and acknowledged its legal responsibility for the victim's unlawful sterilization and death.

"We call on the Toledo government to ensure justice for those women whose rights were violated during the Fujimori regime," says Katherine Hall Martinez, acting director of the Center for Reproductive Rights' international program. "And to ensure appropriate and unbiased reproductive health services that include voluntary sterilization for all Peruvian women."

U.K Family Planning Clinics Able to Distribute Mifepristone

In July, the United Kingdom's Department of Health announced that it would allow certain family planning clinics to distribute mifepristone, the medical abortion pill.

The Health Department will start a project to get family planning clinics based in National Health Service hospitals to offer mifepristone. Prior to the decision, only hospitals were allowed to give women mifepristone, which can induce an abortion in the first nine weeks of a pregnancy when used with the drug misoprostol.

CEDAW: One Step Closer to U.S. Ratification

By Molly Diachok

On July 30, the United States Senate took a step towards joining the 170 countries that have already ratified an international treaty banning discrimination against women, despite the efforts of conservative forces on Capitol Hill.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 12-7 in favor of sending the Treaty for the Rights of Women, also known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to the full Senate for ratification. Senate approval requires a two-thirds vote, or 67 senators.

CEDAW is the only international treaty that focuses exclusively on protecting women from discrimination. Although the U.S. has ratified numerous other human rights treaties under Presidents Reagan, Bush (former) and Clinton, the U.S. stands out as the only industrialized nation that has failed to ratify CEDAW. President Jimmy Carter signed CEDAW in 1980 and sent it to the Senate for ratification, but the Senate never approved the treaty.

Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department, in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed the Bush administration's position that the treaty is "generally desirable and should be approved." However, as a result of pressure by a few conservative organizations, the Bush administration is now wavering. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has insisted that the Justice Department conduct a "review" of the treaty, which many view as a delay tactic and a mechanism to pressure Republican senators not to support it.

The significance of U.S. ratification of CEDAW goes far beyond American borders. U.S. ratification could encourage the government of Sierra Leone to implement the treaty, says Jamesina King, lawyer and women's rights advocate from Sierra Leone and legal fellow in the Washington, DC office of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

"U.S. ratification of CEDAW would pressure the government of Sierra Leone to speed up the enactment and enforcement of laws and policies needed to address rape, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, maternal mortality, infant mortality and other harmful practices that affect the women of Sierra Leone," says King. "As a woman, a human rights activist and a lawyer in Sierra Leone, I am confident that U.S. ratification of CEDAW will make a significant difference in the promotion and implementation of the rights of women in my homeland."

CEDAW has influenced laws in many countries. Since adopting CEDAW, Ukraine, Nepal, Thailand and the Philippines all passed laws to curb the trafficking of women. India developed national guidelines on sexual assault in the workplace after a Supreme Court ruling on a major rape case found that CEDAW required such protections. Colombia made domestic violence a crime and required legal protection for its victims.

Hundreds of groups supporting CEDAW are gearing up their advocacy efforts to urge U.S. Senators, President Bush and the State Department to support the immediate ratification of CEDAW by the U.S.

For more information, visit www.womenstreaty.org.

Ms. Diachok is a policy program assistant at the Center for Reproductive Rights' Washington, DC office.

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