May 1, 2019

Sports May 1, 2019

Olympic Champion Caster Semenya Loses Case To Compete Without Hormone Suppressants

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Wednesday that two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya, and female runners like her, must take medications to suppress testosterone output.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

An organization referred to as the supreme court of international sports has ruled against the controversial female track athlete Caster Semenya. The Court of Arbitration for Sport says Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion from South Africa, has to take medication to reduce her testosterone levels if she wants to keep competing in her preferred running events.

Semenya has been at the forefront of a debate about gender and sport. NPR’s Tom Goldman reports.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Caster Semenya exploded on the track and field scene with a dominating 800-meters win at the 2009 World Championships. Since then, her athletic career has been clouded by questions about her power and speed and her gender.

Her lopsided victories, muscular build and deep voice led track and field’s international governing body, the IAAF, to ask her to take a sex test. The official results were never revealed, but leaked information said she had what’s called an intersex condition, where she has much higher testosterone levels than most women.

Semenya has been a lightning rod on the issue of sex-gender in sport. She’s been the subject of humiliating criticism. And last year, an IAAF decision threatened her future as an athlete.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The athletics world body controversially ruled that the testosterone levels of female middle-distance runners should be restricted. The rule will apply to women in track events from the 400-meters up to a mile.

GOLDMAN: Semenya appealed the rule, and now the Court of Arbitration for Sport, or CAS, has rejected her appeal. CAS fully admits the testosterone restrictions discriminate against one group of women to protect another group and that discrimination is necessary. The IAAF says it’s grateful for the decision and says it’ll preserve the integrity of female athletics in the events covered by the rule.

Among those upset by the decision, Professor Roger Pielke.

ROGER PIELKE: Clearly, scientific integrity was a loser in this case.

GOLDMAN: Pielke directs the Sports Governance Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He describes himself as a scholar who studies the use and misuse of science in decision-making. Last year, his center published a paper criticizing the testosterone regulations.

Prior to coming up with the rule, IAAF was asked to show the performance advantage female athletes with higher levels of testosterone had over female athletes with lower levels. Pielke says the data he reviewed was, in his words, garbage.

PIELKE: Didn’t match up to performances. There was repeated data, phantom data. And in any data set where you have that many flawed data points, it’s enormously problematic for coming up with a robust conclusion.

GOLDMAN: Semenya’s lawyers reportedly are mulling another appeal. In a statement, Semenya said the CAS ruling won’t slow her down but will make her stronger. Over the years, Semenya hasn’t said much publicly about the controversy. After she won the 800-meters at the 2016 Olympics, she alluded to it as she spoke about the unifying power of sport.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CASTER SEMENYA: It’s all about loving one another. It’s not about discriminating people. It’s not about looking at people – how they look, how they speak. You know, it’s not about being muscular. It’s all about sport.

GOLDMAN: Now the 28-year-old track star has to decide what her future is in sports – whether to comply with the rule and start taking medication to reduce her testosterone level or perhaps competing in a running event not covered by the rule. And while she mulls her decision, the debate surrounding her dominating and controversial career is unlikely to end anytime soon. Tom Goldman, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF ULRICH SCHNAUSS’ “KNUDDELMAUS”)

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Health May 1, 2019

Alabama Lawmakers Move To Outlaw Abortion In Challenge To Roe V. Wade

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A view of the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala. A sweeping abortion bill passed the state House Tuesday, and is expected to win final passage in the Republican majority Senate.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

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Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

In what would likely become the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, the Alabama House Tuesday passed a bill that would make it a crime for doctors to perform abortions at any stage of a pregnancy, unless a woman’s life is threatened. The legislation is part of a broader anti-abortion strategy to prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the right to abortion.

Republican state Rep. Terri Collins of Decatur, Ala. defended her “Human Life Protection Act” during, at times, contentious debate on the House floor.

“This bill is focused on that baby that’s in the womb that is a person,” Collins said. “That baby, I believe, would choose life.”

Democratic lawmakers walked out in protest before the final 74 to 3 vote. During debate, they questioned the motive for an abortion ban in a state that’s refused to expand Medicaid. “I do support life, but there are some people that just support birth they don’t support life,” said Democratic Rep. Merika Coleman of Birmingham, Ala. “Because after a child is born there are some things that need to happen. We need to make sure that child has adequate health care,” Coleman said.

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The Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity coalition demonstrated outside the Alabama statehouse last month.

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Debbie Elliott/NPR

Other states, including neighboring Georgia and Mississippi, have passed laws that prohibit abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. But Alabama’s ban would apply even earlier.

“When a woman is pregnant, an abortion is no longer legal,” says Collins, explaining the bill.

The bill criminalizes abortion, meaning doctors would face felony jail time up to 99 years if convicted. The only exceptions are for a serious health risk to the pregnant woman, or a lethal anomaly of the fetus. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. A woman would not be held criminally liable for having an abortion.

Collins says the bill follows a constitutional amendment approved by Alabama voters last year that recognizes the “rights of unborn children.” It defies the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision that protects a woman’s right to abortion.

“This bill is simply about Roe v. Wade,” says Collins. “The decision that was made back in 1973 would not be the same decision that was decided upon today if you relooked at the issue.”

Her bill cites abolition, the civil rights movement and women’s suffrage as justification for establishing the human rights of a fetus. Alabama is one of more than two dozen states seeking to restrict abortion rights this year, testing federal legal precedent that prevents states from banning abortion before the point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb.

Alabama Pro-Life Coalition President Eric Johnston says there’s a reason there’s so much activity now.”The dynamic has changed,” Johnston says. “The judges have changed, a lot of changes over that time, and so I think we’re at the point where we need to take a bigger and a bolder step.” The bold move to outlaw nearly all abortions is drawing protests from abortion rights advocates.

A coalition called Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity demonstrated outside the Alabama statehouse last month.

“This bill is an awful piece of grandstanding,” said Amanda Reyes of Tuscaloosa, Ala. She’s president of the Yellowhammer Fund, a group that helps women pay for abortions. “If you make abortion illegal somewhere that doesn’t mean that abortion goes away,” says Reyes. “It just becomes more difficult and more dangerous to access.”

The bill is expected to win final passage in the Republican majority Alabama Senate. The ACLU of Alabama says it will sue if the abortion ban becomes law.

Executive Director Randall Marshall says the bill is unconstitutional. “There is simply nothing that Alabama can do to interfere with the right of access to abortion,” Marshall says. “That is a federal right and the Federal Constitution clearly trumps all state law.” With two Trump appointees now on the U.S. Supreme Court, anti-abortion forces are optimistic that judicial interpretation could be reversed.

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Business May 1, 2019