Pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Bring the Workplace to the 21st Century

By Amal Bass, WLP Staff Attorney

Women are often surprised to learn that they do not have as many rights in the workplace as they expect to have in the 21^st Century. More often than not, an employer does not have to grant a pregnant woman’s request for a minor job modification, such as a chair or help lifting heavy boxes, which some women need as their pregnancies progress. As a result, pregnant women who could have worked with a reasonable accommodation lose their jobs and find themselves without economic security and without health insurance at a time when access to health care is essential.

Existing anti-discrimination laws, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), and similar state laws like the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, prevent employers from treating pregnant women differently from non-pregnant employees who are similar in their ability or inability to work.  But these laws do not protect pregnant employees in nearly as many situations as they should.

For example, courts have ruled that the PDA does not offer a pregnant employee legal protections unless she can identify a non-pregnant employee (1) who works in the same role, (2) has virtually the same limitations, and (3) is treated better by the employer than the pregnant woman.  Many pregnant employees are unable to identify such a person, often because they simply do not know what kinds of accommodations their employers have granted to other employees or what limitations those other employees have. Furthermore, some courts have allowed employers to refuse to accommodate pregnant employees even when they accommodate non-pregnant employees with similar limitations, if those limitations are work-related.

While some states have laws that protect these pregnant employees better than the current federal law does, Pennsylvania does not.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would fill this gap in the law on a national level, ensuring that pregnant women who are able to work with reasonable accommodations can keep their jobs. S.942 was reintroduced on May 14, 2013 by Senators Bob Casey and Jeanne Shaheen and Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Carolyn Maloney, Jackie Speier, Susan Davis, and Marcia Fudge, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would:

• Require employers to make reasonable accommodations to employees who have limitations on the job related to their pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer.
• Prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who need an accommodation.
• Prohibit employers from forcing a pregnant employee to accept an accommodation she does not want.

Prohibit employers from forcing a pregnant employee to take unpaid or paid leave if a reasonable accommodation is available.

If passed, this law would help pregnant women stay employed, promoting the health and well-being of mothers and their families, while imposing only a minimal and temporary burden on employers.

One woman who would have benefited from a law like this — a woman who lives in Pennsylvania and called the Women’s Law Project for help — worked at a garden center and needed help lifting heavy plants while pregnant.  Her employer refused her request, and she had no choice but to leave her job.

Women should not have to make a choice between having a healthy pregnancy and keeping their jobs. It’s time to change the law.

Please contact your Representative and Senator to tell them that they should support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

New Philadelphia Family Court Building is Topped Off

By Dabney Miller, WLP Associate Director

Beam rising in topping off ceremony.

Philadelphia is finally getting a new Family Courthouse.  Construction reached the topping off point on May 2, 2013, when dignitaries, advocates, and construction workers signed a beam, which was then hoisted to the top of the sixteenth floor, amid cheers from the crowd.  Ten years ago, the Women’s Law Project released Justice in the Domestic Relations Division of Philadelphia Family Court: A Report to the Community.  Our lead recommendation was a new courthouse; we argued that critical concerns about safety, openness, and the fair dispensing of justice could not be addressed in the current building, which is a labyrinth of crowded, narrow halls, courtrooms too small for observers, and waiting rooms where conflict plays out.  Our report became a rallying cry, and we are delighted to have been part of the Topping-Off Ceremony for the new Family Courthouse, which will also unify the juvenile and domestic relations divisions.

Much remains to be done, however.  Tens of thousands of people come to this Court each year to resolve personal and intimate family matters involving domestic violence, child support, child custody, divorce, and dependency.  Profound and life-altering decisions are made in the Court about where and with whom children will live, when and under what circumstances parents may see their children, and who will make decisions about the education, health care, and religious upbringing of children.  Its judges have the awesome responsibility of issuing orders to protect people from violence and stalking.  It is imperative that those coming to the new Courthouse find justice after they arrive.  Above all else, the courthouse must be a place that litigants can come and go without fear and where children and parents may have safe and supervised visits when required by the law.  Second, the court must be open to the public consistent with constitutional standards.  The bright light of open courts always leads to fairer processes and outcomes.  Third, this courthouse must be accessible to those Philadelphians who may not be able to read or understand legal processes.  Ninety per cent of Family Court litigants cannot afford lawyers, so they must advocate for themselves in an intimidating system, often at a time of crisis in their lives.  Many technologies now exist to assist them in completing forms and filing petitions.  These technologies, along with trained staff who are motivated to help, will make all the difference for Philadelphia’s families.  Finally, the court must be adequately staffed so that judges, masters, conference officers, and other individuals who work with the public have time to handle their cases in a way that assures the litigants that their positions are heard and carefully considered.

Human Trafficking in Pennsylvania? It’s here if you look for it.

By Judy Hale Reed, Intern, WLP Western Pennsylvania Office

In June 2012, the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking released the results of a two-year study entitled, Human Trafficking in Pennsylvania: Policy Recommendations and Proposed Legislation. The Advisory Committee found that Pennsylvania is a pass-through, source, and destination state for human trafficking. This means that human traffickers move domestic and international victims through the state, people already in Pennsylvania are exploited, and people are brought to Pennsylvania for labor, sex, service, and other exploitation.

Human trafficking is modern slavery, defined by the United Nations and federal U.S. law as the movement of persons for purposes of exploitation involving force, fraud or coercion. The forms of exploitation are almost infinite, from circuit brothels, street prostitution, and sex tourism, to domestic, agricultural, and industrial labor, to begging and petty crimes. Victims are men and women, adults and minors, domestic and international citizens. Many are poor, but some are economically secure and may be well-educated. Most victims are trying to improve their lives, or have fallen into a trap of threats and coercion.

According to the University of Michigan Law School’s Human Trafficking Database, trafficking in Pennsylvania has included  a prostitution ring exploiting female minors and adults; forced labor at nail salons and restaurants; and sex tourism travelers who went to Costa Rica, Romania, and Moldova to have sex with male and female minors. The traffickers in Pennsylvania have been legal husbands, “boyfriends,” and strangers to the victims. These are only the cases that have been prosecuted. Many cases are dropped, and many more victims are never identified.

Human trafficking is a particularly hidden crime, often “hidden in plain sight.” Victims may appear to be workers, but with a closer look they are not paid, not paid what they were promised, and  denied freedom of movement, access to communication with friends and family, medical care, and adequate nutrition while being subjected to forced labor, debt bondage, and physical and mental violence.

The Polaris Project, a national advocacy and policy support organization that helps states develop anti-trafficking legislation, rates Pennsylvania near the bottom of U.S. states. Polaris recommends that Pennsylvania take major steps to improve and implement anti-trafficking laws. The Pennsylvania legislature is beginning that process, by authorizing the Joint State Government Commission Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking to study human trafficking in the Commonwealth. The Advisory Committee report includes extensive legislative recommendations. For the most comprehensive of these bills, click here. In terms of local responses, about 22 of 67 counties in Pennsylvania have organized anti-trafficking efforts, with a response team, an awareness-raising coalition, or both. Many, but not all, of these groups include local law enforcement or FBI agents.

To learn more about human trafficking, visit:

Polaris Project

Polaris Project Online Trainings on almost 50 topics

Department of Defense Combatting Trafficking in Persons

 Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Rescue and Restore Campaign – Look Beneath the Surface

 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – Blue Campaign

PA Superior Court Hears Argument on Insurance Claim of Domestic Violence Arson Victim

By Susan Frietsche, WLP Senior Staff Attorney

Q.: What’s worse than having your house burned down by your abusive spouse?

 A.: Finding out your insurance company won’t cover the damage.

On April 2, 2013, the Women’s Law Project presented oral argument to the Pennsylvania Superior Court in Lynn v. Nationwide Insurance Company, a case of first impression involving the insurance claim of a domestic violence survivor whose abuser intentionally set fire to their house.

At stake is the continued vitality of a 2006 Pennsylvania law (referred to by the Women’s Law Project as the “Innocent Co-Insured Victim Act”) that requires insurers to pay the claims of innocent co-insureds when their property is deliberately destroyed by an abusive partner. This statute was passed after a ten-year lobbying effort by dozens of domestic violence advocacy organizations led by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Terry Fromson, Managing Attorney of the Women’s Law Project. The passage of the Innocent Co-Insured Victim Act was part of a larger initiative to fight a host of insurance industry practices that disadvantaged or endangered domestic abuse survivors, described here.  The trial judge in the Lynn case misinterpreted this statute to require insurers to pay the property claim of a domestic violence survivor only when the claimant can show that the insurer’s reason for denying coverage was because of discriminatory animus against domestic violence victims—a showing that is virtually impossible to make.

In the Lynn case, a woman drugged her two children, left her husband an angry suicide note, and set fire to the family home with herself and her children inside it. She did not succeed in harming herself or her children, fortunately, but the house was damaged, and the woman is currently incarcerated for these offenses. When her husband filed a claim under their homeowner’s policy, he was turned down, and among the grounds for its denial of the claim, Nationwide cited a clause in their contract that excludes coverage of damage caused by the intentional acts of anyone insured under the policy. As applied here, this intentional act exclusion essentially blamed the victim for the wrongs the abuser committed.

On appeal from the trial court order holding that Nationwide did not have to pay the husband’s claim, an all-female Superior Court panel (Judges Bowes, Donohue, and Mundy), sitting at a special session at the Beaver County Courthouse in western Pennsylvania, heard argument from attorney Gary Davis, representing the appellant Brian Lynn, and from Sue Frietsche of the Women’s Law Project, representing the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and two dozen other Pennsylvania non-profit organizations that serve domestic violence survivors. To read the amicus brief, click here.

If the lower court’s opinion is permitted to stand, the impact on domestic violence victims will be devastating. One of the primary reasons abuse victims cannot get out of violent relationships is economic: they face destitution if they leave. Permitting abusers to leave their victims homeless will make it very difficult for survivors to put their lives back together. It also violates the plain language of the Innocent Co-Insured Victim Act, a statute specifically adopted to avoid this very injustice. The Superior Court may issue its ruling at any time.

The Questions No One is Asking about the Kermit Gosnell Case…

By Carol E.Tracy and Kate Michelman

With Kermit Gosnell’s criminal trial underway in Philadelphia, public outrage at the physician accused of murdering one woman and seven infants increases with each grisly new piece of evidence.

But the Gosnell trial raises several inescapable questions:  How could this happen? In particular, how, in a state that has led the nation in imposing restrictions on abortion, could such atrocities go undetected?  Just as puzzling is why the numerous complaints against him were ignored.  The answer is simple:  throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when abortion policy was established, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s primary goal was to overturn Roe v. Wade and, barring that, impose as many barriers as possible to limit access to abortion.  By and large, our policymakers have never viewed abortion as a medical procedure – instead placing it under the Pennsylvania Crimes Code – and therefore have not nurtured a system of abortion care that is woman-focused, readily accessible, and responsive to their medical needs.  The Commonwealth’s focus has been on denying access, not protecting the health and safety of women who need this medical care. If the charges against Gosnell prove true, Gosnell was an outlaw who repeatedly violated numerous laws and should have been shut down years ago, but the state did not hold him accountable to its own laws and policies.

So why did women go to his clinic? Why not choose a legitimate, reputable provider of abortion care? During a Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee hearing on proposed abortion regulation bills, Tyhisha Hudson, a woman who had obtained an abortion at Gosnell’s clinic, was asked why she went to him.  She testified that women in her neighborhood knew that Gosnell was the man you saw for the cheapest abortion.

Another Gosnell patient, Davida Johnson, noted in an Associated Press article that she intended to go to Planned Parenthood for an abortion procedure, but was scared away by anti-abortion protesters picketing outside the clinic. An acquaintance suggested she go to Gosnell, where protesters (ironically) were not an issue.

Evidence suggests that a number of factors influenced a woman’s decision to seek care at Gosnell’s clinic: Medicaid’s refusal to provide insurance coverage for most abortions; the scarcity of abortion providers in Pennsylvania (and across the nation); the fear of violence perpetrated by protestors at clinics, and the right-wing culture that has so stigmatized abortion that many think it is still illegal 40 years after Roe v. Wade.

It is critically important that the women of Pennsylvania know that abortion is legal and is a safe medical procedure.  As set forth in the Gosnell Grand Jury Indictment, legitimate providers, like Planned Parenthood and members of the National Abortion Federation, follow the law and standard medical procedures.

Unfortunately, politicians in Congress and in Harrisburg continue to make it more and more burdensome for women to get safe abortions.  Since 1976, Congress has annually re-authorized the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal Medicaid coverage of abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnant woman’s life is endangered. Pennsylvania law likewise restricts any state Medicaid money from funding the procedure except in those three rare circumstances (rape, incest, and threat to the woman’s life), so low-income Pennsylvania women are as a rule responsible for covering the entire cost of an abortion out-of-pocket. This cost equals or exceeds an entire month of TANF assistance benefits for most families.

Bills currently pending before the Pennsylvania legislature would ban coverage of abortion in health insurance policies sold in the health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act. These extreme measures would ban abortion coverage even when the woman’s health is endangered if she is forced to continue a dangerous pregnancy, and even when the coverage would be separately paid for with the woman’s own money.

Reputable, careful providers of high quality abortion care are under attack. As a result of an orchestrated campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence against individual doctors and freestanding women’s clinics by domestic terrorist organizations like the Army of God and Operation Rescue, the number of abortion providers in the United States declined 38 percent between 1982 and 2005. In Pennsylvania, there is not a single freestanding abortion provider in the hundreds of miles between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

To compound the provider shortage problem, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a new law in 2011 modeled after a bill on the wish list of the National Right To Life Committee:  mandating that the remaining handful of abortion providers come into compliance with volumes of costly regulations designed for ambulatory surgical facilities where much more complex surgeries take place. Today, there are just 13 freestanding providers of surgical abortion care in Pennsylvania, down from 22 two years ago.

Pennsylvania is not alone in developing strategies to regulate abortion care right out of existence. In fact, state legislatures have enacted 135 abortion restrictions in the last two years, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

For readers who feel this doesn’t apply to them, mark our words, it does, because it is likely that you know someone who has had an abortion. One in three women will have an abortion by the time she is 45. Between 30 and 40 million women have had abortions since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

History tells us that whether abortion is legal or illegal, women will have abortions – the only difference is whether women live or die.  As in the pre-Roe days, women with resources can usually find quality care; but those without resources will often seek out the cheapest possible care. The long-term impact of burdening and stigmatizing abortion care could be that the most vulnerable women will once again have to risk their health and lives to get what should be a completely safe and common medical procedure.

Kate Michelman is co-chair of WomenVote PA, an initiative of the Women’s Law Project, and President Emeritus of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Carol Tracy is co-chair of WomenVote PA, an initiative of the Women’s Law Project, and Executive Director of the Women’s Law Project.

Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence Need Paid Leave

Carol E. Tracy, Executive Director, WLP

Victims of domestic and sexual violence need paid sick leave.  Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces would require employers with six or more employees to provide up to seven paid days of leave for employees to use when they are sick, receive preventive care, address needs related to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, or take care of a family members.  This important legislation provides domestic and sexual violence victims the opportunity to take steps to protect themselves from further domestic violence without risking loss of employment.

The Women’s Law Project stands firmly in support of this legislation.  We have made great progress with the Nutter administration to improve the response of law enforcement to domestic and sexual  violence as well as to expand social and health services.  This bill is a significant component of what needs to be a multifaceted response to a complex problem.  With the enactment of this bill, Philadelphia will take the lead in helping Pennsylvania victims of abuse achieve economic and personal independence.

We know firsthand how important adoption of this bill is to victims of abuse.  Through both our telephone counseling service and policy initiatives, we hear from women who are unable to obtain protection orders or seek the assistance of other social services to help them address the abuse to which they are subjected because their jobs do not give them time off for such activities.  Unable to risk losing their ability to support their families, these individuals continue to live in fear and suffer abuse without legal protection or other support.  Those who take time off from work to address the domestic violence even though they lack leave time, risk loss of employment, destitution, and homelessness.

Except for the domestic abuse hotline and emergency services in Philadelphia, the courts and most social services operate on a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday schedule.  While someone faced with imminent danger may call 911 or file a petition for an Emergency Protection From Abuse order at any time, anyone seeking a final order of protection or relief from the criminal justice system must ultimately appear in court during the work week, typically for many hours, and often on a repeated basis.  Women seeking such orders have told us they simply could not take more time off from work to return to court again.  If the plaintiff does not appear for a hearing, the court dismisses the petition and no relief is granted. This bill, if adopted, will enable victims of abuse to seek legal and other protection.

We anticipate that the business community may assert concerns about misuse or overuse of the leave provided by this legislation.  This concern has been raised in other venues in which we have worked to confront discrimination against and achieve accommodation for battered women: insurance discrimination and waivers of welfare work requirements.  We have seen no abuse in those arenas.  In conversations with state insurance departments around the country, we have been assured that the number of individuals seeking relief under statutes prohibiting insurance discrimination against battered individuals has been extremely low.  In our work in Pennsylvania on implementation of the Family Violence Option, which allows domestic violence victims to be excused from work requirements if domestic violence impedes their ability to comply, we have also seen no abuse.  Despite estimates that domestic violence victims make up 40-60% of the TANF population, the number of TANF recipients in Pennsylvania seeking to be excused from work requirements is very small, only approximately 2 % or less of the TANF adult population statewide.  Philadelphia’s numbers are even lower, with the percentage of the city’s welfare population seeking work waivers consistently below 1% (Department of Public Welfare, unpublished data April -August, 2007).  Just as fears of false allegations of domestic violence have not been realized in these situations, we do not anticipate false claims in this one.

The reasons are the same:  battered women want to work and need to work to support themselves and their families.  In addition, victims of domestic violence do not easily disclose domestic violence to anyone, let alone their employer: shame and fear of loss of benefits and employment are a strong deterrent to disclosure of domestic violence.  Because requesting domestic violence leave requires such a disclosure, we do not expect domestic violence victims to request leave unless it is absolutely necessary for them to be excused from work.

See more information at:  http://www.phillyearnedsickdays.com/

Philadelphia Needs Earned Sick Leave

By Amal Bass, WLP Staff Attorney

On Thursday, March 14th, Philadelphia City Council will vote on Councilmember Greenlee’s “Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces” bill (pdf), which would require employers with six or more employees to provide up to seven paid days of leave for employees to use when they are sick, receive preventive care, address needs related to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, or take care of a family member. Currently, many workers do not have paid sick leave. When employees without paid leave get sick, they risk losing pay or their job for taking a day off to recover or to seek treatment; thus, many restaurant, healthcare, and childcare workers have no choice but to go to work sick.

Earned sick leave benefits everyone in Philadelphia:

• Earned sick leave benefits employees by giving them the flexibility necessary to take care of their health and their families’ health. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) has estimated that “access to paid sick days is associated with better self-reported health, a lower likelihood of delayed medical care, and less frequent visits to hospital emergency departments.”

• Earned sick leave benefits the public by reducing the transmission of contagious illnesses like colds and the flu. As the Women’s Law Project discussed in its report, Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women, a majority of workers in the restaurant industry have had no choice but to handle food while sick, thus exposing customers to viruses and bacteria, because workers lack access to paid sick leave.

• Earned sick leave even benefits employers by increasing productivity of employees, increasing morale, and reducing turnover in the workplace. The IWPR projects that paid sick leave will save Philadelphia’s businesses half a million dollars per year. We know that paid sick leave is not “bad for business” based on the experience of other cities, like San Francisco, which, according to an IWPR report, enjoyed continued job growth after the implementation of San Francisco’s paid leave ordinance in 2007. The city also weathered the recession better than its surrounding counties.

Some Councilmembers are considering opposing the bill, which sends the message that Philadelphia and its businesses do not care about the health of its employees and the public. That message is bad for everyone, particularly during cold and flu season, when far too many Philadelphians risk exposure when they come into contact with sick employees at local businesses. Councilmember Greenlee’s bill is about protecting our health, and everyone who cares about the physical and financial health of Philadelphia’s working families should support it.

Call Philadelphia City Council today to show your support for this bill and/or send tweets in support of the bill to @BobbyHenon, @JimFKenney, @CouncilwomanBRB, @cmcbass, @CouncilOBrien.

To learn more about earned sick leave, see The Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces.

Urge Congress to Reauthorize VAWA

By Amal Bass, WLP Staff Attorney

On January 23, 2013, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senator Michael Crapo (R-ID) introduced S. 47, a bill that would reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). In the U.S. House, Representatives Gwen Moore (D-WI) and John Conyers (D-MI) have introduced H.R. 11, which is identical to S. 47. If passed, these bills will continue vital programs and services for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

Originally passed in 1994 and reauthorized in 2000 and 2005, VAWA is a monumental piece of legislation. In 2011-2012, a strong VAWA reauthorization bill passed the Senate, but the House passed a substantially different bill that limited protection for immigrants, Native Americans, and LGBT victims of domestic and sexual violence. The partisan politics at the time derailed VAWA’s reauthorization.

This session, it is vital that Congress reauthorizes VAWA by passing a comprehensive bill that includes protection for all victims of domestic and sexual violence. The bipartisan Leahy-Crapo bill is similar to the bill that passed the Senate in the last session in that it includes enhanced protection and services for tribal, LGBT, and immigrant victims. The current Leahy-Crapo bill does not, however, include a provision that would increase the number of U visas available to immigrant victims of sexual, domestic, and other violence (A U visa offers temporary legal status to victims of certain crimes who assist law enforcement).  Senator Leahy’s office has stated that it hopes the concession will “better ensure passage of the Senate VAWA” and has indicated that the Senator is planning to include the U visa provision in separate immigration reform legislation.

Please contact your Senators and Congressional Representative to urge them to support the bipartisan S. 47 and H.R. 11. The health and safety of sexual and domestic violence victims is a high priority and should not be subjected to partisan politics.  To call your Senator or Representative, dial 202-224-3121.

Roe v. Wade 40 Years Later: How Far Have We Come?*

By Kate Michelman and Carol Tracy

January 22nd marks the fortieth anniversary of landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Roe v. Wade was a historic milestone for women in America, because this right to control our capacity to reproduce – including our right to use contraception – significantly enhances our ability to participate fully in society. It helps ensure our personal privacy, our dignity, and our health.

Roe v. Wade promised to protect our ability to make decisions about our bodies without unwarranted interference, and recognized the essential importance of equality and freedom for women in our society.

On this fortieth anniversary, it is appropriate to ask if the promise of Roe v. Wade has been fulfilled.  Has women’s liberty and equality progressed as far as we hoped it would since January 22, 1973?

Clearly there have been some great strides forward. During the 2012 elections, women turned out in droves to make their voices heard. In almost every instance where women’s reproductive rights were challenged, freedom of choice prevailed. Earlier this month, a record number of women were sworn into the 113th Congress. Indeed, some may view the successes of 2012 as a sign of continually emerging equality and solid and lasting protection against discrimination and political harassment. Sadly, they would be wrong.

In 2012, forty-two states and the District of Columbia enacted 122 reproductive health-related measures. The primary purpose of at least 43 of those was to limit access to abortion.  This was in addition to the 92 abortion restrictions enacted in 2011. Twenty states restricted abortion coverage through the state health insurance exchanges mandated by the Affordable Health Care Act. Crucial family planning funds were slashed from many state budgets.  Funding for reproductive health services in non-state operated clinics such as Planned Parenthood came under attack at both the state and federal levels. Currently, contraception can be barred from employer-based insurance coverage in eight states, and abstinence-only education remains the norm in the majority of our country.

This fight against contraception reveals the true hypocrisy of the anti-abortion groups: their concern isn’t protecting the unborn fetus; it’s about controlling which choices women are, and are not, allowed to make.

Forty years later, women still do not have equal pay in the workplace and are discriminated against due to pregnancy and familial responsibilities.

And despite the record-breaking number of women in Congress this year, and despite women voting at higher rates than men, women remain vastly underrepresented in the political landscape, let alone the corporate world. Those who do beat the tremendous odds are subjected to double standards of behavior, gender-based rhetoric, and vicious vitriol directed at times towards their femininity rather than their capability.

Negative attitudes towards women do not end there. The continued occurrences and reactions to instances of rape and sexual assault are indicative of the negative attitudes towards women that permeate society today. The gang rape on a bus in India sparked a global furor. The rape in Steubenville, Ohio, our own backyard, sparked a similar wave of repudiation. However, the blaming, shaming, and judgment directed toward the victims of these horrific crimes remains a key component of the dialogue surrounding even these high-profile instances of sexual assault. While the sheer volume of sexual assault and rape speaks to the prevalence of violent and negative attitudes towards women, the victim-blaming and judgment that occurs paints an even more disturbing picture revealing how subversive and long-lasting these negative perspectives of women are.

Technically, the core protections guaranteed by Roe v. Wade remain intact. However, those protections are eroding due to the constant onslaught by radical conservatives bent on undermining the rights of women. The goal of Roe v. Wade was to ensure a woman’s right to control the most intimate aspect of her life. Without this right, simply put, women are unable to participate equally with men in the social, political and economic life of the nation.

The road ahead remains difficult. Our health, financial security, and personal safety are constantly challenged, compromised, and limited. So while we reflect on these past forty years, let us acknowledge and celebrate the extraordinary steps we have taken to move our country towards equality.

But let us also understand that hard work and vigilance is needed now, more than ever, in the fight for women’s equality and justice.  The goal of Roe v. Wade has not been achieved, but on this anniversary it is essential that it also not be forgotten.

Kate Michelman is president emerita of NARAL Pro-Choice America, author of “With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose,” and co-chair of WomenVote PA.

Carol E. Tracy is Executive Director of the Women’s Law Project and co-chair of WomenVote PA, an initiative of the Women’s Law Project.

*NOTE: This post so far has appeared in the following newspapers and/or online: the Huffington Post, the Main Line News, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, and USA Today.

Roe v. Wade: The Fortieth Anniversary

WLP Staff Request:

Next week, we will recognize the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the monumental decision in which the United States Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. Over these last four decades, the courts and our legislatures have chipped away at Roe, and campaigns of violence and harassment have targeted providers of abortion services.

We must do more to protect Roe and the people whose commitment to providing reproductive health care services allows women to exercise their rights under the U.S. Constitution. To bring attention to the importance of Roe v. Wade, the Women’s Law Project will engage in several activities and events next week, including:

(1) Twitter Initiative: #protectRoe4me – Using the hashtag #protectRoe4me, learn more about Roe’s significance from WLP staff and friends on Twitter and join in the discussion with your own reasons why we must protect this important right. Stay tuned for tweets on January 22, 2013, forty years to the day the Supreme Court decided Roe.

(2) Event: “Roe at 40—Providers Under Attack” - WLP is co-hosting an event with the Women’s Medical Fund on January 24th from 5:30 to 7:00 PM, when David S. Cohen, former WLP staff attorney and currently Associate Professor of Law at Drexel University’s Earle Mack School of Law and Krysten Connon (Drexel School of Law, Class of 2012) will present their research on the targeted harassment of abortion providers. Click here to register. Proceeds will support the Women’s Medical Fund, which provides financial assistance to low income women in need of abortion services.

Join in these opportunities to learn and discuss why Roe v. Wade is vital to the health and well-being of women and families across the United States and how you can help stop the pernicious attacks on women’s rights to medical treatment.