Abortion Gang

A friend of mine recently celebrated her 30th birthday. She asked her party guests to give her their words of wisdom for making the most of her 30′s. I recommended that she schedule frequent hot dates with herself, and I gave her some bubble bath and cheap wine to get her started in the right direction. After I gave her this gift, I had to ask myself why I’m not following my own advice.

I think this is a quandry that many of us can relate to. As activists, we’re so busy taking care of other people that it’s often hard to find time to take care of ourselves.

One of my mentors gave me some good advice when I graduated from college. “Take care of yourself,” she said, “or you will burn out and you won’t be able to take care of anyone else.” I followed her advice by treating myself to expensive haircuts, cheap pedicures, and frequent sushi dinners. My budget ain’t what it used to be – so these days my version of treating myself involves a six-pack of cheap beer and a Netflix marathon.

I know I’m not the only one who struggles with self care. If you work at a clinic or an abortion fund, how do you decompress at the end of a shift? Do you have a hard time disconnecting from other people’s emotional baggage like I do, or have you developed a successful strategy for being compassionate and still taking care of your own emotional well being?

On the same note, for those of us with anti-choice family members, how do you handle family gatherings? I have typically tried to avoid discussing health care or politics. But that strategy crapped out on me over the holidays when my mom started asking me why I don’t support adoption over abortion. I walked away from a fight and took a shower to calm down. However, I can’t do that with every confrontation. I’d love to find a few strategies for dealing with anti-choice family confrontations.

How you practice self-care?

I have been very busy the past two weeks. I volunteer with the Abortion Access Network of Arizona. We recently told the abortion providers in Arizona that we’re available to assist their clients. The result has been that our phone has been ringing off the hook. There are currently only two of us handling intake calls. Needless to say, we’re overwhelmed. But the calls reaffirm the work that we’re doing. Here is a snap shot of the women we’ve funded in the past two weeks. (I’ve changed the names of the women to protect their privacy.)

Vanessa is leaving an abusive relationship. Her partner cleaned out their joint bank account when she left him, leaving Vanessa completely broke. She managed to scrape together money to pay for her abortion, but she needed $60 to pay for gas to drive into Phoenix from one of our small rural communities. We were able to help her get the gas money she needed to get back and forth.

Delores was 21 weeks pregnant – bumping right up against the legal limit for abortion in Arizona. She was getting a late term abortion because she didn’t know she was pregnant until 20 weeks. The birth control method she uses eliminates her period. The only clue about pregnancy was the weight gain. We helped Delores pay for her abortion, as well as gave her money for gas and helped connect her with housing, since she, too, had to drive to Phoenix from a small, rural community.

Several of the women who have called are unemployed. They have all told us that they have other children to support and just cannot afford another child right now.

Every one of the women we have spoken to has a different story to tell. But the consistent theme in all of their stories is that they are making a responsible decision about their health, and doing the best they can to support their families. Antis love to portray abortion patients as slutty, irresponsible people who have no thoughts about their decision. That is a blatant lie. Every single one of the people our fund has helped have put a lot of thought into their decision to get an abortion. The fact is that we are in tough economic times, and lots of people are down on their luck. And I’m very grateful that our abortion fund is able to assist folks.

That being said, our fund is already out of money and it’s only the middle of the month. I know that other funds have similar experiences. It’s difficult to tell folks that you can’t help them because you’re out of money. We’re planning monthly fundraisers for the year of 2012, and we’re very excited to participate in NNAF‘s national bowl-a-thon in April. We’re slowly getting more volunteers to join our fund – but I think you can see why we’re feeling overwhelmed. There’s just so much work to do.

If you’re a reader in Arizona and you’d like to help share the work, AANA would love to hear from you. Please visit our website to find out how you can join our team.

If you’ve been volunteering for an abortion fund for a while, how have you dealt with a call when you’ve had to tell a client that your fund is out of money? I would love to hear your stories.

A recent poll revealed that the majority of Americans (78% to be exact) believe that abortion should be legal. Before you get all giddy, like I did when I first heard about the poll results, that 78% statistic needs to be broken down based upon when Americans believe abortion should be legal. According to the CNN poll:

25% – abortion should be legal under any circumstances
12% – abortion should be legal in most circumstances
41% – abortion should be legal in a few circumstances
21% – abortion should be illegal in all circumstances

Even when you look at the numbers broken out like this, it’s reassuring to see that only 21% of Americans believe that abortion should be completely illegal. True, I wish that there were more of us in the “legal under any circumstance” camp – but we need to take a deep breath and try to remember that the antis do not have us outnumbered.

Part of the challenge for the pro-choice community is that many pro-choice people don’t speak up about their beliefs. And who can blame them? It’s difficult to voice your opinion when people on the anti-choice side of the debate yell, hold up grizzly posters, and spew utter nonsense. It isn’t a conversation that’s even worth engaging, because at the end of the day, no one is going to change their opinion about anything.

I’m not that surprised about the 78% statistic, though. When I was a clinic escort, I frequently had women swear to me that they were “pro-life” as they entered the clinic – but they just couldn’t continue their pregnancy. I always assured them that it didn’t matter what they believed, they were welcome at the clinic. If you take time to unravel the 78% statistic, I would be willing to bet that many of the people who spoke the CNN pollsters were some of these same women – they’re part of that 41% group who believes that abortion should be legal when it comes to their own uterus.

There’s bound to be some mathematical mumbo jumbo that I’m missing – it’s been a few years since I took a stats class. But even with a margin of error, or whatever you call it, there’s something very straightforward about the numbers – the people who shout the loudest are not the ones who are on the right side of public opinion.

This year, the Sisters of Life celebrates its twentieth birthday. The Sisters of Life is a religious order established in 1991. They exist “to protect and enhance the sacredness of every human life.” If you visit the Sisters of Life’s website, you will read stories about pregnant women receiving help from the compassionate nuns, either at one of the housing facilities they provide, or in the form of strollers and baby clothes. The website paints a pretty picture of nuns in their habits, but it is a very incomplete picture at best.

The language that the Sisters of Life use may seem woman-centric on the surface, but if you dig a little deeper, you realize that they are only concerned with the fetus, not the woman. The tactics they use are very similar to those at crisis pregnancy centers. When women approach them for help, they are given biased information against abortion and are only offered assistance if they continue their pregnancy.

Sisters of Life currently serve under the supervision of Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The archbishop has been very vocal about his positions on birth control and abortion. During his installation as the president of the USCCB, he stated that he would use the post to “to embrace and protect the dignity of every human person, the sanctity of human life, from the tiny baby in the womb to the last moment of natural passing into eternal life.” Archbishop Dolan and the USCCB have been in the news recently criticizing the Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement that it supports no co-pay birth control, despite the HHS exception for religious hospitals and insurance programs.

I think it’s important to compare Sisters of Life to the group Catholics for Choice, which serves as “a voice for Catholics who believe that the Catholic tradition supports a woman’s moral and legal right to follow her conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health.” Catholics for Choice argues that abortion and birth control are a matter of individual conscience, and that each woman has the ability to make her own decisions about what is best for her health and her family.

I’m not a Catholic myself, but I really respect the work of Catholics for Choice. They use Catholic theology to justify their position, and they educate pro-choice advocates about the best way to reach out to the Catholic community. CFC trusts and respects women, while the Sisters of Life assume that the Pope ultimately knows what’s best for women’s lives.

Although I think it’s commendable that the nuns who belong to Sisters of Life have dedicated their lives to serving others, I think their message cannot be taken at face value. Abortion and birth control are ultimately a personal decision. The fact that 98% of Catholic women say that they have used some form of birth control should be a sign to the Catholic hierarchy that they are out of touch with their parishioners’ lives.