Monthly Archives: January 2002

Some Women Get Expanded Rights in Turkey

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On January 1, 2002, far reaching revisions to Turkey’s civil code went into effect that go a long way toward recognizing men and women as equals. Unfortunately, many women’s groups in Turkey do not feel the changes go far enough, and in fact there is a serious deficiency in the revision.

On the positive side, the revisions essentially end the supreme position that men enjoyed when it came to domestic matters. All property in marriage is now jointly owned by husband and wife. A woman will no longer need her husband’s permission to work outside the home, and women are now able to sue for divorce if their husband commits adultery, as well as have a right to property and potentially alimony after a divorce.

Unfortunately, the law is not retroactive, meaning that it only applies to newly married couples. The 17 million already-married Turkish women will not have the right, for example, to ask for alimony or half of the property owned by the couple, which makes this a rather bittersweet victory.

Sources:

Turkish women score victory for equality. The BBC, November 24, 2001.

Turkish women get equal rights. The BBC, January 1, 2002.

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Male Coach Wins $1.6 Million Lawsuit Against Smith College

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In 1996, Smith College — an all women’s college that pioneered women’s sports, including holding the first women’s intercollegiate basketball game in 1893 — fired its basketball and soccer coach, Jim Babyak. In December, Babyak was awarded $1.6 million by a jury that agreed with his claims he had been fired because of his sex and age.

Babyak had received good performance evaluations through 1995 and helped build Smith College’s athletics into an extremely successful program. In 1996, when he was fired, the basketball team set a school record for victories and the soccer team won its sixth conference championship.

But Babyak was fired because, he claimed, official at the small college wanted a female coach. The college claimed that he tried to forced his student athletes to give him favorable reviews. He did so, according to the school, buy offering team captain positions to students in exchange for good reviews, and threatening to cancel a trip to San Antonio if his athletes did not give him good reviews.

The college’s case was undermined, however, by the facts. Babyak did not choose team captains, for example, but rather captains were chosen by a vote of the team members. Although the college maintained that Babyak had attempted to manipulate and bribe student athletes at a meeting, they admitted in court that they never even tried to interview an assistant coach and an athletic trainer who were at the meeting in which these untoward events allegedly took place.

Babyak insists that he does not want to become some sort of symbol, nor does he want his case to detract from any of the gains that female athletes have made, but he adds a commonsense bit of advice,

I’m trying to look at the positive side. Women have been struggling for equality for a long time. But once you reach equality, you have to treat people in kind. You can’t treat people as you have been treated in the past.

Source:

Smith bias case brought justice, ex-coach says. Ralph Ranalli, Boston Globe, December 20, 2001.

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Judge Fines Women for Violating Restraining Orders They Asked For

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Kentucky Judge Megan Lake Thornton is drawing the ire of some domestic violence activists by issuing contempt of court citations to women who obtain restraining orders against their partners and then return to the men who were allegedly abusing them.

Thornton told the Lexington Herald-Leader that she was tired of seeing women come before the court and receive a preliminary restraining order, only to learn that the women had returned to the men named in the restraining order before a follow-up hearing which normally occurs two weeks later. Thornton said,

In my experience on the bench, I have found that there has been a number of petitioners who have chosen to come and get an order, and then ignore the order. I think that both parties are obligated to follow through with the order. You can’t have it both ways.

Domestic violence activist Sherry Currens said that this policy may discourage women from seeking help. “The risk here is that women will be discouraged from asking for an order if they think it can get them into trouble later, or if they think a judge is going to chastise them in a courtroom,” Currens said.

But the bottom line is this — if a man is going to be punished for violating a restraining order when a woman voluntarily returns (and Judge Thornton also cited the men in each of these cases for contempt of court as well), it only makes sense to cite the women as well. Otherwise this creates the bizarre legal outcome that if there is a restraining order barring two people from having contact, and those people nonetheless consent to be in each other’s company, that only one is committing a crime.

There have been a number of egregious examples where this has happened, including a man who was arrested at his own wedding for violating a restraining order against his fiance, although no action was taken against the fiance. In other cases, individuals with restraining orders have used trickery to cause the person named in a restraining order to come into their presence and then call police (for example, when a woman might call up the individual named in the restraining order, ask him to come to clear out his things from her apartment, and arrange to have police waiting to arrest the man for violating the restraining order — which has actually happened).

There is some speculation in the Herald Leader about whether or not a restraining order in fact does apply to both parties, but whether or not it currently does, it most assuredly should or otherwise it creates a severe imbalance that is likely to be exploited and abused.

Source:

Judge fines women who return to their alleged abusers. John Cheves, Lexington Herald-Leader, January 3, 2002.

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South African Court Orders AIDS Drug to Be Given to Pregnant Women

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For years now, the government of South Africa has refused to allow the distribution of the anti-AIDS drug nevirapine to pregnant women. In December 2001, the Pretoria High Court ordered the government to provide the drug to HIV-postive pregnant women, but incredibly the government insists it will appeal the ruling.

Nevirapine is used widely around the world to reduce the risk of an HIV-positive mother passing along the disease to her unborn child. Studies show that pregnant women taking the drug cut in half the risk of passing HIV along to their children.

Although 200 HIV-positive infants are born every day in South Africa, the government has refused to allow distribution of the drug. The government claims it is not sure the drug is safe, although it has been tested extensively. It also argues that the drug is too expensive, but the drugs’ maker, Boehringer Inglheim, has offered to provide the drug free of charge to South Africa for at least the next five years.

The real reason the drug has not been distributed seems to be due to people within the government — including president Thabo Mbeki — who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS.

Source:

SA to fight Aids drug ruling. The BBC, December 19, 2001.

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French Gynecologists Refuse to Perform Ultrasounds in Wake of Abortion Ruling

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Last summer, France became the first country to my knowledge to rule that there was such a thing as a right not to be born. Now, French gynecologists are refusing to do ultrasound scans of pregnant women out of fears they will be held liable if they make a mistake.

In the case that set this precedent, a gynecologist doing an ultrasound did not notice that the fetus had Down’s Syndrome. The child sued the doctors on the grounds that his mother would have aborted him if she had known he would have Down’s. The child won in court and France’s highest appellate court upheld the verdict.

Since then, three other cases have been allowed to proceed where doctors are beings ued on behalf of children with birth defects that may have been detectable in ultraound procedures.

In response, gynecologists are refusing to perform ultrasound scans on any newly pregnant women (though they will perform scans on pregnant women who are already under their care). The doctors rightly note that even when performed correctly, there is no guarantee that a potential birth defect will be detected by ultrasound techniques. It is a very useful tool, but hardly a magic bullet for detecting things like Down’s Syndrome.

According to the BBC, the French government plans to offer some sort of protection from liability for gynecologists, but when this might happen remains to be seen. In the meantime, the odd result of the “right not to exist” cases is that they will likely put many more children at risk by turning a useful diagnostic tool into a weapon with which to bludgeon and bankrupt doctors.

Source:

Scan strike by French doctors. The BBC, January 3, 2002.

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The Latest Round in the Abortion/Breast Cancer Debate

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In early December 2001, the anti-abortion group LIFE released the results of an independent study that claimed to find overwhelming evidence that abortion contributes to breast cancer. Upon closer examination, however, this study does not offer any new information.

If the study’s supporters are to be believed, the research by Populations and Pensions Research Institute is a smoking gun that abortion and breast cancer are causally related. Researcher Patrick Carroll told the BBC, “There is no doubt there is a causal relationship.” Carrol want on to claim that fully half of new breast cancer cases in Great Britain were directly attributable to abortion.

But the study’s methodology does not warrant such claims. All the researchers here did was compare breast cancer rates and abortion rates for Great Britain, Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic. They found an association — namely that both the abortion rate and the breast cancer rate have been rising, and conclude that, therefore, the increase in the abortion rate is responsible for the increase in the breast cancer rate.

This is completely specious reasoning — correlation is not causation, no matter how much Carroll and others would like to think it is.

Sources:

Anger over abortion cancer study. The BBC, December 5, 2001.

Abortion link to rise in breast cancer. Michelle Nichols, The Scotsman (UK), December 5, 2001.

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New Emergency Contraception Laws Now in Effect in California, Illinois

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In Illinois and California, laws affecting emergency contraception — the so-called “morning after” pill — went into effect on January 1, 2002. In both states, the new laws are designed to make access to emergency contraception easier.

California took the biggest step, allowing women to obtain emergency contraception directly from pharmacists without first seeing a doctor to obtain a prescription. Jane Boggess, executive director of the Pharmacy Access Partnership which pushed for the change in the law, told the Sacramental Bee,

Women will now be able to go directly to their pharmacists for emergency contraception, which is a significant improvement over having to make an appointment with a doctor or clinic first. Time is of essence with emergency contraception. In order to prevent a pregnancy after unprotected sex, a woman must use emergency contraception within 72 hours.

Illinois, which already allows prescriptions for emergency contraception to be obtained over the Internet, added a mandate which requires hospitals to inform rape victims about emergency contraception. The legislature had originally considered forcing hospitals to provide such drugs to rape victims, but faced opposition from Catholic hospitals that opposed to emergency contraception on religious and ethical grounds.

Source:

New contraception law takes effect. The Sacramento Bee, December 31, 2001.

New state laws pending. Christopher Wills, Associated Press, January 1, 2002.

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Bill to Criminalize Marital Rape Creates Controversy in Malawi

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The BBC reports that a bill that make marital rape illegal is causing a great deal of controversy in the African nation of Malawi. Under Malawi’s current law, rape is nonconsensual sex with a member of the opposite sex who is not one’s spouse. Forcible sex with one’s spouse is not illegal.

Seodie White of Women in Law in South Africa told the BBC,

Courts have generally viewed rape, as created under the penal code, as not applying to married couples. And, based on our cultural beliefs, the consent to marriage has been recognised as automatic consent to sex even when the woman does not feel like it.

White’s assessment of the situation is confirmed by Malawi Supreme Court judge Duncan Tambala who the BBC reported as saying that making forcible sex within marriage a crime would be inconsistent with the concept of marriage itself.

“By entering into marriage each spouse is taken to have consented to sexual intercourse with the other spouse during the existence of his or her marriage.” Tambala said. “Marital rape, spousal battering and emotional abuse are not offences under domestic law.”

The proposed bill would punish marital rape with a minimum of 6 years in jail, but men interviewed by the BBC and African Eye News Service claimed the law would harm Malawi’s anti-AIDS effort and destroy families.

Source:

Row over Malawi marital rape bill. The BBC, December 26, 2001.

Marital rape is impossible. Brian Ligomeka, African Eye News Service, December 20, 2001.

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