Women, choose those justices carefully
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court makes decisions vital to women’s health, writes SARI STEVENS of Planned Parenthood
Pennsylvania women face one of the most important elections of the decade in 2015. Thanks to unprecedented circumstances, voters have to fill three of the state’s seven Supreme Court seats this year. The outcome of those races will determine the balance of a bench whose decisions could shape policy for many years to come.
Court races don’t garner the attention of gubernatorial or legislative campaigns, but they should. Some voters may find it hard to fathom the start of yet another election so close to the recently completed general election, but a new race is on.
Justices have the final say over state laws enacted by governors and legislators. And while governors serve four years and lawmakers serve terms of two years in the House and four years in the Senate, Supreme Court justices serve 10year terms — and often longer since judges who seek retention to the bench almost always are successful.
That makes 2015 a critical election year for Pennsylvania women, who not only must recognize the court’s importance on our health and lives, but also commit to action.
Think judicial elections don’t matter? Think again.
When the Fox Chapel Area School District denied a woman her request for an extension of unpaid maternity leave in order to breast-feed her infant, who had allergies to formula, she sued.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in Board of School Directors of Fox Chapel v. Rosetti (1979), ruled that the school’s denial was not a form of sexual discrimination because the woman was treated no differently than the male teachers at the school.
That was 36 years ago. But a mother’s nursing rights remain an issue today. Pennsylvania is among the few states that do not require employers to provide break time or a private, sanitary space for employees who need to express breast milk for their children.
In the workplace, salaries should be based on performance, not the sex of an employee. But that’s not what the courts decided in Commonwealth ex. rel. Human Relations Commission v. Beaver Falls City Council (1976).
In that case, the state Supreme Court rejected claims made by two women that they had fallen victim to pay discrimination in their jobs as “meter maids.” The positions were advertised as “for women only” and used as a way to free male officers from ticketing patrols. Male officers who had been doing the work had been paid
much more than the women who took over the job.
In an unexpected twist, the Supreme Court decided that if any gender were being discriminated against here, it would be the men — due to the fact that the job was advertised as seeking only women.
Today, Pennsylvania’s 6.5 million women are still paid 76 cents for each $1 paid to a man doing the same job.
Women’s health long has been a subject of court opinions. In Fischer v. Pa. Department of Public Welfare (1985), the Supreme Court upheld restrictions on funding abortion for poor women, although the law fully funds any other medical expenses related to pregnancy and childbirth. It also made clear that Medicaid funds could not be used for abortion unless the life of the mother was in danger or if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest.
According to the ruling: “State restrictions on abortion rest on an implicit value judgment that women’s natural roles as mothers take precedence over other aspects of their lives, including their own health, and that women cannot be trusted to make the moral determination themselves of whether to carry a pregnancy to term.”
These examples make the point: Judicial elections matter. Women spend every day fighting for their rights — whether it’s choosing to access reproductive health services, fighting for equal pay or fighting discrimination in the workplace — and the courts play a major role in whether those fights are won or lost.
Justices make decisions from the bench. You make decisions at the polls. So make your vote count — because the judges who win on Election Day 2015 could end up shaping your life for decades to come.