Abortion Gang

What is it that women want? It’s a question that has been asked thousands of times, and, chances are, it has thousands of answers. I found the inspiration for this post in the least likely of places–my Medieval literature class. We were talking a bit about Chaucer and one of his Canterbury Tales, “The Wife of Bath.” We didn’t read it and won’t be reading it for class, but our prof gave us a basic rundown of the story.

A knight in King Arthur’s court rapes a woman, which is a crime punishable by death. But the queen intercedes and gives the knight a second chance (which is pretty ridiculous, I know, but just bear with me). She tells him he has a year and one day to go on a quest to find out what women want more than anything else. Needless to say, this quest is futile and the knight never gets the same answer twice. The year has gone by and he is on his way back to the palace to admit his failure to the queen. On his way, he meets a “hag” who says she has the answer, and will give it to him if he does one thing for her. He is desperate, so he agrees.

The one thing all women want? To be able to make their own choices.

This surprised me. I don’t know why. It’s an obvious answer (although some might argue anti-choicers must not want autonomy, but again, bear with me for the sake of the story). It’s not the answer one would expect in a 15th century Chaucer text.

(more…)

We’ve been accused time and time again of not existing. Young women today either aren’t feminists or, even if they have feminist opinions, we’re told they don’t want to be called the dreaded F-word. Some might ask why, but that’s not the question. It’s true that there are young women out there who reject the term, or feminism altogether. But we’re not talking about them. The real question is where are the people who claim young feminists don’t exist looking?

Sometimes I feel like I never stop virtually waving my arms and yelling through cyberspace, “I’m here! I’m here!” Because that’s where I am–in cyberspace, most of the time. It has been said time and time again that this next wave of feminism (if you subscribe to the “wave” idea) is online. We’re blogging, facebooking, podcasting, tweeting about feminism. If there’s a way to bring the activism to the larger stage that is the World Wide Web, feminists are going to find that way in. It’s a way to reach more people; it’s worldwide. Many teachers are embracing technology in the classroom–my literary theory prof might ask us to pull out our smartphones or iPads to look something up, and my sister recently wrote a grant to get a couple of iPods for her fifth grade class. Similarly, feminists are using technology as a way to reach out to the masses, including the younger generation who know nothing about a world where computers didn’t exist.

So where are these people looking? I don’t have an answer. Obviously they’re not looking in the right place because we’re all pretty easy to find. It’s true that the first Google search result for “young feminism” is an outdated NOW page. But the third result is the fbomb, an awesome blog by and for young feminists. Maybe the problem is that those who are accusing us of not existing don’t consider online activism as “real” activism. I mean, shouldn’t we be out there in the world holding our signs and wearing our This is What a Feminist Looks Like t-shirts? If you do that, great. There’s nothing wrong with it, and it’s more than many people will ever do.

(more…)

It’s never too late for a little pro-choice jubilation. I’m still tickled that this is my state we’re talking about here. I sometimes forget that much of it is not like my teeny, conservative little red county. Back in April, the Pennsylvania House Education Committee passed Bill 1163, the Healthy Youth Act.

This act mandates that comprehensive sexual education be taught in public schools around the state. Some people (but not you, of course!) don’t realize that choice is about so much more than The Right to Choose. It’s about access to birth control and family planning, and also about the right to comprehensive sex ed–which includes not just information on contraception, but also abstinence, which is something many people don’t realize or choose to overlook.

It was only a few years ago when I realized that I had been subjected to abstinence-only education. At the time, I wasn’t into politics, didn’t know the difference between abstinence-only and comprehensive sex ed, and was basically just totally embarrassed to have to ask my mom to sign a paper saying I could be in the three-day “class.” I was in eighth grade. It was “taught” by two nurses from the local hospital and was your run-of-the-mill abstinence-only class. We were shown countless graphic photos of STDs, played ridiculous games to illustrate how we could contract them, and told that anal sex was dangerous and could land us in a diaper before we’re 50. To borrow Jessica Valenti’s oft-used phrase: I shit you not. At one point, one of the women made a brief mention of condoms, but quickly said, “I’m not allowed to talk about that.” In what universe should this be the kind of environment in which a teen learns about sex?

We all know that abstinence-only education is ineffective, that teens who receive it are less likely to use contraception because they were never taught how, and that teens who take “virginity pledges” are more likely to engage in (unprotected) oral and anal sex. So it’s a relief that, according to Lancaster Online, PA HB 1163 would “make it a state mandate! and require that all instruction be ‘age appropriate’ and ‘medically accurate’ — endorsed by such groups as the American Medical Association and state Department of Health [ . . . ]. Parents could choose to have their children opt out of the instruction, which is designed to reduce STIs and pregnancies among teens.” Furthermore, the curriculum will educate students on contraceptive use and STIs.

It’s a victory for Pennsylvania, although it is not clear when the bill will come up for a vote in the House. Organizations like the Pennsylvania Family Institute are already working against it, but polls have shown that 85% of parents in the state would like for their students to have some sort of! sex ed in school. To read PA House Bill 1163, click here. To support comprehensive sex ed in PA, visit PARSE!. And also feel free to use this tiny piece of pro-choice news to brighten your day.

It is with great sadness that I sit down to write this post–sadness for two reasons. The first, obviously, being the one year anniversary of Dr. George Tiller’s death. The second, though, is for not being aware of Dr. Tiller before that tragic time.

Maybe I had read his name in passing or heard it mentioned briefly at some point in my earlier times as an abortion rights activist. I knew, certainly, that there were few doctors in the country who provided late-term abortions, but I wish I had known about Dr. Tiller’s career and trust in women before he taken from us. As I read about him, I was touched by what he had done with his life and saddened that it was cut much too short.

It amazes me the lengths some people will go to to strip women of their human rights. It also amazes me (though, perhaps, shouldn’t) that the only way some people feel to stop what they consider murder is with murder.
But we shouldn’t we dwelling on the tragedy. We should be thankful for the time we had with Dr. Tiller and his invaluable and valiant fight for women everywhere. This May 31, I will be thinking of him and will feel renewed, once again, to keep the peace and continue the fight for reproductive justice.

Thank you, Dr. Tiller, for Trusting Women, and also thanks to Steph for keeping his legacy alive through I am Dr. Tiller.

I’ll admit it. The only reason I clicked on this article was because the sub-heading was some little blurb about the author being “a sex educator, a Christian, a feminist, and a Quaker.” I thought, Hello! Sign me up for some of this. The title, as you can see, is “What Underlies the Debate About Abortion?” and let’s face it–as someone who has been interested in the pro-choice movement for several years and has read a fair share of feminist literature, a title like that does not usually compel me to read on. It’s usually the same drivel.

But this time, I was at Friends Journal, the Quaker publication, and was interested in what Guli Fager had to say. Turns out, she was responding to Rachel MacNair’s two-month-old article “My Personal Journey on the Abortion Issue,” in which MacNair explained how she came to be “pro-life.”

What fascinates me is not that these are two obviously religious women who share two very different opinions about one controversial issue. I’m also not particularly fascinated by what is in the articles themselves (although I read both more than once and found myself nodding my head in agreement as I read Fager’s).
(more…)

No matter where you live, it can be hard being a self-identified feminist. It’s even harder, though, when you live in an area where sexism is the norm and is accepted. That’s where I live. My college campus follows suit. It didn’t become so clear until a professor said at club meeting (a club that promotes diversity on campus) that it isn’t even a safe place to be out. We don’t have any kind of gay-straight alliance or LGBTA group. There is also no women’s group, organization, or center on campus.

That’s where I come in. It didn’t become quite so evident to me until this semester how much a women’s center is needed, as a safe place for women to go with any problem they might have. It would be a place with peer counselors who are there just to listen. We wouldn’t be there to solve problems, but to point people in the right direction (toward a doctor, a book, a counselor, etc.) to solving their problems for themselves. A couple of my friends and I are working on this massive undertaking now, and I will keep abortion gang and its readers updated on the progress and (hopefully good) news as this project continues.
(more…)

I am pro-choice. I was not always this way. Unlike many Abortion Gang members, I wasn’t raised to believe that women had the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. To be fair, I wasn’t exactly raised to believe that abortion is murder or should be illegal either. I think it would be safe to say that I come from a pretty politically apathetic family. They’ve always voted, but my sister and I weren’t really raised with any certain set of beliefs—other than the fact that we were raised Catholic and we come from a blue state.

I’m not sure exactly when I learned what abortion is. I don’t recall hearing words that might have suggested to me that abortion is wrong. But for some reason, that’s what I assumed. Okay, my young, uninformed self thought, abortion is getting rid of a pregnancy before the baby is born. That must be wrong. And so I suppose I considered myself pro-life.

I attribute the state of my current self to young adult author Meg Cabot. It was through her books and on her message board that I joined when it launched nearly seven years ago that I was first introduced to pro-choice and feminist ideas. I was (and still am) a moderator on the site and I remember another moderator, a few years older than I was, talking about how a friend of hers was pro-life, and she simply couldn’t fathom the idea and didn’t know how to get across the pro-choice message to her. Our site administrator offered advice. First she stated the obvious: sometimes there’s just no point in trying to reason with anti-choicers. But if you do want to attempt it, offer these points. Following was a list of typical pro-choice arguments (which I won’t bore you with since I trust you are familiar with them).
(more…)