Dear neighbors,
This week, the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision granting a constitutional right to women to make their own reproductive health choices, we heard five bills that are aimed at providing services and protections in the wake of the current Court’s decision to eliminate that constitutional right from women.
One bill we heard would eliminate cost-sharing for abortion care. Others would provide protection against retaliation in anti-abortion states when patients come to Washington for care they can’t get at home—protection for the patients, their providers, and the employers that provide reproductive care benefits.
Washington is ranked one of the top three states in the country for reproductive rights and access to essential reproductive health care services.
But after the current U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, that entire system of excellent reproductive health care is at risk. It’s not only the Court’s radical decision to overturn 50 years of legal precedent on reproductive freedom. It’s also their willingness to overturn settled state laws, like a century-old gun safety law in New York State and a fifty-year-old law enabling union organizing of farmworkers in California.
Could Washington’s laws protecting reproductive freedom and access, such as our Reproductive Parity Act, be next?
The U.S. Supreme Court’s actions over the last couple of years demonstrate that state laws are no longer true safeguards if they conflict with the unelected Supreme Court justices’ opinions. Sadly, we can’t rely only on state statutes to protect the right to abortion and even the right to birth control. Those statutes need the backing of clear and specific constitutional rights in our own Washington State Constitution.
That’s why I’m sponsoring SJR 8202, at the request of Governor Inslee. It would enshrine in our state constitution the right to choose to have an abortion and the right to choose to use birth control.
That would ensure our state continues to provide some of the best reproductive health care in the nation for the people of Washington and for people in other states who are forced to come here for care when their rights are taken away.
More information about that constitutional amendment and about the other legislation can be found here.
Highlight of the week: Pregnancy accommodations
Each week this session, I’ll highlight a resource that may be of use to you, your family, or your neighbors. I hope you’ll pass the information along to anyone who may be able to take advantage of it. This week, I want to make sure you know about our state’s requirements for pregnancy accommodations in the workplace under the 2017 Healthy Starts Act.
For years, we have been hearing stories like Sarai Alhasawi’s. When she was working at a FedEx contractor, she asked her manager for a commonsense pregnancy accommodation, but her manager immediately fired her over text message, writing:
“Don’t give me that crap that you can’t work because you’re pregnant.” The manager then continued, “Either you don’t want to or you want to but it doesn’t matter anymore because you’re no longer employed with us.”
Before, the story would have ended there, with Sarai out of a job while pregnant. But now, the Attorney General’s Office took her employer to court and she was paid damages.
Under my Healthy Starts Act, employers must consider any request for an accommodation related to pregnancy or childbirth, including things like more frequent or longer breaks, the ability to sit more frequently, modified food or drink policies, a place to pump breast milk, and others. Learn more here.
On the topic of pregnancy—this year, I’m sponsoring SB 5501, the Count the Kicks bill, which would bring a successful stillbirth prevention program to Washington. It would educate providers and expectant moms to pay close attention to fetal movements. It is sad that we lose nearly 500 babies a year on average to stillbirths when we can be proactive and help prevent up to a third of all stillbirths.
Previous highlights of the week: Dementia Road Map for Caregivers, Paid Family and Medical Leave.
Stay in Touch
If you’d like to follow what I’m working on, you can like my official legislative Facebook page here.
Please don’t hesitate to stay in touch. Stay safe and take care.
Always,
Sen. Karen Keiser
Senate President Pro Tempore
Chair, Senate Labor & Commerce Committee
