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"ACLU of Florida Goes to Court to Fight Laws that Threaten Reproductive Rights of Poor, Young Women"
September 2003 Edition of the ACLU of Florida Newsletter
Alessandra Soler Meetze
Communications Director
The battle surrounding reproductive freedom has become increasingly combative here in Florida, where legislative attacks have threatened a woman's access to reproductive health care, especially poor and young women and others facing serious medical decisions late in their pregnancies.
The ACLU of Florida, with help from our National ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, has been there nearly every step of the way, lobbying against bills that restrict women's reproductive freedom and challenging them soon after the Legislature enacts and the Governor signs them.
Just days after Gov. Jeb Bush and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) embarked on a crusade to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a 22-year-old mentally disabled woman who was raped while under the state's care in a DCF-licensed home, the ACLU went to court to ask a judge to appoint only one guardian for the mother.
On June 2, an Orange County Circuit Court judge agreed with the ACLU's reasoning and appointed a guardian for the woman, known by the initials J.D.S., while denying a request by Jennifer Wixtrom to be appointed guardian of J.D.S.'s fetus. The Governor and the DCF continued to press to have a legal guardian appointed for the fetus by supporting the appeal filed by Wixtrom.
The ACLU again went to court on August 21, this time presenting arguments before the 5th District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach. ACLU of Florida Legal Director Randall Marshall argued that appointing a guardian for a fetus would infringe upon the rights of all women to privacy, prenatal medical care and abortion choices.
TARGETING LOW-INCOME WOMEN
Florida's attack on reproductive rights also extends to low-income women, who are especially burdened by its law banning Medicaid-funded abortions. Poor women are forced by the state to carry their pregnancies to term, even though this may harm their health, or significantly delay obtaining abortions while they seek alternate funds.
At an appeals court hearing in June, the ACLU of Florida and the Center for Reproductive Rights argued the state is discriminating based on sex by covering services relating to men's reproductive health but not paying for similar services for women. The case challenging the Medicaid-abortion ban was brought on behalf of a health clinic, a doctor, and a woman who was denied Medicaid funds to obtain an abortion even though she suffers from epileptic seizures and her medication posed a serious threat to the health of her fetus.
WINNING SIGNIFICANT COURT BATTLES
In recent months, two very significant court decisions were handed down that guard against further governmental intrusion on the rights of women to make choices about contraception, abortion and child rearing.
On July 10, the Florida Supreme Court struck down a law requiring physicians to notify a parent or legal guardian before performing an abortion on a young woman, saying it violates a woman's right to privacy. At issue was Florida's Parental Notice of Abortion Act, which required a minor to notify a parent prior to obtaining an abortion or convince a court to grant her an exception to the requirement. Although Governor Jeb Bush signed the law in 1999, it never went into effect because of the legal challenge that was filed soon after.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed, the ACLU of Florida and the National ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project argued that parental involvement laws only deepen the desperation of teenagers already in crisis. In fact, most teens considering abortion talk to their parents about their decision, but some cannot or will not, no matter what the law says.
THE "SCARLET LETTER" LAW
Further evidence of the insensitivity of the Florida legislature to the problems of real women came in 2001 when lawmakers revised Florida's adoption law to require that a mother who wants to give her child up for adoption place newspapers ads posting her sexual history in order to locate the father of the child. Amazingly, a Palm Beach Circuit Court judge found the rule did not violate the privacy rights of most women - only sexual assault victims. The Fourth District Court of Appeals struck down the so-called "Scarlet Letter" law a few months later. The ACLU of Florida, along with the National ACLU Reproductive Freedom and Women's Rights Projects, argued in favor of a confidential paternity registry as a more effective means of protecting the rights of both parents.
IMPROVING ACCESS TO EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION
Aside from litigation, the ACLU also aims to protect access
to the full range of reproductive health care for all women,
including victims of sexual assault, through our public
education programs. Especially important is ensuring that
rape patients have immediate access to emergency contraception
(EC) to help prevent a pregnancy that results from a rape.
In order to evaluate whether victims of sexual assault
in Florida are receiving appropriate treatment in hospital
emergency rooms, the ACLU conducted a survey of emergency
rooms at 140 hospitals across the state. The preliminary
results are shocking: only 40 percent of hospitals in Florida
provide EC to rape survivors. Many simply refer survivors
to another hospital or do little more than provide the rape
victim with a prescription to obtain EC on her own. Neither
alternative is sufficient.
As a follow-up, the ACLU of Florida is now conducting a more extensive analysis of the data. Over the next few months, the ACLU will be contacting hospitals that do not provide EC in an attempt to persuade them to change their practices. In addition, the ACLU will be informing the public of the problem and working to change emergency room practices by publicizing the results of the survey on a website and producing fact sheets.
