Sandra Fluke, Georgetown University Law Students for Reproductive Justice

This blog is part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

As you may have recently read in the New York Times, although Georgetown’s student health insurance doesn’t cover contraception, it does cover birth control pills when they’re prescribed for medical reasons other than preventing pregnancy (e.g. severe acne, mood disorders, etc.).  This is called the “over-ride” process because it over-rides the usual ban on contraceptive coverage.  Unfortunately, this over-ride process is terribly flawed and fails many women at Georgetown.  The problems with this process illustrate the consequences for women’s health when university administrators dictate which reasons for a birth control prescription are the “right” reasons.

Because of an obsession with preventing students from fraudulently using the over-ride to get contraception coverage for the “wrong” reason (preventing pregnancy), students who attempt to use the over-ride process are sometimes subjected to questioning and accusations that they are lying about their qualifying medical needs.  This is followed with long delays and bureaucratic barriers that don’t exist for any other prescription covered by Georgetown’s insurance.  The Times profiled how Georgetown’s policy resulted in a medical tragedy for one woman.  In response a Georgetown spokeswoman said that:

problems like this were rare and that doctors at the health service knew how to help students get coverage for contraceptives needed for medical reasons.

If only that were true!  Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice actually surveyed students at the law school about this.  For some students, the over-ride process works adequately, but 65% of students attempting to utilize the over-ride process reported being subjected to extensive questioning, inordinate clerical issues, extensive delays, or other complications because of disbelief from doctors and insurance administrators.  20% either never received their medication or were never reimbursed by the insurance company.  Here are the experiences of just a few students:

I was without birth control for many months because of problems with the over-ride.  I spoke with people at [the student health] clinic, the Georgetown main insurance office, the insurance company, the drug insurance company, and a pharmacy.  I was put on hold multiple times and had to call some of these people multiple times.  After investing at least ten hours in the process, I gave up. . . .

Simply because I am sexually active, the doctor assumed I was lying even though I have medical needs.  I struggled with getting an over-ride because the doctor was hesitant even though I reported severe pain and mood changes that affect my functioning as a student. . . .

[M]y OB/GYN suspects that I have endometriosis and I took a specific pill to help control it.  Endometriosis cannot be definitively diagnosed without surgery, and obtaining a waiver was stressful and time consuming.  It unnecessarily distracted me from my classes. . . .

I have found the health care coverage ban on birth control embarrassing and potentially harmful.  When scheduling a yearly gynecological exam, I was subject to a line of hostile questioning twice: once by the person scheduling the exam and once by the doctor performing the exam.  The questions included queries about my sexual history, which seems appropriate for the doctor to ask about, but not the scheduler.  A yearly gynecological exam is a recommended procedure and may not even be tied to a birth control prescription.  Georgetown’s refusal to cover birth control creates a potential burden on a woman getting this exam at all. . . .

Tragically, Georgetown’s policy has also created rampant misinformation regarding student insurance coverage of women’s reproductive healthcare generally, leading to some students foregoing essential medical care:

[I] was intimidated by the [‘override’] process and thus I did forego OBGYN care for over a year.  More importantly, the reputation that Georgetown has as being . . . unsupportive of women’s reproductive health prevented me from seeking out STD testing after I was sexually assaulted.  (I assumed [Georgetown] would not cover my HIV/STD testing because when I was tested last year at my provider’s office . . . as part of a regular/routine exam, I paid $500 due to lack of coverage.  It was not until several months after I was assaulted that I found out . . . that [Georgetown] would cover such tests.  In general, there is a problematic lack of info about women’s health coverage on campus.  I did not even know I could get an OBGYN exam at the law center until a friend told me my 2L year.  While I support Georgetown’s Jesuit identity and am a person of faith myself, I find our school’s policy to be . . . harmful to students. . . .

I’d say “harmful to students” is putting it lightly.  That’s why we’re so thankful that the new Affordable Care Act regulations will protect vulnerable students and end these types of dangerous insurance policies!

Emily T. Wolf, Vice-President, Fordham Law Students for Reproductive Justice

This blog is part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Fordham University is a Jesuit school.  Because of this, students are not able to get birth control prescribed to them at the on-campus health centers.  Fordham LSRJ wanted to provide Fordham students with a way to have access to doctors and birth control prescriptions.  Here’s how we did it:

Step One:  Identify a Specific Problem

The problem that we chose to tackle was the fact that there was no notice on the health center’s website that students would not be able to receive standard health care.  There was no information that stated the health center is not able to prescribe birth control.  Under the heading “Women’s Health,” the site stated, “routine gynecological exams are available.”  If you searched further, you would find a question under the FAQs about scheduling a gynecological exam with some additional language:

“Remember, Fordham University is a Catholic and Jesuit University. As such, the physicians, nurse practitioners, and staff of the Health Center abide by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.  Those interested in these directives can read them, usccb.org/about/doctrine/ethical-and-religious-directives/ (You will leave this website.)”

If you follow that link, you will need to click on the 43 page document, and read it.  If you do a search for “contraception,” “birth control,” or “condom,” you will find zero matches within the document.  If you search for “contraceptive,” you will find three matches, including text that states, “Catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices but should provide, for married couples and the medical staff who counsel them, instruction both about the Church’s teaching on responsible parenthood and in methods of natural family planning.”

This was sufficiently vague and hidden such that students were not likely to be aware of this practice.  It does not state that Fordham University forbids its nurse practitioners from prescribing birth control at its on-campus health centers.  It is especially confusing given other language on the website that explains the health insurance offered by Fordham is required by New York law to cover birth control prescriptions.  So students who need birth control will need to go to a different health care provider and incur additional costs.

Fordham LSRJ spoke to the Director of Student Health Services at Fordham, who explained that there is a medical exception to these birth control directives.  So, theoretically, students who have health reasons for which birth control is standard treatment should be able to get a birth control prescription.  However, this is not the case.  We have information from many students who went to the health center with documented medical reasons to be on prescription contraceptives (endometriosis, ovarian cysts, dysmenorrhea) and were denied birth control.  We have not heard from any student who was prescribed hormonal contraceptives for any reason.

Step Two:  Identify Solutions

Our first solution was to ask the health center to update the website to reflect that students could not receive birth control prescriptions at Fordham.  This sounded easy and entirely reasonable!  We thought that it was a simple oversight on Fordham’s part not to include this information on their website.  We were wrong.

We began by writing a letter to the president of the University in October, explaining the situation and how it could be resolved.  We made this request from the position of consumers of Fordham’s health insurance looking for information, rather than as a group making demands.  We explained that adequate notice of Fordham’s policies were imperative in order to allow students to make the best decision regarding their health care.

We received an answer to our letter about two weeks after we sent it.  The response was basically that the University would look into making the communications and policies more clear.  (The website was eventually updated on January 23.)   Our follow-up questions to where these policies exist were met with a vague response stating the policy is reflected in the mission and tradition of the University.

At this point, we wanted to do something to draw attention to the issue and also something to help provide health care to the students who needed it.  And so we arrived at our next solution:  host a birth control clinic on or near campus!

Step Three:  Use the Resources in the Reproductive Justice Community to Make It Happen

Of course, we didn’t know exactly where to start.  We began by contacting the national LSRJ office, as well as some of our professors for names of doctors or nurse practitioners who would be willing to help us.  We were eventually put into contact with the amazing Institute for Family Health here in New York.  The doctors there were more than willing to come to Fordham to put on a clinic that would provide health care access to students.  They were also able to do this at no cost, which was a great help, since Fordham had asked us not to use any University funds for this event.

We also held our event just off campus at the New York Institute of Technology.  Fordham would not allow this event on campus.  NYIT was generous to provide us with a perfect space for the clinic without cost.

So we had an idea for an event (check), event space (check), doctors to prescribe birth control and answer questions (check), food (check – paid for by an anonymous donor), and prizes for reproductive rights jeopardy (check – thanks LSRJ!).  Now we just needed to let people know about the event.  We went to the press, submitting dozens of tips to any news source we could think of, which ended up being very successful.  The attention from the press led to even more support for our event, and we were able to get literature and support from other reproductive rights organizations, such as NARAL and Catholics for Choice.

Ginormous event poster - check! Photo of Leila and Emily in our lovely cafeteria courtesy of Bridgette.

During the event-planning process we ran into some roadblocks.  We weren’t able to put up posters around the law school advertising the event (our posters were not approved by Student Affairs), so we emailed the student body and asked students to put up mini-posters on their lockers that line the hallways of the law school.  We got an amazing response to this, and soon the school was full of posters anyway.  We also had some difficulties with our first space that we rented for the clinic.  We chose a space in a building just off campus that housed several floors of Fordham classrooms.  We thought that it would be convenient since students were already familiar with the space.  After we signed a rental contract, the organization refused to let us use the space. This was frustrating, and meant a time-consuming scramble for a new space, but we got it done.

So, how did it go?

Our birth control clinic and sexual health fair was a huge success!  Over one hundred people came to support us and forty women received birth control prescriptions.  The students who came engaged in small discussions around the room, and it was great to see many of the issues surrounding birth control at Fordham being hashed out.  It was also amazing to provide answers to questions that students had about Fordham policies or anything else, and to direct students to other resources when we did not know the answers.  We were so happy to have helped these students receive health care that they may not have received otherwise.

Lots of quality discussion! Photo courtesy of Fordham Observer.

Our event drew some local and national attention, largely due to the timing of the Department of Health and Human Services debating whether to extend the religious exemption to include religious universities in November and determining against this decision this January.  Our event was discussed in diverse media sources, such as Fox News, the New York Times, the Fordham Observer (here and here), Jezebel, RH Reality Check (here and here and here for podcast), Above the Law, the New York Daily News, Slate, the Huffington Post, the Daily Mail, and the National Catholic Register, among others.  We were interviewed for some of these publications, but not all.  In some cases, the authors of the articles misunderstood our event, and we made an effort to contact those authors to correct them in order to ensure our message was clear.  It was really interesting to read about our event in these sources, and to read the many (positive and negative) comments generated by those articles.

Bridgette being interviewed by Fox News. Photo courtesy of Emily.

We had our event attendees fill out a brief exit survey, which was helpful in determining how many people attended and the issues that mattered to them.  We received a lot of positive feedback from the students who attended, and got some great ideas for future birth control events.  For example, we heard several comments asking for “more diverse types and sizes of condoms” and “guest speakers for next time.”  My personal favorite piece of feedback was from an undergraduate who stated she said, “I posted about the event on my Facebook wall, and then got a message from my father, telling me to ‘grow up.’  Being conscious about my sexual health is growing up!”

This January, the University did update the website to address some of our concerns about the lack of clarity on Fordham’s policy.  We are glad that some progress was made.  The website now discusses birth control in two places – once in the FAQs and once in the Women’s Health Care section, where it is explicitly stated that “[n]either contraceptives nor birth control are distributed or prescribed on premises as a standard practice. Student Health Services does make limited exceptions for the treatment of medical conditions accompanied by supporting documentation.”  The language here is very clear, which we appreciate.  However, we still want to know what medical conditions are considered, of what severity, and what documentation students need if they have a medical reason to be prescribed oral contraceptives.  Given the requirement of documentation from and outside doctor, we also want to know why the people treating us aren’t allowed to make these diagnoses themselves.  We hope to continue working with Fordham to clarify these policies and educate students about the policies as much as possible.

Our impressions of this process left us in awe of the support that we received from the reproductive justice community.  We got many emails from students, professors, and alumni who were behind us.  We also were happy to see that it was really easy to put together the event with the support of the community.  But best of all, we helped Fordham women receive health care.

Candace Gibson, University of Utah College of Law

*The views expressed in this blog post are those of the blogger herself; she is not speaking on behalf of Law Students for Reproductive Justice.*

Many of my law school colleagues and I have dipped our toes in the immigration law pond.  In my experience, when people ask me what type of law I am most interested in, and I say, “immigration law,” it invites a conversation that I don’t want to have.  I’m hesitant to speak about immigration because I never know if the person on the other side will be an individual who has no idea that our immigration system is broken and will use language that is derogatory to me and the clients I’ve worked with.

With the start of Utah’s legislative session this week, I am not only feeling this hesitancy but anger.   Representative Herrod, who has announced that he will join the U.S. Senate race to upseat Senator Hatch, has decided to sponsor legislation that would gut the Utah Immigration Accountability and Enforcement Act passed last year.  The Utah Immigration Accountability and Enforcement Act would create a guest worker program for those who are undocumented in Utah but would like to legally work and live in the state.  In order to get a permit, individuals would have to get a background check, take English and civic classes, and their tax contributions would be tracked.   Aside from the constitutional issues at hand and the likely possibility that the federal government will not give a waiver so that the state can implement this legislation, many immigration advocates were excited because the bill was solution-oriented.  Herrod’s legislation would convert the Accountability and Enforcement Act to the Utah Illegal Alien Family Transition Pilot Program.  Don’t you love the name?  His legislation would only allow individuals who have either (1) overstayed their visas or (2) let their visas expire and have children of a certain age and that were born in specific countries apply. Individuals who came into the country without inspection or through non-legal means could not apply.  The bill would allow local enforcement agencies to detain individuals who they suspect of being in the country without any legal status and punish law enforcement agencies that do not comply with enforcement laws by withholding state funds from them.   Before any of this happens, the bill states that our congressional delegates must lobby for amending federal immigration statutes so that Utah may implement this program.  Herrod said this about his bill, “The forgotten person in all of this has been the legal immigrant. We’ve passed laws that are aiding those who come here illegally. That is wrong; we need to work on laws that aid the legal immigrant.”

What Herrod has forgotten or does not want to acknowledge is that in some places in the world there is no functioning way to legally migrate to the U.S.  If I have to wait at least ten years to migrate from Mexico through a family based visa or if my only other option is to be sponsored through an employer, that is not a functioning immigration system.   I am all for state legislation that pushes the federal government to reform our broken immigration system, but legislation that guts another bill that may be unconstitutional is a waste of time and only foments a heated debate.

Reproductive justice isn’t just about abortion and contraceptives, but about improving the lived realities that impact people’s ability to decide when, how, and if they want to parent.  Because many immigrant women have no legal status, they are more subject to intimate partner violence, lack insurance coverage, and are vilified through the media as mindless, breeding machines whose sole purposes are to birth “anchor babies” and “terrorists.” Immigrant women are clearly part of this struggle. In Utah alone, immigrant women already have been targets of gender-specific threats.  In 2010, Concerned Citizens of the United States compiled a list of 1300 individuals who they thought were in Utah without legal status, asking them to be deported, and sent the list to media outlets.  The list included names, social security numbers, and even pregnant women and their expected due dates.    Herrod’s bill isn’t going to help most immigrant women and it definitely isn’t adding anything new to our country’s immigration debate. 

Blogger Katie Halper gives us three reason why we wish we wish we could quit the Susan G. Komen Foundation. If your jaw hasn’t already dropped from hearing the news, the Komen Foundation has pulled funding from Planned Parenthood. Not cool, SGK, not cool.

Update: Interesting. Komen just announced they would “continue to fund existing grants” including those to Planned Parenthood. It’s still unclear, however, whether they will actually renew grants to PP. Could just be a make-nice public statement.  Stay tuned!

Low income and uninsured women of color are hit hard with funding cuts which may result in losing access to breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood. Oh, the irony.

More on Komen and a petition or two.

So where’s the noise? When it comes to Anti-choice outrage on the forced sterilizations of women of color, we’re hearing crickets.

Cindy Pearson reflects on how back in her day the co-pay for a month’s worth of contraceptives was a dollar. Oh, how times have changed.

Candace Gibson, University of Utah College of Law

*This post is part of a series written in support of Trust Women Week Silver Ribbon Campaign and the online virtual march from January 20-27. LSRJ is proud to partner with numerous orgs across the country – join the march by sending a message to your lawmakers today! And check back here throughout the week for more posts.

In May 2009, a 17-year-old girl in Naples, Utah, was pregnant.  She was charged with second-degree felony criminal solicitation to commit murder.  Why was she charged? She solicited a man to punch her in the stomach so that she would miscarry.  He accepted $150 from her, took her to the basement of his parent’s house, and kicked her in the stomach five times.  According to the young girl, who is now a young adult, she solicited the assault because her boyfriend threatened to break up with her if she did not terminate her pregnancy.  A juvenile court dismissed her case in 2009, but the Utah Supreme Court this past December reversed their decision.  They reasoned that an assault does not meet the statutory definition of abortion and now this young woman may face criminal penalties for this tragic incident in her life.

I don’t disagree with the Utah Supreme Court in saying that abortion as imagined by our state’s legislators is a medical procedure, although the term “medical” will most likely be co-opted by the Anti-Choice movement to exclude abortions achieved through pharmaceuticals (see the case of an Idaho woman who terminated her own pregnancy by ordering RU486 online and was charged  with a felony).  What I do disagree with is the numerous laws passed by state legislatures to restrict abortion services to the point that Roe v. Wade doesn’t make any impact in the lives of women who need it the most.  Remember what Justice Ginsburg said at the Aspen Institute in 2010, “If the court were to change its mind . . . the only women who would be truly affected are poor women. Because even at the time before Roe, women who wanted abortions could have a safe, legal abortion.”  The problem is, this great Justice has forgotten that most poor women still can’t have abortions because of the Hyde Amendment.

This young woman in Utah should have had the right to decide to be a parent, to give her born child up for adoption, or to have an abortion without emotional abuse from her boyfriend or having to deal with the heinous consequences and obstacles of laws that ultimately regulate abortions out of existence.  As the Guttmacher Institute said in their awesome video, “There will always be women who need abortions.”

Shandanette Molnar, George Washington University Law School

As a labor and birth doula and pro-choice advocate, there are many times where the rhetoric used to advocate for the right to terminate a pregnancy safely can also be used to advocate for the right to choose healthy and safe birthing options. Both birth options and pro-choice movements center on the idea that it is important to trust individuals to make decisions for themselves and their reproductive health. Particularly, when a pregnant person decides to choose a more natural approach to childbirth or wishes to avoid a Cesarean birth, there may be obstacles to achieving those goals. Unfortunately, many times these obstacles are institutional or placed by care providers. As an advocate, my goal is to assist clients to empower themselves and make informed choices, whether it be an choice related to birthing or terminating a pregnancy.

Of particular interest to me is the high rate of Cesarean births in the United States – 33%. This figure, double-to-triple the rate recommended by the World Health Organization, is complex and likely attributable to many causes. However, in many cases, a pregnant person’s wishes are not honored due to policies that are in place, such as bans on vaginal births after Cesareans (VBACs) and/or mandatory Cesarean births. When a pregnant person is unable to make decisions related to their reproductive health – or is unable to have their decisions honored – this issue oftentimes fits into a larger RJ framework.

Birth is a tremendous power that female-bodied persons possess. Unfortunately, much of this power remains unrealized due to the culture of fear around birth. Media depictions of birth often portray an angry woman, begging for drugs, and at the mercy of her care providers. For many, these images serve as the only reference to labor and childbirth, and therefore, many individuals remain unaware of how normal pregnancy and childbirth can be. With increased access to information and body-positive education and more “woman-centered care” allowing individuals to make informed choices, birth stories could be transformed into empowering experiences.

As I mentioned in my first blog post, I chose to go to law school in order to become a legal advocate for midwifery care, better birth and breastfeeding practices, and the rights of individuals to make decisions related to their reproductive health. For the 2011-2012 school year, I am working on a note for a government contracts publication, in which I will argue that if the government were to set aside certain contracts for midwives opening birth centers, healthcare costs and the national rate of Cesarean births would lower. In undertaking this project, I have been presented with fantastic opportunities to discuss the issue with professors and classmates. Additionally, if the note is deemed worthy of publication, it will be a great opportunity to draw attention from government procurement professionals to reproductive health issues and the right to exercise birth options.

Recently, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the LSAT, refused to accommodate a nursing mother who asked for additional break time to pump her breast milk. You can read more about it here. Two members of the LSRJ family want to share their thoughts on the situation: new mom Sara Taylor (’11, University of Michigan Law School) and resident blogger Joanne Caceres (’13, Harvard Law School).

If you want to take action, visit the ACLU Women’s Rights Project website.

Dear LSAC:

I am writing to ask you to seriously reconsider the Law School Admissions Council’s alleged policy of refusing accommodations for breast feeding women during the LSAT.  Breast feeding is not an ethos, it’s a serious physical issue that deserves serious consideration.

As a nursing mother, I would not think twice about asking for accommodation.  Having to be away from my infant and pump is an incredibly inconvenient enterprise, and one that I have to engage in as a working mother who ascribes to medical studies that breast milk has marvelous and unparalleled health benefits for my daughter.  I already have to suffer a great many social consequences for this choice.  This is the new century but people are no less disparaging of breast feeding in public.  While out, there are no outlets or chairs in public restrooms.  I have frequently had to feed my daughter bent over a changing table or sitting on a toilet.  While working, I have to find twenty minutes and an available conference room with a locking door and no windows, then I get to carry my pump equipment to the bathroom to wash it and find a spare spot in the fridge for all to see.  But I do it willingly, I do it for her.

I recently received a job interview that required travel.  I asked if, as a nursing mother, I could bring my daughter.  In the alternative, I asked to be gone no more than two days because I would have to pump milk ahead of time (which is exhausting and laborious).

The schedulers went out of their way to accommodate me, letting me take my daughter as a lap infant and making sure travel was short and that I had everything I needed.  And they did so as a pure matter of course, no problem at all.  I thought to myself, how wonderfully far we’ve come, when ten years ago I would have been afraid to mention that I was a mother when going to an interview, and I can now mention it and no one thinks twice.

When a nursing mother tells you they need time off to pump, they are not asking for any favors.  A pump isn’t the functional equivalent of a child; it doesn’t get all the milk out, reduces output later, extracts milk forcefully, and it requires lugging the pump around, washing out all the parts, and finding a way to store or dump the milk.  Pumping for 20 minutes doesn’t yield much milk and it takes about 45 minutes just to do it.  Plus, having that many calories removed from you at once is exhausting!  It’s a major hassle – it is not something one would choose to do unless they needed to do it.

Disappointingly few mothers are applying to law school and their perspective is both meaningful and worth cultivating.  Let’s try and minimize their barriers to entry wherever possible.  Pumping itself is a barrier, why in the world would you make it harder than that?

A proudly pumping attorney,

Sara Taylor (’11, University of Michigan Law School)

***********************

I’m sure anyone who keeps track of reprorights issues has heard about LSAC’s refusal to accommodate a nursing mother during the LSAT. After outreach from the ACLU, MomsRising and other advocates, LSAC’s response was that it was under no legal obligation to provide such accommodations. We should be mad at the policies of LSAC, and reach out to let them know this behavior isn’t acceptable. However, what is most troubling to me in not that in this day and age an organization could be so callous, it’s that we are moved to public outrage and letter writing because LSAC is right, they have no legal obligation to accommodate a nursing mother who is not an employee. I think that’s the real problem.

For all the benefits and advances women have thanks to Title IX in school and Title VII in employment, moments like these should remind us that those two laws do not encompass all of society. The most recent outrage with LSAC is a great illustration of the role private businesses—who may be restricted from discriminating against female employees but not clients—can affect something as fundamental to the American notion of equality as education.

So what should be done? Don’t let this blog serve to keep you from writing to LSAC. Public shaming does work to make single organizations fix audacious behavior in some instances. It may even cause other testing companies (whose policies I don’t know) to think hard before denying a similar request from a nursing mother in the future. Perhaps a case can be made to extend Title IX to private organizations whose services are used for entry into an educational program or activity that accepts federal funding. But if we want to promote more systemic change, I think we need better laws to protect women’s rights outside of work and the classroom. To do that, we need more pro-women politicians in office!

Joanne Caceres, Harvard Law School

Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women’s Rights Project

This entry is cross-posted from the ACLU Blog of Rights

Women should not be forced to choose between breastfeeding their babies and pursuing a legal education — right?

Wrong — at least according to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the LSAT.

This summer, our sister organization, MomsRising, contacted us about one of their members, Ashley (she prefers that we use only her first name), a new mom who was planning to take the LSAT in October. Ashley had asked for additional break time so that she could pump breast milk for her 5 month old son during the test. (It typically takes half an hour to pump, but the LSAT only has one 15 minute break during the test). Her request was denied — when she initially called to request this accommodation, she was told she would either have to take the test under standard procedure, wean her baby in time for the October 1 test date, or opt to take the test at a later time when she was no longer breastfeeding. Seriously.

When we looked into her case, we learned that LSAC has a blanket policy of refusing such requests from women who are breastfeeding, because they are not considered “disabled.” This puts breastfeeding women at a significant disadvantage. Babies typically eat every two to three hours; if moms are away from their babies and aren’t able to empty their breasts on the same schedule, it causes pain, possible infection, and reduction in milk supply. Without sufficient time to pump, Ashley, and other moms in her position, will become increasingly uncomfortable as the test progresses—a serious distraction that could lead to a lower score, not to mention the health risks.

Because the LSAT is one of the gateways to law school admission — it is universally used by U.S. law schools as a primary admissions criterion — this policy creates a barrier to women’s entry into the entire legal profession. And law is not the only profession with this problem in its testing system. A few years ago, a woman in Massachusetts had to get a court order so that she could pump during the Medical Licensing Examination.

In a phone call yesterday, the general counsel of LSAC, Joan VanTol, was unresponsive to arguments about inequality in educational opportunity, and merely reiterated her position that LSAT was under no legal obligation to offer Ashley an accommodation. Essentially, the message LSAC appears to be sending is that it does not care whether this policy disadvantages women.

When I called Ashley and told her that LSAC was not budging, she said (with some feeling), “I’m taking that exam on Saturday, no matter what.” But she still wants to push to change the policy, because “it’s just not right.” It sounds like she’s on track to become a kick-ass lawyer.

TAKE ACTION >> Send an e-mail to the Board and CEO of LSAC, urging them to change their policy and allow nursing mothers reasonable accomodations during the LSAT! Then, post the following to Twitter, to send them a message and to spread the word to your friends:

Hey @Official_LSAT! Don’t shut nursing moms out of law school! Change your policy to accommodate breastfeeding women! http://aclu.org/LSAT

As a special bonus action, if you’re really riled up, you can go to LSAC’s Facebook page, a post the same message above there as well. Let ‘em know how you really feel!

This is the third in a series of posts by LSRJ alum Heather Sager (’10, Indiana University Maurer School of Law) who recently took a position at the Human Rights Law Network in India. Heather will be bringing us along on her journey through the field of international reproductive rights work.

I’ve mentioned before that part of my work with HRLN focuses on holding public tribunals. At these tribunals, we host people who have approached the State Human Rights Commissions and were ignored. Since we can only host a limited number of complainants, we choose based on a variety of factors, one of which is the inclusion of a variety of human rights violations. We try to focus on some of the most pervasive issues within whatever state we’re working. One of the most common, disturbing problems we see across the board is rape.

Part of my research into any human rights issue includes looking into the relevant legal and procedural background. In the process of researching rape, which I believe to be worsened by largely systemic issues within the country, I began to write about some of the more all-encompassing legal and social problems. This introduced me to rape investigation procedure in India.

Last September, Human Rights Watch issued a report calling attention to the use of the per vaginum examination (or, ‘finger test’ as it has been affectionately dubbed) in examining rape survivors in India. The report called for Indian legislation to introduce a standardized method of examining women and for the government to ban the use of a cruel, archaic process.

The per vaginum examination has been a controversial method of post-rape examination for some time. The method requires that a doctor insert his fingers into the vagina. Through this, he determines whether the hymen is present or absent, the ‘laxity’ of the vaginal tissue, the general shape and consistency of the vagina.

Until recently, this method was used across the board, in every case of reported rape where a medical examination was performed. In many instances, the per vaginum examination was performed without the woman’s prior knowledge or consent.

The per vaginum examination has long been discredited as a reliable test for medical purposes. Not just highly subjective, with unpredictable results, because of the test’s methodology (if we’re being generous with the word), it’s particularly cruel when administered immediately following a traumatic sexual assault.

But despite the widely agreed-upon fact that a finger does very little to serve as a consistent standard, the state has done very little to see that this practice is stopped. In March of this year, the Union Health Ministry of India issued new standards of post-sexual assault examination that, while improved, are greatly lacking.

The good news is that the new standards have barred using such helpful medical determinants as how well the woman is dressed and how well she keeps up her oral hygiene. The bad news is that the guidelines only limit the use of the finger test, allowing medical personnel significant leniency in deciding whether a situation warrants the use of the test.

Arguments that the test could still be of some use have been put forth, and the Ministry seems to have been listening. I wonder if they were also listening when the courts have used ‘finger test’ results in rape proceedings, calling attention to whether the woman is ‘habituated to sexual intercourse.’ Although the Supreme Court of India ruled in 2003 that a woman could not be cross-examined on her moral character in a rape case, courts across the country have continued to issue opinions on the general believability of her testimony, based in part on whether she may or may not have been sexually active.

Although my work in Delhi doesn’t focus solely on women’s rights issues, we deal very heavily in the area. As part of the Tribunals we hold, I’ve met with rape survivors here who were beaten by their attackers, refused help by the police, and ignored by the Commissions whose responsibility it is to protect them. Let’s add to this the doctors who may or may not decide this “test” is necessary in order to examine them and a court that may or may not use her ‘vaginal laxity’ to determine her reliability as a witness.

And the standard that decides whether one is ‘habituated to sexual intercourse’? Two fingers.

Shandanette Molnar, George Washington University Law School

Before considering law school, I contemplated becoming a traditional midwife. After learning of the legal challenges that families and midwives face when attempting a more empowered birth experience, I decided that there was important legal work to be done and part of that work was my responsibility. In the meantime, I resolved to become a birth & postpartum doula and lactation educator and counselor so as to maintain my sense of self during law school.

As a maternal care, birth, and breastfeeding advocate, there are certainly times when I feel a disconnect between law school and the birth and reproductive justice movements. This is where LSRJ comes into the picture and precisely why campus-based reproductive justice work is so important. LSRJ bridges the gap between my outside and law school lives and repairs that schism I feel. With an LSRJ framework, I oftentimes engage with fellow classmates and raise awareness of reproductive justice issues. Through these conversations, our chapter highlights that reproductive justice is about much more than abortion. It is about the shackling of incarcerated pregnant women, mandatory Cesarean births, bans on vaginal births after Cesareans (VBACs), domestic violence, and access to information and quality healthcare across the full spectrum of a person’s reproductive life. When possible, I highlight the metarights because they are just so powerful – the right to have children, the right not to have children, and the right to parent the children we have with dignity.

Next week, our chapter will be co-hosting a feminist networking event for students. In an effort to give back to the law school community, I am hoping that I will be able to connect with a new chapter member or schoolmate – perhaps a 1L – and assure them that if they are interested in the work, reproductive justice and LSRJ provide many intersections to pursue meaningful work, both on and off campus.

Though I have often doubted my decision to attend law school, I feel confident in the decision I made now that I have 1L year behind me. Additionally, I think it will be easier to be a lawyer in midwifery school than it would have been to be a midwife in law school. Sure, I still desire to become midwife, but that’s how I’ll spend my fifties+ life. In the meantime, I am going to dedicate myself to combining my legal advocacy skills with a commitment to better birth, breastfeeding, and maternal care practices, as well as birth and reproductive justice. I hope a few of my amazingly talented law school comrades will join me as well.