Reproductive Rights Prof Blog

Canada: Emergency Contraceptive Approved for Over-the-Counter Sales

Reuters: Morning-after pill sold over the counter in Canada:

TORONTO (Reuters) - The so-called "morning after" pill Plan B has received full over-the-counter status in Canada, drug maker Paladin Labs Inc said on Thursday.

Paladin said that following a decision by the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities, an umbrella group for Canada's provincial regulators, the emergency contraceptive will be available directly from pharmacy shelves.

Plan B, which is used after having sex to prevent unintended pregnancies, previously had behind-the-counter status, meaning that it was available from a pharmacist on request but did not require a doctor's prescription....

In the United States, women and men 18 and older can buy Plan B without a prescription if they show proof of age at a pharmacy. Girls under 18 still need a prescription.

Some Take Issue with NARAL's Endorsement of Obama

NY Times: Naral Picks Obama, and Uproar Breaks Out, by Katharine Seelye:

The decision by a major abortion-rights group to endorse Senator Barack Obama has created an uproar among some of its affiliates and other abortion-rights advocates. Many said that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had as good a record on reproductive rights as Mr. Obama and that there was no need to take sides in the Democratic primary.

The endorsement by the group, Naral Pro-Choice America, which was announced Wednesday, came as a blow to the Clinton campaign. Mrs. Clinton, who had the support of the group throughout her political career, told NBC News on Wednesday that not getting the Naral nod was a disappointment.

Clinton supporters in the blogosphere said they perceived it as a badly timed gratuitous slap at Mrs. Clinton as she grapples with the likely end of her quest for the presidency. It came on the same day that Mr. Obama received the support of former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and his backers hailed it as further evidence that the nomination fight was drawing to a close.

See also: Washington Wire (WSJ): Leading Abortion-Rights Organization Endorses Obama, by Christopher Cooper (including video of announcement by Naral Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan).

Steven Calabresi on Substantive Due Process After Gonzales v. Carhart

Steven Calabresi (Northwestern Law) has posted Substantive Due Process after Gonzales v. Carhart on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

This Essay begins in Part I with a doctrinal evaluation of the status of Washington v. Glucksberg ten years after that decision was handed down. Discussion begins with consideration of the Roberts Court's recent decision in Gonzales v. Carhart and then turns to the subject of Justice Kennedy's views in particular on substantive due process. In Part II, the Essay goes on to consider whether the Glucksberg test for substantive due process decision making is correct in light of the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Essay concludes in Parts II and III that Glucksberg is right to confine substantive due process rights recognition to recognition only of those rights that are deeply rooted in history and tradition.

Victory in the Regina McKnight Case

Via the ACLU Blog:

Earlier this week, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Regina McKnight, a woman convicted in 2001 of homicide after suffering a stillbirth and admitting to cocaine usage, did not have a fair trial. In so doing, the court recognized that McKnight's counsel failed to make use of existing evidence that could have shown that factors other than McKnight's drug use could have caused the stillbirth.

The court's ruling has significant import for the dozens of pregnant women in the United States each year that, like McKnight, are criminally charged for continuing their pregnancies to term despite their struggles with drug addition. (A recent New York Times article profiles several such women and their prosecutions in Alabama.)

While courts in other states have routinely rejected prosecutions of pregnant, drug-using women, they have not addressed the question of whether pre-natal exposure to substances causes harm to the fetus.

S.C. Supreme Court Overturns Mother's Homicide Conviction for Drug Use During Pregnancy

MyrtleBeachOnline: High court overturns mother's conviction, by Kelly Marshall Fuller and Janelle Frost:

The S.C. Supreme Court on Monday overturned a conviction that sent a Conway woman to prison for 12 years.

The court ruled that Regina McKnight, who was convicted in 2001 of homicide by child abuse after being accused of killing her unborn child with cocaine, must be granted a new trial.

McKnight gave birth to a stillborn, 5-pound girl May 15, 1999. The baby's age was estimated at between 34 and 37 weeks.

McKnight's first trial, in January 2001, ended in a mistrial. Four months later, a jury convicted her.

Monday's decision means that case will be remitted to the 15th Circuit Solicitor's office within 30 days, Solicitor Greg Hembree said....

In January 2003, the S.C. Supreme Court upheld McKnight's conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court then refused to hear her case.

Read the decision. 

Students Experience Simulated Pregnancy and Parenting

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Playing at pregnancy: Students get parenting lesson, by Aileen Dodd:

Other students whispered and stared as Dacula High School senior Lindsay Holbrook waddled down the hall with a round belly peeking through a cotton maternity shirt.

Pregnant before graduation? What a shame.

"A lot of people in the hallway thought it was real," Holbrook said. "They were like, 'Are you pregnant?' And I was like 'No, it's for a class project.' "

The "Responsible Parenting" class aims to prevent teenage pregnancy by giving students a "real-life" parenting experience.

Students – girls and guys – don a 30-pound pregnancy "empathy belly" containing metal balls floating in water to simulate the movement of a baby in amniotic fluid. They also walk around with a pouch of sand pressing down on their bladders like a real growing fetus would....

After lessons on labor, delivery and child care, students face the ultimate challenge – they take a newborn baby home overnight or for a weekend stay.

Supreme Court Declines to Review Asylum Claim of Chinese Man Whose Wife Had Forced Abortion

Associated Press: Court turns down Chinese man's asylum claim:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from a Chinese man who sought asylum in the United States because his wife was forced to have an abortion under China's controversial family planning policy.

Yi Qiang Yang and his wife had a traditional marriage when he was 20 and she was 17, but they were too young to be married legally in China. Authorities forced his wife to have an abortion when she was eight months pregnant.

U.S. immigration policy has made it easier for men in legal marriages to apply for asylum in such situations, but has taken a harder line on men who entered into traditional marriages or were not married at all. There is no dispute that women can seek asylum under the law.

Abortion Ban in Northern Ireland Puts Women in Debt

BBC News: Abortion costs 'put women in debt':

Northern Ireland women who travel to Great Britain for abortions can pay as much as £1,000 and are getting into debt, according to a charity.                    

Abortion remains illegal in Northern Ireland, except in limited circumstances when "serious risk" is posed to the mother's life, or her physical or mental health.

Each year, thousands of women travel to Great Britain to have the procedure, which was legalised 40 years ago.                   

The controversy has arisen again which some local MPs fear may be used to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.                   

Pope Denounces Italy's Abortion Law

San Diego Tribune: Pope speaks out against Italy abortion law,  by Silvia Aloisi:

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict said on Monday that 30 years of legalised abortion had devalued human life in Italy, but the centre-left opposition said legislation had reduced the number of terminated pregnancies.

The pontiff's comments added to an emotional debate in Italy over abortion, which was a prominent issue in campaigning for last month's election, 30 years after it was legalised despite opposition from the Vatican.

'Allowing the termination of pregnancies not only did not resolve the problems afflicting many women and more than a few families, but has also opened more wounds in our societies,' the pope told a delegation from Italy's Pro-Life Movement....

However, Berlusconi's Equal Opportunities Minister, Mara Carfagna, said that the real problem was not the legislation allowing abortion, but the need for more family-friendly policies and incentives that would help women decide against it.

KS: Archbishop Tells Governor to Stop Taking Communion

Kansas City Star Editorial: Archbishop Naumann's scandalous dictate to Sebelius, by Barb Shelly:

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann is asking Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to choose between his will and the oath she swore to govern the state of Kansas to the best of her ability.

Naumann has told Sebelius, a Catholic she must stop taking Communion. The governor has run afoul of the church several times with vetos of anti-abortion bills, the latest being a draconion measure that would have exposed abortion providers to endless lawsuits for doing their job.

Naumann says atonement for Sebelius would involve a confession, an apology and a promise to repair the damage caused by her "scandalous behavior that has misled people into dangerous behavior."

Gene Linked to Preeclampsia

ScienceDaily: Clues Into How Preeclampsia May Surface In Some Pregnancies:

The COMT gene -- known already for its role in schizophrenia -- has been found to play a role in preeclampsia, according to a report in today's advance on-line issue of Nature.

Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), the study further suggests that a steroid molecule, 2-ME, may serve as both a diagnostic marker and therapeutic supplement for the treatment of this dangerous pregnancy disorder.

Characterized by hypertension, proteinuria, and edema, preeclampsia affects approximately 5 percent of all pregnancies worldwide, and is a leading cause of maternal and neonatal morbidity. Knowing that placental hypoxia, or oxygen shortage, associated with vascular dysfunction, is a hallmark of the condition, senior author Raghu Kalluri, PhD and his colleagues began by screening for genes that regulate hypoxia.

"What If Your Mother Had Aborted You?"

Frances Kissling responds, on RH Reality Check, to the question anti-choice advocates love to ask:

"What if your mother had aborted you?" It's almost always a question some frustrated anti-choicer asks after a presentation; I've probably been asked that question a hundred times. In the beginning, my answer was fairly abstract, philosophical. I'd note that the "I" who stands before them is not the "I" that was once a fetus. The I of today is the result of a mother who continued a pregnancy and the process of becoming that made me who I am today. But over time, I felt a need to give a more personal and direct answer, something about me, my mother and the relationship between children and their mothers.

I feel a need to turn that question around and to ask instead: What if your mother's life would have been significantly happier and healthier if she had not had you? If you as a fetus had the capacity to make decisions, would you have given your life for your mother's life, health and happiness?

Other Mother's Day posts on RH Reality Check: From Inside Prisons, Mothers Long for Their Children, by Christy Hall; The Politics of Motherhood, the Capacity for Choice, by Caroline Austria.

South Sudan Has World's Highest Maternal Mortality Rate

Not a happy mother's day story.  Reuters: Battling to take death out of birth in Africa, by Skye Wheeler:

JUBA, Sudan, May 11 (Reuters) - Lying on a sagging mattress and wincing slightly, Anna Lado laughs at the idea that she should have been afraid of giving birth to her first child, now lying in a crib near her in a hospital in south Sudan.

"It's natural," she smiles.

But in fact, she received a life-saving caesarean in the capital Juba's teaching hospital: a relatively rare operation in south Sudan where one in 50 women die in childbirth, the world's highest maternal mortality rate.

McCain Abortion Flip-Flop?

ABC News: McCain Poised to Flip on GOP Abortion Platform, by Teddy Davis:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment to change the GOP's platform on abortion.

"If he were to change the party platform," to account for exceptions such as rape, incest or risk to the mother's life, "I think that would be political suicide," said Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, to ABC News. "I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble."...

The problem for McCain, however, is that he excoriated then-Gov. George W. Bush during a 2000 debate for not being willing to make this change to the platform, and Democrats are salivating at the prospect of arguing, in the words of one strategist, "that another four years of Bush begins with another four years of Bush's platform."

Concerns Mount Over Contraceptive Patch

US News & World Report: Should the Birth Control Patch Be Pulled?, by Deborah Kotz:

News is looking worse and worse for the contraceptive patch made by Ortho Evra. Well-known consumer health advocate Sidney Wolfe petitioned the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to remove the patch from the market, saying that there's enough research to show that patch users have unacceptable higher risks of dangerous blood clots than those who take birth control pills. The FDA has already slapped a warning label on the patch that's been updated several times to reflect new studies finding that women who wear the patch have about double the risk of developing the clot condition called venous thromboembolism. That's most likely because the patch exposes them to 60 percent more estrogen than what they'd get if they were on a pill containing 35 micrograms of estrogen.

Associated Press: Group asks government to end use of birth-control patch:

A consumer advocacy group petitioned the government Thursday to pull the birth-control patch off the market, calling it far riskier than the pill.

"Ortho-Evra is a poor choice for women," Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen wrote the Food and Drug Administration.

Warnings about the Ortho-Evra weekly patch have escalated since a 2005 investigation by The Associated Press found patch users suffer higher rates of life-threatening blood clots than women who take birth-control pills.

McCain Does Not Mention Roe During Speech on Judiciary; Advocates Say He Used Coded Language

Via the Daily Women's Health Policy Report:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) failed to mention Roe v. Wade in a speech Tuesday outlining his judicial philosophy at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., the Miami Herald reports. The speech led some abortion-rights advocates to criticize the senator for his lack of "straight talk." ...

During his speech, McCain said if elected president, he would appoint justices who are similar to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito (Bumiller, New York Times, 5/7). "I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito and my friend the late [former Chief Justice] William Rehnquist -- jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference," McCain said. He added that he would "look for accomplished men and women with a proven record of excellence in the law and a proven commitment to judicial restraint" (Gaynor, Reuters, 5/6).

According to the Wall Street Journal, McCain's speech included references that "appeared calculated to reassure judicial conservatives." Although McCain did not name any Supreme Court justices he believes have abused their powers, he criticized justices for using the words "penumbras" and "emanations." McCain said such words are "airy constructs ... the court has employed over the years as poor substitutes for clear and rigorous constitutional reasoning." According to the Journal, these words come from the court's 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut to strike down a state ban on contraceptives for married couples. In that decision, the court found that marital relations fell within a "penumbra" of various provisions that created a "zone of privacy." According to the Journal, some evangelical leaders interpreted McCain's remarks as critical of the 1973 Roe decision, which found that constitutional privacy guarantees include abortion rights (Bravin/Holmes, Wall Street Journal, 5/7).

KS Supreme Court Limits Grand Jury's Power to Subpoena Abortion Records

Chicago Tribune: Kansas court limits grand jury's power in abortion case:

The state's highest court is allowing a grand jury to keep investigating one of the few U.S. doctors who performs late-term abortions, but is limiting its power to subpoena his patients' records.

The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to strike down the law abortion opponents used to force Sedgwick County to convene the grand jury to investigate whether Dr. George Tiller violated state rules on abortion.

The justices returned the case to district court and set new guidelines in determining whether subpoenas should be enforced.

UK: MP Wants to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks

BBC News: MP seeks to lower abortion limit:

Britain needs to send a "less casual message" about abortion, an MP has said as she launches her bid to reduce the upper limit from 24 to 20 weeks.

Nadine Dorries says Britain risks becoming Europe's "abortion capital".

Her amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill would lower the upper limit.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson said he believed the original limit "stood the test of time" but MPs would be given a free vote on the issue.

California Awards $271 Million for Stem Cell Research

NY Times: California Awards $271 Million for Stem Cell Research, by Andrew Pollack:

California has awarded $271 million in grants to build 12 new stem cell research centers in the state, even as one of the political rationales for the building program might soon disappear.

The awards, announced here Wednesday, represent the largest chunk of money awarded at one time by California’s taxpayer-backed stem cell program, which is slated to spend about $3 billion over about a decade.

McCain to Address His Judicial Philosophy

Wall St. Journal: McCain Speech to Shed Light On Judicial Philosophy, by Laura Meckler:

John McCain steps out of his comfort zone Tuesday to address his judicial philosophy, a hot-button matter for social conservatives that encompasses abortion, guns and gay rights -- all topics on which Sen. McCain has rankled the right.

On nearly every score, Sen. McCain agrees with conservatives, but he has made a series of exceptions to their orthodoxy. As a result, while liberals think he is a conservative, conservatives fear he is a liberal....

On abortion, a number of people believe that Sen. McCain supports abortion rights. He doesn't. At a town-hall meeting in March, he vowed: "I will continue my commitment to rights of the unborn so we can give every soul the chance to exist on this Earth."

Yet nearly one in four women who support abortion rights and also support Sen. McCain believe that he shares their views, according to a Planned Parenthood Action Fund survey of women in 16 battleground states.

Planned Parenthood, which supports abortion rights, also found that about half of these supporters weren't sure about Sen. McCain's position. Just under 20% knew his stand on abortion but supported him anyway.

In fact, with the exception of fetal-tissue and stem-cell research, he has a long and consistent voting record opposing abortion. He supports sex-education programs that promote abstinence until marriage without any mention of contraception.

Special Schools for Pregnant Teens

Christian Science Monitor: Special schools for pregnant girls?, by Ben Arnoldy (4/30):                        

Boise, Idaho - Soon after getting pregnant, high school sophomore Alicia Mattocks worried that bullies might purposely slam her into a locker and that a teacher's rules wouldn't allow frequent bathroom runs.       

But it was the thought of not having to go to school quite so early, when she felt her worst, that pushed her to transfer to the Marian Pritchett School, an alternative public school in Boise for pregnant and parenting students. That decision, she says, saved her from dropping out.

A senior now, she plasters her binders with photos of her son, Ryder. This June, she'll mark another milestone: On her head will be a tasseled square cap.       

Pritchett school, however, faces a funding shortfall because state grants that fund it have dried up. Separate schools for pregnant teens have dwindled in recent years because of concern for educational equality, budget constraints, and changing social mores.

See also this post regarding the closing last year of special schools for pregnant teenagers in New York.  One reader asked whether such schools pose a Title IX problem.  Here's the response I posted (regarding the New York schools):

That's a good question. As the article points out, "Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 stated that schools were allowed to create separate educational programs for pregnant students but that they must be of comparable quality to standard high schools."

While these schools were formed in the '60s when pregnant girls were being forced out of ordinary schools, obviously Title IX made that practice illegal, although the schools could still provide alternative education for pregnant girls who chose it. It seems that given the inferior education the schools were providing, however, they were not complying with the spirit of Title IX.

Pregnant girls have continued to face discrimination in New York and elsewhere, including exclusion from programs like the National Honor Society, and it is important for pregnant students and their families to understand that this is illegal.

UPDATE/CORRECTION (5/13):  Apologies for a prior link to an NYCLU publication on pregnant and parenting teens that no longer worked.  The following publications from the NYCLU Reproductive Rights Project are available online:

• Booklet: The Rights Of Pregnant And Parenting Teens (2006)
• Palm Card: Your Rights As A Pregnant Or Parenting Teen (2007) (also available in Spanish)

Thanks to Southern Students for Choice - Emory for providing the links to these publications.

Government Survey Shows Early Breast-Feeding at All-Time High

New York Times: More Mothers Breast-Feed, in First Months at Least, by Gardiner Harris:

About 77 percent of new mothers breast-feed their infants at least briefly, the highest rate seen in the United States in more than a decade, according to a government survey released on Wednesday.

In 1993 and 1994, just 60 percent of new mothers breast-fed their babies, but rates have been gradually rising ever since, according to regular surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The report shows that the initiation of breast-feeding is at an all-time high,” said Karen Hunter of the disease centers.

Breast-feeding experts said that they were cheered by the report’s numbers but noted that rates of breast-feeding at 6 months of age have remained unchanged and are significantly lower than goals set by government agencies. The most recent C.D.C. survey did not report breast-feeding rates at 6 months because of a lack of data.

Dan Moller on Abortion and Moral Risk

Dan Moller (Philosophy, U. of Maryland) has posted Abortion and Moral Risk on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

It is natural for those with permissive attitudes toward abortion to suppose that, if they have examined all of the arguments they know against abortion and have concluded that they fail, their moral deliberations are at an end. Surprisingly, this is not the case, as I argue. This is because the mere risk that one of those arguments succeeds can generate a moral reason that counts against the act. If this is so, then liberals may be mistaken about the morality of abortion. However, conservatives who claim that considerations of risk rule out abortion in general are mistaken as well. Instead, risk-based considerations generate an important but not necessarily decisive reason to avoid abortion. The more general issue that emerges is how to accommodate fallibilism about practical judgment in our decision-making.

Mo. Senate Rescinds Bill Requiring Electronic Tracking of Mifepristone Sales

Via the Daily Women's Health Policy Report (5/1):

The Missouri Senate on Tuesday rescinded its vote on a bill (HB 1619) intended to create a statewide electronic drug-monitoring system to track the sale of certain controlled substances and over-the-counter medications because it mistakenly included the abortion drug mifepristone, also known as RU-486, in the same restricted category as heroin and marijuana, the AP/KSPR reports (AP/KSPR, 4/30).

According to the Springfield News-Leader, the inclusion of the mifepristone provision was left in the measure because of a clerical error (Livengood, Springfield News-Leader, 4/30). None of the senators realized the provision had not been removed until after the measure passed (AP/KSPR, 4/30).