Reproductive Rights – Page 114

Listening to women about abortion

Jennifer Baumgardner writes a fabulous piece in the Fairfield Weekly about a seldom-discussed topic in pro-choice circles: the emotional aftermath of abortion. While I’m frequently disgusted at the right’s attempts to paint abortion as a choice that inevitably involves emotional scarring, depression, and so-called “post-abortive syndrome” (which isn’t recognized by any reputable psychological association), I do believe that it’s important to allow women a wide range of reactions to their own life experiences. The vast majority of women who have abortions report feeling primarily relieved afterwards; the I’m Not Sorry project documents the narratives of women who chose abortion and don’t regret their decision. But life is never as simple as “I’m not sorry” or “I am sorry” and that’s the whole story. Even women who don’t regret their decision can have complex emotions when dealing with their own abortion. And so far, the pro-choice side has been reluctant to take on these complexities.

There are definitely good reasons why many pro-choice groups focus less of the emotional outcomes of abortion: resources are scarce and must be used where they are most needed; legislative and judicial attacks have taken center stage in the abortion issue for the past 30 years; and once the pro-choice side recognizes that abortion is morally and emotionally complex, the anti-choice side throws it back in our faces. The religious right has succeeded in turning the abortion issue into a black-and-white battle over fetal “life” instead of what it really is: a complicated, personal issue that directly affects women’s lives — and our very right to life.

Virginity or death!

Good lord I love Katha Pollitt. This column is about a week old, but check it out if you haven’t already. She writes about the religious right’s opposition to an HPV vaccine that could save the lives of thousands of women, and help prevent cervical cancer in even more.

I remember when people rolled their eyeballs if you suggested that opposition to abortion was less about “life” than about sex, especially sex for women. You have to admit that thesis is looking pretty solid these days. No matter what the consequences of sex–pregnancy, disease, death–abstinence for singles is the only answer. Just as it’s better for gays to get AIDS than use condoms, it’s better for a woman to get cancer than have sex before marriage. It’s honor killing on the installment plan.

The whole column is so good that I’m fighting the urge to copy and paste the entire thing here just to make sure that it gets read… but I’ll leave you with this excerpt.

As they flex their political muscle, right-wing Christians increasingly reveal their condescending view of women as moral children who need to be kept in line sexually by fear. That’s why antichoicers will never answer the call of prochoicers to join them in reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available: They want it to be less available. Their real interest goes way beyond protecting fetuses–it’s in keeping sex tied to reproduction to keep women in their place. If preventing abortion was what they cared about, they’d be giving birth control and emergency contraception away on street corners instead of supporting pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions and hospitals that don’t tell rape victims about the existence of EC.

Via Classical Liberal Conservative

SCOTUS to Hear Abortion Case

Via SCOTUSblog:

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide a long-unsettled issue of abortion law: the standard to be used in judging the constitutionality of a restriction on a women’s right to end a pregnancy. The question is whether such a restriction is to be upheld if there is any circumstance in which it could be applied constitutionally. The Court for some time has not followed that approach in abortion cases, but has never explicitly repudiated it. The working standard the Court has applied is whether a restriction, as written, would put a burden on the abortion rights of a significant number of women.

The issue arises in the case of Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (docket 04-1144). The case also raises the question whether a parental consent law for minors’ abortions must contain a health exception. At issue is such a law enacted in New Hampshire in 2003.

That is the only new case granted on Monday.

Laura Bush urges women’s rights in the mid-East

I’ll admit it: I do not hate Laura Bush.

I know this fact probably merits my expulsion from several liberal-minded social groups, but hear me out. I don’t think she’s stupid, and I don’t think it’s fair to call her a Stepford wife. I am deeply disappointed in her refusal to publically dissent from her husband on issues where they certainly disagree (abortion rights, education funding, many issues concerning women and children), but I don’t think that makes her an completely impotent force in the White House. The fact is that she probably is a mostly impotent force, but she has pushed for various educational and literacy initiatives, which, though they are considered “soft” issues in political circles, are nonetheless important. Does she have the kind of life that I’d want? No. Do I think it’s pathetic that she abandoned her own political beliefs when she married her George? Sure. But I think she’s a strong person, and I think she’s smarter than many liberals (and conservatives, for that matter) give her credit for.

And now, she’s championing women’s rights in the mid-east. Only she’s utilizing a pretty poor strategy.

I’m all for pushing women’s rights — in the mid-East and everywhere else. But when the Bush administration does, for example, a survey of all mid-East countries and rank their dedication to women’s rights, they look like they’re specifically attacking one particular region — which, of course, they are. Are many mid-East and North African countries particularly bad on women’s rights issues? Yeah, in truth, they are. But this administration isn’t concerned about women’s rights unless it’s politically expedient. We’re in the good company of countries like Iran, Sudan and Somalia in our refusal to sign CEDAW, and Bush’s domestic record on women’s rights isn’t exactly peachy. So sending Laura Bush into other countries — countries where we have demonstrated a profound lack of cultural, social and religious understanding — spouting her short-sighted, highly Westernized version of women’s rights will no doubt leave a pretty bad taste in the mouths of many people there. They know it isn’t particuarly genuine, and no one likes a hypocrite.

That said, it is better than nothing. But I’m also afraid that this will backfire. The war on Iraq has brought up so much anti-Americanism that anything we do is going to be looked at skeptically, and in an effort on behalf of mid-Eastern nations to be “not America,” women’s rights may only be lessened. Middle Eastern countries, and the people in them, feel as if they are under attack from the United States — from what I can tell, there seems to be a sense that we’re out to change their culture, their religion, their forms of government and their social structures. And when people feel as if their way of life is under attack, they’re more likely to cling to all vestiges of it more tightly. In this case, that may include the history of poor treatment of women under authoritatian governments and Sha’ria law. So while I’m cautiously glad that the Bush administration is even mentioning women’s rights, I’m disgusted that it’s only being done as part of their war-mongering in the mid-East, and that they’re ignoring women’s rights issues everywhere else, while actively violating women’s rights at home and abroad.

Know your enemy

I read anti-choice blogs, websites and op/eds often. Why? Not just to get mad, but because I think you have to really understand what you’re up against before you can properly counter it.

One thing I always find interesting about the anti-choice movement is their relative success in convincing the general public that stopping abortion is their only concern — when actually, mainstream “pro-life” groups oppose everything from sex education to contraception to invitro fertilization. Anti-choice blogger Dawn Eden writes a telling post about her views on invitro fertilization. For those unfamiliar with Ms. Eden, she was fired from her position as a copy editor at the Murdoch tabloid The New York Post a few months back for injecting her anti-choice views into a news article on IVF. She is ferociously anti-sex (unless you’re married, which she desperately wants to be), and really hates Planned Parenthood for giving out honest information about sex. I read her blog occassionally if I feel like getting pissed off, but generally leave just kind of feeling sorry for her. But this post is particularly interesting, as it further demonstrates that the most extreme anti-choicers (who usually are the ones running the major anti-choice organizations) aren’t just anti-abortion; they’re anti- any reproductive choice, including aiding women in having children.

Luckily, I think the anti-choicers are digging their own graves with their ridiculous opposition to stem cell research, IVF, and birth control. Those issues expose them for who they really are: extremists who only want women to have one choice (marriage and as many babies as God gives). The vast majority of people believe that women and men should have access to birth control and reproductive technology; stem cell research is also gaining a lot of support. So to the anti-choicers, I say, keep at it. And by all means, get louder. You’re only helping us out.

The Right To Refuse Denies The Right To Choose

Ryan sent me an article from NUVO, an Indianapolis-based free magazine that covers local and national news. “The Conscience Clause” is a powerful testament to the backwardness of religiosity in legal and medical institutions.

As her youngest, a 13-month-old with fluffy blond hair and bright blue eyes, teeters near her mother’s shins, Annie sighs heavily, pats her stomach and then puts a hand over her eyes.

“I’m pregnant,” she says through tears, “again.”

Annie and her husband Dan have been married for nearly eight years. They are a quintessential middle-class, middle-America family. The three-bedroom suburban brick ranch, the requisite mini-van, the paychecks that don’t go as far as they need to and the on-going struggle to just keep their heads above water.

Today Annie feels as if she is drowning.

“I wasn’t on birth control while I was breast-feeding. We were trying to use condoms. I don’t know what happened.” She laughs a bit, and then adds, “Well, I know what happened.”

There are a few awkward moments of silence. There are more tears wiped away with the back of her hand. And there is a confession.

“My mom said, ‘Don’t worry, Annie. You’ll love this child, too.’ And I hope she’s right. I mean, I know she’s right. But I … I just don’t know if I can do this again.”

Annie stops and draws a deep breath before continuing. “The thing is … I don’t want to do it again. But I don’t have a choice.”

It is not necessarily a polite question to ask, but why didn’t Annie do something about it after her last baby? Why didn’t she have her tubes tied?

“I asked. Hell, I begged,” she says as her laughter reveals more than a hint of bitterness. “But it’s a Catholic hospital. They wouldn’t do it, and our insurance doesn’t cover it if I go somewhere else.”

Has she considered an abortion?

“No. Yes. I mean no. Not really,” she stutters. She looks away and it’s clear she has more to say, but she doesn’t. She can’t.

Her oldest is now hanging upside down from a tree limb in the neighbor’s yard. Annie doesn’t have time to talk. She doesn’t have time to worry, or even cry. It’s almost 6 and she needs to gather the kids, check on the roast, get dinner on the table, clean up afterwards, oversee multiple homework assignments and baths, and all the other necessary tasks before tucking her daughters in for the night.

Dan will be home from work soon.

“He’s happy about the new baby. He says maybe this time it’ll be a boy.” Annie shrugs and picks up the toddler at her feet. “Please don’t tell him I was crying,” she says before going inside the house.

This article contains several powerful personal stories about the consequences of the conscience clause, legal exemptions of care for religiously-based institutions, and how the conscience clause plays out in Indiana.

Please read the whole thing.

State Halts Teen’s Choice. Again.

Trish Wilson points out that I was right. A Florida state appeal was made within hours after the ruling.

A 13-year-old Palm Beach County foster child at the center of a legal battle over her right to end an unwanted pregnancy got permission from a judge Monday to get an abortion — but was thwarted shortly afterward when state child-welfare officials appealed.

Palm Beach Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez, who only last week temporarily blocked the girl’s decision to terminate her pregnancy, ruled late Monday that the teenager may obtain an abortion, said Maxine Williams, the girl’s attorney at Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County. The girl is identified in court papers only as L.G.

”Judge Alvarez did issue an order saying she is competent,” said Howard Simon, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which also represents the girl. “She has made a decision. She has a right to exercise that decision. And, acting on her decision is in her best interests.”

…By appealing Alvarez’s order Monday, the DCF was granted an automatic stay of his ruling. Under a procedural rule, state agencies are entitled to a stay of any court ruling they appeal. But, acting on a request from L.G.’s attorneys, Alvarez lifted that stay and ordered the DCF to transport L.G. to a medical clinic.

DCF officials then ”refused” to drive the girl to a clinic to end her pregnancy, said Williams, the girl’s attorney.

Alvarez then signed an order allowing L.G.’s attorneys at Legal Aid to transport her to a medical clinic, Williams said. The lawyers were on their way to pick up the girl when they got word: The DCF had appealed Alvarez’s order allowing the lawyers to transport L.G. and, once again, had received an automatic stay, this time from the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

The stay was granted so late in the day that L.G.’s attorneys had no time to act. The procedure was halted, Williams said.

The state only has to keep her tied up in a court mess for about eight more months before they can forget all about her again.

UPDATE: In the words of Robert, this appears to be the DCF’s final fuck you to Judge Alvarez before stepping back and allowing her to continue.

State Department of Children & Families spokeswoman Marilyn Munoz said the agency would “respectfully comply with the court’s decision.” She declined to provide further details.

“We are working for the best interest of the young girl,” Munoz said.

Right. And now that all the bad publicity is out on Florida and the DCF, we can push her back into a state home and pretend the girl doesn’t exist.

My heart goes out to this girl.

The Battle Over Birth Control

Notice that the fight over women’s health has lurched from a strict focus on abortion to an ever-increasing attack on contraceptives.

Does the pill prevent pregnancy or terminate it? Conservative Christians in my town hand out flyers at the county fair declaring that all forms of birth control are abortive in nature. They are sure to set up a booth directly across from Planned Parenthood’s booth, the one that hands out information on how to be safe if one is to have sex.

Are condoms an effective barrier-method or does AIDS seep through the “tiny holes” in the latex? Our beloved late Pope endorsed the idea that condoms “have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass,” and lovingly passed this information to four continents worth of churches, effectively confusing those who reside in areas of a global pandemic. Some of these are areas in which the greatest contibutor to health aid is Oprah Winfrey and extra funds are spent on coffins because they “never have enough.” Praise the lord.

Is giving teens accurate information about their sexual health, and access to the materials necessary to do so, tacitly urging them to, you know, do it?

As pharmacists are gain support in their refusal to fill birth control prescriptions, the right to this legal medication is usurped by our ability to access it.

“I am deeply concerned that they have gone further than I have ever seen them. This is far past a woman’s right to make decisions regarding abortion to the point now that it’s about their right to make decisions on contraception,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Salon. Murray and her Senate colleague Hillary Clinton have blocked President Bush’s nominee to head the FDA, Lester Crawford, over his inaction as acting director of the agency to approve the morning-after pill for over-the-counter sale. An FDA advisory committee has given the drug overwhelming support as safe and effective, and Canada approved its nonprescription status last week. Publicly, Crawford says his indecision on the drug has nothing to do with ideology, but privately he told Murray it raises his concerns about “behavior,” apparently alluding to arguments that the pill will encourage promiscuity.

Crawford is clearly concerned about the behavior of rape victims, considering that they are the ones who suffer most from the lack of availablity to not only the medication, but medical centers who will prescribe it. And those harlots probably asked for it.

Opposition to Plan B is just the latest and most visible drive by conservatives to curtail contraception, according to Heather Boonstra of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research group for reproductive issues. “There’s a constituency out there that equates all contraception with abortion, and they’re organizing in concerted ways to denigrate it,” she says. That constituency includes a number of social and religious groups, but the one that takes the abortion-contraception connection perhaps the most literally is the American Life League (ALL), one of the largest antiabortion lobbyists. Founded 25 years ago, it claims 300,000 families as members.

“Many forms of so-called contraception work by preventing the implantation of an already created human being, and that kills a baby in the womb, and we consider that to be an early abortion,” says ALL’s vice president, Jim Sedlak. He says ALL’s main mission is to inform women that all hormonal birth control methods and the IUD “are actually causing abortions themselves” and to force manufacturers to put that description prominently on contraceptive labels.

ALL’s STOPP International campaign also seeks to cut government funding for Planned Parenthood, which it believes misinforms women about how contraception works. Sedlak says STOPP has been successful at the city level — closing over 100 clinics around the country in the last 10 years — and is now targeting state funding. He pointed to the Texas Legislature’s recent decision to cut Planned Parenthood’s state funding as one of ALL’s biggest victories. “It’s not as fast as we would like, but we’ll take it, and we believe it will have a snowball effect and that when people understand what they’re doing we’ll be closing clinics even faster.”

ALL’s three-stage action plan against Planned Parenthood is spelled out on their website.

Building community-based coalitions of churches and faithful citizens to oppose Planned Parenthood at the grassroots level
Training and mobilizing people to expel Planned Parenthood from their local schools
Empowering activists to strip Planned Parenthood’s tax funding at the state level

ALL uses excitable language in order to obscure that while Planned Parenthood advocates for sexual education, they are not literally in the schools. Hell, if you’re a girl in a public school health class, you’re lucky to find out that you bleed.

Where ALL becomes a formidable force is in attempting to bring in coalitions of “churches and faithful citizens.” With the current political climate and three years left under Dubya’s kingly reign, the religious right has nearly effectively hijacked the Republican party. By saying that PP is an organization that “only makes money when our young people are sexually active” obscures the fact that the majority of those who enter the doors of a free clinic are there for routine visits that often have little to do with sex, but with general health issues that go along with having icky ol’ girly bits.

ALL is not the only threat to Planned Parenthood’s funding. In every one of his budgets, Bush has frozen funds for Title X, the 30-year-old program that pays for family-planning services for low-income women. Susanne Martinez, Planned Parenthood’s vice president for public policy, says that although Congress has restored some of that money, this “assault on family planning” has crippled Planned Parenthood’s contraceptive distribution — about 95 percent of the Title X funds it receives go directly to that service. She is also concerned Bush has appointed to agencies like the FDA and Health and Human Services “people who have very publicly said they opposed the use of birth control for the unmarried. It’s something [Bush] has been doing in a very strategic way.”

Several other groups support ALL’s views and its mission. The Family Research Council joined Republican leaders last Sunday on a national telecast blasting the Democrats for blocking appointments of conservative judges who could decide key reproductive-rights issues. And while the conservative Concerned Women for America (CFA) says it does not take a position on contraception, it does oppose abortion and has been vigorously defending the recent drive by anti-choice pharmacists to stop distributing emergency contraception, which CFA considers an “abortion pill.”

I personally am a big fan of ALL’s Rock for Life campaign, because teens are stupid enough to buy any message packaged in the Xtreme. Look, there are free downloads! And a blog!

This may be the final proof that rock n’ roll is indeed dead.

But back to the behavioral business again, the kind of business that shows that abstinence-only programs were ordered to be rated by the CDC on attendance, not effectiveness:

The abstinence-only programs — which have largely replaced safe-sex education — have not only curbed the distribution of condoms and birth control pills in school health clinics, but have entirely banned information about contraceptives and sexual health. The nonprofit Abstinence Clearinghouse, which promotes such programs, says few could argue that refraining from sex is the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. And it dismisses repeated studies finding that abstinence-only programs are ineffective in either delaying sexual experience among teens or protecting them from disease. So does Alma Golden, Bush’s pick to head the Population Affairs department, which runs the programs. “One thing is very clear for our children, abstaining from sex is the most effective means of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, STDs and preventing pregnancy and the emotional, social and educational consequences of teen sexual activity,” she says on the Clearinghouse’s Web site.

Read that again. Abstinence-only programs “have largely replaced safe-sex education.” It makes my hair curl.

It seems as well that there is federal talk of moving abstinence-only programs into elementary schools, thereby exposing yet another hypocrisy in the fight against doin’ it and doin’ it and doin’ it well, safe, and healthy, considering that one primary argument against comprehensive sex education is that it exposes children to sexual themes they aren’t ready for. Kansas, in the meantime, is in a legal battle over the existence of Adam’s navel. In the children’s best interest, my ass.

Amanda asks, “If you get pregnant on accident, should you be allowed pain medication during labor? Or is that part of your sentence?” Of course it is. No matter that it takes two to make things go right. If woman should slip up and experience prurient sexual desire, she should be punished.

Welcome to America. Don’t let the sun set on your female behind.

Who Wants To Bet On An Appeal?

L.G. has gotten her wishes:

A circuit court judge in Florida has ruled that a pregnant teenager in state custody can get an abortion over the state’s objections, a lawyer involved in the case said Monday night.

The lawyer, Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the judge, Ronald Alvarez of Palm Beach County Circuit Court, ruled that the girl was competent to make decisions regarding her pregnancy and had the right to do so under the state’s Constitution.

Perhaps her assertiveness lent itself to his ruling.

The children’s agency has come under heavy criticism in recent years for losing track of those in its care. In a hearing last week, Judge Alvarez said he was angry that the state had not done more to prevent L. G.’s pregnancy in the first place.

“Where are our priorities in life?” he said, according to The Associated Press.

Karen Gievers, a lawyer in Tallahassee who has sued the state on behalf of foster children, questioned why the state had not found an adoptive home for L. G. and why it would spend resources fighting her abortion when it had so many urgent priorities.

Good question. The state of Indiana has laws in place so that all children are to have potentially permanent placement within a year’s time, or at least an overall plan for the child in custody to be executed in an efficient and deliberate manner. The intent of this year-long goal is to prevent kids from getting lost in the system, remaining unti lthey are eighteen and dumped by the state. It seems this girl had been lost in the system. Though an adoptive home may not be a reality they should have been able to find her a foster home by now, not the state home that she currently lives in.

Nonetheless, I’m happy the judge made a reasonable decision best for all parties involved. Considering the specifics of this case, I don’t see much light in any other option available to her.

Best of luck to L.G.

On Being a Breed Mare, Part II

The Well-Timed Period responds to the story about catholic hospitals who refuse to give emergency contraception to rape patients who may have ovulated:

If Catholic hospitals may ignore the standard of care, and treat patients based on religious doctrine, any and all hospitals should be able to do the same. This means we abolish the FDA, and any government regulation of hospitals and the practice of medicine, and allow anybody to set up and run a hospital according to whatever criteria they deem acceptable.

Bottom line: It will be most interesting to see what happens when men in this country manage to finally achieve equality with women, and can look forward to hospitals where only, for example, men with a sperm density greater than or equal to 20 million per milliliter are to receive adequate medical care.

Read the rest.