Two Abortion Stories

Image by Labour Youth

A few weeks ago, I came across this paragraph at the bottom of the second page of an article on a search and consent case the Supreme Court was about to hear at the time.

In other action on Monday, the court rejected an appeal concerning an
Arizona county jail's policy on abortions for pregnant prisoners. The
unwritten policy requiring an inmate to obtain a court order before
jail officials would transport her for an abortion was found by an
Arizona appeals court to place an undue burden on the right to
abortion. The justices, without comment, turned down the Maricopa
County sheriff's appeal, Arpaio v. Doe, No. 07-839.

Now, maybe it's a sign that my head's been buried in the sand the past few months (election, election, election, aaaahhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH), but this one took me by surprise. And then there was this article last week: Health Database Was Set Up to Ignore 'Abortion'.

The Arpaio v. Doe decision came as a pleasant shock to me. Of course there are government officials trying to limit abortions - I'm not that out of the loop. That this would be an even bigger problem for prisoners, whose rights and movement are greatly restricted is also no big shock. Never mind that most prisoners are in a uniquely, shall we say inconvenient, situation to bring a child into this world - 'they shoulda thought of that before they went and had sex.' What did surprise me is that the Supreme Court - the Roberts Supreme Court - might possibly side with those women who, realizing that they cannot care for their children and uncertain that anyone else will do so for them, choose not to bring a pregnancy to term behind bars. And don't give me that old sob story about all the childless couples out there ready to adopt these unborn children. The number of children in semi-permanent foster care speaks differently.

Now, I know that Arpaio can't really be taken as a test case for how this court will treat future abortion cases. The sheriff's appeal was rejected without comment, masking any opinions held by members of the court. But it still made me happy, unlike the second story, about search limits on Popline, only the world's largest reproductive health database.

It all started in February, when the Agency for International Development, the government body that funds Popline (which is run by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University), noticed that it included two articles on abortion advocacy. They 'expressed concerns,' it was determined that the articles didn't meet the database's criteria, and the articles were removed. Then the database's search engine was reprogrammed to ignore the query word 'abortion.'

Right...That's not an overreaction at all. As Debra Dickson, one of the Popline managers pointed out, database users still could still find information on abortion by using such search terms as, "fertility control, postconception," and "pregnancy, unwanted." Silly me! It's 'Guess the Query Word!' Here I've been missing out on a great game.

It's still not clear exactly what happened. In a statement on the School of Public Health's website, Dean Michael Klag, promised to look into the issue, assuring people that "I could not disagree more strongly with this decision," which he hadn't been aware of it until that morning.

In the end, this'll probably all be chalked up to an explosive misunderstanding on the Popline managers' part, but it's easy to see how they got there. The database does depend on federal funds, and the paws currently clutching at the purse strings don't exactly smile upon family planning going further than what you learn in an abstinence only sex ed class. Maybe there was some personal ideological motivation there too, but most likely they just got scared. Massive databases don't fund themselves, and with the Bush administration out to get anything that smacks of 'immorality,' what would you do?

Gah! I may not agree with fiscal conservatism, but at least I can comprehend it. Moral conservatism... Just because you have a close personal relationship with Jesus, doesn't mean I have to. Believe me, I've tried. We just couldn't seem to make it work. Please, stop trying to save me from myself.

Money speaks, but does it speak well?

Like most people I know, I've never really thought much about punitive damages (at least, I assume that's the case - you never know what people like to ponder in their free time), but an article in the NY Times last week (Foreign Courts Wary of U.S. Punitive Damages) got me thinking: What is the point of awarding large sums of money - beyond the actual damages suffered - to plaintiffs in civil lawsuits?

While Americans are used to hearing about large punitive damage awards (despite the active movement to limit punitive damages in the United States, they are a fairly settled point in our legal system), they're relatively uncommon in other countries. English law severely restricts the circumstances in which they can be awarded, while Japanese law prohibits the enforcement of any punitive damages awarded by foreign courts.

In the case outline in the Times article, Judy Glebosky, an Alabama woman had sued an Italian manufacturer after the buckle on one of their motorcycle helmets failed in an accident, killing her son. The Alabama court awarded the woman $1 million in punitive damages, but the company refused to pay. Last year, the Italian Supreme Court sided with the company, blocking Glebosky's efforts to collect because they found the notion of punitive damages to be offensive to Italian ideas of justice.

Now, I've always been vaguely in favor of courts awarding punitive damages, especially when there's clear evidence of sleaziness, if not direct proof of wrongdoing, on the part of big corporations. Exxon Mobil, tobacco companies, I'm looking at you. Corporations may legally qualify as individuals, but it's damn hard to throw those 'individuals' in jail, even if you do manage to get a conviction, which is enough of a challenge in itself. How do you punish a corporation for breaking the law?

Sometimes it's enough to simply make them compensate the plaintiff(s) for the actual provable harm caused by corporate malfeasance. But if the point of the punishment is also to deter future crime, you have to decide whether having to shell out for compensatory damages really is enough to stop a company from committing the same irresponsible and/or illegal action in the future. Maybe they'll get caught again, but the cost of settling the cases that do come up is usually outweighed by the savings that made the irresponsible and/or illegal action seem like a good idea in the beginning - it's incredibly unlikely that they'll have to pay out in every case. In the end, money speaks, and because punitive damages involve larger sums, they speak louder than compensatory damages.

At this point, punitive damages - governed by state laws - are pretty standard practice in this country. It is an understatement to say that there has been a fairly vocal movement to limit punitive damages - opponents have been screaming for limits, or outright prohibition, at the tops of their lungs. But despite all that, the large awards that you hear about are rare within the system - the median award is closer to $40,000, and punitive damages are only actually awarded in around 2% of the civil cases that do end up in trial. While efforts to cap punitive damages have failed to pass constitutional muster, most punitive awards larger than 4 times the compensatory damages are questioned for the same reason. We all remember last year, when the Supreme Court overturned $80 million in punitive damages against Phillip Morris awarded to the widow of a smoker in Oregon. I know I was pissed when that happened.

Which is why I was kind of surprised when I didn't feel that bad for Glebosky. Not that I suddenly discovered that punitive damages were a bad thing, but I did wonder why she needed the money - as she said, it's not going to bring her son back. I know I felt more certain about rulings against the tobacco companies because that money was going to go to anti-smoking education.

I don't have any clear conclusion to these musings, but I guess I just wish there were a better way of punishing corporate malfeasance than just throwing money at the problem. Maybe having to pay large sums does provide the proverbial slap in the face for corporations who would otherwise cut corners (or outright lie to consumers) in order to raise profits, but is it really enough? And with punitive damages going directly to plaintiffs, you get the impression that they're being excessively rewarded for their victimhood, which really only helps corporations in their fight against responsibility. On the other hand, who else do you give them to?