Abortion Gang

Earlier this week, after the devastating Iowa primary, Michelle Bachmann finally called it quits. I have many qualms about Bachmann: she’s unsupportive of LGBTQ teens in her hometown and blatantly disregards for women’s rights, for starters. Despite Bachmann’s wackiness, I can’t help but have the same feelings towards her that I held for Sarah Palin.

The two both do not align with me ideologically, but the feminist in me wonders: is it better that two wacky women are running for office? Would it be far worse if there were no women running at all? It seems that a lot of a time, feminists and women’s rights-oriented people (myself included) forget that even women who are not ideologically aligned with our politics need someone to represent them. I don’t agree with the politics of Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin, but I appreciate that they ran for office and held governmental positions. Why? Even if they do not represent my politics, they’re still women who are running and are still blazing a trail—as faint as I may perceive that trail to be now.

What do y’all think?

A guest post by Gwen Emmons.

Turns out, some pharmacists don’t need an HHS decision to block young women’s access to Plan B.  A new study suggests that in some pharmacies, misinformation around emergency contraception (EC) accessibility abounds – particularly in lower-income communities.

Researchers called pharmacies in five major cities to inquire about the availability of Plan B (a helpful flowchart of their script is here).  The good news?  80% of them said it was available, up from previous studies (that 20% of pharmacies surveyed said they didn’t carry it – or claimed they didn’t – is still baffling).

The bad news?  When the caller claimed to be 17, 19% of pharmacists claimed she couldn’t receive emergency contraception (even with a prescription) – which is false.

But what’s most troubling is that this misinformation was more frequently given by pharmacists in low-income neighborhoods.  23.7% of pharmacies in poorer communities gave the caller the wrong information, compared to 14.6% of pharmacies in higher income communities.  Plus, in almost all the calls to these pharmacies, the minimum age for over-the-counter access (17) was incorrectly stated.

Misinformation like this threatens to unnecessarily imperil young women seeking the medical care they deserve.   When it comes to EC, the clock is ticking.  If a young woman isn’t entirely dissuaded from her interaction with an ill-informed pharmacist, by the time she does receive the correct information, it could be too late for her to take EC.

Couple this with a laundry list of barriers to accessing reproductive health care in poorer communities, and we’ve got a big problem on our hands.  We already know that there are gaping disparities in health care access for young women in poor communities – disparities that only widen when it comes to things like receiving accurate and comprehensive sex ed, obtaining contraception, and getting annual exams.  Being denied Plan B serves to further marginalize this group of young women.  It’s little wonder we’ve seen the rate of unplanned pregnancies among low-income women skyrocket – the very limited window of options available to them is becoming narrower each day.

Contrary to what researchers conclude, their findings aren’t just proof that pharmacists need to be better educated on the rules and restrictions around Plan B.  While the restrictions around EC have changed in recent years, it’s a pharmacist’s job – and responsibility – to follow these changes and adjust their practice accordingly. Indeed, many, many pharmacists do just that – but clearly, not enough are.

What it does suggest is that even with looser restrictions on who can access Plan B, barriers still exist, whether they’re due to a lack of awareness or a willful desire to restrict access.  Providing Plan B over the counter would eliminate the (potentially unreliable) middleperson, ensuring a product that is safe and sometimes necessary is available to anyone, regardless of her situation, and regardless of what someone thinks they need.  While this just adds to the litany of reasons why the Obama Administration’s decision to keep Plan B off the list of medications already available OTC is misguided, I doubt it will do much to reverse their decision.  Let’s hope I’m wrong.

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.

With the 2012 elections fast approaching (less than 430 days until we cast our ballots) the perspective presidential field is becoming clearer.  With potential nominees like Donald Trump, Tim Pawlenty, and Mike Huckabee having already decided against running, the nomination is wide open.  Currently there are 4 or so people who seem to be the “front runners” in the race, and their views on reproductive rights are nothing short of alarming.

Ron Paul

Before entering politics in the 1970’s, Paul worked as an OB/GYN.  During his time in the medical field, he delivered more than 4,000 babies.  He says that this experience has led him to his view that life starts at conception.  Paul says that he is “an unshakable foe of abortion” and claims that he has never dealt with a pregnant woman who medically needed an abortion.  He was the prime sponsor of HR300, a bill that would overturn Roe v. Wade and put the power to regulate the legality of abortion in the state’s hands.  While Paul’s 2012 campaign has received more support than his 2008 campaign, it still seems unlikely that he will be able to secure the nomination.

Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann is the only woman being considered for the nomination, yet is one of the most anti-choice.  During her congressional campaigns she was endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List, an organization that promotes women in politics who oppose the right to choose.  She also signed the “2012 Pro-life Presidential Leadership Pledge” which states that if elected president she will only nominate “pro-life” appointees to the Supreme Court and certain Cabinet and Executive Branch positions.  By signing the pledge she also promises to defund Planned Parenthood and advance anti-abortion legislation, if elected president.  At a recent debate she was asked if abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, and in response she told the crowd that she was 100% pro-life.

Before getting involved in national politics, Bachmann and her husband volunteered as “sidewalk counselor” and frequently prayed outside abortion clinics.  She has spoken in support of other sidewalk counselors and worked to stop tax dollars going to hospitals that perform abortions.  Like Paul, Bachmann’s chances of getting the nomination are unlikely.

Mitt Romney

After an unsuccessful 2008 run, Mitt Romney is back to try for 2012 and seems to be the most likely nominee.  Romney has the experience, political support, and money to orchestrate a successful run– he is also the most moderate, but tends to flip-flop on important issues.

Until 2005 he identified as pro-choice and even made donations with his wife to Planned Parenthood.  While Romney stated that he personally opposed abortion, he strongly supported the right to access abortion services.  In 2005 though he did a complete flip-flop and vetoed a bill that would expand access to emergency contraception.  While not directly affecting abortion access, this signaled a change in his position on the matter.  It is still unclear what his specific views on abortion are.  He opted not to sign the Pro-Life Leadership Pledge that Michele Bachmann and other candidates signed, so this could be signaling another change in Romney’s personal views.  Even so, it seems unlikely that he would be able to gain the support he needs from the Conservative Republican leadership if he came out as pro-choice.  

Rick Perry

Aside from Romney, Rick Perry is probably the most likely candidate.  He has the power and connection to do it, and being Governor of Texas (as George W. Bush was before he was elected) doesn’t hurt either.  Perry also happens to be the most outwardly anti-choice of any of the candidates.  He too signed the Pro-Life Leadership Pledge, but that was almost unnecessary given the laws he’s been putting in place in Texas.  Earlier this year Perry labeled a new abortion regulation law as an “emergency”, pushing it into debate ahead of truly pressing issues like Texas’s unemployment and healthcare problems.  Recently key portions of that same law— which would have forced women wanting to have an abortion to see the fetus on a sonogram, listen to a heartbeat, hear a scripted anti-abortion speech read by their doctor, and wait another 24 hours before being allowed to have the procedure done— were struck down by a judge.  Perry has also worked to nearly eliminate all family planning funds and keep Texas schools teaching abstinence only education (even though it doesn’t work).

What about President Obama?

While we may not always be happy with how President Obama is representing the pro-choice movement, I think we can all agree that he is better than any of these people.  He may not always listen to our ideas, or react the way we would like him to, but there’s no way that any possible Republican nominee would be better.  It is important that we not blindly follow him, but it is also important that we look at the competition and realize how much worse it could be; and that is why I will be voting for Barak Obama in the 2012 elections.

I remember the kerfuffle caused when Gwen Jacobs walked down the street topless in Ontario. I was 11 at the time of the court case in 1996 and I remember thinking, good for her. I also remember thinking how terribly unfair it was that men were allowed to walk around topless but women couldn’t. I can’t imagine actually walking around topless but I am glad that I have the right to do so since the Federal law criminalizing it was struck down. This case could be said to be a precursor to the now famous Slut Walks taking place around the world after a Toronto cop ‘confided’ to a group of York University students that the way to prevent sexual assault was to just not dress like sluts. The story became international news and feminists around the world responded with one simple message: women never ask to be raped.

When a woman cannot dress however she wants without be subjected to constant sexual harassment, I will show you a woman who may be forced to have a sex-selective abortion or be murdered for the want of honour. I will show you a woman who is not respected, and is in fact disrespected because she is a woman. Women in the U.S. and Canada are certainly subjected to sexual harassment but the situation in India is extreme. Women in India are raped wearing traditional saris just like women here are raped wearing track pants, but the extreme violence against women in India is captured well by the Indian expression for sexual harassment: eve-teasing. As if sexual harassment is just school-yard teasing.

On the whole, women in North America have greater reproductive freedom due to a range of factors from financial resources to the law, but to trivialize Indian women’s attempts to empower themselves by declaring their right to dress however they please is to continue to oppress them. The author is correct: Indian women do have bigger fish to fry, but it’s a good idea to gut the fish before you fry it.

Slut walks have nothing to do with “self-objectification.” Women are objectified by society. There are native cultures where women walk around naked and that’s just the way it is. Objectification comes from outside, not from the individual woman. To suggest that women dressing so as to “reveal their breasts” is focusing attention on their body parts is the same as suggesting men who walk around shirtless are showing off their “breasts.”

In a shocking article recently published by the Associated Press, it was revealed that a Pennsylvania doctor has been charged with eight counts of murder in a case that screams for the public’s attention for many reasons. I will go ahead and warn you now, this is a horribly graphic and heartbreaking account, so please read with discretion. Now it is also important to note that this story is just coming to light, and so the full scope and validity of all of the allegations put forth in the article have yet to be fully substantiated. However, if true, this does highlight a number of points that need to be examined.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. Nine of Gosnell’s employees also were charged.

Gosnell “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” Williams said.

What makes this story ever the more tragic, is that there were complaints lodged to the State that were not investigated for so long. In fact, if it had not been for complaints about drugs that stemmed from the clinic, investigators would seemingly never have looked into the complaints that were filed. How many of these victims could have been prevented had the State not only listened to the complaints being filed, but acknowledged the overwhelming number of women finding themselves in need of services they could not get anywhere else. So there are numerous implications that Pennsylvanian representatives need to address, and now!

This is a prime example of how the stigma attached to abortion, and the attacks on abortion which limit a woman’s access to safe procedures, gives rise to this kind of barbarism. If you thought that the ‘back-alley’ abortions were just a horror story of the past, then think again. Just now there are clinics like this one where women are subjected to opportunistic and conscienceless practitioners who do not have the patient’s care as a priority at all.

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A guest post from Education for Choice.

Many pro-choice Americans think we in the UK have it all: free abortion on the National Health Service (NHS), providers who don’t have to wear bulletproof vests to work, and the general acceptance amongst society that abortion is a medical procedure that women should be able to access whenever they need it.  Growing up in the Midwestern U.S., I thought these same things. Because women have free access to abortion on the NHS, even a heck of a lot of Brits think that there is no work to be done here, but I’ve been working at EFC since January 2010 and I’ve learned that there’s no room for complacency. People here are always surprised to hear that anti-choice organisations are using American-style tactics to spread lies and misinformation in schools and at crisis pregnancy centres across the UK every day.

In the U.S. there are numerous inspiring and active pro-choice activist organisations, groups and advocates, but in the UK Education For Choice (EFC) is the only educational charity dedicated to enabling young people to make and act on informed choices about pregnancy and abortion. We at EFC are here to say out loud that abortion is not a dirty word and that our abortion rights should not be taken for granted.

This month, the new Government is having a Spending Review which promises drastic public sector cuts and the strong chance that some key public health strategies will not be renewed. EFC will no longer be able to rely on funding from the Government so we are looking at alternative sources of support. We met with a professional fundraiser recently. Her first suggestion was that we should leave the word abortion out of our organisational description. She described it as ‘the A word’ and explained that ‘it puts people off’.

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By now, I think everyone knows that HIV/AIDS is a major problem, especially in Africa. Poor medical care and lack of knowledge on the disease (even here in the U.S.) have caused fear, misconceptions, dread, and depression for those who contract it. For years, becoming pregnant after contracting HIV was a death sentence for the resulting child.

A few years ago, scientists discovered a “miracle” treatment for pregnant women with HIV–a way for her to deliver the baby without the child contracting HIV. Doctors and humanitarians alike cheered this wonderful treatment. Finally, a solution to the problem of mother-to-baby transmission.

I’m kicking myself at the moment for not being able to find the interview I heard on the radio, on NPR I believe, in which a doctor discussed this procedure. However, I did find a study done in Africa on the treatment.

The woman is given a shot of nevirapine, one drug of a three drug “cocktail” used to help the immune system in AIDS treatment, during labor. The child is then given a shot of it after birth. The majority of the time, this treatment is effective in preventing the transmission, and the child is spared from the terrible life of an HIV patient.

However, what other scientists have just discovered is that the use of nevirapine during labor is actually detrimental to the mother’s treatment later. There is a chance that the mother will become resistant to nevirapine, which renders useless the three drug “cocktail” used for HIV/AIDS treatment for her later. She will die sooner because of this. Her child will be without a mother.
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Bad news sucks. Let’s be honest, it’s hard to hear news about laws that deny access to abortion and make choice impossible.

When I read about the crusade to eliminate state insurance coverage for abortion care in states like North Carolina, Georgia, Colorado and Kansas it makes me angry. I wanted to scream when I found out that Stupak was adding anti-abortion language to the health care bill. He was trying to use abortion to stop health care from being passed which is just an asshole thing to do. The health care bill should not be about abortion.

The sad stories depress me and have made me cry. When I read about women who are forced to stay in abusive relationships because they are pregnant, have no options, and can’t afford to leave the situation, I am bewildered. No woman should ever have to remain pregnant if she doesn’t want to. But knowing that there are people out there who try day in and day out to block access to abortion inspires me to fight harder for choice.
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