Abortion Gang

Well, I dreamt that come 2008, I would never need to hear from him again.  The monkey would retire to his Texas ranch to hang his head in shame, but unfortunately this is not the case.  George II, alternately known as the monkey, has reached a new level of likeness to his namesake.  Throwing shit to get someone, anyone, to pay attention to his new book, Decision Points. The most bizarre piece flung thus far is a story of how his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, by carrying her own miscarried fetus in a jar, turned him into an anti-choice advocate for life  (pun intended).

Now, how does this relate to a book defending declaration of war in a historically impossible to conquer region and the wrong country…?

More puzzling, how did Ms. Bush get ahold of said fetus?  Was it suspended in formaldehyde?   Dangling at the bottom?  How disturbing are we talking?  Is that not a biohazard?

Also peculiar, why would a vocal pro-choice person like Barbara scar her children like this?  Really, why would anyone?  It’s complicated enough explaining where babies come from in the first place.

The evidence is extremely bare, and as a woman of science, I refuse to make unfounded assumptions.  But I leave you with my research questions and a hypothesis: The monkey is flinging shit again.

It is time to come out of the closet ladies and gentlemen, I am a list person.  And not simply in the to do list, or the grocery list sort of way, no, I’m the type of person who will write something down simply to cross it off as it has already been completed.

With this in mind I have yet another confession to make, I have been most delinquent with my blog posts since school started back up again in September. Buried in checks and cross outs, I somehow forgot to add a blog post to my do list. Though first and foremost I’d like to thank my fellow abortion gangers for their forgiveness, it has also given me a surprise realization.

How could I forget such a thing?  With email chats filling my inbox each day it would seem nearly impossible to miss, but I think that’s exactly why it did skip my mind.  Through this incredible online community we’ve created, I already feel connected to abortion access activism on a daily basis.  I get to hear about all the amazing work the gang is doing every day and have a pulse on the ups and downs of the action, leaving me with (almost) no need to vent my frustrations to the universe.

So this short but sweet post is dedicated to my new favorite list, the abortion gang listserv.  A list that provides everything a good list should, structure, priorities, details, goals, and even on those rarest of days hope and a good laugh.

If you are reading this, you probably think about abortion more than the average citizen.  Like myself, you would write-off reading through 25 personal abortion stories in succession as a somewhat simple task.  But I can assure you, it’s not.

Reading these accounts from self-identified antis, pro-choice peoples, and the many unidentified folks in-between not only brought out the mushy middle, but also that in the real world it is not so much about labels as about people and their life trajectories.  I think one blogger coined the spectrum best as “falsely dichotomized.”

Pro-choice, anti-choice, whatever, it may all collapse when you realize you have an unintended pregnancy.  Everyday women walk in and out of a clinic anti-choice, before and after an abortion.  We just often fail to recognize this because it’s all so illogical.  People love their boxes.  I love my box.  I am a liberal, pro-choice New Yorker, and I am so comfortable in my box.  Occasionally though, we have to recognize that much like latitude and longitude, these are imaginary lines made-up by people to assist them in navigating their lives.

So where does that leave us?  Get rid of the boxes.  Embrace people exactly where they’re at.  Simply accept that one woman can say “The whole thing was about as exciting as a pap smear,” while another can regret her abortion years down the road. Embrace that everyone from professional volleyball players to professional antis will be compelled to write about this experience anytime from the day to years after. We just support them all to make the best decisions that they know how to.  That philosophy, ye olde end o’boxes, to me is what distinguishes reproductive justice.

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For the past month this city girl ventured to the wilds of the middle and lived on a reservation.  As always, I kept my anti antennae up.  Unlike in the bustle of the city, the expanse of the prairie gave me the room to really ponder anti propaganda, and not just dismiss it in haste.

Much of what I saw included “classic” pictures of angelic looking infants.  I could go on about how idiotic it is that the reproductive health world has failed to reclaim the image of a baby, let alone have it snatched from them in the first place, but we’ve all heard this before.

It was the sign below that really got me thinking.  The billboard itself split between an anti ad and a call to implore young men to join the church.  Laden with not only bizarre racial undertones, but a “yup” in response to nothing. You cannot make this stuff up.

At that first glance it just seemed so ludicrous.  Particularly with “life begins at conception” on a grey background while simultaneously declaring it as a black and white issue.  That’s just poor product placement.  But then I started to think about the united front presented by the shared billboard.  How it wasn’t about being anti-choice at all, but about linking abortion, religion and righteousness.  A moral life is either joining the church or having a baby.  And that is  literally black and white.

When was the last time you remember reproductive justice folks linking our ideals to a lifestyle or morality?  It happens, don’t get me wrong.  But, in general, this is something we do extremely poorly and the antis do extremely well.  It’s about time we did more than just bitch about it.  Folks on the ground should spend more energy analyzing these local messages, and counteracting them, whether it is through vigilante graffiti or a mass marketing campaign.

Wouldn’t it be incredible if an ad for abortion care was placed right next to programming on parenting skills?  Be the parent you dream of being.  Have all the time you need for all your children. Or home mortgages?  Fulfill the American dream, have the family, the home, the life you always wanted.  Or schooling?  Go back to school so you can get the job to take care of your future family the way you want to.  Why does this feel so implausible?  Statistically speaking most women who have abortions are already mothers.  They are making a difficult decision to SUPPORT their family in the best way they know how.  How does this get lost so consistently?  It is about time we reconnected family values and abortion.  Because whether you are in North Dakota or New York City, most women choose to have an abortion because they care about their present and future families, and it is our job to remind the world of this reality.

I’m thinking of George Clooney. Angelina Jolie. Bono. Rosario Dawson. Cynthia Nixon. Even Tori Amos. I’m thinking of celebrities, but more than just that, celebrities with an easily identifiable cause. Clearly I err on the side of human rights and women’s health, but it would be right within that cross-section that one should be able to find a celebrity advocate for reproductive justice. And they are just not there. So why is it that the case? Do we really care who represents RAINN or V-day or UNICEF?

We live in a celebrity-saturated culture, and I’m certainly not here to judge. I check Gawker as much or more than I do the Times. Don’t you? And that’s my point. This fact of life is more than something we need to recognize in ourselves, we must leverage it as advocates… just like everybody else.

So why hasn’t empowered sexuality and reproduction attracted a sexy celebrity to play face to the cause? Now I know six degrees of Kevin Bacon may get all the fame, but I believe it is the degrees of Kevin Costner holds the key. Now I know what you are thinking Kevin Costner, really? Hear me out.
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Union Square, June 1, 2009, 6pm. The city I love had sprung into action in less than 24 hours. We understood that the murder of our friend and colleague Dr. Tiller was the end of an era. Many of us knew of or remembered the dark times for reproductive health in the early nineties. There were many incidents of terrorism against abortion providers not only at work but at home. We thought we had worked passed this. We were wrong.

As loudspeaker eulogies washed over me, I thought back to my first real business trip to the National Abortion Federation conference in Boston. It was the big time. I was among rock stars- the real frontline advocates for reproductive justice. Walking to Dr. Tiller’s table was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. I had heard much about this infamous Dr. Tiller but none of it prepared for the sweet grandpa-esque gentleman who was handing out worry stones and scented candles. Where was this hard passionate avenger of women’s rights? How was his soul so soft after facing all that abuse every day? I couldn’t believe it.

So I stood there in shock, thinking of this grandfather figure sitting in his church, while listening to what sounded like so many rallying cries I had heard before. We cannot let this stop us. We will not be scared! But I was terrified, angry sure, but terrified nonetheless. I’m not a clinician but it was only a couple months before that I committed to getting a Master’s in Reproductive and Family Health. My professional life was from that point forward was inextricably tied to abortion access and I would never want to put my family or myself in harm’s way. Clearly, I was naïve beforehand but I truly thought, at least for the most part, those days were behind us. How wrong I was.
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Every time it comes up I always get the same reaction. Why?

The curious point is that there is a strong division, perhaps even animosity, between birthing rights and reproductive rights. Many people in the birthing rights movement are anti-choice, some quite sternly so. This is continually surprising to folks inside and outside of reproductive justice, and as I ponder why this divide came to be I think a great deal of it stems from the beginnings of the women’s movement. Going back as far as Susan B. Anthony, who is cited again and again for her anti-choice stance, we see that even at Seneca Falls, over a hundred years before Roe v. Wade, there was division over abortion.

Fast-forward to the more immediate basis of the division, second wave of feminism—the Equal Rights Amendment, Roe, and Bra Burning Women’s Lib. At its core it was a white women’s movement grounded in privilege, the right to Choice. To choose your destiny, your profession, your goals, and make decisions about your body, mind, and soul.
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Our fearless Abortion Gang founder blogged about her decision to choose the blog name and this got me thinking about the word abortion.  Strangely, antis seem to use it totally freely.  Even the new anti ads in New York City subways are part of a campaign called abortion changes you.  The only time I remember seeing a pro-choice ad mentioning choice, let alone abortion, was for, wait for it, Manhattan Mini Storage.  The tagline overlaid an image of a coat hanger and read “Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose.”  Perhaps others have seen good examples of ads that sent a strong reproductive justice message, if so please send them my way!  I’d like to think that someone somewhere is getting this right…

According to Merriam Webster what we like to think of as a miscarriage is actually technically an abortion if it happens during the first trimester, but then suddenly is a miscarriage again in the second trimester.  Why the dictionaries are defining abortion and not doctors is totally beyond me.

So what are we really looking for in reclaiming abortion?  Handing the term back to the docs and keeping it medicalized?  I think it has been made quite clear that at this point that is impossible.  Everyone wants a piece of action.

Much like how many liberals “took back” the flag after conservatives seemingly co-opted it under Bush II, I feel we should take back abortion. Antis, who seemingly want the procedure shunned to the point the word is never uttered again, stand tall and say it.  Yet supporters of a full-range of reproductive choices, including abortion, refuse to use it because of a possible negative connotation.  It is our fight and therefore our word and we should stand by it.

Inevitably, as pro-choice activists we face people who simply do not understand the need for a reproductive health movement.  Roe is the law of the land, what’s the big deal?  Nine times out of 10 my infuriated response dives straight into an explanation of Hyde, the erosion of protections in the states, and what it means now that we have legally lost the right to have an abortion for health reasons alone.  But now I have an addendum,  health care reform and the inevitable loss of private health insurance coverage of abortion.

Though I am ecstatic we are on our way to passing historic legislation that will help millions of Americans, I have never been more dedicated to promoting reproductive justice.  The mainstream pro-choice movement has officially lost its way and we, as reproductive justice activists, need to fill their gap.  I woke up this morning to an email from Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, four paragraphs in she merely notes that the Nelson amendment stands.  If Planned Parenthood is going to settle, who is going to fight?

I understand we all want to improve health care for as many Americans as possible, and that unfortunately we do not have the political climate to get truly comprehensive health care to everyone, but we already compromised on abortion with the status quo.  Why do we have to set ourselves back farther?  Who does that help?  Why are we again leaving behind poor women?