Abortion Gang

Last night while on my ride home from work, I turned on my phone and began to devour the #M312 hashtag.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Canadian politics (come on! Why not?), Motion 312 is a motion introduced by Conservative MP (Member of Parliament) Stephen Woodworth, calling for a Parliamentary Committee to examine whether the Criminal Code definition of “human being” should be expanded to include fetuses. I can’t even tell you with a straight face that Woodworth is pretending this isn’t about abortion. The motion was accepted for debate, and said debate happened yesterday, in the House of Commons.

When I was fifteen and far too naive to understand it, I read a book of Sartre’s that I found on my sister’s bookshelf. Several years later, in my third year of university, I took a 20th century existentialism course because I had a crush on the professor. I got very little from either of these experiences; but riding home on the streetcar yesterday I finally realized what the “nausea” was that Sartre was talking about. I felt a lurch in my stomach that was somehow both physical and existential; I turned off my phone and stared out the window. “Is this really real?” I asked myself. 

Is it really happening that today, twenty-four years after the abortion law was struck down in this country, four years after the man for whom that Supreme Court decision was named won an Order of Canada, our elected (ha!) representatives are standing up in the House of fucking Commons, for goodness sake, and having a serious debate about – let’s face it – abortion? Is this really happening? Outside Parliament yesterday, a crowd of women dressed in handmaid costumes from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale stood and protested the gradual but inevitable regression of women’s rights in this country. “The Handmaid’s Tale is not an instruction manual,” they said.

Margaret Atwood must be shaking her head. Our mothers and grandmothers must be shaking their heads.

Anyway, the debate. Once I had sufficiently recovered from my existential malaise, I tuned back into the debate – livestream from the House of Commons, and in another tab, Twitter, and in a third, Kady O’Malley’s liveblog.

Woodworth opened with fifteen minutes of speechifying, during which time he managed to fire off an impressive array of anti-choice cliches, paying particular loving attention to the “slippery slope” argument. If we can abort fetuses, who’s next! he cries, forgetting that one of the original arguments he brought forward for amending the Criminal Code was that the definition of “human being” therein was based on 400-year-old science; surely if something was “next”, it would have it would have happened by now?

Woodworth proceeded to mangle and take out of context quotes from various sources, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to former Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson (who was a member of the court presiding over the R v. Morgentaler decision). The outrage from Twitter – and the exasperation from the New Democrat MPs in the House – was palpable, even from behind the tiny screen of my smartphone. Who is this jackass, and why is he allowed an audience for his nonsense?

Predictably, when the floor was opened for other MPs to speak their piece(s?), Woodworth was eviscerated. First up was NDP MP Francoise Boivin, who correctly characterized M312 as a “full frontal attack” on women’s rights. Liberal MP Hedy Fry called out Woodworth on his attempt to introduce “back door” legislation on fetal rights (as opposed to abortion rights) – a strategy that is not new to this government (remember Bill C-484?).

One by one our MPs lined up to cut Woodworth down, and to put a cherry on top, Conservative Whip Gordon O’Connor gave a strong and unwavering speech in support of a woman’s right to choose. Not even his own party could stand behind this gong show of a Motion – Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself will vote against it.

To be clear, nobody ever thought this would go anywhere, or that Woodworth would succeed in making any changes to the law, let alone changing the legal status of abortion. It is the fact that we are having this conversation that is such a slap in the face to Canadian women. It is terrifying that our rights are so fragile, we can “open the conversation” on a whim, even under a government whose leader promised he would not reopen the debate. Whoops, Harper, looks like that one got away from you!

The next debate on the motion will not happen before June, and most likely will actually occur in the fall. Don’t put away those handmaid costumes yet, ladies – you’re gonna need them, one way or the other.

For a full recap, watch the webcast on ParlVU (debate on Motion 312 started at 5pm), or read the Hansard, and for commentary check out the #M312 hashtagon Twitter.

I have had a love-hate relationship with 30 Rock almost since the show’s inception. I love it purely because it is smart and hilarious, and the Liz Lemon character is such an unabashed loser that it’s hard sometimes to remember how conventionally attractive she actually is. There are so many things about it that I like, in fact, that it took me a lot longer than it usually does to start getting annoyed with its faults.

It was an episode a couple seasons ago that did it for me; you might remember it. In the first five minutes, a man beats up and decapitates a cardboard display of Liz, and Jenna gets a book thrown at her face. Then there is a truly disgusting “joke” involving Pete raping his wife in her sleep, which gets not one, but two visual depictions. All played for laughs. Because of various elements of my privilege I was able to shrug off some of the vile sexist and transphobic “humour” of the show, but that episode really crossed a line for me.

I keep watching it, and I’m glad I do, because on Thursday night while waiting for the (in my opinion) much funnier, smarter, and warmer Parks and Recreation to start, I tuned in to 30 Rock and caught an episode that not only depicted a smart, friendly and funny little feminist child, but also involved some nuanced commentary on the American economy. But best of all was a scene in which Liz Lemon told Jack, “You are being so transvaginal right now!”.

Immediately my Twitter feed repeated the quote back to me via about six or seven different people, not all of whom are reproductive rights activists. This is the true joy of 30 Rock for me – they manage to sneak in the kind of jokes that tell you that someone is paying attention, even if it is just Tina Fey or a bunch of nerdy TV writers. Sometimes as an activist you get so wrapped up in a particular issue, you start to lose the ability to tell how much the general public actually knows about it. Is it common knowledge that these horrible transvaginal ultrasound requirements (and other ridiculous abortion restrictions) are sweeping across the US, or is this just something that abortion geeks like us pay attention to?

Not that 30 Rock making a joke about something means it is common knowledge – obviously there is an intellectual elitism that is almost essential to fully appreciating this show (another thing that bothers me about it…but also makes me feel smart when I get all the jokes). But Liz Lemon calling a controlling, patronizing, uber-privileged man “transvaginal” – it’s so, so important that she uses it in the context of calling Jack out for being intrusive – is important. It means that if this isn’t something we’re talking about, it should be. Because a lot of people are being really transvaginal right now about our wombs and lives. Liz Lemon’s got our back.

Navigating the world of humour can be difficult when you’re clued in. For me, an important part of being an extremely privileged feminist was learning to stop making jokes at the expense of others, particularly about rape and sexual assault. Some humour seems so pervasive in the dominant culture that people think it must be ok (like prison rape jokes, or someone-you-thought-was-a-woman-turns-out-to-be-a-man jokes, hahaha NO). However, the more you learn about oppression and privilege, the more you see how pervasive racism, transphobia, sexism, etc. etc. are in our culture, and how they grow and spread through “comedy.”

So with that said, can we agree as feminists (and human beings) that jokes where the punchline involves firebombing a facility whose staff and clients are under constant threat of being firebombed aren’t funny? Just like jokes about women being raped aren’t funny? The reason being that they aren’t challenging or subversive; they propagate the status quo. Clinics get bombed. That isn’t humour. It’s news.

This post tells us that Mavis Mantis, who identifies as a “radical feminist” (the fact that this term has been co-opted by trans-hating assholes is a topic for another day…), made the following “joke” regarding the recent Planned Parenthood bombing/arson in Wisconsin: “If they were going to bomb PP, they at least could have bombed Toronto (after that horrible lesbophobic “overcoming the cotton ceiling” workshop.)”

The workshop Mavis is referring to was run by Planned Parenthood Toronto and focused on “…draw[ing] attention to the ways in which trans women are socially constructed as undesirable, and are denied full participation in queer women’s communities.” We can argue all day as to whether this workshop is inherently lesbophobic, which is Mavis’s (and other “radical” feminists’) contention (hint: I disagree), but to suggest (even jokingly) that it merits having the clinic bombed is offensive and frightening. As if the staff running that workshop don’t go to work every day with the threat of bombing hanging over their heads. As if the queer and trans participants don’t face the threat of violence and murder every day of their lives. As if this is how we “punish” supposed transgressions from our allies.

As a cis woman and a feminist, I reject and condemn such bullying tactics – that is pretty much the bare minimum of what I can do as an ally to trans folks and as a decent human being. As a person who lives, works, and accesses sexual and reproductive health care services in Toronto, I am frightened by the anger behind this “joke” and by the implied spirit of violently correcting perceived mistakes in the feminism and social justice efforts of others. And as a former clinic worker, I am appalled by the levity with which the daily threat of violence is treated by this supposed ally.

Here’s a thought: what does firebombing anything accomplish? I don’t think we can’t joke about firebombing things, but really, let’s at least be subversive about it. There’s nothing new or hilarious about saying you want to firebomb Planned Parenthood, because a lot of assholes want to firebomb Planned Parenthood. And it’s especially unfunny to joke about violently punishing people or organizations that attempt to offer support to trans folks, because guess what? Trans folks get threatened with violence pretty much every day of their lives.

Just because allies are thin on the ground doesn’t mean we have to accept any old self-identified feminist that comes along. As someone who believes strongly that trans folks, queer folks, clinic staff and their allies and supporters deserve to be safe every day, I strongly and unequivocally condemn any “joke” or statement from any person – feminist-identified or otherwise – that uses violence or the threat of violence against anyone as a punchline or something that can be treated lightly. My feminism is not just implicitly intersectional; it is explicitly anti-transphobia and anti-violence. Haters need not apply.

You may recall my previous writing on Prince Edward Island, the only Canadian province where there are absolutely no abortion services, and currently no bus service going off the island. Women in PEI are having a really difficult time accessing abortion right now – and in Canada, abortion is something we all have a right to under the Canada Health Act. The difference in access across this country is a prime example of why it isn’t enough to fight for our right to reproductive healthcare; we must also push for equality in access, or we don’t truly have choice.

Inspired by the PEI Reproductive Rights Organization’s co-founder, Kandace Hagen, and her recent tie for first in the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation’s Active-8 youth campaign, I am launching a little campaign of my own to match the prize money ($1000, of which Kandace received half) to put towards PRRO’s work helping PEI women access abortion, and lobbying for abortion services on the island.

I started the campaign on March 9, hoping (ambitiously?) that we could raise the thousand dollars in a month. Just over a week in, we already have 45% of our goal – but I need your help to boost the signal!

PRRO is a real grassroots organization; their mandate is to bring PEI up to the standards outlined in the Canada Health Act and align the province with the rest of Canada. The Maritimes is a politically conservative, economically depressed region that struggles to support youth initiatives; Maritime activists make it happen for themselves. These folks are awesome, inspiring people, with jobs and families and lives outside of this work. They are working tirelessly to make sure PEI residents have the bare minimum of reproductive health care.

If everyone reading this gives a couple bucks, we can reach our goal in no time. If you can’t give, please consider sharing the link with your networks. If you have fundraising ideas, or do not want to donate over PayPal, feel free to contact me at pedgehog [at] gmail [dot] com.

I am confident we can raise $1000 for PRRO – it’s such a small amount, but it will go a long way towards helping PEI women access the health care they need.

One thing the anti-choice movement seems to do pretty well at is recruiting young people. This is not really surprising, as the anti-choice perspective on abortion can be (and often is) packaged and sold as relatively simplistic: they like babies, and don’t want them to die. It can be very difficult to be a young person, and easy to latch on to a cause that presents the world in easily discernable categories of right and wrong.

Engaging youth in the protection of their reproductive rights has been an ongoing challenge for our movement. Outside of the “second wave vs. third wave” nonsense that is continually dragged out to cause discord, there is a real issue here: the pro-choice view of the world is messier and more complex, and therefore a harder sell, than the nicely packaged anti-choice “I heart babies” view.

One thing the anti-choice movement really sucks at, though, is actually supporting these youth. They love getting them on board in order to trot them out at rallies and use them to score easy political points, but if they cared at all about the actual concerns and needs of youth, well, they wouldn’t be anti-choice. So it was with little surprise that I read about the latest way the anti-choice movement here in Canada is throwing at least two young people under the bus in order to gain a cheap victory.

The Atlantic Council for International Cooperation is running its third annual Active-8 campaign this month. This is a great campaign that encourages youth to present their best idea of how to make a positive change in the world. Allies pledge to act in a way that supports that idea, and the participant with the most pledges at the end of the campaign wins $1000. It’s a great way to support youth living in an oft-overlooked part of Canada, and to encourage them to value their ideas – and learn the skills necessary to turn those ideas into funding.

I have written before about the dismal state of reproductive rights and abortion access on Prince Edward Island. Well, one enterprising young person there, Kandace Hagan, entered the Active-8 campaign to bring attention to the problem, and hopefully to make a difference in the lives of many folks on the Island. Pretty great, right? And pretty bold, too – PEI has the kind of small-town mentality that, while it can be quite positive in some respects, generally discourages this kind of rocking the boat.

This is where the anti-choicers come in. Kandace was doing pretty well and had moved into second place, when suddenly the first place candidate, a young woman named Tara Brinston whose work centres on intellectual disabilities, jumped 100 pledges ahead overnight. Huh. This would have stayed in the realm of vague suspicion until Anne Marie Tomlins (of the PEI Right to Life Association) was found to be the source of an email urging folks to vote for Tara in order to shut Kandace down. Apparently this email was just supposed to go to a few people, but it was “leaked,” and now the antis can smell blood in the water.

So let’s take stock of the situation. Anti-choice folks are pledging their support to a campaign they didn’t give a shit about a week ago, just to make sure a young pro-choice activist doesn’t get $1000. Not only are they essentially sabotaging Kandace’s campaign, they are making a mockery out of Tara’s. Imagine how she will feel if she wins, not knowing if it was because people actually support her work in disability advocacy, or because a bunch of douche-canoes used her to claim a petty victory over reproductive rights. That sucks.

My hope in situations like this is that I’ll be able to take the high road, but really there’s no other way to go here. Anyone who pledges for Kandace – even in reaction to this latest development – is doing so presumably because they genuinely support her cause and want to make the world a better place in that regard. There’s no sabotage (counter-sabotage?) route for pro-choicers to take here, even if we wanted to. We have a candidate. The anti-choicers, if they cared at all about supporting youth endeavours, should have put up a candidate whose campaign was to continue squashing reproductive rights on PEI (what an inspiring dream! Please, take my $1000!). But they didn’t. Instead they crashed the entire campaign and sabotaged two inspiring young women, and for what?

Because that’s the best part: the anti-choicers gain nothing here. Even if Tara wins, her work is in disability advocacy – it doesn’t help their movement at all. The only benefit for them is Kandace losing, and if the anti-choice crowd celebrates every time a pro-choice activist doesn’t get $1000, they must get raging boners every time they look at my bank account. Really, all they’ve succeeded in doing is drawing media attention to three things: 1. the excellent Active-8 campaign; 2. the abysmal reproductive health situation in PEI (which doesn’t get half the media attention it deserves) and the brave activists fighting for change there, and 3. that they (the anti-choicers) are assholes who don’t care about idealistic young people unless they are propping up an exploded fetus sign.

I have already pledged for Kandace (and you can, too!), but I will make this additional pledge: if she does not win this contest, I will figure out a way to personally fundraise $1000 for her and the PEI Reproductive Rights Organization. I hope you’ll help.

Those who know me may not be shocked to know that in my younger years I was a bit free-wheelin’ – I had a pretty “hippie” vibe back in high school, which has transitioned into a fairly left – some might say radical – take on most social and environmental issues even now that my hair is cut to a reasonable length.

My combined interest in conservation and lady stuff naturally led me to tampon and pad alternatives. In my early twenties, all the cool enlightened feminists I knew were talking about Diva Cups. I had already read about bleached tampons and toxic shock syndrome, and I also kinda hated the whole process of using pads and how much paper was produced, and the constant possibilities for embarrassment (come on, who hasn’t shown up for class with a pad stuck to their jeans?). So I was pretty excited for something new.

I did my research first, because $40 was a lot of money for me, an unemployed college student. I knew it would save me a lot of money in the long term, but “long term” has never really been a mainstay in my financial vocabulary. So first, to make sure it would be okay for me, I bought the disposable menstrual cup things. They look like a clear plastic bag attached to a livestrong bracelet – you sort of squeeze the rim together and shove it up until it’s sitting against your cervix.

I tried the disposable cups for two periods and I liked them. I bought the Diva Cup. And I hated it.

I tried, I really did. It was forty dollars, after all. I tried using it for three cycles, and then I gave up.

The problem was that I could never get it to feel comfortable. Now I know that I have an unusually long and narrow vaginal canal (thanks, horrible IUD insertion!) and a weirdly tilted cervix, I guess the problem was that I wasn’t getting it in far enough to sit against my cervix. When you’re putting something solid like that into your vagina you tend to get increasingly nervous the further you shove it, and I just didn’t want to push it too far. However, even now that I know that, I’m not sure I would want to try it again. When it comes to menstrual blood, I’m more on the side of flow than containment.

I couldn’t go back to disposable pads and tampons though – I felt like I was losing enough ecofeminist cred as it was. That’s when I discovered cloth pads. Wonderful, lovely cloth pads. Again, they are expensive – but you can use them for a long time, so you save money in the long run. And they can be messy, but if you are diligent about soaking them before throwing them in the wash, it’s really no biggie. I kind of love them. Also, they can be an opportunity to support independent crafters!

It wasn’t until a couple years after I gave up on the Diva Cup that I even said anything about it to anyone. One of the volunteers at the clinic asked me if I had one. Before I could answer, she started to tell me about hers – how much she hated it, how she was trying so hard to like it, how she couldn’t figure out what she was doing wrong. I was so happy to have found someone who shared this with me!

I really think that feminists have a code like any other group, silent unwritten rules that vary from chapter to chapter, and one of them (at least in the circle I was running with at the time) was that under no circumstances were you to badmouth any of the great feminist advances – the pill, the Diva Cup, etc. etc. Maybe that was just in my head, I don’t know. But I was so relieved to find there was another feminist (and presumably lots more out there) who wasn’t as stoked about this great device as everyone else.

The lesson, I guess, is that everyone is different. I would never go around badmouthing the Diva Cup (in fact, I promote it as much as I can – after all, most of the people I know who have it, love it), but I’m always careful to tell people who ask me about it that it’s ok to feel like it didn’t work out for you. The more people who are upfront about what’s not working for them, the more chance there is that something else will come along to meet those needs.

So if you are thinking about chucking pads and tampons for something earth-friendly, I recommend doing your research (either online, with friends, or if you have a local feminist sex shop or health store,ask the staff about your options), and considering what features you’re looking for (eg. how comfortable do you feel putting something inside you?, etc.) before committing. Your comfort and safety should always be at the forefront of decisions you make about your body, so don’t be afraid to take some time to choose.

Good luck and happy bleeding!

Abortion is controversial. There can be no denying it. Even here in Canada, which might seem like a bastion of rationality because of our lack of abortion law, things are not peachy for women seeking abortions. Along with the various legal restrictions (covered from time to time in this space), there exist many (if not all) of the same social stigmas and regional and economic barriers for women seeking abortion here as in the States.

There are two alarming American trends that have been picking up steam here in recent years: the video sting (a la Lila Rose, or James O’Keefe) and crisis pregnancy centres, those supposed havens for troubled pregnant folks, which more often than not provide false information about abortion and use scare tactics (sometimes toeing the line of legality) to discourage women from seeking one out. These are things that most people working in abortion provision are being prepped to deal with. Legal abortion is so fragile, even here in this supposed socialist paradise; you get used to being constantly on the defensive, even when you are doing nothing wrong.

I was a bit uneasy when I saw this piece about a CPC in Surrey, BC that was recently the target of the same kind of undercover video sting operation so frequently used against the pro-choice movement. A CTV reporter went into the Surrey Pregnancy Options Centre posing as a pregnant woman, with a hidden camera. She asked about abortion, and the volunteers at the CPC told her a bunch of ridiculous lies, exaggerated the risks, and refused to refer her to an abortion clinic. They even gave her an envelope of information that had “For a proud Mom-to-be” written on it.

To be honest, it’s not the worst I’ve heard. I worked at a clinic that had a CPC next door, and we heard stories from patients about their experiences there that would shock you. But the fact remains that while Surrey Pregnancy Options Centre is not the worst offender, they are blatantly lying to people and spreading misinformation about legal health care.

My question is, how good do we feel about being behind the camera? I met a woman at a NAF meeting who worked at one of the Planned Parenthood clinics that was targeted by the “racist donor” phone calls. They were fighting against backlash they simply could not afford. Speaking as someone who has now worked for a few organizations that struggle to keep unearned backlash and negative rumours out of the news, I can say that it’s not easy to continue doing good work when every move is scrutinized by the right wing and the media. Sustainability without putting staff and patients at direct physical risk is always a concern for abortion clinics; it gets worse when they are targeted by these undercover operations. If you want change, go through the courts or the government, is what we say to the James O’Keefes and the Lila Roses. If your cause is so valid and moral, why be so sneaky? Stay on the level, and meet us where we’re at.

…So is it ok that we are now turning around and using the same tactics they used on us? Is it ok for the pro-choice movement to start Lila Rose-ing all over the place? Why don’t the same arguments apply to us? Maybe because we are being stalled in legal channels; there have been small victories with regards to how CPCs can and cannot advertise their services, but for the most part there seem to be no repercussions for giving false medical information to anyone who walks through the door. There are a lot of factors at play when it comes to social justice and the complicated relationship we, as activists, have with the justice system. But maybe that doesn’t excuse being giant hypocrites.

From a strictly personal standpoint, I don’t think I can forgive James O’Keefe for his part in creating the media storm that brought down ACORN in the US, or Lila Rose for setting back worthwhile organizations trying to provide health care to low income folks. Because of that, I cannot condone the use of the same tactics within our movement. But I also can’t help feeling that I’m indulging in a false equivalency here. The CTV reporter only went in and recorded what happened. There was – as far as we know – no suggestive editing, and no particularly leading questions. Does that make it ok?

I honestly cannot answer that question.

1. What made you decide to write a memoir, and why at this particular point in your life?

This year is the 40th anniversary of  my founding Choices–I felt that 4 decades was a good time to look back and reflect on the history of my life and times. I also had lost the 4 people closest to me in the two years prior to writing–so that the process of creating a narrative of my life was therapeutic.

2. In your book you mention many times that a choice you made caused other feminists to critique or challenge your commitment to the movement. How would you characterize your role in the feminist movement and why is/was it necessary?

They did not challenge my commitment but felt that I was not “pure” enough because I was also “making money off the movement”–There was this thinking that one had to be a socialist to be a feminist–that being an entrepreneur -and a successful business person was antithetical to being a radical feminist. I never agreed with this–but knew that I could be a capitalist with a conscience– developing a business model that served the needs and interests of women–both as patients and as staff.

My role in the movement was and is multi-faceted–I took theory and put it into practice by creating and developing one of the first legal abortion clinics in the country–Developed the concepts of Patient Power–engaged women’s health care–defined abortion as a Mothers Act–was consistently out front on major political issues–debates–ectc–so in a sense I bridged the gap between theory and practice–by being both a provider and an activist.

I also see myself as a gadfly–pricking the consciousness of not only the opposition but of the pro-choice forces–always challenging them to go deeper and further in their thinking and in their pro-activism.

3. How has the feminist movement (and specifically the pro-choice/reproductive rights movement) changed over the last 10-20 years? Do you see these changes as positive?

In many ways it has been institutionalized–and as a result much of the argument is stale and far too responsive.–There is now more of an apologetic feel to the political discussions–In a sense it has become even more difficult to have “abortion without apology” because of the success of the opposition in placing abortion within an ‘immoral context” the pro-choice movement has to OCCUPY the ABORTION DIAGLOGUE AND THE DISCUSSION.

4. What are some of the challenges of being a single parent to a child over fifty years younger than you? What are some advantages?

Having to explain my decision–which was the most natural for me at the time that I made it.

The first challenge was to become comfortable with the title of ‘Sasha’s Mom”-which I met rather quickly. The next was finding my way after landing on Planet Parenthood- and dealing with situations I had never been exposed to before–but that was extremely stimulating–so it was also an advantage–and I would say that about all of it–that the challenges are advantages for me.

The challenge of having to deal with the reality that I will not live to see a great part of her life–is an advantage of keeping me living so much in the present–realizing and appreciating the preciousness of it all–and having to deal head on with my own mortality.

It is also a kind of enchantment–being able to play with Sasha and  her stuffed dinosaurs after coming home from the intensity of my other activities.

Fortunately I have the resources to give me the support that is necessary–which privileges me in relationship to so many other single mothers–I would obviously never be able to do my work and be a mom if I did not have great people around me to support this and I would also state that I love being a single parent because there is no negotiation with anyone else about how I want to raise and educate my child.

5. How did your own pregnancy decisions (abortion and adoption) change your relationship to the pro-choice movement?

It did not change it at all–just deepened it–I love being a mother because I could become one at the right time for me–so it just reinforced how critical that choice is for all women.

6. How do you think your marriage to an older man who was also your mentor gave you an advantage in your professional and/or activist life?

It allowed me to enter worlds I would never have had an opportunity to go into–he gave me  the love and support to fulfill my dreams without having to fulfill his.–And it allowed me to found Choices–to eventually own and operate the largest women’s medical center in the country.

7. What were some of the challenges of writing a memoir? Did you ever find yourself not wanting to write about certain things, or changing events to give them a better flow?

I start my first chapter with a quote from Wittengestein–”Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself”Of course, it takes a great deal of psychological courage to look into your own mirror without flinching—I wrote out all of it–but edited quite a bit also–so there was a distinction about what I could and wanted to look at-and how much I wanted to share–but the book is a truly authentic narrative of my life.

8. What was the hardest part of running an abortion clinic?

Operating Choices is really like operating a midsize hospital–we see around 40,000 patients per year for a variety of services including pre-natal care–so the challenges are similar–hiring the best staff–meeting the stringent requirement for the regulators and the accreditations-insuring financial viability-insuring that each woman receives compassion and support for her reproductive choices–BUT doing all of this in a WAR ZONE–with constant demonstrators–death threats bomb threats–landlords that are attempting to evict you by not providing services–etc.etc

9. What is the most important thing you want to say to young feminist activists today?

Be Bold–Have Courage–engage joyfully in the struggle to change the world from what is to what should be.

10. What are your hopes for the world Sasha will live in when she is your age?

I hope it will be easier for her to live an actualized meaningful life as a woman–and I know that she will find that large part of that meaning in the struggle to achieve that for others–because the world changes very slowly.

*****

Check out my review of Merle Hoffman’s new memoir, Intimate Wars, at my blog.

Over at Slate, Rachael Larimore has written a somewhat convoluted piece, partially in response to Amanda Marcotte’s earlier article in which she explores the trend of touring “I was almost aborted” speakers. Larimore argues that pro-choicers are actually afraid of the “What if I hadn’t been born?” question because it challenges our supposed perception that “…some ‘unwanted’ children actually grow up in loving homes and become responsible, even successful, adults.”

Perhaps it is too much to ask that this belief can be dispelled by pro-choicers simply saying, no, we know that some “unwanted” children do okay. We also know that many women who decide to proceed with an unplanned pregnancy end up being fantastic parents. We also know that some adopted kids have great lives and contribute a lot to society. We even wish for these things, and try to facilitate the frequency of these events by supporting many things that help make them possible: accessible, funded daycare and childcare; the de-stigmatization of single motherhood; financial and emotional support for new parents; and on and on. Pro-choicers have a wide range of concerns outside of abortion (that’s why we call ourselves “pro-choice” and not “pro-legal-abortion”) – we would like to see pregnant people have access to all the information and resources they need regardless of their chosen pregnancy outcome.

Larimore thinks that we are scared to answer the question: “What if I hadn’t been born?”, but personally I don’t think it’s that difficult. Putting aside the fact that, had that one thing changed, an infinite number of alternate worlds is created, the answer is quite simply: “then you wouldn’t be here.” There’s a lot more to it of course: maybe things would have been a little easier for your mother; maybe she would have had another child later on, that she could have loved and cared for more; maybe things would have been worse for her, and having you saved her from going down a difficult road. Maybe someone more competent would have your job; maybe your partner would have fallen in love with an unstable person who killed them in a jealous rage, changing a lot of other lives; maybe everything would be exactly the same; maybe maybe maybe.

The reason pro-choicers often deflect this question as meaningless is because it is. There is no way for us to know what would happen if a different choice was made. The question itself is a shameless emotional baiting tactic that anti-choicers use in two ways: 1. asking it about themselves to make you feel like a jerk if you don’t care about them not being born, or 2. asking it about you to make you feel like you’re so lucky to be alive – as if you would even know or care if you had been aborted. “What if your mother aborted you?” the anti-choice protesters would hurl the question over the fence at us, back in my clinic escort days. “Then I wouldn’t be born,” we would answer back. What if the moon were made of blue cheese?

Everyone makes decisions in their lives without knowing how things might have been if they had taken a different path. That is part of being human. You can tell a pregnant woman what could happen until you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day she can only choose one of two options – continue the pregnancy, or terminate it – and then she lives with the outcome of that choice. The pro-choice movement is not interested in the game of telling women what *could* happen. All we want is for her to be free to weigh those possibilities and make that decision herself.