The petitioner-doctors challenged the Public Health Service Act, a federal law that prohibited receivers of Title X funds from using those funds to provide abortion related services, including counselling and family planning advice. The petitioners argued that the law violated their First and Fifth Amendment rights to free speech and due process. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of upholding the law, and the Second Circuit Court of appeals affirmed.
In Saks v. Franklin Covey Co., 316 F.3d 337 (2003), the plaintiff’s employee health benefit plan denied coverage for certain infertility procedures that can only be performed on women, including in vitro fertilization (“IVF”). She sued her employer for unlawful discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), Title VII, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and state law. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant-employer.
The respondents were upstate New York abortion doctors and clinics and an organization dedicated to maintaining access to abortion services. They sought to prevent vocal anti-abortion protestors from physically blocking the entrances to abortion clinics, The District Court issued an injunction that created a “fixed buffer zone” of 15 feet around abortion clinics where protestors were prohibited from demonstrating. The court additionally created “floating buffer zones,” which banned demonstrations within 15 feet of individuals accessing abortion clinics.
In Shaw v. Mobile County Public School System, 84 F. Supp. 3d 1303 (S.D. Ala. 2015), the Southern District of Alabama evaluated a gender discrimination claim under Title VII.
The plaintiff-appellant was a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who solicited clients for her own private business, which the defendant, Vanderbilt University, considered to be a violation of its Conflict of Interest Policy, its By-Laws, and its Participation Agreement. The defendant terminated the plaintiff’s employment and she sued the defendant, alleging that her termination was due to gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Tennessee Human Rights Act.
The plaintiff-appellant a trans woman lieutenant in the Salem, Ohio, Fire Department, sued the City of Salem, alleging discrimination based on sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. According to the plaintiff’s complaint, after she began expressing a more feminine appearance at work on a full-time basis, her co-workers informed her that she was not acting masculine enough. She then notified her immediate supervisor that she had been diagnosed with gender identity disorder and that she planned to physically transition from male to female.
In Summit Medical Associates, P.C. v. Pryor, 180 F.3d 1326 (11th Cir. 1999), the Eleventh Circuit addressed constitutional challenges to Alabama’s Partial-Birth Abortion Act and its Post-Viability Abortion Statute.
