Institutionalizing cruelty and ignorance

In the US, laws that institutionalize cruelty are nothing new. Such laws not only underwrite suffering and injustice to be administered by the state, but also inure us to suffering and injustice, normalizing and justifying suffering and injustice. Lately, though, on both the federal and the state level, mostly republican law-makers have launched wave upon wave of laws or proposals for laws that institutionalize cruelty against women and the parts of their lives that distinguish them from men.

Thus, in Georgia, a bill has been proposed that would forbid doctors to remove dead fetuses from women's bodies, on the presumption that if cattle have to suffer through labor to abort dead offspring, then women should too. Therefore, the reasoning of those who have proposed this legislation goes, women carrying a dead fetus ought to wait until it is "naturally" expelled from her body. (And too bad if she dies before that happens: such deaths are, of course "natural." Which suggests it's only a matter of time before we start getting legislation requiring women to give birth out in a field, on their own...) The only purpose such a law could serve is to institutionalize cruelty and, possibly, to make it clear to women that in the state's eyes, they are not full human beings entitled to human dignity.

In several states, law-makers are quite taken with forcing women who want early abortions to undergo the painful, expensive, purely gratuitous procedure of a transvaginal probe. The point, as a recent (widely censored) Doonesbury strip points out, is to shame the woman who seeks an abortion. The governor of Pennsylvania, approving of this, advises women undergoing this to "just close their eyes."

In Texas, In order to oust Planned Parenthood from the Women's Health Program (40% of which is administered by Planned Parenthood), the governor is giving up a $35 million federal grant, which means that Texas's Women's Health Program will be dismantled (since the state of Texas would never dream of providing healthcare themselves to poor women). The governor's decision will likely cut off 130,000 women from basic health care they can't afford to get elsewhere.

In Arizona, it looks as though the Arizona legislature is not only going to make contraception coverage in employee insurance plans up to the employer to determine, but also make the very use of contraception a valid reason for firing an employee. Here's today's Arizona Republic:

Do you have birth control pills in your purse or a condom in your wallet?

Careful, that might get you fired.

The Republicans who control the Arizona Legislature are pushing through a bill that would make it OK for both religious and secular employers to deny health-care coverage for contraception if the employers object for moral or religious reasons.

But apparently that's not all.

HB 2625 in its current version also eliminates the following protection for employees:

"A religious employer shall not discriminate against an employee who independently chooses to obtain insurance coverage or prescriptions for contraceptives from another source."

That language was in the law, passed in Arizona in 2002, that allowed religious employers to opt out of providing contraception services to their workers. In the most recent version of HB 2625, the provision outlawing discrimination is removed.

What does that mean?

According to ACLU of Arizona Public Policy Director Anjali Abraham, it means that an employer may be able to discriminate against an employee if he finds out that she (or he?) is using contraception.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/03/15/20120315montini0316-should-birth-control-firing-offense.html#ixzz1pVMotvZO

This last week, the US Senate has been in an uproar over the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The Seattle P-I reports:

The pending legislation would provide money to local law enforcement, particularly for dealing with violence on Indian reservations and in rural areas. It would increase legal assistance to victims. It would extend protection to cases involving domestic violence between same-sex couples.

Republicans are uneasy with the bill, but equally uneasy about their image among American women.

They recently championed an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, that would given businesses, on grounds of moral objections, sweeping power to deny contraception coverage in health insurance to women employees.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted for the Blunt amendment, only to hear blunt criticism from Alaska women on a trip home. She shared the experience at a Senate Republican Caucus luncheon earlier this week.

Discussing the Violence Against Women Act, Sen. Blunt told the Times: “Obviously you want to be for the title.”

Longtime conservative crusader Phyllis Schlafly has charged that the law has been “used to fill feminist coffers” and that its provisions promote “divorce, breakup of marriage and hatred of men.”

Cantwell said American women are asking different questions, adding:

“They want to know how something that has been so bipartisan in the past . . . that’s usually passed with great bipartisan support, may not meet its deadline for being reauthorized.”

Other laws are additionally designed to force doctors to lie to their patients (thus institutionalizing ignorance, as well):

New Hampshire Bill Would Force Docs To Lie About Abortion, Breast Cancer Link

In New Hampshire, a Tea Party-happy House of Representatives has passed a bill that would require doctors to tell women that abortion causes breast cancer—despite the fact that it’s untrue.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jeanine Notter, states that “it is scientifically undisputed that full-term pregnancy reduces a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer” and “women facing an abortion decision have a right to know that such medical data exists.” Therefore, doctors must inform pregnant women that “there is a direct link between abortion and breast cancer.”

But no link between abortion and breast cancer has been proven. The consensus in the scientific community, in fact, is that abortion does not cause breast cancer—a statement supported by the World Health Organization, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

One reason some previous studies may have showed a link is because the more periods a woman has over a lifetime, the greater her breast cancer risk, crudely. A woman who has 5 children—thus 5 pregnancies, and 5 long stretches with no menstruation—has a lower lifetime risk of breast cancer than a similar woman who has no children. A woman who has an abortion could have a higher lifetime chance of developing breast cancer relative to a woman who has been pregnant—assuming, of course, she never has or will have children.

Full-term pregnancy does reduce a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer. Which does not mean that abortion, per se, causes it.

Someone should explain this to Notter. According to the Huffington Post, she has said in the past that she believes abortion and birth control pills cause spaces in breast duct tissue to allow for the growth of cancer cells. She also believes birth control pills can cause prostate cancer in the male offspring of women who’ve taken them.

Notter’s bill would also institute a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions, and require doctors provide a series of fetal pictures taken at two-week intervals, a list of agencies that assist women during pregnancy and childbirth, material on paternal support obligations and a presentation on the possible medical side effects of abortion. Another bill that passed the N.H. house Wednesday would change the timing for judges to decide whether a minor can have an abortion without parental notification. The fates of both bills in the state Senate are uncertain.

Some states, while not ordering doctors to lie, are permitting them to do so. Oklahoma is one of those places:

In Oklahoma, Doctors can legally lie to you because of their personal beliefs. And, make no mistake, they will be lying. When I (and every other mother I know) was pregnant the one question I asked at every OB-GYN appointment was, “Is everything okay with the baby?” I can’t imagine a doctor telling me anything but the truth. I can’t imagine not being prepared for every parents’ worst nightmare.

But it seems that informing women in Oklahoma is situational.

The Oklahoma Legislature voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to override vetoes of two highly restrictive abortion measures, one making it a law that women undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before having an abortion.

Amazing. Angry Mouse sums it up best…

In other words, if you’re a woman in Oklahoma seeking a legal medical procedure, you will first be forced to have a completely unnecessary procedure so the doctor can show and describe to you your beautiful, healthy little bundle of joy.

This is Oklahoman for “informed consent.”

But if that bundle of joy isn’t so healthy? Tough shit. The doctor doesn’t have to say a word.

At this rate maybe Oklahoma doctors can start issuing sugar pills in place of birth control pills without telling the patient.

Of course, the tactic of forbidding doctors to give their patients the information they need is not directly only against women. Pennsylvania just passed a damnable law directed at its entire population:

A new Pennsylvania law endangers public health by forbidding health care professionals from sharing information they learn about certain chemicals and procedures used in high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The procedure is commonly known as fracking.

...

about 650 of the 750 chemicals used in fracking operations are known carcinogens, according to a report filed with the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2011. Fluids used in fracking include those that are “potentially hazardous,” including volatile organic compounds, according to Christopher Portier, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, a part of the federal Centers for Disease Control. In an email to the Associated Press in January 2012, Portier noted that waste water, in addition to bring up several elements, may be radioactive. Fracking is also believed to have been the cause of hundreds of small earthquakes in Ohio and other states.

The law, an amendment to Title 52 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, requires that companies provide to a state-maintained registry the names of chemicals and gases used in fracking. Physicians and others who work with citizen health issues may request specific information, but the company doesn’t have to provide that information if it claims it is a trade secret or proprietary information, nor does it have to reveal how the chemicals and gases used in fracking interact with natural compounds. If a company does release information about what is used, health care professionals are bound by a non-disclosure agreement that not only forbids them from warning the community of water and air pollution that may be caused by fracking, but which also forbids them from telling their own patients what the physician believes may have led to their health problems. A strict interpretation of the law would also forbid general practitioners and family practice physicians who sign the non-disclosure agreement and learn the contents of the “trade secrets” from notifying a specialist about the chemicals or compounds, thus delaying medical treatment.

The clauses are buried on pages 98 and 99 of the 174-page bill, which was initiated and passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed into law in February by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

“I have never seen anything like this in my 37 years of practice,” says Dr. Helen Podgainy, a pediatrician from Coraopolis, Pa. She says it’s common for physicians, epidemiologists, and others in the health care field to discuss and consult with each other about the possible problems that can affect various populations. Her first priority, she says, “is to diagnose and treat, and to be proactive in preventing harm to others.” The new law, she says, not only “hinders preventative measures for our patients, it slows the treatment process by gagging free discussion.”

I can think of other recent instances of laws designed to render women and men ignorant and inflict unnecessary suffering on them, but I think these examples suffice for one post. The institutionalization of cruelty and the institutionalization of ignorance are proliferating in the US today. It'd take a full-time staff using maps with pushpins to keep track of all the insidious legislation aimed to make our lives worse. The word that comes to mind now when I think about politicians is "contempt." Their contempt for most of us, and our contempt for them. Where, I have to wonder, will this all end?

That Fabulous Murdoch Touch

You knew, of course, that Murdoch owns not just Fox News but the Wall Street Journal as well, right? So perhaps you won't be surprised by a story in the Guardian by Nick Davies, Wall Street Journal circulation scam claims senior Murdoch executive, which reports that the corruption of Rupert Murdoch's extends to the Wall Street Journal. Apart from other things, Murdoch's executives have been engaging in a scam to boost the WSJ's circulation figures, selling papers in bulk to sponsors for less than 5 cents a copy-- and then distributing those copies to students attending the sponsors' seminars. But when the sponsors grew unhappy with that arrangement, among other things (including tampering with the content of the newspaper) they actually started providing the money for those bulk purchases of the WSJ to one of the sponsors that  was supposed to be doing the purchasing. (If that isn't baroque... selling on the cheap to boost circulation numbers, then also providing the money for buying on the cheap...?)

One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior European executives has resigned following Guardian inquiries about a circulation scam at News Corporation's flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.

The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.

The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities, a move which led some staff to accuse the paper's management of violating journalistic ethics and jeopardising its treasured reputation for editorial quality.

Internal emails and documents suggest the scam was promoted by Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in July 2007. Langhoff resigned on Tuesday.

The highly controversial activities were organised in London and focused on the Journal's European edition, which circulates in the EU, Russia, and Africa. Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant.

The circulation scam is probably legal-- though European companies advertising in the WSJ might not be so happy to hear that almost half of the paper's European circulation was in effect bogus:

The scheme was controversial. The sponsoring companies were not reading the papers they were paying for; they were never even seeing them; and they were buying at highly reduced rates. The students to whom they were distributed may or may not have read them; none of the students paid for the papers they were being offered. But the Audit Bureau of Circulation ruled that the scheme was legitimate and by 2010, it was responsible for 41% of the European edition's daily sales – 31,000 copies out of a total of 75,000.

What took the scheme over the top, though, was the next step of the arrangement with one of these sponsors, Executive Learning Partnership:

In early 2010 the scheme began to run into trouble when the biggest single sponsor, a Dutch company called Executive Learning Partnership, ELP, threatened to back out. ELP alone were responsible for 16% of the Journal's European circulation, sponsoring 12,000 copies a day for which they were paying only 1¢ per copy. For the 259 publishing days in a year, they were sponsoring 3.1m copies at a cost to them of €31,080 (£27,200). They complained that the publicity they were receiving was not enough return on their investment.

On 9 April 2010, Andrew Langhoff emailed ELP to table a new deal, explaining that "our clear goal is to add a new component to our partnership" and offering to "provide a well-branded showcase for ELP's valuable services". On 30 April, ELP agreed to continue to sponsor 12,000 copies at the same rate. But that deal included a new eight-page addendum, which the Guardian has seen.

The addendum included a collection of side deals: the Journal would give ELP free advertising and, in exchange, the ELP would produce "leadership videos" for them; they would jointly organise more seminars and workshops on themes connected to ELP's work; but, crucially, Langhoff agreed that the Journal would publish "a minimum of three special reports" that would be based on surveys of the European market which ELP would run with the Journal's help.

It is this agreement that is now being cited as the reason for Langhoff's resignation on Tuesday. It led to the Journal publishing a full-page feature on 14 October 2010 that reported a survey conducted by ELP about the use of social media in business, quoting ELP's chief executive at length. The story carried no warning for readers that it was the result of a deal between the Journal and ELP, nor that ELP were sponsoring 16% of the paper's European circulation. Similarly, there were no warnings attached to a second story, published on 14 March 2011, which consisted of an interview with one of ELP's senior partners, Ann de Jaeger, about the role of women in company boardrooms.

As the Guardian reports, employees of the WSJ started to get unhappy with this arrangement. (Hence the whistle-blower, who in turn caused a panic among the executives involved.)

It sounds as though all of these shenanigans are legal. But are they ethical? I wonder whether it's even possible for any publication owned by Murdoch to meet basic ethical standards for journalism. Everyone knows that Fox News has lower journalistic standards than, say, the National Enquirer. But what about the Wall Street Journal? I have to wonder.

Appeals court rules that corporations can own genes: they just keep piling on the woe for the "lower" 95%

Remember the case of the corporation taking out a patent on one of the genes for breast cancer? In the Psychotic Congressional Drama of the last week, you might have missed the report on the Appeals Court ruling. Here's the July 29 press release by the American Civil Liberties Union:

NEW YORK - July 29 - In a 2-1 decision, a federal appeals court today partially reversed a lower court’s ruling in a case challenging patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast cancer and ovarian cancer. The court ruled that companies can obtain patents on the genes but cannot patent methods to compare those gene sequences.

The ruling follows a lawsuit brought by a group of patients and scientists represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) and calls into question the validity of patents now held on approximately 4,000 human genes.
“Today’s ruling is a blow to the idea that patent law cannot impede the free flow of ideas in scientific research,” said Chris Hansen, a staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “Human DNA is not a manufactured invention, but a natural entity like air or water. To claim ownership of genetic information is to unnecessarily block the free exchange of ideas.”

The lawsuit against Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, which hold the patents on the genes, charged that the challenged patents are illegal and restrict both scientific research and patients’ access to medical care, and that patents on human genes violate the First Amendment and patent law because genes are "products of nature."
“As the dissent from today’s decision explains, pieces of the human genome are not patentable,” said Daniel B. Ravicher, executive director of PUBPAT and co-counsel in the lawsuit. “This is because no one ‘invents’ genes. Inventions are things like new genetic tools or drugs, all of which can be patented because they are not genes themselves.”

The specific patents the lawsuit challenged are on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.

Mutations along those genes are responsible for most cases of hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. Many women with a history of those cancers in their families opt to undergo genetic testing to determine if they have the mutations on their BRCA genes that put them at increased risk for these diseases. This information is critical in helping these women decide on a plan of treatment or prevention, including increased surveillance, preventive mastectomies or ovary removal.

One of the judges on the panel dissented in part with the decision, writing that patents on the genes should be invalid. “…[E]xtracting a gene is akin to snapping a leaf from a tree,” Judge William C. Bryson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit wrote. “Like a gene, a leaf has a natural starting and stopping point. It buds during spring from the same place that it breaks off and falls during autumn. Yet prematurely plucking the leaf would not turn it into a human-made invention.”

The lawsuit, Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., was filed on behalf of breast cancer and women’s health groups, individual women, geneticists and scientific associations representing approximately 150,000 researchers, pathologists and laboratory professionals. Because the ACLU's lawsuit challenges the whole notion of gene patenting, its outcome could have far-reaching effects beyond the patents on the BRCA genes. Approximately 20 percent of all human genes are patented, including genes associated with Alzheimer's disease, muscular dystrophy, colon cancer, asthma and many other illnesses.

The patents granted to Myriad gave the company the exclusive right to perform diagnostic tests on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and to prevent any researcher from even looking at the genes without first getting permission from Myriad. Myriad's monopoly on the BRCA genes makes it impossible for women to access alternate tests or get a comprehensive second opinion about their results. It also allows Myriad to charge a high price for its tests.
“The court has made the wrong decision for a women’s health,” said Sandra Park, staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “No corporation should be able to claim ownership of a woman’s own genetic information.”

Several major organizations, including the American Medical Association, the March of Dimes and the American Society for Human Genetics, filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the challenge to the patents on the BRCA genes. In addition, the United States Department of Justice filed a brief arguing that many of the gene patents issued by the Patent Office are invalid.

Attorneys on the case include Hansen and Aden Fine of the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project; Park and Lenora Lapidus of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project; and Ravicher and Sabrina Hassan of PUBPAT.

Today's decision can be found online at:
www.aclu.org/womens-rights/association-molecular-pathology-et-al-v-myriad-genetics-inc-appeals-court-decision


More information about the case, including an ACLU video featuring breast cancer patients, plaintiff and supporter statements and declarations and the legal complaint, can be found online at: www.aclu.org/brca

Yachting with the nobs while endangered species burn

There's been much buzz about BP's CEO fleeing the disaster his company unleashed on the Gulf of Mexico to go yachting with English lords, sailing his $700,000 boat around the Isle of Wight. (Getting his "life" back, perhaps?) But much more disturbing is The Raw Story's report by Daniel Tencer that BP is burning marine species caught in their free fire zones without giving anyone a chance to rescue them.

Mike Ellis, a boat captain involved in a three-week effort to rescue as many sea turtles from unfolding disaster as possible, says BP effectively shut down the operation by preventing boats from coming out to rescue the turtles.

"They ran us out of there and then they shut us down, they would not let us get back in there," Ellis said in an interview with conservation biologist Catherine Craig.

Part of BP's efforts to contain the oil spill are controlled burns. Fire-resistant booms are used to corral an area of oil, then the area within the boom is lit on fire, burning off the oil and whatever marine life may have been inside.

That's bad enough. But consider this:

Dr. Brian Stacey of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told NPR last week that, although there are five different species of sea turtle in the Gulf of Mexico, the majority of the ones found affected by the oil spill are Kemp's Ridleys, "the rarest of them all."

Ellis confirmed that he's mostly been seeing Kemp's Ridleys.

Mike Michael at Gather.com reports that Kemp's Ridleys are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Harming or killing one "carries stiff fines and civil penalties ($500-$25,000) assessed for each violation. Criminal penalties include possible prison time and fines from $25,000-$50,000."

Michael suggests that, given the size of the fines BP could face as a result of the turtle deaths, the company may be happy to let turtles burn, as it would make it impossible to calculate exactly how many turtles died. He notes that the bodies of dead animals are being kept as evidence to determine how much in fines BP will be liable for.

"Is BP destroying evidence to keep their liability down?" he asks. "Is anyone going to stop them?"

The article is accompanied by a video in which Mike Ellis is interviewed.