In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: May 2009

In honor of Dr. Tiller

Consider donating to a pro-choice organization. A few of my favorites:

The National Network of Abortion Funds (list of local funds here)

The National Abortion Federation

Medical Students for Choice

Planned Parenthood

Haven Coalition

Leave other suggestions in the comments.

UPDATED to add this press release from the National Network of Abortion Funds:

The Network has also received many requests from women who received care from Dr. Tiller and from activists in the reproductive justice community to set up a Fund in Dr. Tiller’s name. In response, we have established the George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund to assist the women to whom George Tiller dedicated his life. The Fund will assist women in the second trimester to pay for abortion care, as well as pay for travel and lodging en route to providers. To donate to the Fund in Dr. Tiller’s name, please send contributions to:

George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund
c/o National Network of Abortion Funds
42 Seaverns Ave.
Boston, MA 02130

You may also donate online at http://www.nnaf.org/tiller.html

Abortion Provider Dr. Tiller Shot Dead at Wichita Church

Oh my fucking god.  I just learned via Matttbastard on Twitter that Dr. George Tiller was shot dead as he was walking into his Sunday morning church services.

Dr. Tiller was one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country.  He had previously been shot, his clinic burnt down, harassed by ideological anti-abortion attorney generals, and threatened with death countless times.  We’ve written about his many trials and tribulations here numerous times. Still, Dr. Tiller continued to provide abortions to women who desperately needed them, to save their own lives or health, or due to tragic fetal deformities.  He put the health of women above his own life.

And now he is dead.

There is no word on whether or not there is a suspect in custody as of yet.  I’ll update as soon as I know.  I’ve only just heard.  And I’m in total shock.  This is the first time an abortion provider has been murdered in over a decade.  I have friends who work in abortion clinics.  This is terrorism.  And right now, I just don’t have the words.

UPDATE: It looks like a suspect is not in custody.  Those in Wichita area please check out the details and contact police if you see anything:

Police were looking for a blue Ford Taurus with a K-State vanity plate, license number 225 BAB. Police described him as a white male in his 50’s or 60’s, 6’1,” 220 lbs, wearing a white shirt and dark pants.

UPDATE 2: The suspect is in custody, though he has not yet been named.  Dr. Tiller’s family has also released a statement.

Abu Ghraib Abuse Allegations Include Rape

By now, you’ve likely heard of the most recent allegations regarding U.S. soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners: they include rape and other sexual assault, of both female and male detainees, and there may be photographs of the assaults among those which Obama has recently decided not to release.  You can read the details here — it probably goes without saying that they’re immensely disturbing.

It’s hard to know what to say to this.  I’ve spent the last day trying to figure it out, to come up with something intelligent.  Instead, all I can muster is seething rage, crushing sadness, and unbearable shame.  I’ve never been a patriot.  Honestly, I don’t even understand patriotism.  And I’ve certainly been ashamed of my country before.  But this is certainly a new low.  As a rape survivor myself, particularly.

I think that Jennifer Pozner hit the nail pretty much right on the head in under 140 characters on Twitter.  Rape is a part of war.  And U.S. soldiers have been raping the “enemy” ever since the U.S. military was established.  It’s one of the many reasons I oppose war.  That doesn’t surprise me, though it doesn’t lessen my rage, sadness or shame.

What is shocking (if not surprising), and only magnifies that rage and shame, is the fact that all of these abuses were seemingly sanctioned by our government.  The soldiers who committed other abuses at Abu Ghraib claimed that they were following orders.  While that in no way absolves them, seeing the government’s stance on torture, we also have little reason to doubt them.  And I see little reason to believe that these rapes and sexual assaults were somehow vastly different.  What’s shocking is that in the 21st century, the U.S. government is condoning and possibly even promoting rape as a war tactic.

Of course, the Obama administration is trying to deny that the photos exist.  The automatic response to that is, the only way we’ll ever know is if you just release them like you promised.  At the same time, Mark Leon Goldberg makes an excellent point that these victims have rights. And it is indeed pretty damn difficult to justify releasing photographs of rape and sexual assault to the public without the victims’ consent.

So I don’t know where to go from there, on any of this.  I guess I’ll just open up the floor to all of you.

ETA: Ashley has some good and difficult thoughts over at the SAFER blog.

Australian Accessible Parking Scheme Would Exclude Many People with Disabilities

This is for all of you Australians out there, because the few minutes of your time it will take to help are desperately needed.

The Australian government is currently working on new regulations for disabled parking.  The idea is supposedly to harmonize all the different regulations across the nation and to cut down on abuse.  You can read the discussion paper outlining the full proposal here (pdf).  Here are the basic requirements to get a permit under the proposed scheme:

Permanent permit

Under the proposed scheme, you would be eligible for a permanent permit if:

* Criteria 1: You are unable to walk and always require the use of a manual wheelchair or powered mobility device, or

* Criteria 2: Your ability to walk is permanently and severely restricted and you sometimes require the use of a mobility or medical aid. This does not include a walking stick [cane], shopping trolley or pram, or

* Criteria 3: You do not use a mobility or medical aid but your ability to walk is permanently restricted by a significant medical condition or disability, which sometimes requires the physical assistance of another person and limits your access to the community.

What’s the problem?  Lauredhel, who would be directly impacted by these new regulations if they were to go into effect, lays it out:

Who does this exclude? Everyone who walks, with or without a cane, and who does not require the physical assistance of another person.

Every single independent person with an invisible disability.

What could this mean for me? Right now, I have a parking permit because my walking distance is severely limited, so I need proximity parking. Unless I buy a scooter – something that I’m thinking about, but haven’t yet (I’m not eligible for government assistance) – I’ll become much, much more dependent.

[. . .]

These rules will disable me, and many thousands of Australians like me.

These rules will create physical dependence.

Invisible disabilities — such as fibromyalgia, to name only one of many — are, it apparently bears reminding, still disabilities.  And people with invisible disabilities deserve and need access to the world just as much as the rest of us.  These new requirements create a false hierarchy of disability and say that disabilities that we can’t plainly see don’t “count.”  And if they go into effect, they will have a severe negative impact thousands of lives, and leave many Australians unable to leave their homes on their own.

So those of you in Australia need to click through to read Lauredhel’s full post, and write in NOW.  Details on where to send your completed forms below:

You can email your completed submission to accessparking@fahcsia.gov.au or post it to:

Australian Disability Parking Scheme submissions (East Wing)
FaHCSIA
PO Box 7576
Canberra Business Centre ACT 2610

Submissions must be received by 5pm AEST Friday 31 July 2009.

And everyone reading this, whether inside Australia or not, needs to pass this information along in every way they can and make sure that as many forms as possible get sent in.  Because this is wrong, and it can’t be allowed to happen.

Name That Quote.

Who do you think made this empathetic, identity-politics-reliant statement?

I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point.
…
I don’t come from an affluent background or a privileged background. My parents were both quite poor when they were growing up.

And I know about their experiences and I didn’t experience those things. I don’t take credit for anything that they did or anything that they overcame.

But I think that children learn a lot from their parents and they learn from what the parents say. But I think they learn a lot more from what the parents do and from what they take from the stories of their parents lives.

And that’s why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position.

And so it’s my job to apply the law. It’s not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, “You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country.”

When I have cases involving children, I can’t help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that’s before me.

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who’s been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I’ve known and admire very greatly who’ve had disabilities, and I’ve watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn’t think of what it’s doing — the barriers that it puts up to them.

So those are some of the experiences that have shaped me as a person.

Read More…Read More…

Racism, Sexism and Sotomayor, in a few easy-to-read bullet points.

Some notes to conservatives and journalists:

1. Sonia Sotomayor is a judge. It is her job to ask questions. Many judges — including, notably, Antonin Scalia — are known for their assertive styles and difficult questions. Scalia, though, is revered for his blunt style. Sotomayor’s “temperment” is discussed as if she were a racehorse or a dog being bred for certain characteristics. I wonder if a male justice would be regularly described as “strident” and “vocal”? Also, this comment: “She used her questioning to make a point,” he said, “as opposed to really looking for an answer to a question she did not understand” could just as easily describe Scalia or any other sitting Supreme Court justice. Part of the question-asking process is to challenge the attorney’s position, not just to clarify.

2. “Spanish” is a language. “Illegal alien” is not. Menstruation does not impact the ability of a Supreme Court justice to do her job.

3. La Raza is not “a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.” Also? The hoods and nooses are kind of important factors.

4. Sonia Sotomayor has just about everything one could hope for in a Supreme Court nominee. She was educated at two of the finest academic institutions in the country — and she got there by working her ass off, not through legacy admissions or silver-spoon privilege. She graduated at the top of her class from both places, and served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She worked as a prosecutor in New York City. She has served on the federal district bench and on the Second Circuit. She has heard thousands of cases and written hundreds of opinions. Is she an “affirmative action pick?” Sure, insofar as affirmative action means “casting a wider net so that highly-qualified people other than white men are taken into consideration.” Is she a token, which is what conservatives mean when they use the phrase “affirmative action?” Uh, no. And arguing that such a highly-qualified woman only achieved what she did because of tokenism is absurd and offensive, bordering on delusional.

5. Hey! Hateful white-dude-guy! You’re a loud, ignorant asshole who is willing to cash in on racism and sexism! Here are your own radio and TV shows!

Red Velvet Cupcakes Made Me Do It

It’s true: One’s love of a particular food group is highly influential when it comes to performing the duties of one’s job. Personally, I discovered red velvet cupcakes, and the next thing I knew I was a hairy-legged man-hater. I wonder what Puerto Rican food will do to Sonia Sotomayor? Maybe all the pig will make her more sympathetic to conservatives?

Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.”

This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs’ tongue and ears — would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn’t certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

“It’s pretty disturbing,” said Levey. “It’s one thing to say that occasionally a judge will despite his or her best efforts to be impartial … allow occasional biases to cloud impartiality.