About Price And Associates
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Attorney Pamela Y. Price founded Price And Associates in June 1991 with a vision to establish a minority- and woman-owned litigation Firm in Oakland, California. In the 21 years since its inception, the Firm has evolved into a premier civil rights practice with a wealth of experience in federal court litigation.
For more information, visit our website at www.pypesq.com.
To submit a Potential Client Questionnaire, go to Contact Us.
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December 1, 2012
Charles Houston
Bar Association
CHBA Annual Gala
Oakland Marriott & Convention Center
6pm - Champagne
Reception
7pm - Program
The Charles Houston
Bar Association
PO Box 1474
Oakland, CA 94604
(866) 712-7974
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Stay Tuned for the
Date TBD
End of December
Music
Dancing
Fun!
Refreshments
No Host Bar
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- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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"A joyful spirit is evidence of a grateful heart."
- Maya Angelou
Welcome! As we turn and look back over 2012, I am thankful that Obama won and not Romney. I am thankful I live here and not Haiti. I am thankful that I love my job and I'm still here.
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Pamela enjoying time with her mother, Mildred Price
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I, like so many people, have much to be thankful for. This month, we focus on what may be our most endangered civil right - a woman's right to choose whether to have a child or not. Seems like a fundamental right - a basic human right - an individual right. Like the right to vote. Or the right to marry. Things we take for granted that had to be fought for and then protected.
Women fought for the right to choose. Now, we need to protect it.
Be Blessed and Thankful.
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MONTHLY FEATURE
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The Most Endangered Civil Right - The Right to Choose
 | | Seal of the U.S. Supreme Court |
As President Barack Obama begins his historic second term, there are many lessons to be learned from the election. A lot of things to analyse in terms of who we are, what we believe, what we stand for, and where we're going. One of the things that was a lightning rod for debate in the election was what would become of the constitutional protection for abortion rights if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won the election.
 | | Representative of Supreme Ignorance U.S. Congressman Todd Akin |
As Governor of Massachusetts in 2005, Romney vetoed a bill that would require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims. Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan was (and still is) an "anti-abortion" leader in the U.S. Congress. As we pointed out in last month's issue, Ryan co-sponsored a bill in Congress with language to redefine "forcible rape" in order to limit federal funding for abortions for rape victims. Paul Ryan worked closely with Congressman Todd Akin who made the infamous assertion that if a woman is a victim of "a legitimate rape" her body can shut itself down in order to avoid becoming pregnant.
And these guys are not alone. Since 2010, thirteen states have enacted laws that prohibit some or all insurance policies from covering abortion-related care. In this year alone, twenty-two states have passed sixty-one new measures restricting women's reproductive health. Public funding for contraceptive services is under heavy attack even though almost half of all pregnancies in the United States every year are unintended. According to Elizabeth Chen, a law student and policy analyst for the Women's Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress:
"[R]eproductive justice stands at the intersection of traditional reproductive rights concerns and social justice issues and centers the reproductive health needs of the most marginalized populations, including women of color, low-income individuals, and individuals with disabilities, among others. It has been defined as "the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, economic and social wellbeing of women and girls, and will be achieved when women and girls have the economic, social and political power and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality and reproduction for ourselves, our families and our communities in all areas of our lives."
Clearly, we have a long way to go before we achieve reproductive justice in its fullest sense. The most fundamental part of this concept is a woman's right to choose and make her own decision.
The good news is we moved forward with President Obama and not backward. I for one, am very thankful for that.
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EVENTS RECAP
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Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the
San Francisco Bay Area
Annual Meeting of the Membership
On Wednesday, November 14, 2012, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area held its 44th Annual Meeting of the Membership. Hosted by San Francisco law firm Reed Smith, it was a great success. Hon. Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was the keynote speaker. Attorney Price presided over the meeting in her role as Co-Chair of the 24-member Board of Directors. The membership voted on an unusually large slate of eleven new members, including ten women. The membership and Board also welcomed new Board Member Sara Finigan from the Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass firm. Executive Director Kimberly Thomas Rapp gave her very first annual review. The highlight of the meeting was the presentation by a client of the Immigrant Justice Program who described how she was brought to this country as a child, raised as an undocumented resident and was able to transition to legal personhood through the efforts of the Lawyers' Committee. Her story was as compelling and heartwarming as the best movie ever written. For more information about LCCR, visit www.lccr.com.
 | | Attorney Price presided over the LCCR Annual Meeting of the Membership |
 | Longtime Member and NAACP Attorney Peter Graham Cohn and
LCCR Executive Director Kimberly Thomas Rapp |
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Consumer Attorneys of California
Convention 2012
On Sunday, November 11, 2012, Attorney Price presented "Trial Tips for Plaintiff Employment Lawyers" at the Consumer Attorneys of California's 51st Annual Convention. Attorney Price's presentation was part of the Employment Law Toolbox Panel, which included presentations by Attorneys June Bashant of Rouda, Feder, Tietjen & McGuinn, Justin Berger of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, Anthony Luti of the Luti Law Firm, Jill McDonell of the Law Office of Jill P. McDonell and Douglas Silverstein of Kesluk & Silverstein. As the closing speaker on the panel, Attorney Price was able to bring to life the excitement of trial and the importance of style and drama in every case. For more information about the CAOC, visit www.caoc.org.
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San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association
Jury Selection Seminar
On Tuesday, November 13, 2012, Attorney Price presented "Federal Practice Tips" at the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association's Jury Selection Seminar. Attorney Price's co-presenters included Attorney Simona Farrise of the Farrise Law Firm, John Feder of Rouda, Feder, Tietjen & McGuinn and jury consultant Judy Rothschild. The panelists brought their extensive experience and impressive expertise to provide insights and skill sharpeners to local trial attorneys. Attorney Price presented her Firm's motion for expanded voir dire in federal court and was delighted to meet an attorney who had already found the motion on the Court's website and used it extensively in federal court cases in Florida with some success. For a copy of the motion to use in your case, e-mail Attorney Price at excel@pypesq.com. For information about the SFTLA, visit www.sftla.org.
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| CASE HIGHLIGHTS |
Protecting Roe v. Wade
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113) that our constitutional right of privacy protects a woman's decision to have an abortion. In 2012, almost forty years later, women are struggling to preserve the right to choose. In Arizona, the ACLU has brought a legal challenge to an Arizona law banning abortions after twenty weeks. The ban would force a woman with a high-risk pregnancy to wait until her condition poses an immediate threat of death or major medical damage before a doctor could provide her with the care she needs. Under the Arizona ban (not surprisingly the most extreme ban in the U.S.), a woman carrying a fetus that cannot survive after birth would be required to give birth or wait to have a miscarriage. For more information on Isaacson v. Horne, click here.
In Oklahoma, six courageous plaintiffs represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights successfully filed suit to keep a proposed initiative off the ballot that would have amended the Oklahoma Constitution to include fertilized eggs within the definition of a person, completely banning abortion in Oklahoma as well as most forms of contraception and fertility treatments. In Indiana, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood attorneys successfully challenged Indiana's new anti-abortion law that would defund all family planning programs in the state and prohibited Medicaid funds from going to any entity that offered abortions. The law would have required doctors to read a script with biased, unscientific assertions about the beginning of life in their private conversations with patients.
Women did not fare so well in Mississippi, where a federal judge only temporarily and partially blocked a law that was enacted in 2012 in an attempt to make Mississippi "abortion-free." The law requires all providers at a licensed abortion facility to be board-certified or an eligible OB-GYN with admitting privileges at an area hospital. The Court granted the plaintiff's request for emergency relief at first blocking the law, but later allowed the law to take effect. In Alaska, in 2010, voters approved an initiate to require parental notification of an abortion for anyone under the age of 18. Planned Parenthood along with two courageous doctors filed suit to stop the enforcement of the Parental Notification Law on the grounds that it violates the minor's constitutional rights to equal protection and privacy.
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| COMMUNITY SERVICE |
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Family Planning with Planned Parenthood
The leader in providing family planning services is Planned Parenthood. It was founded in 1916 when Margaret Sanger, her sister, and a friend opened America's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. Sanger knew firsthand the tragic toll of ignorance about contraception. Her mother had 18 pregnancies, bore 11 children, and died at an early age from cervical cancer. Working as a nurse with immigrant families on New York's Lower East Side, Sanger witnessed the sickness, misery, and death that resulted from unwanted pregnancy and illegal abortion. The clinic she and her sister and her friend opened provided contraceptive advice to poor, immigrant women. Police raided the clinic and all three women were convicted of disseminating birth control information, a crime at the time. Sanger's appeal was initially unsuccessful but led to the legalization of contraception.
 | | Faye Wattleton served as the first African-American and youngest president of Planned Parenthood for 15 years (1978 - 1992) |
Planned Parenthood operates 800 health centers in the U.S. Nearly twenty-five percent (25%) of all women in the U.S. have visited a Planned Parenthood health center. Planned Parenthood provides sexual and reproductive health care, education, and information to nearly five million women, men, and adolescents worldwide each year. Planned Parenthood provides nearly 770,000 Pap tests and nearly 750,000 breast exams each year, critical services in detecting cancer. Planned Parenthood provides more than four million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Only three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services.In 1966, Planned Parenthood Federation of America inaugurated the PPFA Margaret Sanger Award to honor the woman who founded America's family planning movement. In its first year, the award was bestowed upon four men, including Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Seventy-five percent (75%) of poor women, women who are uninsured, African-American and Latina women and women born outside of the U.S. who obtain care from a family planning center use the center as their usual source of medical care. According to researchers at the Guttmacher Institute, without publicly funded family planning services, the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions occurring in the United States would be nearly two-thirds higher among women and teens, and would nearly double for poorer women. Almost all publicly funded family planning clinics provide pregnancy testing, and most offer STI testing and treatment, HIV testing and HPV vaccinations.
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 Price And Associates
901 Clay Street Oakland, California 94607 (510) 452-0292 (510) 452-5625 (Fax) "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. |
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