NOW Goes to Court

Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

November 29, 2005

The Supreme Court Inside/Out
Tomorrow morning, NOW will be at the Supreme Court. Some of us will be on the outside with signs and chants, and others of us will be on the inside, arguing to protect women's reproductive rights from broad-based attacks.

Tomorrow the Roberts Court will hear its first cases involving abortion rights. The first two are NOW's cases, Scheidler v. NOW and Operation Rescue v. NOW, and the Court will decide whether to uphold our hard-won national injunction that has been so successful in reducing the violence at women's health clinics since 1999. Read the timeline and background.

In the third case to be argued tomorrow, the Court will consider, among other issues, whether a young woman can have an abortion in an emergency situation, where her health is threatened, without first notifying a parent. Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.

Justices to Watch.
We will be closely watching questions from new Chief Justice John Roberts, who assured Senators that he was not pre-disposed against Roe v. Wade (though I didn't believe it) and also O'Connor, who was the swing vote on the last major abortion rights case, Stenberg v. Carhart, a 5-4 decision. Her position on the Court is precarious because of the pending nomination of Samuel Alito to her seat — and if Alito were to be confirmed before an opinion is produced in any of these three cases, Chief Justice Roberts could order that they be re-argued.

A Government Full of Turkeys.
Mmmmm, I love this time of year. I had a long weekend with my family, and hope you took some time off to enjoy the season.

Pumpkin pies, stuffing, mashed potatoes . . . and a government full of turkeys.

Just for starters, the Army was trying to quietly create a database to collect personal and private medical information on everyone involved in a sexual assault complaint — including the victim — until we swung into action and flooded them with objections. Stay tuned for the next installment . . . it's looking like this might be a win!

The Bush Administration knows that women are dying around the world because they continue to withhold lifesaving U.S. family planning funds from agencies whose doctors use the agency's locally-raised funds to provide or refer for abortion services. We call it the "global gag rule" because these local agencies are deprived of desperately needed funds unless they agree to gag themselves and prohibit their staff from informing patients about abortion, even if they ask. Charming.

Now they've extended this "gag rule" to HIV funding — and just to add to the insult, they did it on the eve of World AIDS day. What does this mean for agencies fighting HIV and AIDS internationally? Many of these agencies run maternal and child health clinics (which is the best way to reach women, who are the largest growing population of people with HIV/AIDS) and they will have to give up providing full reproductive health services to pregnant women with HIV or AIDS in order to receiving federal HIV prevention funds. The result is easy to predict: more women and children will die.

Speaking of dastardly deeds, the latest comes from our friends in the abstinence-only movement. They're opposing the new cervical cancer vaccine, which, in the U.S. alone, is expected to eliminate 80% of all deaths from cervical cancer. Why would they oppose it? Surely you've guessed: it's because the vaccine works by preventing the two deadliest strains of HPV (human papillomavirus), which are transmitted primarily by sexual contact. Still not clear? If there isn't a potentially deadly consequence to having sex, then surely young women will do it wantonly. You can't make this up.

The real question is whether the government agencies involved, like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has been quick to put conservative politics ahead of science where women's health is concerned (see, e.g. Plan B and silicone gel breast implants), will refuse to approve the vaccine for widespread use because of fear that eliminating cervical cancer deaths might increase promiscuity. Now there's a balanced view of the world.

There's good news coming.
If all that leaves you at a loss for words, remember that we are fighting these battles every day, together, and that we are winning many of them. And women are noticing!

Women in this country have a higher opinion of the women's movement now than ever before — a recent CBS News poll found that fully 69% of women say the movement has made their lives better, up 45 percentage points since 1983! At this time of year, and after more nearly four decades of NOW, it sure is nice to know that lots of women are giving thanks for the work you and we are doing together.

And lest you think it's just them, let me end on a note of personal thanks. In addition to my wonderful family, what I am most grateful for this year is you. All of you. Your hard work and dedication keeps me going. Yes, we still have a long way to go, but once in a while it's also nice to remember how far we've come. Together, we have changed the culture, we have changed our world.

And that is something for which we can all be truly thankful.

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