Center for Reproductive Rights and ACLU Join Forces to Protect the Health and Rights of Florida Rape Survivor

More than five months ago, a severely disabled, 22-year-old Florida woman known as "JDS" was raped—and became pregnant—during her stay at an Orlando group home run by the state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF). Although she has been under the continuous care of the agency since she was three, the state has jeopardized her interests and health by first neglecting to assign a guardian to her and, then, by attempting to appoint a guardian for her fetus.

Because of the severe nature of her disabilities, it is believed that JDS is unable to consent to or make informed decisions about her medical care.

On June 2, a Florida judge ruled that the young woman was entitled to a guardian to make decisions about her medical care and appointed a woman, Patti Riley Jarrel, as guardian. The ruling by Judge Lawrence Robert Kirkwood of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court follows a long line of inaction by the state. JDS has not had a guardian since her eighteenth birthday, leaving her incapable of consenting to invasive medical procedures. Normally, courts are required to appoint a guardian to act in the best interests of individuals such as JDS. However, no such request was filed on her behalf—even after Florida authorities learned that she had become pregnant because of a rape committed under their watch.

In fact, when news of JDS’s situation reached the media, Governor Jeb Bush compounded his state agency’s failure to protect this young woman by announcing that the state would seek to have a separate guardian appointed to protect the interests of the fetus. Despite a state supreme court ruling that such a move was improper, Governor Bush brushed aside the question of what was best for JDS and attempted to give equal weight to the interests of her fetus.

In response to the Governor’s announcement, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a friend-of-the-court brief on May 13 asking that any request by the state to appoint a guardian for the fetus be denied. In so doing, our purpose was to ensure that the woman’s health remained paramount and that any decision concerning her medical care—including any decision to continue or terminate her pregnancy—was based solely on her best interests.

On May 30, Judge Kirkwood denied the request by one woman to be appointed a guardian for JDS’ fetus. To date, Governor Bush has not formally asked the court to appoint a guardian for the young woman’s fetus.

"The health and best interests of this rape survivor, not politics, should be at the forefront of this matter," said Bebe Anderson, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "This woman's needs, her desires and her interests need to take precedence. Her right to make decisions about her own body is being diminished as she continues to wait for appointment of a guardian."

Julie Sternberg, a staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project agrees: "The state’s negligence is part of an ongoing pattern that resulted in the tragic circumstances of this case in the first place. The state failed to protect her from being raped; it failed to determine that she was pregnant until she was at least five months pregnant; and now it has once again failed to act in a manner that will ensure that her needs are fully and promptly addressed."

Women in Indiana Forced to Make Two Trips to a Clinic in Order to Obtain an Abortion

On May 12, a state court judge dismissed the Center for Reproductive Rights’ challenge to an Indiana law that forces women to make two trips, at least 18 hours apart, to their healthcare provider before obtaining an abortion. At the first visit, doctors or mid-level practitioners are required to give their patients state-mandated information designed to discourage them from choosing abortion as an option. These mandatory delay and biased information laws have no health benefit. They are solely intended to heighten the medical, psychological and financial penalties on women seeking abortions.

The Center, which is challenging the law on behalf of several abortion clinics in the state, will file an appeal with the Indiana Court of Appeals. The move follows a long federal court challenge that prevented the law from taking effect for more than seven years.

"Women seeking abortion should not have to face this burdensome requirement, which serves no actual health purpose and simply stands in the way of women seeking abortions," said Simon Heller, Of Counsel with the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel on the case.

The Indiana law puts safe abortion services out of reach for many women. Making two trips to a provider who may be far from home not only adds to travel costs, it also requires a woman to take more time off from work. Furthermore, the law threatens to drive up costs for abortion providers in the state—where abortion services are available in only 7% of its counties —by forcing healthcare providers to arrange an additional in-person counseling session for all patients. These sessions require that women receive the state-mandated information, irrespective of their situation—a requirement that is not similarly imposed on doctors providing other services.

The two-trip requirement is particularly burdensome for women seeking second-trimester abortions, because the state only has one clinic in Indianapolis that can perform the procedure after the first-trimester.

Mandatory delays and biased information requirements are on the books in 23 states but enforced in only 18. The Center is also challenging these laws in Florida and Alabama.

Center Reaches Settlement in Challenge to Michigan Law Aimed at Abortion Providers

On April 30, the Center for Reproductive Rights settled a case that allows women in Michigan to obtain and pay for medical services such as ultrasounds and pregnancy tests without jeopardizing their ability to later obtain an abortion if they so choose.

The settlement blocks a vague, new Michigan law that would have prevented abortion providers-and only abortion providers-from obtaining prompt payment for medical services that they have already provided to women.

"This settlement ensures our Plaintiffs' ability to continue to provide reproductive healthcare services to women and to enable them to be paid for services that they provide without jeopardizing their patients' ability to obtain the medical services that they desire," said Bebe J. Anderson, staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel on the case. "It also ensures that abortion providers don't have to risk bankruptcy in order to provide services."

Contradictory provisions in the law could have also prevented women from obtaining scheduled abortions even when the abortion provider complied with the law's restrictions. In addition, the law would have forced providers to delay or cease offering medical services-such as pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, physical exams and consultations-that are vital for women seeking to make informed decisions about whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.

The Center's lawsuit was brought on behalf of eleven Michigan abortion providers. The changes to the law made under the settlement will take effect on June 29, 2003.

Former Center Client Honored by Lifetime Television

One year after Roe v. Wade was decided, Susan Cahill, a former client of the Center for Reproductive Rights, began training to become a certified physician assistant specializing in women's health, including first-trimester abortions.

"In those days, believe it or not, you had to opt out of abortion training," Cahill told Reproductive Freedom News one day after she became one of seven "risk takers" honored by Lifetime Television in the network’s first-ever "Lifetime Achievement Award: Women Changing the World."

"Today," said Cahill, "medical residents are lucky to even be offered abortion training."

Currently, only 12% of obstetric/gynecology residency programs require training in first-trimester abortion procedures, and only 7% require training in second-trimester techniques. Forty-five states prohibit non-physicians, such as Cahill, from performing abortions.

After Cahill completed her training, she began working for Dr. James Armstrong, a family practice doctor in Kalispell, Montana, who had vowed to provide abortion services after witnessing firsthand the horror of women entering emergency rooms with complications from unsafe abortions before Roe.

From 1977 to 2001, Cahill and Armstrong were two of only a handful of abortion providers in Montana, where only 11% of counties have providers.

"I always believed that it is very normal to include abortion services in a good family care practice," said Cahill. "Women should be able to come to you for everything—whether for the joy of a wanted pregnancy or the crises of an unwanted pregnancy."

Armstrong and Cahill braved relentless harassment for years, including an arson attack that severely damaged their office. In 1994, the county prosecutor threatened to arrest Armstrong for allowing Cahill to perform abortions in his office. Armstrong fought the charges and won his case.

Then the Montana legislature passed the "Susan Cahill Law" to explicitly prohibit physician assistants from providing abortions—even though Cahill was the state’s only physician assistant providing abortions. The Center for Reproductive Rights represented Cahill and Armstrong in a successful challenge of the law before the Montana Supreme Court.

"The decision was so beautifully written—so democratic," said Cahill. "If I had lost my challenge to Montana's 'doctor only' law, women would still get abortions, but they would be forced to go further to get them, particularly if they wanted a woman to do them."

Cahill has not stopped struggling for women’s right to choose since her victory in Montana. In 2001, she joined the University of Rochester Department of Family Medicine’s Reproductive Health Program for two years to train students in providing first-trimester abortion services. She even continues to perform abortions when she returns home to visit her husband.

Cahill is also working with the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Abortion Access Project to launch abortion-training programs for clinicians in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Washington.

And if that isn’t enough, Cahill plans to use the $10,000 award from Lifetime to open a new clinic in Kalispell. Dr. Armstrong, now in semi-retirement, will work with Cahill at the new clinic. previous | next