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

Month: June 2009

Woman jailed because she is pregnant and HIV-positive

This is so deeply troubling:

A woman from the African nation of Cameroon could give birth in a federal prison because she is HIV-positive.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock last month sentenced Quinta Layin Tuleh, 28, to 238 days in federal prison for having fake documents. Woodcock said the sentence would ensure that Tuleh’s baby, due Aug. 29, has a good chance of being born free of the AIDS virus.

Both the federal prosecutor and the defense attorney urged the judge to sentence Tuleh to 114 days, or time served, according to a transcript of the sentencing hearing. Woodcock instead ignored the federal sentencing guidelines and calculated her sentence to coincide with her due date.
…
Woodcock told Tuleh at her sentencing on May 14 in U.S. District Court that he was not imposing the longer prison term to punish her further but to protect her unborn child. He said that the defendant was more likely to receive medical treatment and follow a drug regimen in federal prison than out on her own or in the custody of immigration officials. The judge also said that his decision was based entirely on her HIV status. If Tuleh were pregnant but not infected with the AIDS virus, he would have sentenced her to time served.

Make no mistake: Prison is a punishment, not a source of health care. There is no indication that Tuleh planned to forgo health care or endanger her fetus (and even if there was, she shouldn’t be jailed, but this is particularly egregious because her attorneys provided the judge with information on the medical care she was seeking). She remains in jail because she’s assumed to be untrustworthy, and because unsubstantiated threats to the health of her fetus are deemed more important than her basic right to liberty.

Of course Tuleh should obtain pre-natal care. Of course she should get the necessary care to prevent HIV transmission to her chid. But that isn’t what this case is about. This case is about a person being incarcerated because of her HIV status and her status as a pregnant woman. It’s about controlling a woman’s body and taking away her most basic liberties under the guise of protecting an innocent

Being pregnant is not a crime. Being HIV-positive is not a crime. Neither are a statuses which should compromise one’s fundamental rights and liberties. But today, Quinta Layin Tuleh is sitting in jail because she happens to be both. It’s appalling.

Thanks, Dad, for the link.

A tip for Feministe readers:

If you list your email address as “lickmyballs@yahoo.com” and your website as “shoveituptheoldwazzobitch.com,” I probably will not approve your comment.

Yes, new Next Top Troll contest is coming soon.

Yes, Jill Stanek and Operation Rescue, you are aiding terrorists and murderers. You know it, and you are doing it on purpose.

This is disgusting.

Anti-choice groups across the nation are busy insisting that since they didn’t personally pull the trigger, their protests, harassment, and hate speech are not to blame for the murder of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Yet some anti-choice activists — even now — seem only too happy to aid and abet the crazy ones who will resort to violence. Or else why, three days after the assassination of a medical doctor who provides late-term abortions, did Jill Stanek post on her blog photographs of the clinic of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, another physician who provides late-term abortions and who has said he is willing to take over providing services at Dr. Tiller’s clinic?

By way of introduction, Stanek writes, “Let’s take a station break to view photos of Carhart’s “nondescript building,” taken in March 2009 on the day it reopened following refurbishment after a fire (NOT blamed on pro-lifers). It was almost immediately shut down because Carhart reopened without getting an occupancy permit, as I previously reported, and was running his electricity off a generator…” She and her readers just want “to take a look.” Why? She wants to prove her point that it’s a dingy building? Over Carhart’s safety, and the safety of his staff and patients?

Combine that with Operation Rescue senior policy advisor Cheryl Sullenger’s admission, just reported by McClatchey, that she provided information to suspect Scott Roeder about Tiller’s planned court appearances when Tiller was tried for performing illegal abortions. (Sullenger’s name and the Operation Rescue phone number were found on a note in the dashboard of Roeder’s car.) “[Sullenberger] said Roeder’s interest was in court hearings involving Tiller. ‘He would call and say, “When does court start? When’s the next hearing?” ’ Sullenger said. ‘I was polite enough to give him the information. I had no reason not to. Who knew? Who knew, you know what I mean?’”

Yes, who could have possibly guessed?

These people are disgusting and should be ashamed. If there are any “pro-life” groups out there who actually oppose murder, they should sever all ties with Stanek and Operation Rescue.

Hilariously, Stanek has the nerve to suggest that pro-choicers are “intimidating” anti-choicers when we say that calling abortion a “holocaust,” referring to abortion providers as “baby-killers,” and publicizing personal information about abortion providers just may encourage violence against them. Get that one straight, kids: Criticizing the terms that anti-choicers use is “intimidation” bordering on a violation of Constitutional rights. Shooting, bombing, assaulting, stalking, harassing and threatening abortion providers, or encouraging others to do so (and providing them with the necessary tools and information), is “a movement of nonviolence.”

“Murder in the Name of Honour”

TRIGGER WARNING. Discussion of violence to follow.

Hello! Today, Jill is generous enough to let me guest-blog about Rana Husseini’s new book – Murder in the Name of Honour. I attended the Jordanian launch last night, and finished the book within the space of a few hours. Reading it took precedent over biological functions such as eating and sleeping. I couldn’t put it down.

Rana Husseini is a Jordanian journalist and human rights campaigner. When she first started investigating honour crime, she had the pleasure of sifting through death-threats in her mailbox. She pressed on, and her badass determination served as an example to others. Murder in the Name of Honour speaks of years of struggle on many fronts.

Read More…Read More…

The Personal, the Political, and Dr. Tiller

Over at BastardLogic, a guestblogger has posted the sad and brave story of her abortion, in part of the effort to put a realistic and human face on a procedure that anti-choicers demonize. A small piece:

Our baby wasn’t going to live. And whatever time he spent in the womb, or out, was just going to be painful. Pain that you or I cannot imagine.

A boy.

We were given two options: Carry on with the pregnancy, knowing what was to come, ignore his pain, and ours.

Or terminate the pregnancy.

Not much else to be said, really; we made the most kind decision, one that no parent-to-be should ever have to make.

A harrowing, sad, anguished couple of weeks followed. I mostly just remember being in the recovery room, missing him so much. Alone suddenly after weeks of activity.

Alone with our broken dreams.

I had aborted at 21 weeks. My body thought it had delivered a baby who needed sustenance, so it began to lactate. Just another painful reminder of what was lost.

Read the whole thing. It is powerful and heartbreaking.

The Anti-Choice Playbook

Amanda got her paws on an anti-choice protester’s guide, and it’s amazing. You can see the pages she scanned (PDF) here. Part of her post:

This casual disregard for women’s lives is acknowledged as a credibility-wrecking problem in another section “Women Will Die in the Back Alleys with Coat Hangers.” It’s clear that Justice for All activists have convinced themselves that making abortion illegal actually doesn’t hinder access to safe abortions (!), but followers are instructed to pretend to concede that illegal abortion is dangerous, to gain credibility. (Which means they have to pretend to believe what they don’t, but ironically what they don’t believe is true. It’s a rabbit hole of deceit and misinformation.) The important thing is creating the illusion of concern for women’s lives, apparently, and the manual even offers a small section titled “Sound Bites For Showing Concern,” which the activist is supposed to use to soften up the target before comparing an elective abortion (most commonly performed in the first trimester) to shooting a toddler. One does wonder when reading this section if Justice for All offers role-playing classes so you can practice your “concerned” face when someone brings up the problem of women who are mutilated and die due to illegal abortion.

The explicit instructions to feign concern for women’s lives in order to gain credibility is also what struck me about the handbook. In the section titled “What if the mother’s life is in danger?,” the handbook tells anti-choicers:

Key Tactical Point: Just as there is an underlying test of your compassion when people bring up abortion in the case of rape, when someone asks “Would you say abortion is wrong when used to save the mother’s life?” they are testing whether you are a reasonable, compassionate human being. It’s critical that you pass this test in order to maintain credibility and have further opportunity to make the case for the unborn. However, it’s also critical that you use this opportunity to clarify the moral logic of the pro-life position.

In other words, fake concern for women so that people mistake you for a reasonable, compassionate human being.

It goes on to talk about how there are basically no health concerns pressing enough to justify abortion, including cancer. But it’s mostly a “How to Lie” instruction guide, to help people who don’t care about women at all effectively pretend that born people matter.

As Amanda says,

This tactic is a mainstay of the anti-choice movement: it shows one face to the initiated, and another to the public, especially on the topic of contraception. Once you realize this, the movement’s half-hearted denunciations of Dr. Tiller’s murder, coupled with the enthusiastic return to calling Dr. Tiller a monster, become all the more chilling.

Rick Santorum, dating expert.

Rick Santorum sure is a romantic. He went on Fox’s “On the Record” to talk about Barack and Michelle Obama’s New York trip (where, for the record, they ate at an amazing farm-to-table restaurant, and the other diners literally applauded them as they left). First he praised the Obamas for being married, because ya know, black people don’t get married enough. Then he criticized them for going to New York:

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it’s with your wife.

Mrs. Santorum is one lucky lady. But I suppose if this is the best they can do to criticize Obama, things are pretty good.

…excuse me?

Slate, I know you get off on publishing thoroughly moderate and traditional arguments couched as contrarianism instead of, say, anything actually groundbreaking or intellectually hefty, but the headline “Is it wrong to murder an abortionist?” is too far.

First: “Abortionist” is a word made up by right-wing fanatics. They use it to downplay the fact that abortion providers are doctors, often OB/GYNs. It would be like calling a dermitologist an “acne-ist.” It doesn’t really make sense, and there’s already an actual term for what those doctors do. “Abortionist” is a loaded and totally incorrect word, and it’s appalling to see it used over and over again in an article written by a supposedly pro-choice person.

Second: Tiller is not the pro-choice equivalent of Scott Roeder, and Saletan should be ashamed for suggesting as much.

Third: The headine “Is it wrong to murder an abortionist?” suggests that there’s actually some debate amongst reasonable people on that issue. There is not.

Fourth: Saletan is right that the reason pro-lifers are able to say that killing abortion providers is wrong is because they don’t actually equate fetuses or fertilized eggs with born human beings. Of course they don’t. But he fails to adress the issue of why these groups oppose abortion and birth control so strongly — he only offers the idea that there’s a “third way” of trying to decrease the abortion rate through prevention (which is actually the long-time pro-choice position and not exactly a new invention, but if it makes Saletan feel good to think he invented the Pill, then ok). In fact, anti-choice groups have a widespread social agenda that is about much more than just ending abortion. They’re against birth control. They’re against single parenthood. They’re against egalitarian parenting. They’re against planning the number and spacing of your children. They’re against women who work outside the home. They’re against any challenge to the nuclear, male-dominated family where Dad is in charge and Mom stays home and has as many babies as God gives. Think maybe that their real agenda in opposing abortion is about controlling women?

And on an unrelated note while I’m bitching, Jeffrey Feldman points out that the current Hardball panel on Dr. Tiller and abortion rights is composed entire of men. As he quips on Twitter, “All of America’s women must be busy.”

What the hell, Slate and Hardball?