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Some people claim that unscrupulous employers have used drug tests as a cover to use a woman applicant or employee's urine to determine if she is pregnant (or has other medical conditions that might lead to claims on the group health insurance).

In particular, the ACLU claims that in the Washington DC police department admitted it had done this:

In 1988, the Washington, D.C. Police Department admitted it used urine samples collected for drug tests to screen female employees for pregnancy - without their knowledge or consent.

If this one case is true, is this something that happened many times, or is it an isolated incident?

Oddthinking
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Vivian River
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    I've put this On Hold in response to a flag. There are two possible questions here. Notable one: "Did the Washington Police admit to doing this?" and an unnotable one "Is this a wide problem?" If you want to ask the former, let's focus the title/question. If you want to ask the latter, let's find some notable claims of this. – Oddthinking Nov 12 '14 at 17:23
  • @Oddthinking, a quick Google search will find numerous claims that this practice exists. Try "drug test pregnancy job", for example. I chose to cite a claim by the ACLU because they claim that it happened at a specific institution at a specific time. I would like to ask the question, "In general, does it happen today?". How might I go about editing this question to make it a better fit for this site, or is that even possible? – Vivian River Nov 13 '14 at 18:44
  • I'm trying to find a useful question in here. I did that search. I found many claims it *could* be used that way. I found the ACLU claim it *has* been used that way in a specific case. I found a [1995 claim](http://www.ukcia.org/culture/piss_gui.php) that "employers are using urinalysis to test women for pregnancy. Pregnant women are getting laid off or denied employment after taking such a test." So, there are three directions we could go: 1) is it possible? 2) did it happen in Washington? 3) has it ever happened? (which the second question would resolve). – Oddthinking Nov 14 '14 at 04:06
  • Your title asks question 3. The body goes for question 2, then suddenly diverts to an unnotable claim - is it common? (Note: I found another reference claiming that it is illegal in the US, but that's probably neither here nor there.) – Oddthinking Nov 14 '14 at 04:12

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