ACLU

The ACLU welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of a petition forcing the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tubes. The decision protects the severely brain-damaged woman's right to withdraw her own life-sustaining treatment and prevents politicians from interfering with intensely personal medical decisions. Earlier this week two federal courts also found no basis to set aside the legal procedures in Florida, despite attempts by Congress to interfere in the legal proceedings by the issuance of a Congressional subpoena. "Terri Schiavo's wishes were honored today by yet another court that recognized her constitutionally protected right to refuse and withdraw medical treatment," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida on Thursday. "If the court had ruled otherwise, the nation may have taken a giant step backward in the protection of privacy." The ACLU was co-counsel in the Florida case before Judge James Whittemore. The ACLU was also part of the legal team challenging "Terri's Law 1," enacted in October of 2003 to give Gov. Jeb Bush authority to re-insert the feeding tube. That case was struck down as unconstitutional by every Florida court; the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
Read the full press release and find additonal resources on writing a living will.

Last week a tremendous victory was won when the California courts ruled to end discrimination against same-sex couples in marriage. The decision is a landmark for the law, and an important development for the entire nation. With plain but compelling logic, the court has shown us all why in a nation committed to fairness, same-sex couples must not be shut out of marriage. This decision is most important to the thousands upon thousands of same-sex couples who desperately need the protection that marriage gives, and who deserve the dignity it brings. Gay people are firefighters, teachers, doctors and neighbors who deserve the same rights and protections as other Americans. Our constitution promises liberty to all; this decision takes us a step closer to that promise. The case, Woo v. Lockyer, is being brought by the National Center for Lesbian Rights along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal.
Check out a profile of the case and the clients involved.

A new report, "Caught in the Net: the Impact of Drug Policies on Women & Families," highlights the sky-rocketing incarceration rates of women in the United States. The report also features stories of women minimally, peripherally or unknowingly caught up in drug activity who are found "guilty by association" with their husbands and boyfriends involved in the drug trade. The number of women serving time in state prison facilities for drug-related offenses has increased 888 percent since 1986 according to the Sentencing Project, and U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics show that more than one million women are currently in prison, in jail, or on parole or probation. "We've gone from being a nation of latchkey kids to a nation of locked-up moms, where women are the invisible prisoners of drug laws, serving hard time for someone else's crime," said Lenora Lapidus, Director of the ACLU Women's Rights Project. "Family values ought to mean keeping families together. Treatment can cure drug addiction, but there's no cure for a family destroyed." The report was co-authored by the ACLU, Break the Chains: Communities of Color and the War on Drugs, and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
Find more information and access the report.

The victory in California for same-sex couples will likely lead to a backlash as politicians beholden to the religious right gear up for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages. Help us preempt their predictable and reactionary response by writing to your Members of Congress today and letting them know that you do not support writing discrimination into the Constitution. Take Action!
Oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment!

Citing a serious and growing threat to academic freedom, the ACLU has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records concerning the government's practice of excluding scholars and other prominent individuals from the U.S. because of their political views. The FOIA request focuses on Section 411 of the Patriot Act, which permits the government to exclude foreign scholars from the country if in the government's view they have "used [their] position of prominence to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or to persuade others to support terrorist activity." While the provision ostensibly focuses on those who sanction terrorism, news reports suggest that the government is using the provision more broadly to deny admission to those whose political views it disfavors. "The government should not be barring scholars from the country simply because it disagrees with what they have to say," said ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer. "Nor should immigration and State Department officials be in the business of determining which ideas Americans may hear and which they may not."
Learn more and read the FOIA request.