Monthly Archives: September 2002

Pregnancy Test Records Should Remain Private

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The New York Times recently reported about an outrageous violation of the privacy rights of women in Buena Vista County, Iowa, who received pregnancy tests at clinics and hospitals.

In May, Buena Vista police discovered a horrific crime. They found the dismembered body of a dead baby in the county recycling center. With almost nothing to go on, the county sheriff came up with a brilliant plan — ask clinics and local hospitals to turn over the names of women who had received pregnancy tests.

Unbelievably, almost all of the clinics and hospitals complied. The local Planned Parenthood did not, and is currently in a legal battle with the county over whether or not it can be forced to turn over records of pregnancy tests.

Since police have no evidence at all that the mother of the dead baby is a local woman, much less that she might have been a patient at any particular clinic, the police request is simply a fishing expedition that clearly violates patients’ right to privacy. This sort of blanket request is just as wrong as are proposals to build genetic databases of everybody who comes in contact with police in order to try to better track perpetrators of rape, murder and other crimes.

And some of the clinics who cooperated with the police request might have to pay. At least one woman whose name was turned over to police by the clinic where she received a pregnancy test is considering suing the clinic for damages.

Receiving a pregnancy test is not a suspicious criminal activity and women who request pregnancy tests should not fear that doing so may result in their names being released to police.

Source:

Privacy furor over subpoena in baby’s death. Adam Clymer, The New York Times, August 21, 2002.

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Sky High Malpractice Insurance Closing Obstetrics Wards

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In June the American Hospital Association released a troubling survey of hospitals and health care organizations around the country. Fully 20 percent of the institutions surveyed had cut back on services and 6 percent had eliminated some units outright as a response to the increasing cost of medical malpractice insurance.

The malpractice issue has especially hit obstetrics wards and obstetricians hard. Obstetrics is a marginal money maker at best, and the incredibly high cost of insurance is leading some hospitals to curtail or outright close their obstetrics units.

The New York Times report on the survey notes that at least 6 hospitals around the country closed their obstetrics wards this summer. Some rural clinics have gone out of business altogether.

How expensive is medical malpractice insurance? According to The Times, the worst places for obstetricians is currently Florida. In Fort Lauderdale and Miami, the cost of insurance for obstetricians run as high as $200,000 per year.

Hospitals now pay massive bills for medical malpractice insurance. Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University Hospital was hit with a $32 million bill this year for its insurance. It responded by closing the maternity unit at a South Philadelphia hospital it operates.

And what is truly shocking is that most of the larger feminist organizations are silent on the topic. The National Organization for Women, for example, spends a lot of time and money defending abortion providers, but has done nothing to highlight the problems faced by obstetricians from medical malpractice lawsuits.

In fact, the only time the issue of malpractice insurance reform is mentioned on NOW’s web site is to ridicule a statement by George W. Bush’s about his medical malpractice reform efforts while he was governor of Texas.

It’s a shame that NOW and other feminist organizations can’t make women’s access to obstetricians as high a priority as women’s access to abortion providers.

Source:

Rise in insurance forces hospitals to shutter wards. Joseph B. Treaster, The New York Times, August 25, 2002.

Bushisms. National Organization for Women, Accessed: September 10, 2002.

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Germaine Greer Calls for a Veiled Protest

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Germaine Greer has called for women in Australia to protest against the war in Iraq and the clothing industry by wearing veils. Seriously.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Greer told an audience at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival,

Imagine if Melbourne – if Australia – became a sea of black veils … it would be a protest that would be undeniable.

. . .

When I was a young hippy I thought marching naked would be a strong protest but I don’t think it would be as effective now.

But if every woman were veiled, it would be very disturbing, at least to the clothing industry.

Greer also told the audience that women should revolt against “invasive medical procedures” such as pap smears and mammograms which she said were part of a worldwide movement to make women fear their own bodies.

Source:

Germaine Greer wants veiled war protest. The Sydney Morning Herald, September 2, 2002.

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Is El Paso, Colorado’s Fast Track Domestic Violence Program Constitutional?

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The Colorado Springs Independent has a detailed look at El Paso County, Colorado’s fast track domestic violence program.

After someone accused of domestic violence is arrested, he or she is held at least one night without bond. The accused is then offered a choice by a district attorney — accept a plea bargain or face spending a lot of time in jail if the case goes to trial. The idea is to pressure the defendant into accepting a plea bargain within 24 to 48 hours of arrest.

The problem is that at no point are defense attorneys or public defenders involved in the process. Since the accused has been locked up overnight, he or she has not had an opportunity to call a lawyer, and no public defenders or defense attorneys are parent when the plea bargain offer is made.

The Colorado Springs Independent article quotes from a number of critics of the program who believe the inability to post bond and the lack of any sort of advocate for the accused renders the entire program an unconstitutional violation of the defendant’s right to counsel.

The article notes that several people who accepted plea bargains under this procedure later had judges withdraw their please — including one man who successfully challenged his plea bargain on the grounds that it had been coerced.

An interesting side bar is that while the domestic violence advocates in the article don’t seem to object to the questionable constitutional nature of the proceedings, they are concerned about another fact — 24 percent of the defendants who go through this system are women.

The Colorado Springs Independent quotes local domestic violence activist Cari Davis as saying that something must be wrong since nationwide only 5 percent of the perpetrators of domestic violence are women. In fact, numerous studies show that men and women are roughly equally likely to engage in domestic violence. The difference in Colorado is likely laws requiring arrest of those accused of domestic violence. Rather than women being disproportionately overrepresented in domestic violence arrests in Colorado, it is more likely that women are disproportionately underrepresented in domestic violence arrests in states that give police officers discretion on whether or not to arrest in domestic violence cases.

Source:

Railroaded for domestic-violence defendants, El Paso County?s ?fast track? may not always lead to justice. Terje Langeland, Colorado Springs Independent, August 15-21, 2002.

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Avoid Deadbeat Parent Problems by Enforcing Visitation Orders/Joint Physical Custody

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The Christian Science Monitor’s Marilyn Gardner wrote an interesting article about ‘deadbeat’ dads that acknowledged the problem with parents failing to pay child support but balanced it with a look at the obstacles that stand in the way of noncustodial fathers and mothers.

One of the interesting statistics Gardner cites is how the likelihood of a parent failing to pay child support increases when the noncustodial parent’s ability to visit the child is cut off by the custodial parent. Gardner writes,

Some fathers want an end to what appears to be a double standard in the legal system.

“They throw fathers in jail for not paying support,” [Fathers' Rights Foundation founder Ronald] Isaacs said. “But they don’t throw mothers in jail for denying visitation. If the courts would enforce visitation orders with the same vigor that they enforce child support, they would get a lot more money than they do by going after these few people.”

As Gardner notes, custodial parents sometimes have what they believe are very good reasons to violate court-ordered visitation. But those sorts of issues should be addressed by independent mediators and/or the courts, not the custodial parent. Courts should enforce visitation orders just as they enforce child support and other orders.

Going even further, courts should have a presumption of joint physical custody. Joint legal custody is already common, and several states have a presumption of joint legal custody. With joint physical custody, the child spends time living with both parents on an agreed upon schedule, typically with the child residing with one parent 70 percent of the time and with the other parent 30 percent of the time (50/50 arrangements are also common). This keeps both parents active in the life of the children.

Now obviously there are many circumstances in which joint physical custody is simply not possible or feasible, but courts should presume joint physical custody unless and until circumstances of the individual case suggest that a different arrangement would be better for the children involved.

Source:

Making ‘deadbeat’ parents a thing of the past. Marilyn Gardner, Christian Science Monitor, August 28, 2002.

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Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Dismissed Over Plaintiff’s Loose Lips

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Women’s E-News reports that a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against Ford Motor Company was dismissed by a judge after the plaintiff and plaintiff’s lawyers publicly talked about a prior sexual misconduct conviction by one of the defendants.

Justine Maldonado is suing Ford claiming that an inspector at one of its plants, Daniel P. Bennett, exposed himself to her and demanded oral sex. Several other women have filed similar lawsuits against Ford and Bennett. According to Women’s E-News, Ford maintains that it investigated the complaints and found them baseless.

Maldonado and her lawyer both gave interviews with reporters in which they discussed Bennett’s 1995 conviction for exposing himself to three women. Under the terms of that conviction, Bennett’s conviction was expunged after he met court-determined requirements.

Circuit Court Judge William J. Giovan dismissed Maldonado’s lawsuit saying that the plaintiffs efforts at publicizing the expunged conviction was little more than an attempt to prejudice any jury that might hear the case. In his decision, Giovan wrote that, “The behavior in question has been intentional, premeditated and intransigent. It was designed to reach the farthest boundaries of the public consciousness.”

According to a Detroit Free Press story, along with interviews with the press Maldonado and her lawyer also staged protests and handed out flyers detailing Bennett’s expunged conviction.

Sources:

Lawyer to file appeal in Ford case. Alejandro Bodipo-Memba, Detroit Free Press, August 27, 2002.

Judge Dismisses Sex Harassment Suit against Ford. August 31, 2002.

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