Found on the Internets …
State Abortion Laws Face a New Round of Legal Challenges
States led by anti-abortion governors and legislatures have been passing a broad array of measures over the past few years aimed at making the procedure more difficult for women to obtain.[…]
[A] federal district court judge in Alabama this week struck down as unconstitutional a portion of state law requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges. Last week, a federal appeals court panel struck down a similar law in Mississippi. And a third law of the same type is awaiting a ruling in Wisconsin.[…]
Admitting-privileges legislation would impose stricter requirements on facilities where abortions are performed than on facilities that perform much riskier procedures,” says Jeanne Conry, former president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
“As an example, the mortality rate associated with a colonoscopy is more than 40 times greater than that of abortion,” she says, yet gastroenterologists who perform such procedures outside of the hospital setting do not face similar requirements “in the context of safety.”
Federal Court in Alabama Strikes Down Alabama TRAP Law
Judge Myron Thompson explains in his opinion striking down the law, it “would have the striking result of closing three of Alabama’s five abortion clinics.” As Thompson interprets the Supreme Court’s precedents, his court “must determine whether, examining the regulation in its real-world context,” it imposes an obstacle to women’s right to choose an abortion that “is more significant than is warranted by the State’s justifications for the regulation.”
Thanks To Obamacare, More Young People Are Getting Mental Health Treatment
A provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows young people to remain on their parents’ insurance may have increased the use of mental health services among that demographic, a new study suggests. The findings make a case for an expansion of mental health services for the Millennial generation.
Researchers collected data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health and surveyed more than 20,000 people from 2008 – two years before the ACA provision went into effect – to 2012. They found that young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 who screened positive for mental disorders or substance abuse sought mental health services at a rate five percentage points greater than that of adults in the 26- to 35-year-old age bracket. Out-of-pocket payments for mental health visits among young people also decreased by more than 12 percentage points, according to the study.
More …
So it’s a little odd that the latest executive order in this bunch has gone virtually ignored (following a few dutiful daily news stories) even though it packs the biggest punch. “This is one of the most important positive steps for civil rights in the last 20 years,” Paul Bland, executive director of Public Justice, a public-interest law group, says of the July 31 order. The employer-side law firm Littler Mendelson calls it “the most sweeping order to date” that the Obama administration has aimed at federal contractors. The trade group Associated Builders and Contractors is “strongly opposed” and says the order could create a federal contractor “blacklist.”
The order, called Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces, does two things. It requires companies bidding for federal contracts worth more than $500,000 to make previous violations of labor law public, if they have any to report. That’s a shaming device that the administration hopes will push companies to settle back wage claims and nudge them toward better behavior in the future.
The second part of the order is what Bland is so excited about. This provision says that companies with federal contracts worth more than $1 million can no longer force their employees out of court, and into arbitration, to settle accusations of workplace discrimination. “Here’s why this is so important,” Bland said when I asked him to explain. “For the last 20 years, the Supreme Court has been encouraging employers to force their workers into a system of arbitration that has been badly rigged against the workers. And so this order will result in millions of employees having their rights restored to them.”
Student-athletes win right to profit from their likenesses
A federal judge on Friday handed down her decision in the case of Ed O’Bannon v. NCAA, ruling that collegiate athletics’ governing body cannot prohibit college athletes from profiting off of the use of their name, image or likeness.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken determined that using a college athlete’s celebrity to sell millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and ink lucrative television contracts without giving them a cut violates federal antitrust laws.[…]
In her decision, Wilken ruled that FBS football players and Division I Men’s Basketball players are legally entitled to some of the billions in profits generated by universities’ use of their names and identities to sell tickets, merchandise and broadcast rights.
University of Minnesota Wants Washington DC NFL Team to Wear Throwback Jerseys
The University of Minnesota wants the Washington [NFL team] to wear throwback jerseys without the team name or logo for the Nov. 2 game against the Minnesota Vikings being held at the college’s stadium.
The college, which is leasing its TCF Bank Stadium to the Vikings as the team’s new stadium gets built for a scheduled 2016 opening, has also asked that the game not have any Washington apparel or paraphernalia sold on the premise; that the word “Redskins” not be uttered by the game’s public address announcer; and that the team’s moniker not appear on the scoreboard or in the program guide or other game-related print or digital material.[…]
The university’s stadium features a Tribal Nations Plaza dedicated in honor of the 11 Native American tribes in Minnesota. It was built with a $10 million donation from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community – the largest private gift ever to Gophers athletics.
On Thursday, the tribe released a statement saying that it and other Minnesota tribes oppose the [Washington DC NFL team’s] name “and other sports-related logos, mascots and names which degrade a race of people.” The community is working with the university to prepare “appropriate responses” to the NFL game and “minimize the damage that could be done by invoking the name in a place that respects and honors the Minnesota Native American community.”[…]
University officials said the use of the [Washington DC NFL team’s] name at their stadium violates the institution’s affirmative action, diversity and equal opportunity policy. More than 1,100 students identify themselves as Native American throughout the University of Minnesota system.
A little birdie told me …
In response to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s announcement of his new book:
Hey, @PRyan. Your book cover was off. I fixed it. pic.twitter.com/mUaAA5DQZO
— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) August 7, 2014
Editor’s Note: Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.
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