By Sandra S. Park , ACLU Women’s Rights Project Should companies be able to patent human genes? Today, the Supreme Court answered that profound question with a resounding NO. Seems like common sense, right? But over the last 30 years, the U.S. Patent Office has issued patents on thousands of human genes, including genes associated with colon cancer, [...]

By Lenora M. Lapidus, Women’s Rights Project, ACLU Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act. On June 10, 1963, Congress enacted the first law to require employers to pay women the same salaries that they pay men. When the law was enacted, I was not quite one month old. My mother fought [...]

By Galen Sherwin, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project When Donnicia Venters disclosed to her manager as she was preparing to return to work after her maternity leave that she was breastfeeding and would need a place to pump breast milk, she was met with silence. And then told that her “spot ha been filled.” [...]

By Mie Lewis, Staff Attorney for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project This week, an Ohio federal jury awarded Christa Dias $171,000 after she was fired from her part-time teaching jobs at two religious schools. Dias had alleged that she was fired for becoming pregnant while unmarried. In response, the schools and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati had [...]

By Vania Leveille, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Lenora M. Lapidus, ACLU Women’s Rights Project Women make up almost half the workforce today, and, if they become pregnant, most will work throughout their pregnancy. Given this reality, you probably think the stories below are works of a bygone era. Well, you’d be wrong: A woman was 16 [...]

By Vania Leveille, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Lenora M. Lapidus, ACLU Women’s Rights Project Women make up almost half the workforce today, and, if they become pregnant, most will work throughout their pregnancy. Given this reality, you probably think the stories below are works of a bygone era. Well, you’d be wrong. A woman was 16 [...]

By Lenora Lapidus, Director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project On this International Women’s Day, March 8, we call on the United States government to apply the same human rights principles it preaches for women elsewhere around the world, to women here at home. We are currently in the middle of the two-week United Nations Commission [...]

Today the most severe abortion ban in the country passed in Arkansas. This is a sad day, not only for the women and families of Arkansas, but for women across the country. This afternoon, the Arkansas House voted to override Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto of a bill that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, just [...]

Today the most severe abortion ban in the country passed in Arkansas. This is a sad day, not only for the women and families of Arkansas, but for women across the country. This afternoon, the Arkansas House voted to override Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto of a bill that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, just [...]

By Phyllida Burlingame, ACLU of Northern California California state law mandates that sexual health education in public schools be comprehensive, medically accurate, science-based, and bias-free. So why are Clovis Unified High Schools teaching teens from a book that makes no mention of condoms, even in chapters about HIV/AIDS and on preventing STDs and unintended pregnancy? Recent events, such [...]

By Elissa Berger, ACLU Advocacy and Policy Counsel As you may have heard, Mississippi passed a law earlier this year, which was explicitly designed to shut down the only health care center in the entire state where a woman can get a safe, legal abortion.  In passing the law, some politicians made quite clear that they knew [...]

By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU The Kansas legislature is not known for being friendly to women’s health. Just last year, the Kansas legislature took away family planning and reproductive health services in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood and prohibited women from purchasing comprehensive health care coverage. This year, legislators were poised to [...]

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office Every few weeks, opponents of birth control manage to garner some media attention by objecting – again – to the federal contraceptive coverage rule, which ensures that millions of women will have affordable insurance coverage for contraception without extra out-of-pocket costs. But time after time, it’s just more of [...]

By Tiseme Zegeye, ACLU Women’s Rights Project & Elayne Weiss, ACLU Washington Legislative Office Earlier this week Huffington Post reported, "American women have served in the military since there has been an America to serve." And while it is widely acknowledged that women are already engaging in combat, American servicewomen continue to be officially excluded from being "assigned" to [...]

By Tiseme Zegeye, ACLU Women’s Rights Project & Elayne Weiss, ACLU Washington Legislative Office Earlier this week Huffington Post reported, "American women have served in the military since there has been an America to serve." And while it is widely acknowledged that women are already engaging in combat, American servicewomen continue to be officially excluded from being "assigned" to [...]

By Ariela Migdal, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project & Vania Leveille, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office Less than three months after the Pentagon announced that it was loosening the rules that bar women from being assigned to ground combat units, the Marine Corps followed suit, taking important steps to open up previously restricted opportunities [...]

By Deborah J. Vagins, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office Would you know if the person sitting next to you at work was being paid significantly more than you to do the same job? If you suspected that might be the case, would you know what to do about it? You might start by simply asking [...]

By Shantelle Hicks, ACLU client When I walked into the school gymnasium, every kid in my entire middle school was staring right at me — all 400 of them. It was like a bad dream. I was confused why the middle school department head had called me into the junior high assembly in the first place. Students who [...]

By Ariela Migdal, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project Peggy Young delivered letters and packages sent by air for UPS. When she got pregnant after struggling with infertility and IVF, her doctor recommended that she not lift more than 20 pounds. She asked UPS, where she had worked since 1999, for a "light duty" assignment, so [...]