Abortion Gang

If you’re a twitter user you know that it allows organizations to buy promoted tweet space, wherein a tweet of that organization’s choice is put onto a network of users’ feed and marked as “promoted.” Usually, you’ll see a brand like a Coca Cola promote a tweet with a link to an external site that, naturally, promotes their product. The concept is pretty straight forward.

This morning, a link to a promoted tweet made it into my time line that caught my attention. Here’s the tweet (trigger warning: violence, racism. H/T to @TheAngryFangirl for the screengrab). CNSNews is the company that paid for the promoted tweet, a Christian news organization that produces and posts anti-choice material. The tweet contains wildly misleading and inaccurate information and its violent language is triggering.

Does Twitter have standards or do they just take money from anyone? Should Twitter have standards, and what should they be?

Yes, Twitter should have some basic standards.The racist nature of the tweet should have disqualified it at the outset. If that didn’t ring some alarm bells, they should not promote patently false information that is deceptive and misleading. Basic decency asks why no one considered the tweet to be inappropriate or offensive.

I started a petition on Change.org asking Twitter to remove the offensive promoted tweet and update its promoted tweet policy to disallow racist content. Please sign and pass along.

Earlier this year, I stepped away from the reproductive justice blogosphere. I wasn’t overwhelmed or busy; instead I felt bored. I felt as if I had been repeating the same conversations over and over, while getting nowhere. I wasn’t dismayed about the future of abortion rights so much as ambivalent.  I figured I would step away, take a break, and find my enthusiasm. I figured reproductive justice could wait for me.

While on my break, my local newspaper posted an anti-choice opinion piece on the horrors of Gosnell. It went something along the lines of “why isn’t mainstream media talking about this” and “we need to stop abortion now.”  I shook my head, but didn’t do anything about it. I just closed the newspaper.

Another day, I came across a post on another message board I frequent where a user said that seeing a woman breastfeed in public made them uncomfortable, and that women should cover up so that the user wasn’t distracted while eating her dinner. I sighed and closed the thread.

Seeing these two different reproductive justice topics outside of my RJ blogosphere got me thinking, though. The conversation doesn’t stop when I choose to step away–it just loses my voice. And not just any voice for reproductive justice, but MY voice. But that’s not the only thing I realized. I also realized that the RJ discussion doesn’t just happen in the blogosphere, on our pro-choice blogs and twitter hashtags. It happens in everyday conversations, among people who don’t spend their every day engrossed in a battle for our rights.  I don’t need to dedicate every waking hour of my time to pushing for reproductive justice; I can instead go about my daily life and find small conversations or local articles to reply to.

But I’m not the only one who can do this. It can be tough and draining to dedicate your career or all your volunteer time to reproductive justice (technically, it can be tough and draining to dedicate all your time to any one subject).  And while it is essential that we have those 24/7 dedicated people, reproductive justice still needs the “now and again” people. The people who care, but don’t spend their days writing blog posts and tweeting. We need to get our information out into the greater world to the people who may not even know of the term reproductive justice. We need our friends, our siblings, our parents to not just see our dedication but also understand where we come from.

So if your co-worker mentions state funding for abortion, take three minutes to give them a reply. If you see an article in the local paper about TRAP laws, take five minutes to write an email and send it. If you come across a Bowl-a-Thon page, share it on your social media pages. Then go about your day, and realize you’ve done a ton of good for the reproductive justice movement.

Where should I start with this article? Fox News Commentator: Stop Abortions By ‘Celebrating’ Teen Pregnancy‘

The entire story represents a collision of bad soundbites, all of which perpetuate myths about different reproductive choices — and the liberal Think Progress commentators are just as much at fault as the conservative Fox News pundits.

To sum it up for you: Fox News contributor Nina Easton says we should “celebrate young women who bring a baby to term and find an adoptive parent” as a way to reduce abortion (to Easton’s credit, she also says we should make birth control more widely available). Think Progress writer Aviva Shen responds by misrepresenting Easton’s words — which are really about celebrating adoption — into something about “celebrating teen pregnancy.” Shen then uses some alienating adoption language (using the term “birthmothers” to apply to young women who change their mind about adoption and end up parenting — they’re just mothers!) and rounds it would with some heavy stigma on young parents (misrepresenting data on dropout rates and poverty, for example, and portraying young mothers as “vulnerable” and “entrapped”), while simultaneously condemning Fox News for stigmatizing abortion.

Neither of these narratives are helpful.

Yes, stigmatizing abortion is bad. Abortion is common and necessary, and women who need and want abortions should not be shamed. Conversely, though, both the challenges associated with adoption and the flaws in the adoption system are routinely glossed over, as Easton’s comments illustrate. Adoption is not a choice that should routinely be vaunted as superior to abortion or to parenting without a very careful consideration of individual context.

And yet, stigmatizing young parenthood is just as problematic as either stigmatizing abortion or celebrating adoption. As we’ve seen in New York (and everywhere, really), portraying young parents alternately as scapegoat and victim serves no one well. It doesn’t prevent teen pregnancy, and it just makes it less likely that young families will receive the support they need to be successful.

Ultimately, both Easton’s and Shen’s messages, though counter to each other, are problematic in the same way: they attempt to paint one reproductive choice as inherently better than another, which serves to stigmatize those “lesser” options. We cannot argue that adoption is always better than abortion any more than we can suggest abortion is better than parenthood. Instead, we must work to make sure all people have the freedom and resources at their disposal to freely choose the best option for themselves — and stigma of any stripe will only work to diminish such freedom.

Trigger warning for domestic violence

The Onion’s attempt at satirizing Chris Brown’s attack of former-girlfriend Rihanna is triggering, dangerous and hurtful. There are some here at Abortion Gang that feel what The Onion wrote was brilliant, but I disagree. The Onion’s use of violent imagery and triggering language in the title and article remove the focus from Chris Brown and place it squarely upon the survivor, Rihanna. I also contend that writing stories about Chris Brown under the guise of satire is exploitative and perpetuates the dangerous notion that in the years post-abuse, jokes and commentary are fair game when in fact, they are almost another attack on the survivor.

1) The Language Is Triggering 

The article read like torture porn, like a sadistic turn through the author’s sick mind, a demented stroll through the horrible way women die from an attack. The title was triggering enough, “Heartbroken Chris Brown Always Thought Rihanna Was Woman He’d Beat To Death,” because nothing triggers flashbacks of abuse like “beat to death,” and I guess that is what gets the clicks, too. Everyone knows what Chris Brown did to Rihanna that night, he beat her savagely in a close and confined space. She was unable to get away as he sped about in the car . As a person who’s been there, in that passenger seat withstanding another attack, that space is a special kind of hell. The one where you consider throwing yourself out of the speeding car to get away from the flying fist and vicious words.

2) Not Everyone Knows This Is Satire

The Onion fantasized about another attack that ends in death without adding a trigger warning. (Yes, a trigger warning. And if you read the preceding sentence and fix your mind to type, “but you know it’s satire and you know The Onion is dark… just don’t click,” do not type. You’re victim-blaming.) I think there are many, many people, survivors and otherwise, that do not actually know that The Onion is satirical news site. WIth a click and without realizing it, a person reading an article that says, “Despite all the ups and downs, I was so sure Rihanna was the one I’d take by the throat one day and fatally assault…” could be triggered. They may not realize what they’re reading is a dark satirical take on Chris Brown’s re-acceptance into mainstream popular culture after such a savage attack. That hurt that results from being triggered, a small reliving of the abuse a survivor has endured is pain I never wish upon anyone.

The Onion doesn’t always distinguish itself from the other douche-bag jokesters on twitter and facebook with their sexist jokes and vapid commentary on current events. And yes , I do recognize that the vapidity they espouse is a satirical representation of our social response to many of these current events, but that’s not something many are going to get.

3) The Article Is Exploitative

Instead of focusing on Chris Brown, The Onion’s target of the satirical piece was Rihanna. This directly contradicts what my counterpart Kaitlyn has written. If The Onion was truly brilliant, they would find a way to write satire about Chris Brown being an abusive boyfriend without typing one word describing another attack on Rihanna. Because the whole article was about the ways Rihanna could have died by Chris Brown’s hands the satire is lost and the joke’s on Rihanna. She’s re-victimized . This is exploitative and it disgusts me to no end.

4) It’s All For the Clicks

Readers are triggered, and The Onion knows it. While Kaitlyn maintains that The Onion has gone to a dark place after Newtown, I think the shift has been meticulously planned and executed. The Onion is trolling for clicks and attention. The more outlandish stories they publish, the more buzz–both bad and good–they generate. I think they have realized that the more pointed and critically brilliant satire loses many of their readers and they are releasing increasingly inflammatory material to appeal to the least common denominator in readers.

Do we really want to support a publication that consistently publishes hateful language about black women ? Do they really deserve a pass when they publish a fictional account of a black woman’s death-by-beating ? Absolutely not.

The Onion says it is humor, some argue it is satire, but an article about Rihanna being beat to death by her abusive ex-boyfriend is triggering, exploitative and not critical commentary. I support satire and criticism of Chris Brown. I do not support and fail to find the satire from a publication that editorially fantasizes about the beating death of a black woman.

This piece in The Onion, “Heartbroken Chris Brown Always Thought Rihanna Was Woman He’d Beat To Death,” was brought to my attention by fellow Abortion Gangsters, many of whom are offended and some who were triggered and hurt by the language used. I take the position that this piece is brilliant.

The Onion has gone to a very dark place since Newtown, and I really appreciate it. They used to live in the ridiculous, the truly out there and funny and bizarre. I considered them occasionally satirical, but not satire. Following the Newtown shooting, it has appeared that the staff snapped. “Reality has become ridiculous, so we’ll just live here.” The Onion has gotten mean. This piece on Chris Brown is mean. The stuff they’re saying about the NRA is mean. Vicious even.

I love it.

They’re targeting the people with all the power who get away with claiming to be victims: of “society,” of “people,” of “opinion,” of “the media.” They’re targeting those with way too much power to be victims of any of those things who are allowed to lay claim to pity and sympathy. The target here is Chris Brown. His behavior, the way in which he’s been allowed to frame that behavior, to narrate that behavior. And it is dead on. It even reclaims the tone he himself uses to reclaim the narrative of what he’s done – which is beat a woman near to death and then go on TV and explain why that experience really helped him grow as a person. This is vicious, pointed satire in a way we don’t see anymore because people with power have been allowed to wallow in faux outrage and shock (ALL people with power) until true satire is no longer socially acceptable.

While some people celebrate May 5th with tequila and nachos, the International Coalition of Midwives wants to remind us that midwives save lives by designating it the International Day of the Midwife. Although what they can do varies significantly by country, midwives provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, including contraception, preventive care like pap smears, prenatal care, and normal deliveries, and also know when their patients require care from a physician. In North America and Western Europe, midwives are preferred over physicians by many women for their traditionally more holistic approach to pregnancy and childbirth. In low- and middle-income countries with severe health worker shortages, midwives are literally saving lives by providing maternal and newborn care, contraceptives, and safe abortion care.

When properly trained and supported, midwives can deliver babies, administer treatment for potentially deadly complications of pregnancy such as pre-eclampsia and post-partum hemorrhage, and provide newborn care. Although physicians will always be needed, much of their work can be shared with midwives. Most low- and middle-income countries need to double, triple, or quadruple their midwife workforce to fully meet their needs. Fortunately, midwives can be trained more rapidly than physicians and may be more likely to stay in rural and underserved areas than doctors. As countries develop, inequality between the rich and poor, and between urban and rural populations increases; training more midwives is a key strategy to ensure that women who are poor or live in rural areas are not left behind.

Countries that have focused on increasing the number of midwives and strengthening the quality of care they provide have seen dramatic decreases in maternal mortality. On this International Day of the Midwife, let’s not forget that reducing maternal mortality is not only about having a skilled birth attendant present at the time of birth; equally important are access to contraception for those who do not wish to be pregnant, and access to safe abortion care for those who are already pregnant and do not want to be. Midwives can insert IUDs and contraceptive implants and perform first trimester medical and surgical abortions as well as physicians and should be empowered to do so. Despite evidence that midwives can safely provide abortions, they are allowed to do so only in a minority of states in the US and countries worldwide. These restrictions are due to ideological objections in some cases, and due to lobbying from physicians in others. Neither objection is based in evidence.

Take a moment to thank your favorite midwife today, and as you advocate for increased access to reproductive health services, don’t forget how much midwives already contribute, and how much more they could contribute if politics weren’t in the way!

I just read Erin Matson’s new piece on how to talk about rape, and I like it a lot. For anti-rape and anti-violence activists it’s a primer, but as the post notes, the basic things she’s talking about doing – don’t use language of consensual sex to describe rape, don’t victim-blame, don’t use the passive voice in a way that makes the rapist themselves disappear from the dialogue – are still huge problems in terms of how we talk about rape, especially in the media. I wrote an entire Master’s thesis on how the media communicates rape and I barely scratched the surface, that’s how big a problem it is.

I realized while reading it, however, that I find the word “victim” in the context of rape really jarring. It startles me to see it there, over and over. The word is being used to give really excellent advice, but I still struggle with it. I’ve shifted from domestic policy to international human rights work in the past year, and we almost never use “victim.” We describe someone as a “victim” only in the context of the legal case itself – the victim went to the police, the victim experienced these specific things, etc. After that, we only ever use the word “survivor.”

We use the word survivor instead of victim because that is what the women we work with become following the immediate aftermath of rape and sexual assault. They don’t want to spend their entire lives identifying or being identified as a victim. Survivor, for obvious reasons, has a different and much more empowering set of connotations.

Matson’s piece is mostly about communicating that immediate aftermath, and the use of the word “victim” in that context is appropriate – it helps classify what happened as a crime and the person it happened to as in need of medical and legal attention. But it occurred to me that I rarely see the word “rape survivor” in US media. Why is that?

Part of the reason is likely that, while rape is an overwhelming epidemic here, it’s a “domestic crime.” It’s a “private crime,” it belongs in a soft, female sphere in terms of how we classify criminal acts, and we’ve had to work incredibly hard to get it recognized as a criminal act at all. In an international context, however, rape and mass rape are often a weapon of war, or occur in waves following climate disasters that the countries in question don’t have the infrastructure to address in a timely manner (Haiti’s tent cities and the mass rape that occurred there following the earthquake a few years ago are one example of this). Political unrest and attempts to up-end life for political gain in that context are another example – that happened inGuinea a few years ago. At that point, follow-up is about much more than an individual person; unlike survivors here, these are large groups of survivors easily identifiable as having rape in common, and what happened to them and how it is dealt with in the long-term has implications and consequences for the entire country. Rape survivors here are not given the sense that they are a unified group. Rape in the US is viewed as an individual’s narrative, while in many other countries, the narrative is a group narrative. The media follow-up is longer term.

In the US media, once someone is no longer a victim, but a survivor, once the immediate aftermath has passed, there’s no follow-up. The woman who was raped by two police officers in New York City, whose trial was in every paper in the country every day for months, has disappeared. I have no idea what happened to her, and I’ve never seen an article on her again, although the rapists still show up in the news occasionally, mostly to complain about how raping a girl really ruined their lives. The Steubinville rape case – will we ever hear another word about the girl who survived it? In our quest to give the victims privacy – which is something the media only even pays lip service too, repeatedly releasing the names of even underaged victims – are we failing to create a space for people to become survivors? Rape survivors sometimes carve out their own space for that, creating support groups for themselves and for one another, making preventing rape and changing the conversation a mission. Another woman raped by a New York cop is doing just that. But the media is only interested in them  -certainly most interested in them – for as long as they’re a victim. Once a victim becomes a survivor, the story disappears.

It isn’t that way with every crime. The victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing are already survivors, with stories of their courage and their determination to move forward at immediate, lightning-speed already dominating the coverage of their experience, that moment when they were victims already relegated to a yesterday so long gone we can’t remember it. We can only remember that they’re survivors, and that makes us all stronger.

Is there room for that in the conversation about rape? Do survivors want to talk? Can we make their stories heard? Do we want to hear? Most of all, I think it’s fascinating how many experiences that are largely had by women – abortion, rape – have such clearly defined, narrow, and limited permitted narratives. What are we allowed to talk about, what are we encouraged to talk about – and what do we actually want to talk about?

When Jason Collins, an NBA player for the Boston Celtics, wore the number 98 last season , sports fans would have thought nothing of it. Collins’ journeyman status in the league probably led most to believe that wearing the number 98 meant the team he played for just ran out of numbers to assign.

What we didn’t know is that Jason Collins picked the number 98 for a particularly special reason. He wore that number in honor of Matthew Shepard, the college student beaten and ultimately killed for being gay in 1998.

Today, Collins wrote an article for Sports Illustrated stating, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.” He is male-professional sports’ first current and active athlete to come out. I have nothing but joy.

That moment when two things you care deeply about collide in a good way and you exhale. That moment when you hug your son and share the news. That brief moment of hope that infuses an otherwise weary soul. This is me, right now, typing with tears streaming down my face.

Collins wrote, “Some people insist they’ve never met a gay person. But Three Degrees of Jason Collins dictates that no NBA player can claim that anymore. Pro basketball is a family. And pretty much every family I know has a brother, sister or cousin who’s gay. In the brotherhood of the NBA, I just happen to be the one who’s out.”

And if there was a question about what the reaction would be amongst that brotherhood of the NBA, here are just a few tweets sharing the reaction from some folks on twitter:

I could paste in several more responses like this, positive, supportive, non-judgmental responses from some of the top athletes in the world. Who said the NBA had to be a breeding ground for homophobia? It may just be that there is a certain level of projection from the old-boys-club sports media on homophobia being rampant in sports, because judging by the news and reactions, I just don’t see it. Things are changing rapidly and for the better.

Today, I can finally say, is a good day. Thank you to Jason Collins for your bravery.

I assume when I go into my doctor’s office that my primary care physician has the skills and knowledge to be able to help me make basic health care decisions, including information about birth control and what my options are. I deserve to make my own, informed decisions about my reproductive health based on what works best for me. If my doctor can’t give me accurate information or counsel me about my options, where would I go for help?

It seems ridiculous to think that in 2013 doctors could not be trained to provide birth control or abortion, but that could be a reality. The Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the group that sets the standards for medical education and curricula in the US, has removed contraception and options counseling from the requirements, meaning that a family doctor could graduate a program with a medical degree and not know anything about birth control.

The requirements also don’t include IUD insertion, implant insertions, or abortion, services that people need and may have to travel long distances to obtain if their family doctor is unable or unwilling to provide them. As restrictive laws continue to make reproductive health care less and less available at the local and state level, it is more critical than ever that we press for comprehensive care, including abortion, to be included in primary care settings.

Lisa Maldonado, Executive Director at the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP), an organization working to expand comprehensive reproductive health services in primary care settings, says:

“Family physicians are more likely than any other clinical specialty to work in rural areas and with underserved populations. Ensuring that family physicians get proper training in contraception, prenatal, miscarriage and abortion care will expand access for everyone. But, if residency programs aren’t required to provide training, then they probably won’t, especially religiously affiliated programs. And, if no one is trained, no one can provide and no one has access, even if its legal and covered by insurance. Too many women already have to travel long distances, cross picket lines and deal with unnecessary restrictions to get basic women’s health care as it is. Family physicians need to have the best possible training in family planning and women’s health.”

No person deserves to be denied information or basic health care because their doctor attended a religiously-affiliated medical school, and we can’t let that happen. I want to get reproductive health care from my doctor, the person who I feel comfortable with and who knows me. I deserve that, and you do too.

We have until April 25 to let the ACGME know what we think and to voice support for reproductive health and family planning counseling in primary care settings. I hope you will join me and stand up for your rights by signing the RHAP petition here.

Last Thursday, in a speech before the irrationally titled anti-choice group “Susan B. Anthony List,” failed Vice-presidential candidate and currently underwhelming Republican leader and Representative Paul Ryan said, “We don’t want a country where abortion is simply outlawed. We want a country where it isn’t even considered.”

At present, we have no model for that: no such country exists. Making abortion illegal won’t prevent it from being considered; abortion rates are higher in countries where the procedure is illegal. Outlawing it also makes it more dangerous. Making it illegal won’t prevent it from being considered. Paul Ryan can read, so this must be obvious to him. So if he doesn’t mean to outlaw abortion, what kind of country would we build where it wouldn’t even be an option?

Well, it would ideally be a world in which there were no unwanted or unplanned pregnancies in the first place. Abstinence-only education is possibly the worst way to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Not only do kids have sex, when they do, they’re inadequately informed as to how to find and use birth control. So a country where abortion isn’t considered would have to start with a comprehensive sexual education program from the time children are old enough to get pregnant - nine years old, apparently, but we should start at 7 or 8 to be safe. We’ll obviously have to end child rape, because abortion will surely at least cross the minds of guardians, medical professionals, and child advocates if a nine year old girl is found to be pregnant. In addition, birth control will have to be free, and not only easily accessible, but abundantly available.

Stopping adult rape totally will be a challenge. People will need to be indoctrinated from birth to accept that, once born, their lives, no matter what the costs or circumstances, need to take a backseat to the unborn. Oh, you’re an adult who got raped and now you’re pregnant? To not even consider abortion, you will have to be good and convinced – brainwashed, honestly – to not even consider that your life, sanity, peace of mind, bodily autonomy, independence, future, dreams and hopes should not be 100% certain to take a backseat to carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term that is the product of a traumatic sexual assault. That’s the reality.

There’s also the issue of non-viable fetuses. At this point, in the world we’re creating, there are only wanted pregnancies. Still, a person who realizes they’re carrying a child who has no brain – literally, a tiny body with no working brain – knows that pregnancy is not going to come to term with a happy ending. There are also cases of children who would only live a few days, in the hospital, in severe pain, fetuses with no heartbeat that for some reason are not naturally still-born and simply remain in the uterus, and other extremely severe fetal medical issues. It’s hard to imagine that one wouldn’t at least consider an abortion when it’s clear that the fetus is no longer alive, or as a mercy when a child who was born would suffer terribly. The solution would probably be to no longer classify this as abortion. It would be considered carrying a pregnancy all the way to term – term would end when a child was born, or a fetus was no longer viable.

So we’re going to have a world in which birth control is free and abundantly available and easily accessible, in which there is no more child rape, and in which adults are conditioned to believe that the life of an unborn fetus is more important than the life of anything else, ever, at all, under any circumstances. We’re also going to stop defining certain medical procedures as abortions. Are we now living in a world where no one will consider abortion?

Probably not. Although abortions for medical reasons – the so-called “health of the mother” exemption – has been mocked by the GOP, pregnancy can still be life-threatening. There’s no way around it. Not having an abortion can still mean that you will die. Or your mother will die. Or your wife, or your partner, or your sister, or your child. At these moments, it would be impossible not to at least consider abortion. Most people would let that option cross their mind. Many people – however selfish this option was made to seem – would consider how much they still wanted their spouse, their child, their parent in their lives. Some people – maybe, under those circumstances, even most people – would have a hard time accepting this preventable death. Hell, we fight cancer even when death isn’t preventable. We really hang on to our loved ones. I think it would be hard to condition that out of people – even for a perfect, abortion-free world.

So if there’s no such thing as a perfect, abortion-free world, it might be worth considering that a perfect world includes abortion. Abortion isn’t a problem, it’s a solution. It’s a medically necessary solution to a number of problems that are part of our real lived experiences: rape, medical complications, miscarriages, and, unfortunately, because humans are imperfect creatures and we make mistakes and because we currently live in a system not designed to any way help us avoid those mistakes, unwanted pregnancies. When abortion is considered no more problematic than any other incredibly useful medical advancement that can and improve millions of lives, we’ll be a huge step closer to a perfect world.

I have some thoughts on how to get there, too. I’d like to think Paul Ryan,  being a smart guy, would want to help, but he probably won’t consider resigning.