Abortion Gang

Recently I put 33 minutes of my life aside to watch the much ballyhooed “180,” a film (sorry, “award winning documentary”) purporting to change “the heart of a nation” on the question of abortion (and no I will not link it). I got my hopes up a little when I saw that one of the recommendations on the website, from a John Piper, went: “I give my unflinching, joyful, trembling Yes to ‘180’.” Well! Sounds sexy, no?

No.

The film opens with the question: “Have you heard of Adolf Hitler?” Don’t ask me what this has to do with abortion, because I was still trying to figure it out after the interview subject answered, “no” (no?? really??) and old news reels of Hitler’s Germany began to run. You’re really winning me over already, guys. Godwinned in the first fifteen seconds. We then meet Ray Comfort, who is “deeply concerned” that a generation is forgetting about the Holocaust. It goes downhill from there.

Comfort seems to have rounded up a disturbing number of young people who either don’t know, or are pretending not to know, who Hitler was and what he did. This should be a documentary about the failure of our public schools. But it’s not. It’s about how if you don’t know anything about the Holocaust, you’re probably going to lack a moral centre and have lots of abortions. I think that’s what it was about, anyway. I spent a lot of the time marvelling at the lack of ability his interview subjects possessed for putting together a coherent argument. I feel that for those he has convinced to turn “pro-life”, there will be little trouble turning them back. You don’t even need a logical point.

What the film consists of is a series of “man-on-the-street” style interviews interwoven throughout, all conducted by Comfort and intercut with footage of the Holocaust, as well as ultrasound images (thankfully used sparingly). I did expect some gruesome fetus porn, because of the disclaimer about disturbing images, but it must have been referring to grainy footage of piles of dead people from the concentration camps (in which I was amused to note, the genitals had been blurred. Yeah, because that’s the image we need to protect people from).

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that Comfort did not have some revolutionary new argument against abortion, but instead used the same old talking points and ridiculous hypotheticals that those of us in the pro-choice movement have heard (and refuted) many times. It can be overwhelming to be approached on the street though, and if you are not equipped to answer those questions I can see how some people might find them somewhat thought-provoking, even mind-changing. There was a lot of “I never thought of it that way before” comments from the subjects.

The film itself is fairly well put together for what it is, although I am not sure who it is supposed to be targeted to – I can’t imagine it changing the minds of anyone who has given even the slightest bit of thought to their pro-choice position. Sample hypothetical (paraphrased): “I’m a construction worker. I’m going to blow up that building, but I’m not sure if there are people inside. I think there aren’t, but I’m not sure. What would you say to me?” Um…..do your job and check? I’m reporting you? Get out of my womb with your goddamn dynamite??

I really wish people would stop coming up with hypothetical situations they can equate to abortion. Can’t we all agree there is no equivalent?

Abortion itself does not come up until 13 minutes in, after Comfort has already badgered his surprisingly good-natured subjects about whether it is better to bulldoze a bunch of Jewish people in a pit, shoot them to put them out of their misery, or take a bullet yourself from a German soldier (I’m not even kidding). There were also some questions about whether you would kill Hitler, and whether you would kill Hitler’s mother, that served to show morality as shades of grey, only to have Comfort totally contradict all that at the end with a very black-and-white approach to Christianity – a dangerous position to take for someone whose Bible never explicitly condemns abortion, and actually implicitly condones it.

Here are some reasons why this film did not make me change my mind about abortion:

1. I do not believe abortion is the moral equivalent to bulldozing Jewish people in a pit.

2. I feel conflicted about being on the same side as someone who would say to a young, pleasant woman of colour: “Hitler declared Jews as non-humans, and that’s what you’re doing when you say it’s ok to kill a child in the womb.”

3. I believe one can be moral without being a Christian.

4. I have the capacity for rational thought and am not instantly converted to an idea by being berated by talking points until I break down and say yes so the interviewer will just go away.

5. If I label myself, I do it based on what I believe, and not vice versa. I will not change my beliefs in order to fit into a category (ie “Christian”).

6. There was a really cute, self-identified gay woman in this film and it didn’t look like Comfort was able to convince her, and I still want a shot with her.

7. “It’s common practice to have a low moral standard when we free ourselves from the Ten Commandments, or when we’re unaware of their true meaning.” No.

8. It does not, in fact, concern me that if I were to die today I might end up in hell. Mostly because I follow my own moral compass and would rather suffer judgement than follow the (in my opinion, immoral) laws of a god I don’t believe in.

9. I don’t want to associate with a cause that has to put this disclaimer on their video and website: “We strongly condemn the use of any violence in connection with protesting abortion.”

and…

10. I trust women to make the right choice for them, regardless of their religious or spiritual beliefs, I want to be on the side that trusts and supports women, and I truly believe that abortion can be, and often is, an act of love.

Sorry Ray. Better luck next time.

Recently I watched “The Fly” (the 1986 version) for the first time. I have had this film on my shelf for almost two years now; my reason for avoiding it was that I am obsessed with Jeff Goldblum and I was afraid that seeing him all gross and decomposing would make me love him less. I know how ridiculous that sounds.

The thing about being completely in love with Jeff Goldblum is that, unlike many other stars to whom I am attracted, he tends to, in general, make pretty good movies. I think this must be difficult as an unconventionally attractive person, particularly one with a very distinctive cadence, so it is all the more admirable that the Goldblum ouevre has very few misses. So I was fairly confident that “The Fly” would be good.

For those who haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it – but I also recommend staying away from this post until you have seen it; I know it’s ridiculous to post spoiler warnings for a 25-year-old film, but I do plan to discuss a plot point that I did not know about before watching and I just want to make sure you’re prepared. Also I find it tiresome to do plot summaries so if you haven’t seen it and want to keep reading, better start googling.

“The Fly” has been understood in some circles as a cinematic metaphor for AIDS, although David Cronenburg was reportedly surprised by this interpretation as he had intended the film to be about disease, aging and death in general. In the cultural context of the 1980s, though, even an unintentional reference to AIDS makes a lot of sense and the interpretation has stuck – even I thought that was what it was about, going in. What I didn’t know was that this film deals unflinchingly with the abortion issue and more generally with bodily autonomy.

What I loved about the abortion theme was that there was no hemming and hawing over the politics of it; it was simply a choice that Veronica needed to make, and once she made it even the slimeball ex-boyfriend was fully ready to help her out. If this film was made today I am certain that either the pregnancy storyline would have been cut altogether, or there would have had to have been some obligatory consideration of the “pro-life” viewpoint before she could ultimately go ahead with it. How dreary it is that we have regressed so much.

There are moments in the film that were so real, I felt as if Cronenburg (and Geena Davis) must have spent some time hanging out in the counselling offices of abortion clinics. When Veronica sees Seth in the last stages of deterioration and decides she needs to go ahead with the abortion immediately, Stathis reminds her that it is the middle of the night. “I need it out of me! Now!” she screams. What clinic staffer hasn’t seen that level of desperation before? I know this is Goldblum’s star-making role but I think Davis was note-perfect. Her whole story is a woman who falls in love with someone who changes, and becomes something different than she thought – whether from disease, or obsession – and when she finds herself pregnant, she has to decide how much of that man she wants in her life through the potential child. Also it might end up being a giant maggot. We’ve all been there. And Seth’s fear that the child might be all that is left of the pre-disease him…I have a friend whose partner died, and at the funeral his mother said to her (my friend) that she had hoped she might be pregnant, that her son might have left her with a part of him to carry on. This is a real thing in the world.

I was thrilled to find this plot in “The Fly” – it’s not unlike going back to rewatch “Dirty Dancing” and finding the abortion part, that I didn’t understand as a child, is actually amazing and realistic and integral to the story and themes. It’s not so much about films showing abortion as it is about them portraying it realistically. Everything about “The Fly” is a total mind fuck (this is Cronenburg after all), so finding this ridiculously straightforward, unquestioned abortion plot is such an unexpected gem.

Of course, after Veronica decides to have the abortion, Seth kidnaps her from the operating table and brings her back to the lab, where he wants to fuse himself to her and the baby, creating “the perfect family”. Holy social commentary, batman! At this point I may have been reading too much into it but I really think there is a lot going on here regarding not just Veronica’s immediate physical safety and that aspect of bodily autonomy, but also the idea of the nuclear family and gross antichoice dudes who won’t “let” their girlfriends have abortions. And the idea of marriage as a solution for unintended pregnancies. It’s 1986. There is a lot going on, friends.

Obviously there are a lot of themes interwoven throughout “The Fly” and it is not just a straight up horror movie, but I think bodily autonomy is one of the main ones and it manages to deal with a lot of complex issues around that, possible because it buries them in horror. It’s like Frankenstein! Or more contemporarily, it reminded me a lot of “District 9” (upon which it was clearly a huge influence). But it really can be viewed as a complex narrative of the abortion decision: the feeling of violation, the uncertainty about who the baby might be if it is born, the complicated emotions of the men involved, the urgency – it was all there.

Nothing delights me more than when I consume some pop culture that is unexpectedly feminist. And best of all, the makeup effects were so good I could barely even tell it was Jeff Goldblum under there, so my undying love emerges undamaged. Good movie night.

A book I am currently reading – about which I will say very little, as the plan is to review it on my blog – features a character who donates her eggs, a process our very own Christie is currently undergoing. In the book, the character is acting out of financial desperation, and sees the process as a violation of her “purity”, and a deeply shameful way to make money.

I am reading this book and feeling absolutely flabbergasted. Call me naive, but I had no idea that people feel this way about egg donation. I can’t imagine it being something to feel ashamed about. The character feels that she is selling her body, and several times in the book there is an implied equivalency to sex work (which I also don’t think is shameful, but I recognize I’m not part of the majority on that one). Every time she mentioned her guilt, the gift of precious life that she was selling, the child that could have been hers, I wanted to reach into the book, take her by the shoulders and say, “You know that egg would have gone in the toilet otherwise, right?” I mean one of her main concerns seems to be that she is a virgin, and this is damaging her purity. But it’s like, if you’re a virgin, you’re not actively trying to get those eggs fertilized, so what’s the problem?

The whole experience of reading this book, while frustrating, is not entirely new to me. I am constantly flabbergasted by the things that women (myself included) find shameful or are expected to find shameful in Western culture. Sex work is a perfect example. I have a friend who is a sex worker – we are not super close, but we go out for dinner when we’re in each other’s cities, and we exchange the occasional email. When I reference her profession in conversation (usually to tell one of her hilarious/weird stories about ridiculous clients), I get more judgment and distaste than I ever did about working in abortion care. But it seems pretty obvious to me how they are connected. Women’s bodies are, after all, public property (didn’t you know?) and therefore it is acceptable for any perfect stranger to judge what you’re doing with yours.

Sometimes I find myself feeling ashamed about the most ridiculous things, and then I have to examine that shame and figure out where it comes from. Why should women be embarrassed to be sex workers? To have abortions? To have miscarriages, for crying out loud! To donate eggs? To shave/not shave their body/facial hair? To seek egg/sperm donors? To be/not be sexually active? To be queer? To masturbate? To suck dick/eat pussy/take it in the butt? To use birth control?

I mean, it’s not stuff you need to bring up apropos of nothing at the dinner table – in fact, you don’t have to bring it up at all if you don’t want to – but it just drives me crazy that we’re carrying all this guilt about stuff like this, and letting it take up so much of our time and energy. But we live in a culture that makes it sometimes quite dangerous for women NOT to be ashamed of these things. It’s easy for me to say, stop being ashamed of your egg donation. But when women risk more than judgment – when they risk being kicked out of their families, churches and/or communities for any of the above behavior – it’s not so simple. We need to change the culture, to make it safe.

I believe the way to do that is for those of us who can, who have the privilege of non-judgmental support networks, to make a conscious decision to stop feeling shame for the decisions we make about our bodies. One person at a time, let’s make it ok to take control over our bodies and our lives, let’s transform the culture into one that accepts a woman’s right to choose (and if you think I’m just talking about abortion, you haven’t been paying attention).

My own mother’s advice is not to fight feelings. When they show up, acknowledge them. “Hello little sadness,” she says. “Hello shame. What brings you here today?” There is no need to engage these feelings; you can decide on your own to feel or not feel that shame or that hurt. The important thing is, where does it come from? Is it even yours?

I don’t know about you folks, but I have enough of my own crap to deal with. I don’t need to be taking on the feelings other people have about my choices. So I reject them and get on with my life. At least I’m trying to. And I encourage you to try to, as well–because loving yourself is a revolutionary act. And revolutionary acts will change the world for the better.

Recently, I left my job in abortion care. Although I have a social justice, nonprofit, world-saving job that I love now, I miss the clinic, as I knew I would. I knew I would miss my coworkers of course, and the patients and their amazing stories. But what I didn’t realize was what a huge part of my identity it was. I had grown complacent in the knowledge that working in an abortion clinic was a noble act (instead of a privilege), and that my work was what defined me as an activist. Since leaving, I have had to have some serious, soul-searching conversations with myself about what truly constitutes activism, and how to continue and expand my fight for reproductive justice.

I feel that I have not given enough credit during my time in the movement to those who work outside of the clinics and advocacy organizations, who are reproductive justice freedom fighters on top of their day jobs. Unpaid activists who truly act out of the goodness of their hearts. And now that I no longer work in abortion care, it is no longer assumed that I care deeply about reproductive justice – I have to prove that I want it through my unpaid actions.

For my own benefit and for others like me, I have written the following list of how those of us with little time, money and energy to spare can be everyday heroes and activists.

1. Support a friend through a pregnancy.
When a friend tells you she is pregnant, be there for her. There is no need to be overbearing, but just let her know that you are there every step of the way if she needs you. If she decides to terminate, offer to go with her to the clinic, and check in with her afterwards. If she is continuing the pregnancy, ask her what she needs – time, ice cream, someone to hold back her hair, space. And when the baby comes, be a supporter, a babysitter, a researcher of daycare options, if that’s what she wants/needs. Show through your love and trust of the women in your life that women are worthy of love and trust.

2. Be a safe sex educator to your friends.
I know there is somewhere in your area where you can get free condoms. Go get some, and give them out to your friends. Keep a dish in your bathroom with a “help yourself!” sign on it for visitors. Hand them out relentlessly. Ask your friends what method of birth control they are using. Educate yourself and be a source of information and support. Use whatever you have up your sleeve – an air of compassion, a sense of humour – to make it ok to talk openly about sex around you.

3. Volunteer at your local clinic.
Always contact a clinic first and find out what they need. Most clinics do not need counter-protesters; they make patients nervous and incite anger. See if you can be a clinic escort: usually it’s a weekly commitment of a couple hours, and you will be directly helping women accessing sexual health services. Some clinics need other support – people to drive patients from the airport or neighbouring towns; people to host out-of-town patients overnight; people to answer phones or stuff envelopes. If you have the time to give to make yourself useful at a clinic, I promise you it will go far and be very much appreciated.

4. Lead a creative resistance.
If you are a creative person, create something. Write a letter to your representative or to the newspaper; write a blog; paint, write poetry, build a sculpture; do something big and amazing and thought-provoking or something small and quiet and cathartic. Sometimes the challenge of the movement can be so frustrating and make you so angry and sad and lost; express yourself. Often art has a way of reaching others and clarifying the issue in a way that simple explanations cannot.

5. Be an ally.
Who are the people in your community who are suffering most from the lack of access to reproductive healthcare services? Find out what they have to say. Figure out a way to use what privilege you have to be of service. This is a hard one, and a longterm thing. You will screw up. But it’s worth the effort.

6. Learn.
In whatever spare time you have, read about reproductive justice, and ask questions. Talk to people, whoever you can access – doctors, nurses, friends who have had abortions, friends who have had babies, doulas, midwives, your mother, your partner. Read blogs and articles. Inform yourself as much as possible; put yourself in a position of being able to speak to this issue and to help and support and inform the people around you. Knowledge is power.

7. Love.
I feel that this is at the root of it – true activism is an act of love. Never forget why we fight for access and the health and lives of our sisters. If we live every day and act out of love, we can’t lose. When in doubt, follow your heart.

Please feel free to comment with your own ideas and suggestions. Remember, the revolution will not be funded; we all have to keep in mind that service provision, while good and essential work, is only one piece of the puzzle. The battle will be won by the small, everyday acts of resistance that all of us can do.

I would like to turn your attention to an excellent recent article in the Toronto Star about women who choose to have tubal ligations. It is a great piece and I urge you to read the whole thing, but here’s the part that sums it up for me:

“To [Sarah] Lawrance, tubal ligations are a matter of control and autonomy. And while people have their own opinions, that choice should belong to the woman alone.

‘You need to let people make their own decisions about how to lead their lives,’ she says. ‘Even if you think they’re wrong.’”

I love that this issue is getting some attention. It is one thing to be childfree by choice, which is a movement that is building momentum, and it is another to want to physically, permanently prevent pregnancy. In my experience, many people who are perfectly supportive of the former tend to recoil at the thought of the latter, especially if, as the article mentions, the woman in question is under 30 or hasn’t had children, or both.

I am 27. I recently had an IUD inserted. If I thought there was any chance of a doctor performing a tubal ligation on me, I would have had that done instead, but honestly I didn’t even try. I know at my age, with no children, there wouldn’t be a chance. I was recently talking to a coworker who has had four children (one stillborn), and who is now trying to have a tubal ligation. Her doctor reluctantly provided her with the referral, but not before grilling her at length about how she would react to every possible situation that might make her want more children, such as one of her children dying (“Been there, done that” she says bitterly), or the breakup of her relationship (I’m not sure how that would make someone want more children, but okay). It was only because of her previous deliveries and the fact that she had the consent of her long-term partner that the doctor allowed her to go ahead.

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Last night, MTV Canada aired a half-hour special called “Impact: Abortion Stories.” So I watched it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, although I was certainly wary of a network that expends entire series (and countless hours of specials) on teen motherhood and one half-hour on abortion (and nothing at all on adoption, as far as I can tell). Certainly the show was aimed at teens, and so I was bracing myself for a certain amount of drama and sensationalism.

The format of the show was in seven segments of a young person talking into the camera about their experience with abortion (or pregnancy or activism), interspersed with footage of protests (both pro-choice and anti-abortion) and myths and facts about abortion.

Let’s start with the myths, because that was the best feature of the show, and the deciding factor in my decision that this was, indeed, a pro-choice special. They presented five myths and quickly debunked them using simple, clear language. If the show had just been this, it would have been a great teaching tool for teens – good for sex ed classes, if we were ever that progressive. The myths they chose to include were: abortion causes breast cancer; only young women/teenagers have abortions; post-abortion syndrome exists; abortion affects future fertility; and outlawing abortion will reduce the number of abortions.

The rest of the show involved seven young people talking about their experiences, over a horrendous, soap opera-style backing track. Each of them probably got about two minutes of screen time, so you would think they would want to maximize the number of women actually talking about abortion. But of the seven people involved, only four had actually had abortions – one had decided to parent (even though, as mentioned previously, there are numerous shows on this network alone about teen parenting), one was an anti-choice activist (WTF?) and one was a man whose girlfriend had an abortion.

The inclusion of the man was the most troubling for me. I do realize that men can experience a lot of pain around abortion, and certainly this man was hurting. But for a half hour special, you need to pick and choose. Let’s talk about men and abortion, sure; but let’s make sure women’s voices are heard first. And I would have loved to have heard from this man’s ex-girlfriend, the one who had the abortion. According to him, she didn’t want him to go with her to the appointment. There seemed to be a lot more going on there than he was telling. And then when his next girlfriend became pregnant, HE decided that HE couldn’t  bear to go through that again, so he told her “we are having this child no matter what.” So they did. Presenting this story in the same sympathetic light as the five young  women’s stories was an idiotic and alienating move on MTV’s part. I wanted to throw something at the television. What is the matter with this guy?? And why are we privileging his story over either of the young women he was  involved with (because yes, the woman who had a child with him also broke up with him)?

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There is a topic I have wanted to write something about for months, but it is so delicate – it is, really, the definition of delicate. I don’t mind so much getting hate mail or even losing acquaintances over things that I write – and I will unabashedly write whatever I damn well please most of the time – but I do have limits. I would never knowingly write something that puts someone else in danger or exposes them to hate mail, for example. And I would never want to open up the movement itself to attacks, which is why I have avoided writing about this.

However, any movement that does not self-examine is probably doomed to failure, right? And feeling rather inspired by the recent publication of this very important book (shameless self-promotion!), I have decided to go ahead and write the damn piece and see what happens.

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Six months ago I moved away from New Brunswick, the province that had been my home for thirteen years. I did so with a great deal of relief. Sometimes it is easy to look back with rose -coloured glasses, and I often wonder if it was really such a backwards place, or if I had just exaggerated the conservative, elitist, whiteness of it because I was so unhappy there.

And then, I see something like this.

This is a provincial government page on getting tested for chlamydia (which is absolutely an EPIDEMIC right now, in case you are wondering. Please get tested if you can!). Scroll down to the part about where you should get tested if you are 19 years old or younger and don’t have a health care provider. Now compare that to where it says you can go if you are 20 to 29 and don’t have a health care provider. See the difference?

In New Brunswick, you have to be 19 years old OR YOUNGER to access sexual health centres. Let that sink in for a second.

New Brunswick is a province with a dangerous shortage of family doctors. I would hazard a guess that most people who live in NB don’t have a health care provider. When I lived in Fredericton, the capital city, a government and university town with a population of about 60,000, I had no access to regular sexual health care. As a university student I went to the student health centre. The age limit for the sexual health centres then was 24, so I could go there once I graduated. But when I turned 24, there was nowhere – literally nowhere – I could go to get a pap test. And now that age is 19.

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I have two jobs – for half the week I work in intake and admitting at an abortion clinic, and for the other half I work in admin for a national nonprofit whose mission, while lefty and social justice-based, is not directly related to reproductive rights. I don’t really talk about either workplace at the other one, so I don’t know how my coworkers at the nonprofit feel about abortion (although I would guess mostly pro-choice – but you never can be sure!).

The other day at the nonprofit, my other job came up in conversation with a coworker, J. When she asked where I work, I told her the Morgentaler Clinic. She knew right away what it was (most people don’t know, and I have to explain that it’s an abortion clinic). She asked if we get any protesters, and I explained that at our clinic we have an injunction that prevents protesters from coming within a certain distance, so they don’t bother with us. I still wasn’t sure which side she fell on, and she is an American which I find can often be an indicator of conservatism (or at least more of it than you’ll find in Canadians). Our conversation was cut short by some work that came up, and I returned to my desk.

Later J, who is 29, came over and started talking about when she was growing up in upstate New York, and how she was one of the few people she knew at her high school who had access to a car. The nearest abortion clinic was four or five hours away, in another state, and so she used to drive people there. “I must have driven twenty or thirty girls to that clinic,” she told me. “We would have to skip school and time it for days when I had extracurriculars, so my parents wouldn’t expect me home until later.”

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