Jessica Mason Pieklo Posts

A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled Tuesday that Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies cannot go to residents of 36 states not running their own insurance exchanges.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. is planning to resign and will leave his post as soon as his successor is named, NPR reported Thursday. His resignation comes at a critical time for the division, which has recently ramped up efforts to deal with police brutality and racial profiling after the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and John Crawford III.

A Pennsylvania mother has been sentenced to serve 12 to 18 months in prison for ordering abortion-inducing medication online to help her daughter terminate a pregnancy.

A federal judge in Louisiana on Wednesday became the first in the country to uphold a state same-sex marriage ban, ruling Louisiana’s ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional.

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that a Mississippi law that requires doctors performing abortions in the state to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional.

For the first time in over 30 years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued enforcement guidelines to protect the rights of pregnant workers.

Late last week, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced plans to sue President Obama over delays in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

The Roberts Court does nothing in small measures, so when Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, insists the decision granting closely held corporations religious objection rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is limited only to the birth control benefit in the Affordable Care Act, don’t believe him. It’s not.

Like conservative opposition to abortion rights, conservative support for unfettered access to guns greatly depends on controlling information and gaming science, and the fight over the nomination of Vivek Murthy for surgeon general is making that connection even clearer.

The Montana Supreme Court announced it will publicly censure a judge who said a 14-year-old rape victim appeared “older than her chronological age.” The judge sentenced the former teacher who admitted attacking her to a mere 30 days in jail.

The national reproductive rights advocacy organization NARAL Pro-Choice America is ramping up its campaign against Judge Michael Boggs, a nominee to be a federal district judge in Georgia.

What a mess we’ve got thanks to the Roberts Court. Predictably and sadly, the Court upheld a Michigan ballot initiative that bans affirmative action programs at the state’s public universities.

In addition to launching hundreds of legal challenges to the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, the religious right has launched a massive public relations campaign designed to confuse and cloud the issues taken up by the Supreme Court.

The latest wave of clinic closures in Texas illustrates how absurd judging abortion restrictions under the "undue burden" test has become.

A case involving a Montana woman whose contract as an assistant softball coach at a Catholic high school was not renewed because she works at Planned Parenthood represents the latest in a string of dismissals by religiously affiliated employers under the guise of religious liberty rights.

A report released this week by the American Civil Liberties Union and the MergerWatch Project documents the rise in Catholic-sponsored or -affiliated hospitals and the negative impact of that rise on women’s access to reproductive health care. W

A Michigan woman is suing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), claiming the bishops’ anti-choice directives are negligently affecting the medical care delivered at Catholic-owned and -sponsored hospitals.

This week, rather than working on a solution to the government shutdown and looming debt ceiling crisis, House Republicans proposed a measure that requires any health insurance plan offered through Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance exchanges to disclose whether it provides abortion coverage.

The U.S. Supreme Court term opened with bad news for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, as the nation’s highest court declined to hear Cuccinelli’s appeal of a ruling striking down Virginia’s anti-sodomy law.

The United States Supreme Court term begins in October, and while the entire docket has not yet been set, already it’s shaping up to be a historic term, with decisions on abortion protests, legislative prayer, and affirmative action, just to name a few. Here are the key cases we’re keeping an eye on as the term starts up.