LOCAL NEWS

I

HB 19: Mixed Message

The Ohio Legislature is currently considering a bill with an anti-abortion, amendment. We must act now if we are to protect our right to choice and to stop the further erosion of our access to abortion.

Am. H.B. 19, a Pregnancy Disability bill, would include pregnancy coverage in disability and benefit plans of employers not covered by the federal Pregnancy Disability Law. The bill, which is now in the Ohio, House Rules Committee, contains the same anti-abortion rider as the federal bill. If we apply enough pressure, the legislature may delete this discriminatory amendment. Because this bill is an amendment to the Ohio Civil Rights Law, the broader Ohio law should apply to all employers in Ohio who employ more than four employees and who have a disability or benefit plan: This is our chance to help all Ohio's working women.

The purpose of pregnancy disability legislation is to correct the 1976 Gilbert v. General Electric Supreme Court decision which allowed employers to discriminate against women workers on the basis of pregnancy. The federal pregnancy disability bill, which was enacted last year, requires employers of 15 or more employees to cover pregnancy under employee temporary disability and insurance plans.

However, during the course of hearings in the House, an anti-abortion rider was added to the bill. This amendment was vehemently opposed by many women's groups, labor unions, and many members of Congress. After a lengthy battle and much compromise, Congress finally passed the Pregnancy Disability bill with an anti-abortion rider.

The anti-abortion amendment to the Ohio Pregnancy Disability bill has also met much resistance. The House Commerce and Labor Committee voted in favor of the bill without the amendment, after defeating the amendment 6 to 5. Three weeks after this vote, however, the bill was sent back to that Committee from the Rules Committee for another vote on the amendment. Although no one testified in favor of the amendment except its sponsor and three people testified against it, the Committee voted to include it in the bill. It is also of interest to note that the Committee voted in favor of the antiabortion amendment so that Ohio law would "conform" to federal law. However, the Committee approved an amendment which is not language taken from the federal law, thus causing the Ohio bill not to conform to the federal law. Therefore, the bill now in the House Rules Committee is not the same as the federal bill, but does contain the anti-abortion amendment.

Arguments Against the Amendment

1. The Insignificant Cost of Abortion Coverage to the Employer. Studies have shown that pregnancy disability coverage does not significantly increase the costs of disability plans and that the costs of abortion coverage are negligible.

2. The Amendment Discriminates Against Working Women. The anti-abortion rider to the pregnancy disability bill deprives women workers of wages they have earned while allowing their employers to impose their personal moral code on the working woman. The rider will subject women workers to discriminatory and unequal coverage. As a result of the amendment, “we may find ourselves in a situation where there is no change in the employer's contribution for health benefits, but benefits which are earned by women and which they currently have would be eliminated," according to Rep. Weiss. The amendment would also have the effect of allowing the employer's personal beliefs to inhibit women from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to choose abortion as delineated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. It

Page 4/What She Wants/May, 1979

is also interesting to note that no other medical procedures are specifically excluded from disability plans. Most plans include coverage for vasectomies, hair transplants, sports-related injuries and injuries incurred in fights, while still excluding pregnancy and abortion coverage.

3. Harassment of Employers. Passage of the antiabortion amendment will make employers that include abortion coverage in their disability plans the target of the battle over abortion. It will subject them to local pressures, specifically harassment, threats, boycotts, and similar tactics that are now being used by those opposing the right to choose. Besides the widely publicized cases of firebombings of clinics, anti-choice groups have also employed such harassment techniques as threatening bank directors with the removal of accounts and other business from the bank if they refuse to drop mortgages they hold on abortion clinics.

4. Conformity to Federal Law is Unnecessary. Ohio law does not have to conform to federal law, In two recent cases, the Supreme Court decided that when state laws are stricter and thus offer more benefits for the employees, the state law will take precedence over the federal law. So far, 22 states have passed laws requiring pregnancy disability coverage. According to the Congressional Record, "None of the state laws which require coverage of pregnancy in disability benefit programs has an abortion exemption." Furthermore, when the issue of pregnancy and abortion coverage was considered by state supreme courts, the courts have accepted the argument that both pregnancy and abortion should be covered. Therefore, the Ohio Legislature can pass

Pending Legislation

Federi

HR 321--Seeks to establish an energy stamp program to provide energy stamps to lowand moderate-income households to help meet the costs of rising fuel bills.

HR 485-Would increase the minimal Federal matching rate under the Aid for Families with Dependent Children to 75 percent.

HR 781-Would improve the level of households which participate in the food stamp program by authorizing the use of food stamps only to purchase nutritious foods, and for other purposes.

HR 1039-Would provide for homemakers to be included within the Social Security benefits program.

HR 1538-Would provide that the Federal Government assume 100 percent of all Federal, state and local welfare costs.

State

Am.HB 19--Seeks to end employment discrimination on the basis of pregnancy (see above).

Am.HB 45-Would make the continuation of health insurance coverage possible for family members experiencing a change in marital or family status.

SB 109—Would make subsequent convictions for nonsupport of dependents a felony of the fourth degree; would require that persons under a court order or decree to make support payments give certain written notification to the court before and after they establish residence in another state.

-WIC Status Report March 1979

the Pregnancy Disability bill without the amend-

ment.

5. The Amendment Interferes with Private Decisions. Not only does this anti-abortion amendment interfere with a worker's right to exercise her First Amendment religious freedoms, but it also interferes with management-labor relations. The denial of coverage for abortion by an employer hinders a woman from exercising her constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.

U.S. GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC FORECAST

Ju

SUNNY, MILD

For the above reasons, the National Abortion Rights Action League, together with many other civil rights, health, labor and women's rights organizations, opposes the inclusion of an anti-abortion amendment in the Ohio Pregnancy Disability bill. We urge you to support H.B. 19 without the antiabortion amendment.

To continue financing this project and to keep you up to date, NARAL needs your financial support. Please send $25.00, $15.00, $10.00 or whatever you can to Ohio NARAL, P. O. Box 15246, Columbus, Ohio 43215, for its Special Legislative Action Fund. -NARAI

UPDATE

Reproductive Realities

A recent study of teenage clinic patients found that availability of contraceptives did not increase the number of sexual partners they had. According to Paul Reichelt, a psychologist at the University of Illinois Medical Center, the study results "support the conclusion that providing adolescents with effective contraception will not markedly affect their sexual behavior."

Abortion has been practiced for centuries, whether legal or not. In 1978, there were an estimated 40 million abortions worldwide.

In the last 13 years, 37 countries have liberalized their abortion laws. As of 1977, researcher Christopher Tietze estimates, 36 percent of the world's people live where abortion is legal without restriction; 23 percent where it is permitted for social, economic or medical reasons; 12 percent for health reasons only; 15 percent where it is totally prohibited.

Even where it is prohibited, abortion is practiced, but usually less safely. No one knows how legalization has affected the number of births. We do know it leads to safer operations.

The last eleven months of 1978 saw a 99 percent drop in the number of low-income women receiving federally-funded Medicaid abortions. HEW Secretary Joseph Califano announced that in those months 2,421 women had Medicaid abortions, compared with 250,000 women annually who received federally-funded abortions in previous years.

Of the 2,421 abortions funded, 1,857 involved the life of the mother, 385 involved physical health damage, and 61 involved rape or incest.

Excerpted from NARAL Newsletter

April 1979