Abortion Gang

And yet the woman had an abortion.

According to the article (and we have to take the Daily Mail with a grain of salt), she and her husband were bullied by their doctors and nurses. When they went in to discuss how “to be prepared for the fact we might have a disabled child,” the nurse only counseled her on a termination. The nurse continuously pushed abortion even after the couple told her they wanted to continue the pregnancy. Eventually, with a nurse and a consultant bombarding her to terminate, the woman was in a state of shock, and began the abortion.

This is infuriating. This is disgusting. This is anti-choice.

There are actually two problems going on here. First, there is discrimination against people with special needs. As a pro-choice advocate, I support a woman’s right to choose. Without taking away that support, I also question why so many people are afraid to have a child with special needs.  In recent studies, researchers have found that 79% of the responding parents “felt their outlook on life was more positive” because of having a child with Down syndrome. In fact, “only 4% said they felt sad about their life.” While more challenging at times, life with a child with special needs is not the horror story many people imagine.

The difference between the viewpoints of families with children who have Down syndrome, and the women who are considering termination because of Down syndrome is huge. It leads me to question if the pregnant women are fully informed about their decisions, or if they’re just basing their ideas on popular cultural views (I am not trying to imply that women are choosing termination lightly or ignorantly–just that people in positions of power are not giving them the full picture, and they have no way of knowing this).

If the above seems like a daunting task, we can always start smaller. Host educational seminars for OB/GYNs about how to support a family that’s going to have a special needs child. Form resource networks between doctors and Down syndrome support groups, so an pregnant woman has someone she can talk to about what to expect. These are simple steps to ensuring that women are fully informed, so they can decide the absolute best choice for their family.

Anti-choicers are quick to pick up an article like this and claim it proves abortion is absolute evil. Yet it is clear that our world is not that black and white. What the article proves is wrong is coercive practices. For some women, abortion is the wrong choice, while for other women birth is the wrong choice. Neither event- abortion nor birth- is bad in and of itself. But both can be bad when forced upon the woman. This is why antipchoicers are wrong when they call us “pro-abortion” and mean that we only want women to abort. I most certainly do not want every woman to abort. I want every woman to make whichever choice is best for themselves and their families, and to have the support and access to complete that choice.

Last week, there was a FULL OUT FEMINIST BATTLE in the blogosphere over breastfeeding.  I found it, quite frankly, pretty disheartening.  We fight for abortion access for all women, even those who don’t want and won’t have abortions, and we don’t judge women for whether or not they choose to have abortions – and, as activists, I don’t think many of us struggle with this.  So, why can’t we fight to better support nursing mothers, to break down systemic discomfort and misinformation around breastfeeding, while at the same time accepting, without caveat, mothers who formula feed?

All things being equal, yes, medically speaking, breast is best. But here’s the thing: all things are never equal, and frequently circumstances can drastically change what the “best” thing is for mother and baby.  For women and babies for whom nursing goes well (and, yes, both mother and children need to have biology, preference, and temperament on their side), there are quantifiable health benefits to nursing, and many women report really bonding with their baby while they nurse and truly enjoying the experience.  But things are rarely so simple.  For example, blogger Melissa has written extensively about not breastfeeding her twins.  In her post, Breast is Not Best, she writes:

I was a hormonal, terrified mother who had finally given birth to live children and what do you think happened to me when I looked up at the wall where the “breast is best” posters were hung (they were every few feet on the walls in the maternity ward and NICU), and was told by a medical care professional that it was better to continue with the IVs rather than start formula?

We luckily had an excellent neonatologist who knew what was best for our twins, and she stepped in and not only had the nurse reprimanded and removed from the twins’ care, but she explained that while breastfeeding is wonderful, it does not trump getting our twins off IVs so they could learn how to swallow and put on weight.  That to keep to a mantra that does not take into account specific situations is to cause damage.

Even in more typical circumstances, breastfeeding can be a challenge.  It can be painful; it can be impractical; it can be exhausting.  And, most fundamentally – even if none of these reasons existed – there will be some women who just don’t want to.  We cannot make these women feel like second-rate mothers for the way they choose to feed their children.  We must trust women, and we must trust them in this decision.

If we want more women to have access to the choice to breastfeed, we have some work to do as activists.  We need to provide mothers with information not just about the benefits of nursing, but with practical knowledge on how to do it: when and how often, latches and holds, pumps and nursing bras.  We need to combat the stigma women face when nursing in public (remember, women have the right to nurse their baby anywhere they are both legally allowed to go).  We need to make workplaces more breastfeeding-friendly.  When it gets tough, we need to be supportive as friends, colleagues, and partners.  We need to make sure women have accurate information on supplementing and weaning.  Importantly, we need to address those barriers without judging the women who – regardless of why – do not end up breastfeeding.  If you have trouble with this, please follow this chart:

Read more:

The Real Breastfeeding Support Team Every Mom Needs  and why it includes both a breastfeeding drill sergeant and a laissez-faire feeder.

All the Breastfeeding Support Info You Need to be Successful (although, in some cases, all the information in the world just won’t be enough).

Ask the Lactation Consultant anything you want to know about breastfeeding, and get an expert opinion.  She’s on Twitter, too.

Blacktating.com, breastfeeding news and views from a mom of color.

Mama Knows Breast, on breastfeeding in the real world.

My favorite books on nursing:

At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeedings and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States by Linda Blum (Best non-instructional book on the topic, in my opinion.)

Nursing Mother’s Companion by Kathleen Huggins

Ina May’s Guide to Breastfeeding by Ina May Gaskin

Editor’s note: This piece previously stated that Rick Perry’s wife had an abortion. This is incorrect (to the best of our knowledge). Rick Santorum’s wife has had an abortion. The mistake has been fixed in the text below.

Recently, it has been brought to my attention by the internet and cranky people on it that people who are antichoice hate, just simply HATE, when those of us who are prochoice insist that we are also, actually, prolife. Apparently, this made-up thing, “prolife,” is meant to designate a singularity of pro-ness, that is, “being pro anything that has ever been conceived ever being brought to term and to life no matter what the consequences.” This seems, to me, an intensely narrow definition of prolife! I will now expand that definition, for fun.

1) Prochoice is prolife because: LIFE IS AWESOME. Yes, that’s right. I think life is awesome. Therefor, I am prolife. You know what’s awesome about life? Coffee. I have some right now. Also all seven seasons of Buffy on DVD, which I am watching with my roommate. Also our cat.

2) Prochoice is prolife because: HAVING REPRODUCTIVE CHOICES LETS YOU LIVE LIFE ON YOUR OWN TERMS. Life is awesome – see above. You know what’s an awesome thing about life? Having sex with the person I care about a whole bunch, and then going to school AND working full-time and occasionally seeing a movie. Without the many reproductive choices we fight for – including, thank you to the state of New York and sexual health advocates the world over, Plan B over the counter – I would not be able to have all these things. And having these things is awesome.

3) Prochoice is prolife because: ABORTIONS SAVE LIVES. Yes. Yes they do. They really do. In fact, former Senator Rick Santorum’s wife had one to save her life. It was a good choice! Everyone should have that choice.

4) Prochoice is prolife because: PEOPLE IN THE PROCHOICE MOVEMENT FIGHT FOR THE LIVES OF THE LIVING. While antichoicers are attempting to regulate the shit out of abortion, a procedure that is safer than giving birth, during which only .3% of women experience complications, most of the prochoice people I know are much more concerned with the living. For example, a lot of prochoicers I know right now are concerned with the death penalty. Maybe you support it – I do, in some instances – but the way this country handles it has been SERIOUSLY called into question. Also, prochoicers believe in regulating the medical community, to save lives. I am working right now on getting plastic surgery regulated in the state of California because lack of oversights there have resulted in the deaths of five people from lap-band surgery. Why isn’t the “prolife” movement concerned with this? Oh right, because these people are already born. Once we get you born, you’re on your own. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, PEOPLE.

People I know who are prochoice believe that people need to be able to decide what is best for them in terms of reproduction. Once people have made that decision, people in the prochoice movement work to support them in many ways – fighting for access to education, financial support for those living on or below the poverty line, and reforms for the criminal justice system. Prochoicers believe we live in an imperfect world and work to improve it in a million ways every day. Antichoicers sit outside clinics and harass patients, and get snippy and rude online, because it is much easier to deal with a constituency of fetuses who can’t tell you what they think than it is to deal with the real consequences of a material and lived existence of needful human beings.

Look, I know we don’t want to get all sciency here, but I am so sick of listening to people say, prochoice isn’t prolife because they don’t believe in a right to be born. Um, no. No, I don’t believe in the right to be born. Where is that ever a right?? Not in the constitution. Not in the bible. Not ANYWHERE. No one has the right to be born. Pregnant people, however, have the right to make all the decisions they feel are best and necessary to carry a life to term if they so choose, and I support that right and those decisions. I think that decision is awesome. I think it is brave. I think I am super glad I am personally a long way away from making it.

I’m not usually so rude, nor do I typically lump a bunch of people together and say, “all you people are like this.” But I’m having a bit of a day, which has been preceeded by a bit of a week, which, like everyone else who cares about reproductive justice, has been preceeded by a bit of a year. So fuck it. I’m prochoice, and that makes me prolife. I’m not ashamed of anything, I’m not wrong or bad or delusional. I fight every day for good, important things, and just this once, all the people who are telling me I’m going to hell can go to hell. Tomorrow I will again turn the other cheek. Today, I just want to laugh.

As a courtesy, and to head off the barrage of comments that will now come our way that say things like, “I am pro choosing new flavors of ice cream, so I am prochoice!” from people who think they are being clever and proving a point, I will now clarify: when I say I am prochoice, I mean I advocate for people to have as many reproductive choices as possible. These include, just off the top of my head, birth control (hormonal and non-hormonal), adoption, in-vitro fertilization, abortion, and excellent pre and post-natal care for those who give birth. And also I believe in choosing between flavors of ice cream (have you TRIED this new business from Ben& Jerry’s, this Banana Buzz?! it does not matter if you do not like bananas, it tastes like whiskey and awesome, go get some). When I say someone is antichoice, I mean that they do not believe people need, deserve, or should have access to all these reproductive options and more. And that sucks.

Feel free, in the comments, to tell me why being prochoice makes you prolife. I would love to hear about it.

When discussed in relation to motherhood notions of gender are even more punishing for women. In a study using identical resumes for 2 women, participants consistently rated the mother as 10% less competent and 15% less committed than the non-mother. Only 47% of mothers compared with 84% of non-mothers were recommended for hire as head of the marketing department for a start-up communications company. Not only that, but the mother was docked in her salary by a whopping $11,000 (Correll, Benard & Paik, 2007). When antis discuss abortion as a matter of convenience, are they considering that a mother is less hireable and worthy of significantly less salary than non-mothers? How can $11,000 be considered a matter of convenience? In a follow up study, employers were sent resumes for 2 applicants, both of the same gender. Men, whether they had kids or not, received the same number of call-backs. But women who had kids were subjected to a significant “motherhood penalty” and received half as many call-backs as their identically qualified childless counterparts (Crosby, Williams & Biernat, 2004). And the kicker? Women are punished for displaying “masculine” traits such as aggression just as much as they are punished for displaying “feminine” traits such as compassion (eg. Bolino & Turnley, 2003, and others).

A guest post by Speak for Choice.

The state of Kansas recently has undergone extreme social turmoil due to Brownback’s recent legislation designed to target abortion providers in Kansas. At the end of June, all three of Kansas’ abortion providers were nearly shut down and Kansas was days away from becoming the first state in the United States with no legal abortion access. Two of the clinics did not have their licenses renewed, and the Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri received its license after a mad scramble to comply with the new regulations. A judge issued a temporary injunction and all clinics for now remain in practice. Anti-abortion proponents of the law claimed it was a great step toward protecting women’s health, but after learning details of the new regulations, it became apparent that it was less about women’s health and rights, and more about a religious system.

In response to these anti-choice laws, three students from the University of Kansas and local feminists in Lawrence, formed a group to counteract and inform the general public on the reality of these laws and the repercussions that would occur if the legislation passed and the clinics closed.

Speak for Choice is a grassroots organization that aims at educating and informing the public on Choice issues. On September 7, 2011, Speak for Choice will be holding a rally at the capitol in collaboration with other pro-choice, feminist, and equality groups from around the state. There speakers will voice their opinions, feelings, and life experiences in a positive demonstration of support for Choice. The rally will begin at eleven in the morning with music, chants, and speak-out-circles. By noon, speakers will commence.

In an effort to aid commuters, Speak for Choice is asking anyone who is driving to offer their empty seats to others interested in attending. Their blog is an informational hub where the public can access news articles, statistics, and updates on reproductive justice in Kansas.

If anyone is in the Kansas area and is interested in participating, feel free to check out the website or email the group at speakforchoice@gmail.com for more information.

If you want to be taken seriously as a pundit in political circles you’ll have to state where you come down on the whole “abortion question.” Here’s the thing about pundits. Those that are journalists, meaning they do actual reporting as well as opining, are nervous as hell about declaring their views on any policy, let alone one with such entrenched sides like abortion. To declare what your views are on any topic is to make you an activist, which is a dirty name to call a journalist. (Trust me, next time you want to annoy a reporter, call him/her an “activist.” They’ll hate it more than the term “biased.”)

So when Conor Friedersdorf, associate editor at The Atlantic, writes about abortion, how can he protect himself from charges that he’s “pro-choice” and therefore an unreliable “authority” to write about abortion? I call it the Just-Make-It-Barely-Legal position, a stance favored by other pundits like Will Saletan. This stance allows pundits to make sure they cover all sides; they don’t want abortion outlawed, but gosh darn it, why can’t society find options for women other than abortion because it so darned sad to them. Yup, Friederdorf knows how to thread the needle on the abortion question: keep it legal but make sure to tell everyone how personally queasy it makes you to have it available.

My position on abortion is an uncommon mix. As a purely constitutional matter, I don’t think Roe vs Wade employs sound judicial reasoning, and it seems to me that our founding document, properly read, would leave the matter to the states. Personally, I’d endure a lot of suffering to avoid being complicit in an elective abortion (as opposed to one undergone to protect the health of the mother). But I am against laws banning abortion. Though I believe that human life starts very early in a pregnancy, I am not certain enough I’m right to send someone to jail based on what is, for me, a guess.

Now that Friederdorf has inoculated himself against charges that he’s too pro-choice (“abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!”) he’s free to mansplain about how other pregnant ladies should feel, especially after watching how Sarah Palin handled her last pregnancy.

As a general matter, Sarah Palin and her politics of victimhood, personality and resentment are negative influences on American political culture. On the subject of abortion, however, she has shown one way forward. Her decision to have a Down syndrome baby surely helped stigmas against developmentally disabled kids to fall, and her daughter’s pregnancy and subsequent celebrity also sent the message that carrying an accidental pregnancy to term is a doable thing that needn’t destroy one’s life. (It also reduced the stigma attached to teen pregnancy — a likely precondition for significantly reducing the abortion rate, as many social conservatives have come to see.)

I would love to know if Friedersdorf, after finding out a friend was pregnant (or a parent of a teenager) would honestly tell them “Look Sarah Palin/Bristol Palin decided to come to term, so you can too!” Of course not. It’s bullshit punditry that sounds reasonable but in fact makes no sense in a real-world application. But it’s split-the-baby-down-the-middle stance means Friedersdorf is a very serious thinker about abortion.

Friedersdorf is under the delusion, either because he’s a man or because he’s never spoken to an actual woman, that women turn to abortion because of cultural reasons and that if we just change the culture, by having more movies like Knocked Up and Juno, we can reduce abortions in America.

Of course this makes no sense at all, since popular culture almost NEVER portrays abortion as a reasonable option, but for some reason it’s still a very popular option amongst women who find themselves unable to carry a pregnancy to term. Perhaps Friedersdorf, and other “very serious pundits” like himself, instead of making sure they have plausible deniability on the abortion question, should actually talk to women who’ve had abortions and figure out if a change in “culture” might have made them change their minds. Perhaps that would be a culture of universal healthcare, inexpensive daycare and housing, as well as an economy with lower than 9 percent unemployment. Let’s change that culture first instead of believing ladies need to watch Knocked Up a few more times.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, thank you for championing young feminists, Gloria Steinem!

When asked if she is disappointed to see young women dressing in a provocative way, she said:

“This generation of young women is actually much more feminist than we ever were. If you look at the public-opinion polls, they’re actually much more supportive of all of the issues of equality. And my question to the young woman who’s dressing as you describe is: Is she doing it because she wants to? Is she body-proud? Is she sexuality-proud? Then I say great. Is she doing it because she feels she has to? That she won’t be popular otherwise? Then that’s too bad.”

Amen to that! Thanks to Shelby Knox for linking us to this awesome quote.

As pro-choice and reproductive justice activists, we talk a lot about creating change. We call our legislators, sign petitions, and rally our friends and family to donate to our favorite abortion-loving organization. While we’re often on the phone or face to face with other activists, we don’t get many opportunities to support those we so fiercely defend and honor: abortion providers.

Over the next week, you have an opportunity to do just that by attending the Summer of Choice at Dr. LeRoy Carhart’s clinic in Germantown, Maryland. A tsunami of anti-abortion foes are descending on his clinic starting this weekend with one goal in mind: to stop Dr. Carhart from practicing medicine by any means necessary. They call their event the “Summer of Mercy 2.0,” a blatant reference to their horrific “Summer of Mercy” protests of Dr. Tiller in 1991. We know that “mercy” is really anything but what will be on display at their event.

Dr. Carhart, his staff, and fantastic volunteers are organizing the Summer of Choice not as a raucous counter-protest, but as a peaceful display of pro-choice solidarity with the clinic. Dr. Carhart and his staff need our support now more than ever. It’s time to do more than sign a petition or make a donation. It’s time to show up and be heard.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself down to Maryland and register to participate in the Kick-Off Walk, sign up for their peaceful pro-choice presence, or if you can’t make it, donate so that someone else can.

PS: Need a ride? Talk to these people or these people and they will do their best to hook you up.

Over here at the AbortionGang we recently came across a tumblr post about the “baby vs. fetus” debate that ends with the following:

So while we are wont to scream so loudly that a fetus is not a baby and therefore it is not murder for the person carrying them to decide for themselves if they wish to continue to do so or not – and I agree with this – could we take a moment to realize that saying they are not babies also erases the experience of people who miscarry and are grieving over their loss(es)?

I think this is extremely important and something all feminists and pro-choicers should consider.

As the anti-choicers continue to propose and pass antichoice legislation, post racist, anti-choice billboards and try to send women to jail for having abortions, I believe the political pro-choice stance and the personal abortion stories are becoming more and more distant. Listening and considering the real lives of women who have abortions and women who deal with fetal loss will help us stay grounded against the insanity of the anti-choice position.

Legally, fetuses are not infants, are not considered persons, and thus, having an abortion is not murder. But we must remember, the personal is different from the legal. Pregnancy is different for every single woman- and one woman may experience multiple pregnancies in very different ways. A woman may consider her fetus to be ababy, or already a person, because she plans to carry to term. Another woman may consider her fetus to be a baby  even though she is planning to have an abortion. Those feelings and beliefs are normal, valid,  and should be perfectly acceptable.

Using the term “baby” doesn’t hurt the pro-choice position at all. If a woman believes that abortion is the best option for her baby, then we should support her in her choice.** It does us no good to get into a battle over the word (the same applies if she wants to carry her fetus to term).

On the other end of the spectrum are women who have lost pregnancies, both wanted and unwanted, planned and unplanned, through miscarriage. Just as with abortion, some women may feel relieved and think of the fetus as just a fetus. Other women may feel they lost a member of their family. None of these feelings hurt the pro-choice position, and all should be taken into consideration when we’re writing, blogging, speaking and protesting.

I always try to make an effort to let the woman in question decide what type of language will be used, and allow her feelings to control the situation instead of mine. For her, my opinion on the baby vs. fetus debate isn’t relevant. Making sure she feels loved and supported is most important.

**This does not only apply to women terminating wanted pregnancies due to fetal abnormalities.

I would like to give an often ignored perspective of rape, pregnancy and abortion (this is your trigger warning, though I don’t plan to be graphic).

I often see tweets, blog posts and comments from women and men (and people who identify as neither of the above) sharing their horror at the thought of carrying a pregnancy conceived in rape to term. They proudly and strongly say they support abortion, because it’s horrific, gruesome, disgusting, and cruel to force a woman to carry to term after she was raped (or, “give birth to her rapist’s child”). Now maybe I’m not paying attention, but it seems that all of the feminist discussion around rape and pregnancy decisions is focused around how awful it is for women to give birth after rape. Yet one study in 1996 (old, but the only reliable one I could find) said 32.2% of raped women chose to birth and keep the child (50% had abortions, 5.9% participated in adoption and 11.8% had miscarriages). 32% is a substantial portion of women that it seems many feminist forget about.

I 100% agree that it’s wrong to force a woman to carry to term when she wants to abort.

But I have to wonder: how does this type of language (horrific, disgusting, cruel) affect women who choose to carry to term after rape?

I wonder how a single mother of a beautiful two year old who happened to be conceived from rape feels when she reads that it’s “barbaric” to “force a woman to give birth to the child of her rapist.” Does she feel like she was supported in her choice? Doubtful.

We always need to be considerate of who we talk about and who we talk to. While it may seem clear that the barbaric part is the force of rape, denying the woman her access to decide to have sex,  if we only talk about how wrong it is to force birth instead of how wrong it is to force abortion, or force any unwanted choice, then others may start reading it as the birth of a child as disgusting. And I certainly hope no one actually thinks choosing to give birth is disgusting.

I know a lot of this language choice is based upon our hatred of rape, and it would make sense to have a second discussion about rape here, but I’m not going to do that. All I ask is that we default to the individual woman’s opinion before we share our own feelings when dealing with issues of pregnancy, abortion and rape, because everyone should feel supported in their decisions.