The Catalyst
December 2001 Vol. 7, No. 2
Statements or expressions of opinion or comments appearing herein are those of the editors or contributors, and not necessarily those of the association or section.
Contents
* Gender fairness roundtables to be held in early 2002
* Momentum builds for employers to provide insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives
* Appellate court receptions provide networking opportunities
* The aftermath of September 11th: recognizing women's rights as an international issue
| * | Book review |
| * | The Illinois Equal Justice Foundation: promoting access to justice for the people of Illinois |
* Two awards bestowed upon the Women Everywhere Service Project
Gender fairness roundtables to be held in early 2002
Are judges ensuring that gender bias does not occur in their courtrooms? Have bar associations paid sufficient attention to gender bias issues in continuing legal education courses? Are the courts adequately enforcing sexual assault and domestic violence laws? Are divorcing spouses getting equitable benefits from the marriage? Are law schools doing their part to educate future lawyers about gender-related issues?
The ISBA's Committee on Women and the Law will be seeking the answers to these and other questions during a series of roundtable discussions in early 2002. The roundtables are part of the committee's ongoing review of the 1990 Task Force Report on Gender Bias in the Courts, which identified gender issues in four substantive areas-- Domestic Relations, Criminal Justice, Civil Damage Awards, and Courtroom Dynamics--and recommended specific actions to be taken by the legislature, the judiciary, bar associations, and others. In a preliminary review of the report last year, a subcommittee of the Women and the Law Committee concluded that significant progress has been made in the legislative arena but further inquiries were necessary to determine how well the other recommendations have been implemented.
To obtain this additional information, the committee will be seeking input from attorneys and the general public throughout the state. Roundtables will be held in Chicago, Champaign and Carbondale. The committee will accept written comments as well as oral remarks at the meetings. The precise dates of the roundtables have not yet been determined, but ISBA members within each region will receive further information by mail within the next several months.
Anyone who is interested in participating in the roundtables or otherwise providing information to the committee can contact one of the following coordinators: In Chicago, contact Meredith Ritchie 312/793-3846 or Patrice Ball-Reed 312/603-3469; in Champaign, contact John Thies 217/367-1126 or Claire Manning 217/524-8506; and in Carbondale, contact Alice Noble-Allgire 618/453-8751 or Tracy Prosser 618/439-7722.
Momentum builds for employers to provide insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives
By Cindy Bordelon, Insurance Analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Since late last year, several developments have added momentum for employers to provide insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives. In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that an employer health plan that excludes contraception violates the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. That ruling, which did not have the force of law, involved two unidentified employers. In June of this year, in Erickson v. The Bartell Co., a Washington federal district court ruled that a self-insured Seattle company engaged in sex discrimination by excluding prescription contraceptives from coverage under an employee benefit plan.
In addition to proposed federal legislation mandating coverage, fourteen states, including California, have already approved legislation requiring insured health plans and health maintenance organizations that provide prescription drug coverage to cover contraceptives. Legislation is pending in another sixteen states, including New York. However, these state laws do not apply to self-insured employer plans. The California legislation recently survived a legal challenge. In July 2001, a California appellate court in Catholic Charities of Sacramento, Inc. v. The Superior Court of Sacramento County ruled that the California law requiring employers to offer contraceptives as part of their prescription benefit plans does not violate the constitutional rights of a Catholic charity. Catholic Charities of Sacramento, Inc., with the support of other organizations with ties to the Roman Catholic Church, sought injunctive relief against the state coverage mandate. The appellate court disagreed with Catholic Charities' argument that requiring the organization to provide contraceptive coverage "impermissibly burdens" its religious beliefs. The court reasoned that a ruling in favor of the charity would allow the employer to impose its religious views on its employees when nearly 75 percent of the employees at Catholic Charities of Sacramento are not Catholic.
One state insurance commissioner has ruled that health insurers in his state must not exclude or reduce coverage under any health plan on the basis of sex. On July 18, 2001, Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler filed a new rule, effective January 1, 2002, providing that it is "an unfair practice for any health carrier to restrict, exclude, or reduce coverage or benefits under any health plan on the basis of sex and will apply to all health benefit plans regulated by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner." Commissioner Kreidler stated that "in effect, the Bartell decision takes care of contraceptive coverage with the [state's] employers and my rule takes care of the [state's] health insurers."
Prior to the Insurance Commissioner's ruling, the Washington state affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) had filed a lawsuit against Regence BlueShield for failing to provide coverage of prescription contraceptives in the health insurance policies it sells to the ACLU, NARAL and other small employees in Washington state. The Insurance Commissioner's rule will force Regence BlueShield to provide coverage for prescription contraceptives if it also provides prescription drug coverage. However the ACLU planned to proceed with its lawsuit in order to get a court mandate for the coverage to stay in place.
There are three other factors that may lead employers to consider offering insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives. The first factor is a recognition that, no matter what contraceptive coverage might cost, the costs associated with unwanted pregnancies are likely to be significantly greater. According to data compiled in May by The Segal Co. of New York, oral birth control pills, the most commonly used prescription contraceptive, have a projected total annual retail cost of $300 per user. An increasing number of employers now recognize that this expense is far outweighed by the total cost to an employer of an unwanted pregnancy, in terms of lost time, reduced productivity, turnover and medical costs. Planned Parenthood claims that every 1,000 unintended pregnancies will cost businesses $542,000 this year.
The second factor is a basic sense of fairness for women, because many plans already cover Viagra, a drug used to treat impotence in men. The Washington-based Women's Research and Education Institute claims that contraceptive costs are one of the chief reasons women spend 68 percent more out of pocket than men on health care. Employers claim that prescriptions are leading to sharp increases in health insurance costs. However, a 1998 report from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based health research organization, reported that when employers add birth control pills and other forms of prescription contraceptives to health plans, their costs rise less than 1 percent, or about $17.12 per employee.
Finally, employers may consider offering coverage for prescription contraceptives to avoid employee lawsuits. In mid-2001, an American Airlines flight attendant filed a complaint with the Los Angeles office of the EEOC to force her employer to cover contraceptives, pap smears and infertility treatments for all employees. American Airlines covers contraceptives prescribed for medical conditions but not for birth control.
Appellate court receptions provide networking
opportunities
By Claire A. Manning, Chairman, Illinois Pollution Control Board, Springfield
One of the goals of the ISBA's Standing Committee on Women and the Law is to "encourage women in their involvement in the legal community at all levels." As part of that mission, the committee has been hosting receptions at appellate court buildings throughout the state, inviting all women attorneys and judges within each particular appellate district to attend.
In the past two years, receptions have been hosted in the Fifth District appellate court (Mount Vernon), the Fourth District appellate court (Springfield) and the Second District appellate court (Elgin). The committee is in the planning stages for a reception at the Third District appellate courthouse in Ottawa on Friday, April 5, and one in the First District (Chicago) within the next year.
These receptions provide an excellent opportunity for area lawyers and judges to network and visit socially. It is a chance to meet other women from the legal community, swap business cards, catch up with classmates and friends or just enjoy a friendly conversation. The receptions also have included a tour of the appellate court and facilities, giving participants a unique opportunity to view the inner workings of the court.
The most recent reception was held at the Second District appellate courthouse in Elgin on September 14, 2001. Because Second District Appellate Judge Susan Hutchinson is a member of the Standing Committee on Women and the Law (as well as co-chair of the subcommittee coordinating the receptions), this reception provided participants with a unique and special opportunity to "visit" at--and with--the court.
Similar opportunities presented themselves at the previous receptions. Guests at the Mount Vernon reception were treated to a private tour of the historic Fifth District courthouse, including the living quarters for the traveling appellate justices. In Springfield, the reception included a tour of the Illinois Supreme Court, which shares the building with the Fourth District appellate court. Attending that reception were Rita Garman (then a Fourth District Judge and now on special appointment to the Illinois Supreme Court); Sue Myerscough (Fourth District Appellate Judge); and Ben Miller (then, Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court from the Fourth District).
The committee hopes to host another reception in the Fourth District in Springfield sometime in the future. That reception will provide area lawyers with an opportunity to view the new Fourth District appellate courthouse that is scheduled to open soon in the renovated historic Waterworks building in Springfield.
For further information or suggestions for future receptions, contact co-chairs Judge Susan Hutchinson (815-338-5875) or Pollution Control Board Chairman Claire Manning (217/524-5000 or (manningc@ipcb.state.il.us).)
The aftermath of September 11th: recognizing women's rights as an international issue
By Amanda DeVincentis, Associate, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Chicago
What role shall we play in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack? How do we struggle to not only find meaning after those events, but also work for the advancement of women's rights and an awareness of the plight of women internationally?
As the history of the women's movement has shown, women and men work in myriad ways to address women's issues, fight for women's rights and protest abuse and subjugation. The response to September 11 is no different, and yet the events and aftermath underscore that the struggle is indeed international and the United States is not immune but, to the contrary, must play a role in global women's and human rights. This article describes three international organizations that are helping to fulfill that role.
Women, Law & Development International
Women, Law & Development International (WLDI) is a women's human rights organization that was established in 1979 and became an independent organization in 1993. "Making Human Rights Work for Women" is the slogan that appears at the top of its web page, www.wld.org, followed by this explanation of its purpose: "In both industrialized and developing countries, women are more likely than men to live in poverty, endure low status within the family, be refugees, migrate in search of work, suffer from poor health and nutrition and be solely responsible for the maintenance and care of children. Even worse, women and girls are increasingly victims of state-sponsored or condoned violence and repression. Female infanticide, honor killings, acid attacks, female genital mutilation, widow abuse, sexual slavery and child marriage are still practiced in too many parts of the world. And mass rape has become a common terror tactic in ethnic cleansing campaigns."
WLDI works on a number of fronts in the global movement for women's rights, including organizing global and regional forums engaging women leaders worldwide; launching independent women's rights organizations in Asia, Africa and Latin America; instigating ground-breaking participatory research projects on issues such as violence against women, legal literacy and economic rights; and disseminating practical strategy frameworks, "how-to" guides, case studies, fact sheets and other tools for advocacy.
WLDI-USA President Margaret Schuler has acted as a facilitator for the formation and growth of regional and international women's rights networks in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, for more than fifteen years. She has contributed to the theoretical and practical understanding of women's human rights as a lecturer, author and editor of WLD International publications. "Around the world, wherever human rights are violated, women and girls suffer the most," she says. Accordingly, WLDI focuses on law as a tool for women's empowerment and works toward improving the legal and political advocacy capacity of activists.
Schuler's description of WLDI's upcoming events and projects includes developing an international team of lawyers to train others in women's human rights advocacy in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She also promotes a WLDI publication, Becoming an Advocate Step by Step: Women's Experiences in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States. This text, which is in its second edition, has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is now being used in law schools such as Georgetown and American Universities. WLDI is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Women in Black
Women in Black is an international peace network that uses peaceful demonstrations to protest war, rape as a tool of war, ethnic cleansing and abuses of human rights throughout the world. Supporters of the group stand silently at their demonstrations; they wear black to symbolically mourn for all victims of war and for the destruction of life.
In response to the September 11 attacks, Women in Black has been holding weekly silent vigils in front of the New York Public Library to remember those lost. In contrast to a cacophony of voices calling for war as a immediate response, Women in Black takes the controversial and unpopular position of calling on those in power to step back from war, bring those responsible to justice under international law and to resist vengeance. Not solely a women's issue, Women in Black notes that poverty and hunger, injustice and exploitation are to be addressed with strategies for an inclusive, just and equal global society.
Women in Black's statement has not gone unnoticed. Eight Danish and Norwegian parliamentarians (four women and four men) nominated the Israeli and the Serbian chapters of the group for the Nobel Peace Prize 2001. According to its Web site, www.womeninblack.net, Women in Black's vigils began in Israel in 1988 by women protesting Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It has since expanded to the United States, England, Italy, Spain, Azerbaijan and Yugoslavia, where women in Belgrade have stood in weekly vigils since 1991 to protest war and the Serbian regimen's politics of nationalist aggression. Women in Black New York has been standing in solidarity with the women of Belgrade since 1993.
Amnesty International
The third organization, Amnesty International, is perhaps best known for its campaigns to free prisoners of conscience, gain fair trials for political prisoners, end torture, and abolish the death penalty throughout the world. Its agenda, however, also includes the promotion and defense of women's human rights.
In the United States, for example, Amnesty International seeks to persuade the government to ratify the United Nations Women's Convention, the most basic and important human rights treaty protecting women against discrimination and the forms of violence it engenders. Other ways that Amnesty International defends women's human rights include: mobilizing activists to protect women human rights defenders against imprisonment, torture, unfair trials, "disappearances," political killings and the death penalty; defending women and girls against violence resulting from gender-based discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation; holding governments accountable for preventing and punishing acts of gender-based violence perpetrated both by the state and by private actors; working to obtain political asylum for women fleeing persecution either by governments or by private individuals in cases where their government fails to protect them; and collaborating at the grassroots level with other human rights and national women's non-governmental organizations.
Do something now
As evidenced by the work of WLDI, Women in Black and Amnesty International, international women's human rights is not an esoteric or far-removed issue. These groups have worked to remind women nationally and internationally that women's rights are human rights and that the struggle for those rights occurs not only through the law but through activism and mobilization, education and protest, both written and demonstrative.
What follows is an issue you can address right now:
Sheila Dauer, the director of the women's human rights program for Amnesty International, USA, seeks immediate action on behalf of Digna Ochoa y Plácido, a leading human rights lawyer who was shot to death at her office in Mexico City, Mexico, on October 19, 2001. The killers left a death threat warning other human rights defenders that they could meet a similar fate.
A catalogue of threats and attacks preceded the killing of Digna Ochoa, who had worked for many years with the Centro de Derechos Humanos "Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez" (PRODH), Human Rights Centre "Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez" and had won international awards in recognition of her human rights work. In August 1999, Digna Ochoa was forced into a car in Mexico City by two unknown men and punched in the stomach. She was later released, but warned she would be killed if she reported the attack. In September 1999, PRODH received three separate letters containing death threats. Attached to one of the threats was one of Digna Ochoa's business cards, apparently stolen when she was abducted. In October 1999, three unidentified men entered Digna Ochoa's house, blindfolded her and interrogated her for several hours about members of the PRODH and members of armed opposition groups operating in Guerrero and Chiapas. The men tied Digna Ochoa to her bed and locked her in a room with an open gas canister. After they left, she managed to set herself free. The offices of the PRODH were broken into and searched that night. Another threat was left behind.
Amnesty International asserts that the investigation by the Offices of the Attorney General, which is responsible for all judicial investigations in Mexico, was unduly slow and cumbersome. Although the authorities provided police protection for Digna Ochoa and members of the PRODH, they failed in their responsibility to bring the perpetrators to justice and to send a clear message that such attacks on those who defend human rights would not be tolerated. Amnesty International believes that if the previous and current Mexican authorities had taken the appropriate action to ensure an exhaustive and independent investigation of these incidents, the killing of Digna Ochoa could have been averted.
Amnesty International is urging women lawyers in the United States to join in the protest of Digna Ochoa's death by writing to the President of Mexico and to the Offices of the Attorney General to:
* deplore the killing Digna Ochoa;
* insist that authorities initiate an exhaustive and independent investigation, taking all the necessary measures to ensure the preservation of vital evidence that could lead to the identification of those responsible for the killing of Digna Ochoa;
* express concern for the safety of members of the PRODH and human rights lawyers who worked with Digna Ochoa; and
* urge authorities to adopt measures to protect these human rights defenders; and