At a time when unemployment is high and families are struggling, Representative Steve Pearce (NM-2) picks a callous moment to create unnecessary hurdles for Americans to obtain needed public benefits.
Recently, Rep. Pearce filed H.R. 3615 and H.R. 3722, bills that would require people to submit to arbitrary drug testing as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Soon after, county commissioners here in Lincoln County, where I reside, went so far as to adopt a resolution in support of these wrong-headed bills. Aside from being mean-spirited and unduly suspicious of people who have fallen on hard times, these bills are almost certainly unconstitutional.
 
Just last fall, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of U.S. Navy veteran Luis Lebron, who rightly refuses to accept warrantless and suspicionless government seizure of his bodily fluids under the state law that requires drug testing of welfare applicants. Lebron, 35, is a single father to his four-year-old son, takes care of his mentally disabled mother, and is trying to finish his college degree. He does not take illegal substances, but the Florida “pee in this cup” law treats him like a criminal just because he needs government assistance while he works to build a better life for his family.
 

In October, a federal judge temporary blocked the Florida law, stating that “The constitutional rights of a class of citizens are at stake.” Another ACLU lawsuit overturned a similar law in Michigan in 2006.
We know from a 1996 study by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that welfare recipients are no more likely to use illegal drugs than other Americans. According to drug testing data that was collected in Florida prior to the court’s ruling, only 2 percent of all applicants tested positive for illegal substances—far below the estimated national average of 8 percent. It is hard to imagine that, in light of these facts, any fair-minded American would support laws designed to humiliate and demonize the thousands of people like Lebron who need temporary assistance in these difficult times.
 
Making drug testing mandatory for seekers of unemployment and welfare benefits  accomplishes nothing but punishing people for being poor. As a public policy it has no basis in science or medicine, and serves only to further stigmatize and demean low-income families.
In fact, science and medical experts overwhelmingly oppose drug testing people who receive public assistance. Over twenty major medical and scientific organizations, including the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, the American Public Health Association and the National Association of Social Workers, Inc., officially opposed the implementation of Michigan’s scheme to drug test welfare recipients. It seems common sense that laws that address social and public health problems should be based on sound social and medical science—not prejudicial assumptions.
 
We can do better than this. It is true that some people in our nation struggle with substance abuse, but there are ways to approach this public health problem that are more effective, respectful and consistent with our values.
Just because a person is low-income, unlucky or unemployed does not make them somehow less deserving of the constitutional protections and basic human dignity. As Americans, we must stand up and  reject the impulse to treat our neighbors like criminal suspects when they fall on hard times. We must repudiate the idea that the government can violate the privacy of our bodies, simply to satisfy the mean-spirited political agenda of a cynical few.
 
Instead, we should treat our fellow citizens and our shared rights as if they matter.
 
Rep. Pearce would do well to remember that he represents all people in his district, not just the affluent, the fortunate and the powerful. Rather than spending his time picking on the poor, Rep. Pearce should busy himself supporting legislation that will help stabilize the economy and put the unemployed back to work.
 
Gary Mitchell
President of the Board of Directors for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico

New Mexico Doctors, Compassion & Choices, ACLU of New Mexico

Seek Ruling That Physicians Can Provide Aid In Dying

 

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Two prominent Albuquerque physicians, Dr. Katherine Morris and Dr. Aroop Mangalik, the national nonprofit Compassion & Choices and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico filed a lawsuit today to clarify the ability of mentally competent, terminally ill patients to obtain aid in dying from their physician if they find their dying process unbearable. The doctors are asking the court to declare that physicians who provide a prescription for medication to a mentally competent terminally ill patient, which the patient could consume to bring about a peaceful death, would not be subject to criminal prosecution under existing New Mexico law, which makes a crime of assisting another to ‘commit suicide.’ The choice of a dying patient for a peaceful death is no kind of ‘suicide,’ the physicians’ lawsuit asserts, and the physician does not assist such a patient in ‘committing suicide.’ Laura Schauer Ives, managing attorney for the ACLU of New Mexico, and Compassion & Choices Director of Legal Services Kathryn Tucker represent the physicians.
 
Dr. Morris, a surgical oncologist, a cancer researcher and an assistant professor of medicine, told a news conference outside the Second Judicial District Court in Albuquerque, “A couple of years ago a patient of mine asked me for aid in dying, and because she lived in a state where it was already affirmatively legal I had no fear of supporting her request. But it was a hard decision. I had voted for the law twice. I was raised to respect people’s autonomy and decisions. But it was hard when a lovely woman to whom I was very attached asked for it. I wrote her a prescription, she got medication and she held onto it for a long time. After many months of good times and hard times, she decided – she decided – not to endure any further suffering. I hope the court will rule that patients in New Mexico have the same autonomy over their end-of-life choices.”
 
Dr. Aroop Mangalik is a practicing oncologist, as well as a clinical researcher in internal medicine and hematology-oncology and a professor of medicine. He provides primary care to adults, some of whom are terminally ill. Dr. Mangalik stated at the press conference, “Without honesty and compassion, too many patients suffer needlessly in the last few weeks of their life. No one should force a dying person to suffer. Doctors already provide treatments for terminally ill patients that are intended to ease suffering, but which we know may advance the time of death. When doctors write prescriptions for aid in dying in response to patients’ requests, their intention is primarily to provide patients with comfort and control.”
 
Ms. Tucker told the news conference, “This case is a statutory construction case: the court is asked to determine the scope of a statute. We expect that this case can move quickly, as it raises a question of law that the court should be able to resolve in a relatively short time. If the court rules in the plaintiffs’ favor, and holds that aid in dying is not prohibited by New Mexico law, physicians in New Mexico will be able to provide this intervention without fear of sanction.”

Ms. Ives explained the constitutional claims that arise, if the court should find that the state’s statute against “assisting suicide” does reach the medical practice of aid in dying. “In its vagueness, and by violating the private physician-patient relationship, the statute applied to aid in dying would deny the due process of law the constitution guarantees. It would deny doctors equal protection of the laws. It would deprive doctors of the right to free speech. And by denying the decision-making power of New Mexico citizens in one of the most intimate and fundamental areas of their lives – the way they confront the end of their lives – it would deprive them of their inherent and inalienable rights.”

“I’m here today, first and foremost,” said Dr. Morris, “because this is an issue that doesn’t get talked about at all or only in sound bites. As a society our persistent refusal to face death is hurting us. But I also am here for selfish reasons. New Mexico is my home and this is an option I would want. I don’t know if I would take it, but I want the right.”
 
The lawsuit was filed in the Second Judicial District Court. The legal complaint may be viewed here: Morris v. New Mexico (Amended).

UPDATE: Santa Fe resident and cancer patient Aja Riggs joins lawsuit as plaintiff.

 

 

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ACLU Files Discrimination Lawsuit Against Bureau of Indian Education School

GALLUP, N.M. – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit today on behalf of Shantelle Hicks, 15, who was initially kicked out of middle school and then publicly humiliated at an assembly by the school director and another staff member because she was pregnant.

The complaint alleges that school administrators violated Hicks’ constitutional right to equal protection under the law, Title IX’s prohibitions against sex and pregnancy discrimination and violations of her right to privacy.

“It was so embarrassing to have all the other kids staring at me as I walked into the gymnasium,” said Hicks. “I didn’t want the whole school to know I was pregnant because it’s not their business, and it wasn’t right for my teachers to single me out.”

Hicks attends Wingate Elementary School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, and is currently in the eighth grade. She discovered she was pregnant approximately three weeks before the assembly, and she and her mother told the director of the middle school and two other staff members. They initially responded by kicking her out of school. The ACLU of New Mexico sent a demand letter to the school, informing them that it is illegal to deny a student access to education because of pregnancy status. Wingate readmitted Hicks after four missed days of instruction.

Approximately two weeks later the director of the middle school and another staff member had Hicks stand before the entire middle school at an assembly and announced that she was pregnant. Until that point, no one other than Hicks’ sister knew that she was pregnant.

“Too often, pregnant students face significant barriers or outright discrimination in school,” said Galen Sherwin, staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “Instead, schools should give pregnant and parenting students the support they need to help them succeed, for both themselves and for their children.”

“The ACLU’s lawsuit seeks damages and declaratory relief for violations of Hicks’ constitutional right to equal protection under the law and of Title IX prohibitions against sex and pregnancy discrimination in education.”

“We believe that Wingate intentionally humiliated Shantelle in retaliation for her refusal to leave the school,” said ACLU of New Mexico cooperating attorney Barry Klopfer. “It is outrageous that educators would subject a young woman in their care to such cruelty. Adopting one’s moral convictions from the Scarlet Letter is completely inappropriate and fails to take into account a child’s educational needs.”
 
Lawyers on this case include Klopfer, Alexandra Freedman Smith, Laura Schauer Ives and Maureen Sanders of the ACLU of New Mexico; and Sherwin and Lenora Lapidus of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project.

Read the full legal complaint: Hicks Complaint.