ACLU of Kentucky

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We are freedom’s watchdog, working in courts, legislatures and communities
to defend the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people by the
Constitution of the United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

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Make Abortions Less Necessary, Less Dangerous Print E-mail
Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 10:42 am

This Letter to the Editor Appeared in the 10-27-09 Edition of the Courier-Journal.

Abortion: less necessary,less dangerous

I would like to respond to some of the letters criticizing the editorial The Courier-Journal wrote in response to the Guttmacher Institute's study of global abortion trends. First of all, regardless of where we land on the political spectrum, each of us has strong feelings about abortion. One thing we can all agree on is that when 70,000 women die and 8 million women suffer medical complications from unsafe abortions, something is wrong.

The C-J agreed that the Guttmacher Institute's three recommendations are common sense solutions to this problem.

The first recommendation is that we expand access to family planning and contraceptive services. This recommendation is key. When family planning and contraceptive services are easily accessible, when men and women's knowledge of those services increases and when those services are utilized, the rate of abortions declines. There is a direct link between increased knowledge and use of contraceptives and fewer abortions.

The second recommendation is to expand access to legal abortions, to ensure that they are safe. Historically, we know that once a woman makes the decision to have an abortion, she will have one, whether it is legal or not. We should support her by making sure that she has access to sanitary facilities and trained medical staff. That is what all of us would want for our daughters, mothers and wives. Legal and safe abortion services do not increase the number of abortions performed each year. Legal and safe abortions across the world decrease the number of deaths and complications for the women in our lives.

The third recommendation is to improve post-abortion care to reduce deaths and medical complications. This is something we should all agree with. After a woman has an abortion, she should have access to comprehensive post-procedure care. This is especially needed if the abortion was not performed in a medically appropriate setting.

All three of these recommendations make sense and focus on what we should do, which is make abortion less necessary, not more dangerous and difficult. Now that is something we all should agree on.

DEREK SELZNICK

Director

Reproductive Freedom Project

American Civil Liberties

Union of Kentucky

Louisville 40202

 

 
Racial Profiling: "That's Just a Fact" Print E-mail
Friday, July 24, 2009, 10:13 am

Racial profiling was in the news this week because Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a world-renowned Professor of African-American studies at Harvard University, was a victim. However, it is important to remember that this story is news because of the identity of the person profiled, not because of the rarity of the underlying police actions.

 

President Obama accurately reminded us of this during his press conference last night:

 

What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.

 

Racial profiling—using a person’s race, color, ethnicity or national origin to determine whether to stop, search or investigate him or her for alleged criminal activity—is rampant throughout the United States, and it acutely affects African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, and Arab communities.

The Director of the Racial Justice Program at the ACLU, Dennis Parker, posed the question on the Diane Rehm Show this morning that if Professor Gates is subject to such treatment, “what does that say for the rest of the people of color that haven’t achieved his level of success?” In fact, much of what happened to Professor Gates was an anomaly. Most victims of racial profiling by police are not released after four hours. Most victims of racial profiling do not have the charges against them dropped. Most victims of racial profiling do not receive media attention.
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Working Together for Full Equality in Kentucky Print E-mail
Tuesday, June 9, 2009, 6:29 pm
Statewide work on LGBT rights continues to expand with the Fairness Coalition of allied organizations.  The Coalition is a result of a summit convened in the Fall of 2008, to bring together organizations committed to working for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights in Kentucky.  The primary goal is comprehensive civil rights protections prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. 

The summit assembled 50 delegates from 11 organizations throughout the state with broad representation across lines of gender, race, class, sexuality, age, and geography.   Participants worked with an outside consultant to analyze the political landscape of the state, set goals for the coalition, and develop a shared mission and plan.

We realize that to accomplish our long-term goals and to increase the capacity of the individual organizations we must improve communication, share resources, and work together to strengthen and expand the base of support for LGBT equality.
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