After Almost Four Decades...

...why are we still having to fight for this, and so many other aspects of reproductive freedom? From a statement by NOW President Terry O'Neill:

As we celebrate the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade [which was January 22], the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized a woman's constitutional right to legal abortion, we can't forget how many times women's lives have been put at risk in the past year. Legislators in 24 states passed 92 anti-abortion provisions in 2011, shattering the previous record of 34 adopted in 2005, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

These new restrictions included waiting-period requirements, onerous and unnecessary clinic regulations and cuts to family planning services and providers because of their connection with abortion. Thanks to a newly energized grassroots coalition, voters defeated the Mississippi Personhood Amendment, a measure that would have legally defined personhood as beginning at fertilization in the state's constitution. But that fight is far from over.

Far, far from over, unfortunately.

The Continued Erosion of Reproductive Rights

From s. e. smith:

The attack on reproductive rights in the United States is likely to heat up in 2012, and we have an early entrant in the race to the bottom in the form of a court decision that went through on Friday, ordering the immediate enforcement of a mandatory sonogram law in Texas. More specifically:

The law, enacted in 2011, requires abortion providers to perform an ultrasound on pregnant women, show and describe the image to them, and play sounds of the fetal heartbeat. Though women can decline to view images or hear the heartbeat, they must listen to a description of the exam…unless she qualifies for an exception due to rape, incest or fetal abnormality.

This is not the first state with such a law and I fear it’s going to become a growing trend in the US, right along with dismembered fetus anti-abortion ads on television. The right wing is bent on making abortions as difficult to access as possible through every possible means, and that includes coercive, invasive, and unwanted interference from their medical providers. As spelled out under the law, this is yet another hoop in the series people with unwanted or dangerous pregnancies must jump through to get access to medical care, and it’s a humiliating and shaming one.

Says Texas Governor Rick Perry:

The Fifth Circuit’s decision requires abortion providers to immediately comply with the sonogram law, appropriately allowing Texas to enforce the will of our state, which values and protects the sanctity of life.

Texas "values and protects the sanctity of life," said, I am sure, without irony.

But... this is Texas, number one in the number of executions carried out in the last 35 years and the state where the legislature hoped, just last year, to gut education, health care, and social services.

I guess, however, with regards to a state in which lawmakers "slashed family planning funding by two-thirds," we should not be surprised at the continued erosion of reproductive rights.

Doesn't make it any less scary.

Chip, Chip, Chip

That's how I'd describe what the state legislature is doing to abortion access in Nebraska:

Nebraska lawmakers on Monday gave final approval to a first-of-its-kind measure requiring women to be screened for possible mental and physical problems before having abortions.
[snip]
The bill requires a doctor or other health professional to screen women to determine whether they were pressured into having abortions. The screenings also would assess whether women have risk factors that could lead to mental or physical problems after an abortion.

I read that article just before reading this one about Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's decision to again declare April "Abortion Recovery Month":

The proclamation... “encourages and promotes healing opportunities and raises awareness of the aftermath of abortion experienced by individuals and families,” according to the document signed by the Republican governor and Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

Despite claims to the contrary, the bill and the proclamation are not about caring for women and their mental and physical health. They are about politics.

I am convinced of that, especially in the aftermath of recent studies which found

There is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women

and

Recent studies that have been used to assert a causal connection between abortion and subsequent mental disorders are marked by methodological problems [example here] that include, but not limited to: poor sample and comparison group selection; inadequate conceptualization and control of relevant variables; poor quality and lack of clinical significance of outcome measures; inappropriateness of statistical analyses; and errors of interpretation, including misattribution of causal effects. By way of contrast, we review some recent major studies that avoid these methodological errors. The most consistent predictor of mental disorders after abortion remains preexisting disorders

My point is not that no woman ever experiences depression or guilt after having an abortion, but that evidence points to co-occuring factors, not abortion, as causal. For example, in my case, any guilt I felt was about not feeling guilty as everyone had told me women who have abortions should. About the abortion itself, I felt relief, and I thought, "Wow, does that mean something is wrong with me?"

My case exemplifies what potential laws and proclamations like this do--they foster the notion that abortion has to be traumatic and guilt-inducing, even when studies and women themselves counter that idea.

I say these actions are about politics, too, for at least two other reasons. First, the goal is to scare women into not having abortions. Having one's doctor say, "You can have this procedure, but you are at risk for serious difficulties if you do," is frightening and, as I'm sure anti-choice folk are hoping, quite the deterrent.

Second, I don't see as much concern for screening women who decide not to terminate their pregnancies. We know that women can have physical and mental health issues after spontaneous miscarriage and childbirth--why no push for intensive screening and "warning" or recovery proclamations for those cases?

The other major question circulating in my mind is, what do laws like the potential Nebraska one mean, with regards to the way we frame choice, for women who are determined by their doctors to have mental or physical health "risks?"

I Write Letters

Dear Animal Rights Group That Shall Not Be Named,

I must say, you have outdone yourself. Because this shit right here:



takes my breath away. You have a bit of everything going on here. I mean, obviously this ad can appeal to a variety of people, most notably people:

Who liken poor mothers to animals.

Who are proponents of negative eugenics and forced sterilization.

Who believe poor mothers and their children are burdens on "taxpayers."

Who believe only certain women should have children, and who see the birth of children to some mothers as an "epidemic," or a "problem" or any of those other negative terms.

You know, the old sympathetic me might have been tempted to believe maybe, since you keep producing such horrible ads, you don't know the background of some of this stuff you invoke. Then I remembered some wise words from Sarah M.:

[They know] they are operating within potent historical narratives—without a history of the objectification/subjugation of women, or slavery and racism, their imagery wouldn’t be nearly as powerful.

I suspect you're reaching people whom you might not envision as your target audience, but really, we can't tell.

Sincerely,

elle

The Limits of Choice

Tessa Savicki, of Springfield, MA, maintains that she was illegally (without her permission) given a tubal ligation after delivering her ninth child. A reporter from the Boston Herald interviewed her, and over and over Savicki's words cut to what is the heart of the issue: "That’s my choice," she said, "This is my body."

But a few days later, the Herald prints another story about Savicki with the headline, "Public backlash stuns sterilized mother of nine." Apparently, she has gotten hateful Facebook comments and texts and people telling her she should be ashamed of herself.

I want to tell her, Ms. Savicki, don't be stunned, not when the Herald felt the need to include this in the first article:

Savicki has nine children from several men, is unemployed and relies on public assistance for two of the four children who live with her. She receives supplemental security income, or SSI, for a disability, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she said. Her mother has custody of three of her children. Two of her children are no longer minors.

Why, you might think, is that included? Why is this not about the doctors and nurses who allegedly sterilized this woman without consent?

Well, that part is about the doctors and nurses--the reporter wanted to give you a chance to "understand" what their motivation may have been. I mean, after reading that, anyone can see why the medical personnel acted as they did, a fact confirmed by the public backlash. It's a really old story by now and it boils down to this:

Poor, single women should not be having children, much less nine children. Their choices are not respected/respectable. They cost "us." Their children cost "us." Someone else knows what's better for them and the ever-burdened taxpayers.

In fact, the second page of the initial article is Savicki being placed on the defense, because, as a poor single woman, she has done something wrong in having children:

Savicki acknowledged that some may feel little sympathy for her situation, but cautioned against public judgment because she is a poor, unmarried mother of 9.

“I would never have the right to tell anyone else ‘because you have this many kids that’s enough,’ ” she said. “That’s no one’s right to say that. It’s my choice. No one has the right to say you’ve had enough.

“I take care of my kids. I love my kids. I was not ready to make that kind of decision,” she said of the permanent sterilization.

Savicki said her life has stabilized in the last decade after a rocky start. She had her first child at 13 and dropped out of high school in the ninth grade.

Savicki said she’s been in a relationship with her fiance, Angel Flores Tirado, 36, since she was 25. She lives with him and the couple’s three children. Tirado helps support the family with his full-time job as a personal care assistant. Savicki said she’s had eight of her nine children while in committed relationships and hoped for one more child with Tirado.

“It’s not like I’m jumping from guy to guy to guy to get pregnant,” she said. “I’m trying to make a healthy home for my children.”

This is our world, where a woman who may have been sterilized against her will has to offer arguments as to why this should not have happened to her.

So what if it's an illegal, invasive violation? So many will see this particular violation as the right thing, the best choice.

Left in Limbo

When 19-year-old Tegan Leach fell pregnant, she and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Sergie Brennan, decided they did not want to carry the pregnancy to term. She chose to have an abortion. For making that choice, she now faces seven years in prison, and her boyfriend, three.

Tegan Leach lives in Cairns, Queensland in Australia, where having an abortion is a crime. From this article, it appears that a woman can be administered RU-486, if it is determined that the woman’s health is at risk. The article doesn’t mention any other exceptions. So, Leach and Brennan procured a “Chinese version” of RU-486 from Ukraine and induced a miscarriage at home. Police later found the packets that had contained the drugs while searching their home for other reasons.

At the heart of this story is Tegan Leach and I don’t want to divert our attention from that. But I am struck by how her case reveals the systematic way that anti-abortion laws and advocates work to circumscribe the choices of all women, by creating an atmosphere of terror. Women and doctors fear prosecution, ostracism, and vigilante attacks. Since Leach’s case came to light:

Their home has been firebombed.
Her boyfriend’s car has been vandalized.
They have had to go into hiding.
Doctors have stopped prescribing RU-486 (and many of them were hesitant to do so before her case, given the ambiguity surrounding whether or not it should be administered).
And:

Queensland hospitals recently suspended drug-induced abortions after the Leach case and insurance companies in the state said that they would withdraw cover from doctors who aided medical abortions. Their decision forced dozens of women over the border into New South Wales for terminations. After doctors there, too, refused to perform abortions for fear of being prosecuted, a number of women were left in limbo…

Always, women are “left in limbo,” waiting for others to decide what our level of autonomy over our own bodies should be.

Why My Radio Is Usually Off

Monday evening, on my way home, I decided to turn on the radio. I caught the recap of a local morning show, one of those, "If you didn't tune into us this morning, here's what you missed," sort of spots. In any case, the topic of the show that morning had been Nadya Suleman, and the show's hosts apparently continued the hateful, derogatory talk that has surrounded Suleman and her children.

The main host wanted people to call and weigh in on the fact that Suleman's medical bill was being turned over to California's medicaid/state health insurance plan.* There is, of course, no grounds for debate on such a topic, just a chance for people to call in to rant about people "who-have-babies-and-expect-us-to-take-care-of-them!!!" You'd think that topic was old--we've been hearing it for decades now, right?

Anyway, during the course of the show, the host interrupted one of the co-host's proclamation of how sad the situation is, to mimic Bob Barker/Drew Carey and remind people to have their cats and dogs spayed or neutered. The co-hosts immediately collapsed into laughter.

How hilarious-- Likening a woman to a pet and "humorously" recommending sterilization.

And the station thought it was funny enough to showcase it as a highlight.

I drafted a letter that I plan to fax this morning, then mail. Despite the words I managed to cobble together, I still feel that I just don't know what to say.
________________________________________

*The frenzy surrounding Nadya Suleman has demonstrated, like nothing else since the debates on "reforming" welfare in the 1990s, our national obsession over who "should" be a mother and who is "deserving" of assistance.

Things Seen 12

Procured by mrs. o during her countryside travels:



A few incomplete musings (I should probably duck and cover):

1) The pro-choice position is not about demanding the termination of any and every pregnancy.

2) As mrs. o appended to her e-mail, these are not the times of Mary and Joseph, for many of us. Part of being pro-choice is about working towards and respecting women's autonomy. What autonomy did Mary have? She is primarily revered for having been a "vessel."

Her worth was tied up in her virginity--if her unmarried pregnancy had been found out she could have been killed; she was no longer a desirable marriage prospect.

Even carrying a pregnancy that, in the words of Sojourner Truth, man had nothing to do with, Mary found her baby's ancestry traced through her husband and her husband named the baby.

3) One of the things that people who are pro-choice advocate is strong support systems for pregnant women so that a full range of CHOICES are open to women. A literal interpretation of the story of Mary's pregnancy reveals that she, as a girl described as humble and devout, had the support that she would've considered most important--that of her God. Plus, Mary had internal insulation from the slut-shaming that complicates many teenagers' pregnancies.

4) The logic behind the question on the marquee is faulty:

a. It is based on the comparison of Mary with other teenaged girls who have
unexpected pregnancies. Yes, Mary was young, with an unplanned pregnancy, and could have faced death. That last factor cannot be overstated. But Mary had a kind of support (see #3) many girls don't. Because the angel appeared to Joseph as well, she also had the protection of being married before her pregnancy was apparent.

b. Emmanuel Baptist Church uses the argument to "rebuke" pro-choicers and claim that EBC is supportive of "life." But it is who they don't rebuke that demonstrates, again, that the pro-life position is one that is not so much centered on "protecting life," but on regulating how women express their sexuality and how they reproduce. If church members care so much about life, why don't they, when using Mary as an example, critique the society in which she lived--one that would have killed her and ended her pregnancy as well? Especially when that is a danger many women still face.

c. It doesn't work as well if you substitute other parents. I shouldn't say it, but I thought it, and according to my mother, it's the same. Seriously, plug in the names of the parents of someone you believe is truly evil.

Support The New Orleans Women's Health Clinic!

I'm going to put a section of the e-mail here with pertinent details about donating, but the text of the entire e-mail is below the fold.

Please help the New Orleans Women’s Health & Justice Initiative (WHJI) and the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic (NOWHC) to continue prioritizing the needs, experiences, and leadership of women of color and low-income women in the region. We ask for a donation that will:

* Expand the Clinic’s ability to continue to support and subsidize the cost of care and medication for uninsured women who access services at our Clinic through our Women’s Health Access Fund.

* Build the Clinic’s Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute – focusing on comprehensive sex education, sexual violence prevention, sexuality, and STI education, and HIV prevention justice advocacy

* Open the WHJI Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center to serve as a resource and organizing hub to end violence against of women of color and gender variant members of our community

* Develop our joint Action Kits and Toolkits, including informational pamphlets, posters, and fact sheets on safe forms of birth control, STIs, breast health, fibroids, environmental toxicants & reproductive health, gender violence prevention, alternative health and healing remedies

We are asking you to further our work this holiday season by giving a gift of justice.

A Gift of $50
* Subsidizes a well-woman annual exam, including a pap smear, to an uninsured low-income woman
* Funds the expansion of the WHJI Women of Color Lending Library

A Gift of $100
* Subsidizes the lab cost of uninsured patients at the Clinic, and
* Develops WHJI sexual and reproductive justice organizing tools and materials

A Gift of $250
* Supports the involvement of youth in the Clinic’s Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute
* Contributes to the planning, coordination, and convening of WHJI Organizing Institutes

A Gift of $500
* Bolsters the Clinic’s Women’s Health Access Fund
* Supports the opening of the Initiative’s Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center

A Gift of $1000
* Supports the salary of a full-time paid executive director and medical staff for NOWHC
* Strengthens the long-term sustainability of the Clinic’s ability to provide safe, affordable, non-coercive holistic sexual and reproductive health services and information

Financial contributions should be made out to our fiscal sponsor: Women With A Vision, with NOWHC and WHJI listed in the memo line. All contributions will be split evenly between NOWHC and WHJI, so your donation will support the work of both organizations. Checks should be mailed to the:

New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic
1406 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70116

Your gift is tax-deductible and you will receive an acknowledgement letter with the Women With A Vision Nonprofit EIN#.

Full text of the e-mail:

December 2008

Dear Friends and Supporters,

With 2009 rapidly approaching, the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic (NOWHC) and the New Orleans Women’s Health & Justice Initiative (WHJI) would like to wish you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season, and thank you for all of your support this past year. Thank you.

As NOWHC and WHJI continue to work together to equip marginalized and underserved women with the means to control and care for their own bodies, sexuality, reproduction, and health, while developing community-based strategies to improve the social and economic health and well-being of women of color and low-income women, we ask you to support the ongoing efforts of our organizations by making a donation this holiday season. This appeal presents accomplishments of both of our organizations for your giving consideration.

New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic
The women we serve at NOWHC are the women we stand with, the women we are – women of color and low-income women most affected by disasters (natural and economic), women whose bodies are blamed and used as decoys for systemic injustices. We recognize that the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic cannot simply end at addressing immediate needs through services delivery. NOWHC works to integrate reproductive justice organizing and health education advocacy into our clinic to address root causes of health disparities and sexual and reproductive oppression. Our programming acknowledges intersectionality and addresses the social and economic determinants of health disparities, while challenging punitive policies around social welfare, housing, and reproductive health.

With the support of hundreds of donors like you, in just 19 months, NOWHC provided safe and affordable comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care services and information to 3,040 women from throughout the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area as follows:

* 618 unduplicated women accessed direct medical services, 432 of which had repeat visits
* 820 additional women accessed health information and counseling services.
* Approximately 1600 referrals for service were provided over the last 5 months.
* Subsidized the cost of direct medical services for hundreds of women through the Women’s Health Access Fund
* Partnered with the B.W. Cooper Housing Development Resident Management Corporation, enabling NOWHC to advocate and organize directly in the communities where many of our constituents live.
* Launched a Sexual Health Youth Advocacy program, focusing on comprehensive sex education, sexual violence prevention, sexuality and gender identity, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) education including HIV prevention justice advocacy

The women accessing and utilizing services at the clinic and the need for safe and holistic sexual and reproductive health services and resources, paint a portrait of the unique vulnerabilities that women of color, low income, and uninsured women face in accessing health care. Take for example, the demographics of our clinic patients:

* 65% of our patients who access care at the Clinic lacked health insurance. Without our support, most of these women would have gone months or even years without receiving safe, affordable, and unbiased care.
* 72% reported annual incomes of less than $24,999 –nearly 40% earned less than $10,000 a year
* 60% identifies as Black/African-American, and nearly 20% identifies as Latina/Hispanic – many of whom are undocumented. The Clinic provides a safe space to alleviate this fear of deportation for many undocumented women.
* 70% identified their housing status as ‘renting’ and
* 84% were between the ages of 18 to 40 years of age

With your continual support, NOWHC can expand our integrated approach by improving the sexual and reproductive health of low-income and underserved women and their families.

Women’s Health & Justice Initiative
Much of the work of the clinic is done in concert with our sister collective, WHJI. WHJI impacts the reproductive and sexual health lives of women of color and low-income women, by mobilizing our communities to engage in racial, gender, and reproductive justice activism that challenges the legislation and criminalization of women of color and poor women’s bodies, sexuality, fertility, and motherhood. As a predominately all volunteer collective, WHJI has:

* Launched organizing efforts to establish a Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center, to serve as a resource and organizing hub to nurture grassroots organizing and activism to end violence against women of color, linking struggles against the violence of poverty, incarceration, environmental racism, housing discrimination, economic exploitation, medical experimentation, and forced sterilization. The Center will house a Radical Women of Color Lending Library, a cluster of computers for community access, meeting space, and a host of movement building and leadership development programs and resources.

* Sponsored a series of Organizing Institutes, focused on examining and challenging gender and sexuality-based violence against women of color and queer and trans people of color. The Organizing Institutes have both facilitated community building conversations between grassroots social justice organizers and health practitioners, and created a space for developing grassroots strategies to equip those most disenfranchised by the medical industry in exercising their agency to take control of the their bodies, reproduction, and sexuality, while organizing for racial, gender, and reproductive justice.

NOWHC and WHJI COLLABORATIVE WORK

* Led a coordinated effort to respond to the particular vulnerabilities of women of color, low income women, and women headed households (including women with disabilities, seniors, undocumented immigrant women, and incarcerated women.) We made over 700 calls, assisting our constituency and their families develop and implement evacuation and safety plans as communities across the Gulf Coast region prepared for Hurricane Gustav. Ironically, this occurred on the eve of the 3 year anniversary of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent government negligence.

* Immediately following Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, WHJI and NOWHC took the lead in responding to the eugenic and racist legislative plans of Representative John LaBruzzo (R) of Louisiana to pay poor women $1,000 to get sterilized under the cloak of reducing the number of people on welfare and those utilizing public housing subsidies. Our organizational responses to Representative LaBruzzo’s eugenic agenda, and the outcry of social justice organizations and community members around the country, resulted in LaBruzzo being removed from his position as vice chairman of the House Health & Welfare Committee.

Please help WHJI and NOWHC to continue prioritizing the needs, experiences, and leadership of women of color and low-income women in the region. We ask for a donation that will:

* Expand the Clinic’s ability to continue to support and subsidize the cost of care and medication for uninsured women who access services at our Clinic through our Women’s Health Access Fund.

* Build the Clinic’s Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute – focusing on comprehensive sex education, sexual violence prevention, sexuality, and STI education, and HIV prevention justice advocacy

* Open the WHJI Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center to serve as a resource and organizing hub to end violence against of women of color and gender variant members of our community

* Develop our joint Action Kits and Toolkits, including informational pamphlets, posters, and fact sheets on safe forms of birth control, STIs, breast health, fibroids, environmental toxicants & reproductive health, gender violence prevention, alternative health and healing remedies

We are asking you to further our work this holiday season by giving a gift of justice.

A Gift of $50
* Subsidizes a well-woman annual exam, including a pap smear, to an uninsured low-income woman
* Funds the expansion of the WHJI Women of Color Lending Library

A Gift of $100
* Subsidizes the lab cost of uninsured patients at the Clinic, and
* Develops WHJI sexual and reproductive justice organizing tools and materials

A Gift of $250
* Supports the involvement of youth in the Clinic’s Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute
* Contributes to the planning, coordination, and convening of WHJI Organizing Institutes

A Gift of $500
* Bolsters the Clinic’s Women’s Health Access Fund
* Supports the opening of the Initiative’s Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center

A Gift of $1000
* Supports the salary of a full-time paid executive director and medical staff for NOWHC
* Strengthens the long-term sustainability of the Clinic’s ability to provide safe, affordable, non-coercive holistic sexual and reproductive health services and information

Financial contributions should be made out to our fiscal sponsor: Women With A Vision, with NOWHC and WHJI listed in the memo line. All contributions will be split evenly between NOWHC and WHJI, so your donation will support the work of both organizations. Checks should be mailed to the:

New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic
1406 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70116

Your gift is tax-deductible and you will receive an acknowledgement letter with the Women With A Vision Nonprofit EIN#.

The New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic and the Women’s Health & Justice Initiative warmly thank our network of donors and volunteers for your continued generous support. Please support this essential work with the most generous donation you can give. Our ability to provide needed services, maintain autonomy and organize to build power and a healthy community is made possible through the support of individuals and organizations in our community and nationwide.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic Board of Directors
Women’s Health & Justice Initiative Collective

I Know I'm Cynical But...

...when I heard Michelle Duggar was pregnant with her 18th, I thought, "Mmm, if that was a woman of color pregnant for the 15th time, I think the media coverage would be a little different." So I asked my mom and my sister for their input and we are sitting around thinking what might be different.

I don't think there'd be a website for her on the Discovery Channel site.

I don't think people would want to hear about her "excitement and anticipation." I think we'd hear more words like "overburdened taxpayers" and "expenses" and "irresponsible."

From my sister: They wouldn't receive any widespread financial or physical help with maintaining home and family.

From my mother: They'd be saying she needed her tubes tied or a hysterectomy.

My sister brought up the difference in the public reception of the (white) McCaughey septuplets and the (black) Thompson sextuplets.

My mom thinks it unfair to the older children, especially the girls.

While my mom was talking, she shared something her mother-in-law had told her long ago. My grandmother told her to be careful of tubal ligations and hysterectomies. According to my mom, her words were something like, "All these tube tyings and hysterectomies they making black women have aren't really needed. They trying to stop us from having babies, but letting white women have as many as they want."

And I am floored. Because my grandmother, a long time ago, understood and articulated why reproductive rights aren't just about not having babies or choosing when you do have them, but enjoying the right to have them at all.

Mothers of Color

I really did have my head buried in the sand over the last couple of weeks. I was horrified to come back and read news on some of my favorite blogs of the New Bedford, MA, raid, conducted by Immigration and Customs, that separated children and families. BfP has video here and asks again why feminists' definition of reproductive justice is based so narrowly on access to contraception and abortion. One question she asks:

I mean, does it not count as reproductive issues that a woman’s breasts become engorged and possibly infected with mastis because she stops breast feeding so quickly?

BfP also brings up the silence of mainstream (white) feminists blogs on the raid, a thread Sylvia and BlackAmazon pick up quite fiercely here and here.

The name of BfP's post is "Do Immigrant Women Count as Women?" My answer was an immediate no--not to the employers who insist on defining them solely as employees and an exploitable workforce; not to the government officials who think it is okay to rip them away from their children, not to the general U.S. public that think of them as lawbreakers out to rob the country--of what, I don't know. But it would seem that immigrant women may not even count as women to those whose politics and/or life work is supposedly centered around women!

That federal officials could do this, then defend their actions, I think, lies in the fact that women of color don't count as mothers, either. A discourse has developed in this country to support stealing our children away from us that attacks us as immoral, "illegal," or uneducated. I see this raid on a historical continuum with black children sold away from their mothers and Native children forced into "Indian schools" so they could be "properly" Christianized and Americanized. In fact, Americanizers of the late 19th/early 20th century spent inordinate amounts of time threatening to take immigrant children from their parents, telling immigrant mothers how their methods of child-rearing were substandard to those of more WASP-y Americans, probably as much time as 20th century welfare critics spent convincing themselves that poor black women did not really love or want their children--they only had them to get more out of the system--and as much time as 21st century anti-immigration proponents spend convincing themselves that Latinas don't really love or want their children--they just want anchor babies.

At the same time all these theories hurt our children, they hurt us, too. They justify the exploitation of our labor--it's okay if we work long hours in dangerous jobs; our children don't really need us. They justify the exploitation of our bodies--after all we're manipulative women not above using them for material gain. They justify the continual denial of the most basic rights to us. BfP is right--we should be angry.

The Mira Coalition on how to help.

Why I'm Pro-Choice

Why am I pro-choice? I don't often examine my reasons, am usually content to offer a "because women should have autonomy over their own bodies" as sufficient cause. But what about me personally? Yes, I've had an abortion. Yes, I've had a child. In both cases, I chose what I wanted to do, and I believe that every woman should have that right.

There was no incapacitating post-abortion syndrome (or whatever the "pro-certain-life" crew is calling it lately). What I did feel was relief. And here is another reason I'm pro-choice, because the discourse around pregnancy, abortion, and motherhood is such that, while I didn't feel guilty about the abortion, I felt guilty about not feeling guilty. I felt guilty because I had no business being pregnant anyway--I should've known better. I felt guilty because one of the factors in my choice was that I was a college student on scholarship far from home and I knew that I wouldn't have been able to stay at my university. Was that selfish? And as a woman, defined largely as a potential mother, wasn't I supposed to be infinitely selfless? I don't want other women going through that "ashamed of not being shamed."

But I am learning that the way I conceptualize choice is influenced somewhat negatively by my privileged-in-some-ways status. First is my previously narrow definition; when I talk of reproductive freedom, I usually mean access to birth control and abortion. Though I know that there are other issues, I prioritize those, because they have been my concerns. But recently, I found this definition from INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence :

REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM INCLUDES: Free and low cost drug treatment for pregnant and parenting women that offer neo-natal care, pre-natal care, and childcare. * Freedom to seek health care services without the fear of being reported to the police, welfare officials, child protection services (CPS), or immigration law enforcement. * Harm reduction strategies that reduce the risk of babies being born drug exposed. * Resources to address the root causes (rape, poverty, trauma, oppression)for which pregnant women use drugs. * The TRUTH about the risks of choosing long-term birth control methods like Norplant and Depo-Provera. * Supportive community environments where women can make healthy and non-coercive reproductive choice

Yes, I thought. I agree with every bit of that. So why haven't my words and thoughts reflected it? But rather than dwell on why I haven't prioritized these issues, I have to work to make them part of my own definition of reproductive freedom.

And BfP has posted an excerpt from Andrea Smith's Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. What it reveals is that a narrow definition of choice like mine "continues the marginalization of women of color, poor women and women with disabilities." Some reasons why:

1. One example of this marginalization is how pro-choice organizations narrow their advocacy to legislation that affects the right to choose to have an abortion–without addressing the conditions that put women in the position of having to make the decision in the first place.

2. While contraceptives are often articulated as an issue of “choice” for white women in the First World, they are articulated as an instrument of population control for women of color and women in the Global South. (I think petitpoussin's post about "elective" sterilization in California prisons is somehow related to this).

3. The prevalent ideology within the mainstream pro-choice movement is that women should have the “choice” to use whatever contraception they want. Yet, mainstream activists often do not consider that a choice among dangerous contraceptives [like Depo-Provera and Norplant, which I know are favored at some health units in North LA] is not much of a choice.

I have been dismissive, even on this blog, of the effects of the population control/eugenics ideology of Margaret Sanger in a, "Yes, it's bad, but look what came out of her work" sort of way. I have been dismissive, in real life, towards women who have unwanted pregnancies and yet cannot afford abortion: "How can't you afford abortion? Having a child is much more expensive!" I have been dismissive, in my thoughts, of women in my community who have unwanted pregnancies and yet do not want an abortion because of religious and cultural beliefs.

And what I can say, as a woman, and I think, for me, especially as a woman of color, is, "Shame on me." My own discourse about choice has to stop being so limited, so clueless, so exclusionary.

It's really not choice at all, if it is only the domain of women who can "afford [it] or [who] are deemed legitimate choice-makers."

Hurry Up, Already!!! (EC)

Remember this:

elle, abd: The Clock Is Ticking...

Now, read this similar, sad tale. Only, sad may be the wrong adjective. How about "pissing-me-off-beyond-all-reason" tale?

If I never told you, I am deliriously happy the FDA stopped dragging its figurative feet and approved OTC EC. But when's it coming? How many more of us will have to go through this??!!

**Update-My story ended with some old BC pills, some creative chemistry, being viciously ill at 3 in the morning, and, like this sentence, a period. ;-p**

On South Dakota...

Does it bear repeating all the reasons that I, and so many other people who share the radical notion that women should have control over their bodies and reproductive choices, am so opposed to the SD bill? I just don't feel like it right now. Instead, I'll focus on the fact that they would ban abortion in the cases of incest and rape. Religious conservative LaShawn Barber has provided a reason for this: though some violent, hateful man may have meant the attack for "bad," it is possible that God meant a resultant pregnancy for "good." My sister, in her usual pithy way, summed up with the response, "My God, it'd be a double violation."

And it would. How dare some smug, I-know-what-God-wants "pro-lifer" mandate that, not only would a woman have to bear the brunt of a vicious attack, or series of attacks, she would also have to bear the mental and physical anguish of an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy and giving birth to a child who is part of someone who terrorized her? I remember watching some show on which a woman had been forced to carry to term a pregnancy that resulted from rape. She had never bonded with her daughter; the reason, in her words: "Every time I look at that child, I see that man's face." Not all of us have the amazing powers of forgiveness or the miraculous ability to see and interpret God's plan. Not all of us can focus on what He might mean for good when we are hurting so badly.

If you have not been the survivor of a sexual assault--and I doubt that anyone who would support a bill like this has--you cannot imagine what it does to your mind, to who you are. In those horrible, horrible moments, you have no control over what happens to your body. That the state of South Dakota seeks to prolong this feeling of powerlessness and lack of control is inhuman. It bears witness to the fact that they only care about certain lives and about the quality of life of none.

The right to choice should be protected for all women in all circumstances. But this issue, these circumstances, are particularly close to my heart. So, I have to abandon the soft-spokenness, for once and say to the SD House and its supporters:

Get your damned religious agenda, your fucking misplaced self-righteousness, and your generally disgusting ignorance of other people's realities out of my life and off my body.

A Milestone in Women's Reproductive Freedom...

...not that the goal has been achieved. If so, we wouldn't still have to fight so fiercely.
Anyway, I promised a nice post for the Roe v. Wade Anniversary. I did my research. I stared at my pack of ortho and marveled at my clearing complexion. I found out some not-so-nice things about Margaret Sanger and statistics that refuted long held beliefs that "white girls have more abortions than us." And still, I was at a loss of words. And then I thought, I'll tell you a story. About one of my favorite people and how she left me wondering about opportunities and potential deferred.
My Grandmother, A, was born in rural Louisiana in 1924, eventually one of 6 kids. I don't know much about her childhood--I knew two of her siblings, uncles MC and N, and I vaguely remember her mother, to whom I apparently bear a striking resemblance. What I know of A's life begins in 1944 when she and my Granddad, J, had their first son. My dad was number three.
From all accounts, A was one smart cookie. When J, a WWII vet, went back to school at Grambling State, the realities of a growing family meant he had to work , too. So, in the midst of childrearing and meal preparing, A had to complete J's homework regularly. She was particularly strong in math--both college level and that of her school-age children. Probably a factor in why she taught me to play spades and dominos with such skill. Despite (or because of) her sizable family, A had to work outside the home in the low-skill, low-wage "service" jobs characteristic of much of ethnic/racial minority women's paid work.
My point, this brilliant woman--the superior "brain" in her marriage, according to her kids--had 14 kids between 1944 and 1964. Two sets of twins (one set stillborn), at least a couple who had 11 months or less between them, and mostly BOYS (only 3 girls)! I heard someone repeat a self-deprecating joke A made one time--that each time she pulled her clothes off, she got pregnant.
So now that I'm a grown woman, I think about my grandmother in womanly terms. I think of how, despite the fact that she loved all her kids, she must have felt despair when some of her pregnancies were confirmed. I think of how maybe she thought it was unfair that J was able to venture out and get his degree while she stayed behind in so many ways. I think about how she may have absolutely dreaded sex sometimes--hell, I do and I have one kid and a really good ob/gyn. I think about how incredibly tiring it must have been to have children for TWENTY YEARS. I think about how access to effective birth control--both mental/emotional access (in case she felt it was somehow wrong) and literal access--may have changed her life. And I think about what else she could have been--she had the mothering and grandmothering down pat, we all adored her--if she'd had more choices.
In 1990, a month shy of her 66th birthday, A, who had been wracked by a number of illnesses for a number of years, became gravely ill. When it came time to make the decision on whether to sustain her life artificially, her children decided not to. Their major reason? "Mama was tired. Her body was tired." And part of that tiredness--12 confirmed pregnancies. 108 months of unbelievable stress on her small frame.

And, just maybe, a lifetime of wondering what if.

Alito

I was all set to be wary of this man based on his anti-choice stance alone. Well, that and the fact that any person that conservatives wholeheartedly endorse and love sends chills up my spine. But anyway, I was listening to my secret boyfriend, Tavis Smiley, this morning, and he raised some issues that I wasn't even aware of. See, Mr. Smiley knows that black America can't be convinced to protest against someone because s/he's anti-choice or anti-gay rights--hell, large sections of our community share those sentiments. So he had to tell us more about Mr. Alito. And he did quite an impressive job.

Like pointing out that Mr. Alito is against one person, one vote.

And, that, in 15 years on the bench, during which numerous cases of racial discrimination in hiring/employment came before him, he never once, NOT ONE TIME, ruled with the plaintiff.

Oh, and he has no problem with making it harder for people to prove cases of sex and/or disabilty discrimination either.

Yes, I'm taking secret boyfriend at his word. I love him, after all.

And I'm going right now to read more about Samuel Alito so when I do write the blog entry protesting his ass, I can do it with confidence, knowledge, and facts--the last two of which wouldn't be necessary if I was a conservative writer but...

In the meantime, check out http://www.bushvchoice.com/ if, like I was, you're content to lambaste Alito on his anti-choice stance alone. I'll be saving the Alito blog for January 22, I suppose, the Blog for Choice Day.

Trust me, it'll be worth waiting for!