Tag Archives: Civil Liberties

Abortion Rights: March for Women's Lives -- April 2004 "Washington Monument"

What to do about the assault on abortion rights

Activism, Civil Liberties, , ,

I’ve been wondering what can I do to support reproductive freedom and abortion rights in light of the terrible, vile laws that have been passed recently, and I’ve come up with three prongs:

  • Your money
  • Your words
  • Your brain

Use your dollars

As is so often the case, money always helps. It costs a lot of money to fight these laws and to support individuals directly affected by them.

Donate to those organizations on the frontline of the abortion fight. Certainly, that includes the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL. But also include those smaller organizations that may not get so much publicity, such as the Yellow Hammer Fund, which directly supports those seeking care at one of Alabama’s three abortion clinics, or ARC-Southeast, which helps individuals travel to Atlanta to get reproductive services.  The National Network of Abortion Funds lists funds in many US states as wells as some supporting women outside the US.

But we can also work to reduce the flow of money to politicians who advocate and pass these laws.  So, share your concern with those whose dollars are going to those who oppose abortion rights. There are lists of companies that support the sponsors of these bills. Use them. Conversely, thank those companies that take a public stand against these laws, 

Use your words

Contact your legislators (no matter where you live) and tell them you, as a voter, can only support those who stand on the right side of this issue and back that up with your actions. Even in states that aren’t at risk to pass bad laws, we can get new, supportive laws passed, like the law in Maine allowing nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurse midwives to provide abortion services.

Share your stories of how reproductive freedom and the assault on it affects you. Many people have shared moving stories of abortion in their lives. But even if you don’t have that story to tell, you may have another one. My wife and I can talk about choosing when to have our son (who is perfect in every way ?) and the options available to us, because of where we live and the resources we have. 

Hold legislators and candidates (including the 2020 Presidential candidates) accountable for speaking clearly. They can’t mumble, sound wishy-washy, or equivocate. They must give full-throated, clear support for abortion rights, and we need to hold them to that. At this point, we can’t accept a candidate who will merely parrot back stock phrases about his or her support for a pro-choice position (“I will appoint judges who support Roe v. Wade”). Candidates need actual plans and policies. 

Use your brain

The anti-abortion movement, like so much on the right today, willfully, flagrantly denies science, logic, and evidence.  Take, for example, the current spate of “heartbeat” bills, banning abortion at six weeks. As Dr. Jen Gunter says, these should be called “fetal pole cardiac activity bills.” That’s because, at six weeks, a fetus DOES NOT HAVE A HEART.

Abortion Rights: Man holding sign, "Warning: Dangerous Fanatics Ahead" during the March for Women's Lives, April 25, 2004
March for Women’s Lives, April 2004

Ohio’s recent bill allows for insurance coverage for transplanting the fertilized egg in an ectopic pregnancy (when the fertilized egg implants outside of the uterus). This procedure does not exist! As Daniel Grossman, MD, Director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, states in an excellent twitter thread, this is “pure science fiction.”

Clarence Thomas’s recent concurrence in the Mike Pence/Indiana abortion case provides another example of willfully distorting the historical record. Thomas claims that the “foundations for legalizing abortion in America were laid during the early 20th-century birth-control movement.” This simply is not true. As it was in England, abortion was legal in colonial times. Abortion prior to “quickening” only became criminalized in the 1860s.

I’d add that Adam Cohen, the author of the book that Thomas cites in linking abortion and eugenics clearly indicates that Thomas gets this wrong too. While it may be true that Margaret Sanger supported eugenics, none of this was about abortion, which as illegal at the time. 

So, use your brain, use logic, and help others recognize the fallacies and fantasies in these laws. If one really wanted to support women’s health, the lives of children, and even reduce abortion, there are policies that could actually do this. 

Hand-painted "Vote" sign

Polling and voter fraud

Blog Postings, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Research, , ,

A recent Morning Consult/POLITICO poll indicated that a plurality of voters think that Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton was helped most by voter fraud. According to the poll, 35% of respondents think voter fraud helped Donald Trump and 30% think it helped Hillary Clinton. Only 18% indicated that no voter fraud occurred (another 17% said they didn’t know or had no opinion).

That’s an interesting result and, in some ways, runs counter to Trump’s narrative of the popular vote. If voter fraud helped him more than it helped Hillary Clinton, then it can’t be responsible for his being a loser in the popular vote. He just lost.

But in a more important way, it confirms Trump’s and the Republican’s narrative about wide-spread voter fraud. Regardless which candidate they think it helped in this past election, if the general public believes voter fraud is pervasive, it becomes much easier to enact legislation to fight this non-existent problem. And the problem does not exist. As nearly every credible study has shown, incidence rates of voter fraud are just infinitesimal (see the Brennan Center’s terrific report for an excellent summary of the evidence).

But the polling itself, and the reporting of it raises some concerns for me. The Morning Consult article on the results does lead with the sentence, “President Donald Trump has insisted, without evidence [emphasis added], that the 2016 election was rife with illegal voting…” But that statement could be interpreted just that Trump himself provided no evidence, not that no evidence for voter fraud exists.

While it’s true that Trump has provided no evidence, any story on this issue, including reports of survey results such as this, should go further and affirmatively state that evidence for significant in-person voter fraud does not and could not exist, because you can’t provide evidence for something that doesn’t actually occur.

I’ll go even further and suggest that an article on suggestions of voter fraud should include reference to the much more significant issue of voter suppression. It, after all, does exist. Since the wave election of 2010 and after the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court case, 20 states have passed laws to restrict voting. More importantly, these laws affect Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters at significantly higher rates than White voters.

Woman holding sign that says "Voter Suppression is Unamerican"
Voting Rights March on 10 December 2011 in NYC

Brendan Nyhan and others have researched and discussed the difficulty of challenging false information, and how attempts to rebut such misinformation can lead to a “backfire” effect. When attempt to rebut a false statement, one can actually reinforce those falsehoods with those who are motivated to believe the incorrect facts because the falsehoods support their world view. Instead, it may more effective to to frame your rebuttal in an affirmative way, rather than directly counter the false information.

This leads to my broader concern about this poll. When one asks about issues for which clear answers exist, what is our responsibility as researchers? We can study perceptions of voter fraud and we can report on what our respondents believe, but we can’t let that stand alone. But as I’ve just stated, when reporting the results, we must include the reality of the situation (e.g., widespread voter fraud does not exist; almost no cases of in-person fraud have been uncovered). Otherwise, we risk contributing to the perpetuation of false information.

But what about within the poll itself? Do we have any duty to our respondents to correct knowingly false information? Clearly, we wouldn’t want to bias the answers, but at the end of the survey, do we connect respondents to the true information? I don’t have good answers on this, but it’s an important question to consider.

Cool TED Talk on using surveillance to reveal government atrocities

Blog Postings, Civil Liberties, Featured, , ,

Here’s a very cool TED talk on human rights activists turning surveillance on its head — using  tiny hidden cameras to document atrocities for the world to see, and for the oppressors to know that the world sees their actions.  It’s by Oren Yakobovich, head of the human rights organization Videre.

We should remember that in the US, we should have the right (except under very limited circumstances) to film or photograph government officials, including the police, while they are performing their duties.

A good resource for this is the Photography is not a Crime website.  The Washington Post also just had a decent article on this issue.  And here’s an ACLU post on it by Jay Stanley, which includes an incident that the ACLU-NJ handled where the police not only detained a student for filming them, they illegally searched her phone and deleted the video.

A related issue exists when citizen journalists and activists want to film local governmental meetings.   While a government agency can place reasonable restrictions (e.g., time, place, and manner), they (at least in NJ) can’t forbid video audio or video taping.  The ACLU-NJ has a PDF pamphlet on New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act.

Do I have the right to record public meetings? Although the Sunshine Law does not address this topic, the New Jersey Supreme Court held in Tarus v. Pine Hill, 189 N.J. 497 (2007) that members of the public have a common law right to videotape public meetings, subject to only reasonable restrictions. You also have the right to audiotape public meetings as well. A public body may adopt written policies that reasonably restrict recording to ensure that the recording does not disrupt the meeting. The policies could require you to sign up in advance to record the meeting and may limit the number of people recording and the number of cameras, as well as their position, lighting and location.

 

Criticism from the Police used to stifle dissent

Blog Postings, Civil Liberties, Featured, ,

The latest major example of the police or government “expressing their opinion” in a way that stifles dissent happened after Sunday’s St. Louis Rams/Oakland Raiders football game. Five Rams players (Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens and Kenny Britt) entered the stadium in the now classic “hands up/don’t shoot” position, as many protestors are doing.  Following this, the St. Louis police association strongly expressed their disapproval and “… called for the Rams and the NFL to apologize and discipline the players involved.”

This is certainly not the first time government officials tried to use the power of their office or position to stifle the free speech of NFL players.   In 2012, when Baltimore Raven Brendon Ayanbadejo expressed support for marriage equality, Maryland House of Delegates member Emmett C. Burns Jr called on the team owner to discipline Ayanbadejo and tell him to not talk about the issue.

In my home state of New Jersey, a similar incident happened in Trenton, also about the killing of Michael Brown. In this case, the Trenton Downtown Association (TDA) authorized a mural, and the artist painted a picture of Michael Brown with the words “Sagging pants is not probable cause.”  However, after the Trenton Police and the TDA had “discussions” the city painted over the mural.   Fortunately, the ACLU of New Jersey and the Trenton NAACP have voiced their disapproval and made OPRA (Open Public Records Act) requests to understand how this happened.

Should we give them the benefit of the doubt? Do the police and government officials really think they’re just using their first amendment rights to express their opinions?  I don’t think so. In most cases, they’re surely fully aware that people do what they say because of the power they have.  Their thoughts aren’t merely contributing to the marketplace of ideas, but they are using their power to accomplish what they want.

But it really doesn’t matter if government officials and the police think they are merely expressing their opinions.  We need to ensure that they don’t succeed in stifling free speech.