Thursday, August 5, 2010

Choice News Aug. 5th 2010

Supreme Court Watch

The Senate is set to vote today to confirm Elena Kagan as the fourth woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court.

US News and World Report's Mary Kate Cary writes that Kagan's confirmation will create a "critical mass" of women on the bench which could change the court's approach to its work.

Yesterday a federal judge in San Francisco struck down the discriminatory Proposition 8, a gay marriage ban that was approved by California voters in 2008, as unconstitutional. An analysis in the New York Times anticipates that this case will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court, and suggests that the wording of the decision may box in appeals and Supreme Court justices.

As anticipated, supporters of the ban filed an appeal today with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Limited Service Pregnancy Centers

Baltimore City lawyers defended the city's law mandating that limited service pregnancy centers (also known as "crisis pregnancy centers" or fake clinics) disclose that they do not provide care or referrals for abortion or contraception in federal court yesterday. The Archdiocese of Baltimore filed a lawsuit against the law, claiming a violation of First Amendment rights. The city's chief solicitor, however, argued that the law only requires disclosure and does not require the centers to do anything contrary to the beliefs of the people who run them.

Abortion Access

Marcy Bloom, of El Grupo de Informacion en Reproduccion Elegida/The Information Group on Reproductive Choice, has a post on RH reality Check about the "tremendous discrimination, hardships, hypocrisy, lies, violence, and abuse" suffered by women and girls in the Philippines resulting from the country's ban on abortion.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.