Abortion Gang

Last week I had the privilege of participating in a panel called Demystifying Abortion, an event that aimed to shift the conversation away from the politics of abortion into the day to day reality of reproductive health care provision here in NYC. I was on the panel representing NYAAF, the abortion fund here, and joining me was an abortion provider, an abortion doula, a woman who’d had an abortion, a representative from Exhale, and a clinic escort. While the panel did a lot to shed light on the who, what, when, where, and why of abortion, it also did something I didn’t expect: it revealed just how much the pro-choice movement itself stigmatizes abortion.

Stigma manifested itself in a number of ways. For one, the abortion doula decided to use this quote to describe why women have abortions: “A woman wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.” Unbeknownst to the doula, this quote is from the anti-choice group Feminists for Life, and is meant to describe a desperation that is destructive, a desperation that leaves a woman alive but (literally) hurt by the experience. Did the doula know the context of this quote? No, and I’m sure she thought she was somehow making women who have abortions sympathetic to the audience. Regardless of the quote’s origins, do we really want to discuss abortion in the context of self-mutilation? To do so is misleading, manipulative, and harmful.

The doula wasn’t the only person to perpetuate abortion stigma. During the Q&A after the panel, several women shared their abortion stories. One woman in particular mentioned that after listening to the representative from Exhale, she felt guilty for not feeling regret after her abortion. I have no doubt that Exhale provides support to women regardless of how they feel after their abortions, but there is something not quite right with your messaging if you’re making women question the validity of their emotional responses, positive or negative.

What surprised me most about the event (though it really shouldn’t have surprised me) was how much both the provider and the doula emphasized that most abortions are not later abortions, and that later abortions are particularly icky. The provider casually mentioned that some people pass out when they see later abortions (giving absolutely no context as to why, leaving the audience to assume the worst), the doula emphasized that all women who have later abortions cry their eyes out before and afterwards. Is it true that some people pass out and some women cry? Of course. But to lay out these statements as universal truths is misinformation, and stigmatizes later abortions (what could be so bad that people pass out??) and the women who have them (what could be so bad that they cry all the time?). What could’ve been useful: some science on later abortions and the women who have them. The truth? Most people don’t pass out. Some women cry, some women don’t. Making later abortions sound like gruesome tragedies stigmatizes the women who need them and the clinicians who perform them.

I understand why we emphasize that the majority of abortions are first trimester abortions from a PR standpoint–most people are grossed out by the idea of later abortions, I get it. And the reality is that most abortions happen in the first trimester. But does emphasizing this over and over do anything besides stigmatize later abortions? Shouldn’t we have empathy, respect, and compassion for all women who need abortions no matter when they have them? We do our movement, and the women we serve, a disservice when we say that an early abortion is ideal and a later abortion is tragic or bad. In doing so, we lose the nuance of why women have abortions, of their personal stories, and instead focus on what makes us comfortable or uncomfortable. It’s not about us. It’s about the women who have abortions.

I don’t want to give the impression that this event was a disaster. In fact, it was the exact opposite. What could be better than an enthusiastic and eager audience listening to experts talk about the ins and outs of getting an abortion? With that said, I do not think the pro-choice movement is absolved from thinking about how we perpetuate certain myths and stigma surrounding abortion. It’s not just the anti-choice folks who succeed in this role. We clearly have some work to do on our own.

Note: To clarify, this post is not meant as a criticism of the work of any of the organizations represented by individuals on this panel. Rather, this post is a critique of abortion stigma, and is meant to cast a light on how pervasive this stigma is, as even members of the pro-choice movement ourselves perpetuate it. 

A guest post by Gwen Emmons.

One of the most common questions reproductive justice activists get is why we focus on choice in a time where so many other pressing issues – jobs, poverty, healthcare reform – have yet to be solved.

My answer is simple: they’re all connected. And on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I think it’s more crucial than ever to reflect on how reproductive autonomy fits in to the bigger question of realizing the American dream.

The ability to determine the timing and spacing of one’s pregnancies (or whether to be pregnant at all) contributes to your ability to enjoy economic security. Unplanned pregnancies can, unfortunately, be costly (particularly if you are un- or under-insured) and can impact your ability to work in some cases. Having the ability to control your reproduction is crucial to controlling your economic destiny.

Access to safe abortion care, contraception, Plan B, medically accurate sex ed, and affordable gynecological screenings and childcare services are at the base of the pyramid that makes up that American dream. Lose Roe – or any of these other pieces – and we risk toppling that pyramid. Unfortunately, for too many women and men, that’s already happening. And it’s shameful.

The flip side of this is that instead of fixing things like poverty, the economy, or our healthcare system, legislators in Pennsylvania and across the country have focused their efforts on chipping away at choice. Spoiler alert: restricting access to Plan B doesn’t create jobs. Draconian restrictions on abortion services won’t fix our economy.

So as we celebrate 39 years of access to safe, legal abortion, let’s reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that reproductive rights – and the American dream – remain attainable to everyone.

These are composites of clients and the names are pseudonyms.

Marina wants to keep this pregnancy but has an eight-month-old daughter at home and just started a new job. She tells me she’s certain she can’t be a good mom to her daughter, financially or emotionally, if she has another baby so soon. She cries during and after the procedure. She tells me that she knows she “has to do this” for her daughter, but it hurts a lot. She naps a little in the recovery room and I give her my phone number when she leaves.

Leslie, who is trying to escape an abusive partner, tells me that she fears that bringing this pregnancy to term would keep her forever tied to him. She has a warm smile and is very open with me as she describes the shelter where she is staying with her two young children and the restraining order she has against her husband. She flinches a few times during the procedure but is able to talk through it and is surprised when it’s done. She tells me it was much quicker and easier than she thought it would be. The social worker who did her counseling prior to the procedure gave her a lot of resources and I make sure she has a chance to speak to the social worker a second time before she leaves.

Deana emphatically refuses my proffered hand and snarls at the nurse. Later, in the recovery room, she apologizes, telling me, through tears, that these last few weeks have been really stressful. She loves the hot pack I’ve given her and we talk about how to make one at home by filling a large sock with rice, tying off the end, and sticking it in the microwave. She assures me that she is going to go home and sleep this afternoon and will make sure her partner pampers her.

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.

Guest post from Rachel

My thanks for the information and advocacy of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Trust Black Women, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the grassroots activism of  SisterSong NYC who’s listserv provided the information to present this action, and those unidentified warriors whose words and wisdom I am drawing on for this post.

I’m writing today to ask my fellow women of colour reproductive justice activists and our allies to take a united stand against the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act,” a race and sex selection bill that goes before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution on Tuesday, December 6, 2011. I cannot repeat enough times the urgency of moving quickly to act in solidarity.

This is a federal version of that legislation that a coalition of Asian, Black, and women of colour organizations fought at the local level in Georgia, which attempts to portray the restriction of women of colour’s access to abortion and prenatal care as serving a ‘nobler’ human rights cause. This bill, like others before it, seeks to protect the “civil rights” of unborn fetuses by banning race- and sex-selection abortions. However, the underlying motivations are racist characterizations of entire communities:

• First, that Black women are selfish, irresponsible, and incapable of making reproductive decisions on their own behalf;
• Second, that Asian women mindlessly reproduce “son preference” and bring ‘dangerous values’ into the country.

This is patently untrue, and Black and Asian/Pacific Islander (API) women have consistently fought for the right to make decisions on if and when they will have children, based on the support networks and resources that are available in their communities. This bill attempts to drive another wedge between women and abortion and reproductive health practitioners. It will exacerbate many of the already-existing structural barriers to access that we must overcome to receive reproductive healthcare. It will put pressure our abortion care providers to conduct racial profiling on us, requiring them to second-guess our motivations in seeking abortions. It will do nothing to address the entrenched disparities that low-income women of color must navigate every day in seeking reproductive care. It does not contribute to or encourage cultural, grassroots-level change in Asian communities where we are already working to address the sexist roots of son preference.

This is a bill being put forward by members of Congress who consistently vote to decimate funding for reproductive health services and family support programs (see footnote below). This bill is funded by anti-abortion groups that have ties to racist billboard campaigns targeting Black and API communities.

The result of this bill is increased scrutiny of the reproductive decision-making of Black, Latina, and API women. This is being rushed through Congress on the back of a twisted appeal to “fetal civil rights,” even though the motivations for this legislation rest on racist and sexist characterizations of our communities. Again, this is a bill that seeks to mobilize arguments about the incapacity and dangerousness of women of colour making reproductive choices on their own behalf. It is an affront our rights to privacy, to bodily autonomy, and to mobilize in concert to create change and solidarity in our communities—based on our priorities and experiences, our visions for the future, and our agency.

If your organization is willing to stand in solidarity with us, please write to [sjorawar] @ [napawf.org] to have your name added to the written testimony against this disastrous bill. We need your signature by the end of today, December 5, so that it can be assembled and submitted for the Congressional Record. We have seen state versions of this bill and are still being targeted by the insulting media campaign attached to it. We have fought these efforts in the past and will continue to do so at the federal level. We represent the women and people of color this bill purports to protect, and we are announcing our unequivocal condemnation of it.

Like OWS, reproductive justice is clearly beyond grappling with one issue at a time, as perhaps all “movements” are.  We are in need of the recognition that taking to the streets to keep Planned Parenthood’s doors open is not enough.  At the same time we need to discuss AND protest the cultural conscience targeting poor women and the cultural discomfort with women’s sexuality. Theory has linked issues like these for years.  Practice has begun to effectively connect people to a wider range of services to attack the many facets of reproductive injustice. But to my knowledge, the progress of incorporating the complexity of intersectionalities in these other realms is not being seen in demonstrations.  We have been so reactionary with the egregious seemingly unending attacks that we have not tackled this gap. It is time reproductive justice advocates looked to the OWS model and heeded its call for intersectional demonstration.  Whose streets?  Our streets!

So, here’s the deal: I’m a white, (newly) 27 year old woman. And despite my degree in African-American Literature, I had never really encountered this concept of “white privilege” until recently. The African-American narrative is spoken and written by non-whites, and also, generally written more about experiences with oppression. Which is to say that we didn’t analyze this literature using the term “white privilege,” though we certainly discussed how fucked up the system is/was, but white privilege (and correct me if I’m wrong) specifically designates whites who don’t know that they, by existing in their culture, perpetuate racism, and in fact, benefit from racism. I would submit that anyone who participated in slavery and creating or enforcing jim crow laws, etc., knew they were oppressors (though they justified it in a number of ways, like using the bible and “medicine” to prove “white superiority”). White privilege isn’t about being racist oneself, necessarily, but rather, being unaware that racism and a culture of racism informs everyday, basic decisions which skews the system in favor of whites. This is where I feel blatant racism and white privilege diverge.

This whole idea of “white privilege,” which I was vaguely aware of, but not well-informed about, really came into my universe in the media surrounding SlutWalkNYC, which I was unable to attend due to a wedding. I’m assuming that most of you reading the blog are familiar with the pictures and the sign that inspired the conversation, but the gist, for those of you who are not aware, is that a white chick thought that it was totally appropriate to make and carry a sign that said “Women are the n***** of the world – Yoko Ono.” Many, many photos were taken of this woman and her sign (which was passed around a lot, for some reason) before SlutWalk organizers requested that she take it down. And thus, the discussion of the racism contained within our movement was struck up, centering on the concept of white privilege.

I’m prefacing my post not as an expert on racism in repro-rights, nor as an expert on the framework for this conversation, but rather as someone who is opening her eyes to this facet of the movement. Imma be honest: as a white chick, I don’t experience racism in my reproductive choices. I experience sexism, paternalism, bat-shit-crazy-religiousity, and in-your-face-anti-choice-conservatism, but not racism. It’s a totally new idea to me, that simply by participating in our society, I’m perpetuating racism. And I am at a loss.

I’ve been reading up on this idea so that I could be somewhat informed about it, and I ran across the concept (which some have “debunked”) of “white guilt,” in which, whites, upon being confronted with this societal reality (particularly when the idea is presented to them by a non-white), seek acceptance and forgiveness from the non-whites around them, and either a) use the same acceptance/forgiveness to cop-out on creating change or b) become so mired in their guilt that they do not seek to make changes, but rather to make “amends” for their participation in racism. And the “solution” to white guilt/white privilege seems to be simple acknowledgement and awareness.

I’m going to make the argument that being aware of white privilege is in no way a solution. So yes, now I am aware that this privilege exists for me. So what? What can I do to actively participate in shifting power to non-whites? Because ultimately, I’m a white chick, and there isn’t anything I can do about being white. I am not a minority and I do not have minority experiences. I speak a vernacular that has been instilled in our predominantly Indo-European-cultured society since America was colonized. I don’t have another language to work with, and “awareness” doesn’t help to teach me. I keep reading the argument that women of color bear the burden of educating whites about their privilege, and that because they have to constantly re-educate whites, that they are being held down by this. Maybe you all will think that I’m dumb or ignorant, but since I grew up with my privilege as my norm, I struggled to see how my experience was privileged. I think this is a human condition, not unique to whites. And we all bear the burden of educating others about oppression and privilege. Are we not all (females, woman-identified, trans men, trans women, etc) struggling for the right to control our bodies, bearing the burden of educating others about our struggles, movements, choices, etc.?

The other thing I’m learning from this SlutWalkNYC experience is that conversations (or “committees,” as I satirically refer to these types of conversations) don’t, in and of themselves, create change. There needs to be action. So what actions are we taking? What actions can effectively be taken? I don’t really know what these things look like.

The closest I’ve come to finding concrete advice is this blog post. An excerpt from the author, Aura Blogando, does a better job summarizing than I ever could:

“As Trymaine Lee has reported, black, poor and transgender women are being disproportionately and systematically branded as criminal “sex offenders” on an online database for engaging in ‘survival sex’ in New Orleans. Under the cover of an obscure, slave-era legal term called “crimes against nature,” police officers target those who engage in oral or anal sex-for-money. Those targeted for a second time are charged as felons (vaginal sex-for-money, meanwhile, is considered misdemeanor prostitution). 40 percent of those who appear on the sexual predator database are there because they were accused of committing a ‘crime against nature;’ more than 80 percent of those are black women.”

The above excerpt offers an example of something specific to combat; some way that I can help shift the power of privilege. And this is, frankly, eye-opening to me. I have been in my world of privilege, blindly doing the best I could. It seems shameful that I didn’t know about this before, but I am not going to apologize for existing as the person that I am, or my experiences thus far. And I realize that this post probably sounds, at best, completely naive, and at worst, completely ignorant, but I only have the power to change my future experiences.

So, in summary, I am asking not for forgiveness for my complete ignorance of this concept before the age of 27, nor of my undeniable benefit from said privilege. Instead, I am asking for those more experienced with this than me to teach me and to help me participate in change.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, is a genius. In her latest article for the New York Univeristy Review of Law & Social Change, she talks about missed opportunities of pro-choice litigators. A few snippets below:

On the limitations of only litigating on abortion:

If “pro-choice” advocates keep responding to efforts tore-criminalize abortion only by arguing for the legality of abortion, then we accept a narrow image of women as “people who have abortions” rather than as people who sometimes have abortions and far more often have children and take responsibility for raising them and caring for them and the homes they live in.

On the importance of fighting for women as both mothers and people who have abortions:

By recognizing that Roe and the debate around it also affects mothers,  “pro-choice” activists can more effectively challenge the existing framework that falsely suggests that  there are two kinds of women: those who have abortions and those who have babies. If pro-choice advocates acknowledge that the vast majority of women who have abortions are the same women who have babies, they have the opportunity to reframe the debate. They will also find many more potential allies to work with to ensure not only the right to choose abortion, but also to advocate for the social and economic conditions necessary to enable pregnant women to make real choices.

As discussed below, the efforts of anti-choice activists keep public debate focused on abortion rather than other important issues of our day. Their false claims about science and history, if repeated often enough and left unchallenged, become more likely to be believed and relied upon by judges and policy makers. Furthermore, the more we permit anti-choice activists to frame the issue as a question of abortion’s legality and morality, rather than as a question of the rights and dignity of pregnant women and mothers, the more dominant this frame becomes in the public debate. The pro-choice movement’s stunning non-response reflects two concepts that are relevant to this Page to Practice Symposium. First, thinking like lawyers blinds us to a wide variety of advocacy tools that are as important as, if not more important than, legal arguments. Second, thinking like prochoice lawyers blinds us to the larger political issues at stake in the ongoing effort to overturn  Roe v. Wade and deny women their civil and human rights.

Working for the summer to provide direct reproductive and family planning services, the question of who gets pregnant (and who doesn’t… and who needs those services, whether they do or do not get pregnant…) has started to play a role in how I think about outreach. The language of the last reproductive justice wave was about women, “women’s health,” “women’s needs,” and “women’s rights,” and with good reason, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that that language is exclusionary – too exclusionary, to my mind, for the movement I hope to be a part of building. We’ve had the start of this conversation several times on this blog. Women are no longer the only ones who get pregnant. Many people now can and do get pregnant who do not identify as women. This war on reproductive justice may in many ways still be the “war on women” it is often referred to as, given the narrow gender identities the antichoice community too often ascribes to, but it is not only a war on women when so many people suffer in a silence imposed by language and many kinds of violence. (And what else? What else imposes this silence? Please tell me. I am writing this in the hopes that I can learn.)

So I am wondering, how do we begin to address trans issues, particularly trans reproductive issues, outside of transitioning itself? How do we make prochoice about more than the gender binary? How do we work with language? How do we do direct outreach, how do we make clinics and doctor’s offices and family planning centers truly safe spaces? What other questions do you have? I have so many!

I do not want to see hard-fought cisgender identities subsumed to political correctness. Cisgender identity is valid, and I fight to know and love myself as a woman every day. But that fight has a name and words and acknowledgement; I believe the fight for transgendered identities is silenced a billion ways. So I’m asking you to talk to me. I’m also asking you to talk to me, and to each other, respectfully. If you feel I have already made grave errors in the way this is written, please let me know and I will address them. I know sometimes there is a lot of pent-up anger that, given a release point, can feel very good to vent, but ideally, if people want to talk about this, I would love to see a productive conversation get started here.

If you pay attention to pro-choice events, walks, rallies, fundraisers, and other activities, you’ll notice that almost all of them take place in big cities like New York City. This makes a lot of sense. I mean, duh! If your event is in a big city, you’ll attract more people and it will probably be a much more progressive area altogether.

Still, as a small town girl, this leaves me feeling a little bit lonely sometimes. I live in an area where I know only a small handful of pro-choicers and no other people who would call themselves activists. I go to whichever pro-choice events which are close by, but there are not many. Many activists, including myself, can’t afford to travel to participate in pro-choice events and can’t afford to take time off of school or work to be able to attend them. It’s not only the pro-choice movement, either. I am also passionate about my veganism. I know no vegans, or even vegetarians, outside of the internet, however, so vegan activism outside of the internet just seems out of the question. Also, abortion is not the only women’s rights issue which is neglected in my area. For example, the only time you hear the word “rape” mentioned in my area is in the context of a joke. Not surprisingly, this leads to me being burned out quite often. It leaves me thinking “Wow, am I fucking useless to this movement?”

Now, I don’t know if I’m alone in my feelings about this or if there are other small town activists out there who feel the same way, but if there are, then I’m writing this for you. It is discouraging to feel outnumbered by anti-choicers and to feel like a lone activist . Not being able to surround yourself with positivity in the wake of anti-choice bullshit totally sucks. I understand that. I refuse, however, to just sit down and call myself useless to the movement. Burn out occurs frequently, but there are things that small town activists can do to help prevent it. For example, you could:

1) Start something

I’m not going to lie, if you live in an uber-conservative area where it seems like you can count the number of pro-choicers on one hand (..as I do), this might not work out. But it’s still worth a shot. You can try to organize something in your town or on your campus which will unite the pro-choicers who are in that area. You can raise awareness and possibly help to uncover a new passion for reproductive justice in your area. You can organize a march or a group. If this works out for you, then you will have created a community, and that is absolutely priceless.

2) Just be vocal

Being vocal about your passion for reproductive justice is not always easy, especially in a very conservative area. It was not easy for me to “come out” as an adamant pro-choicer, but when I did, I had no regrets whatsoever. “Coming out” incited a lot of people to also share their opinions on abortion with me, and with that, I got to find out who the pro-choicers are. Yes, my area is so conservative I feel as if I have to take a bath after being in crowded areas, but I found out that there are more pro-choicers out there than I thought. Not only that, but being very vocal about my pro-choice beliefs ended up scaring away a lot of the anti-choicers in my life. So basically, there are more pro-choicers in my life and less antis. It’s a win-win situation.

3) If you can’t build a real-life community, find one online

Sometimes it’s just not easy to construct a positive, loving, pro-choice climate in an area which is very hostile to women and their rights. Even after trying to create one, you may still end up feeling excluded from the movement. This is where the internet comes in handy. The internet does a great job of uniting small town activists like me and big city activists like many of the writers for the Abortion Gang. It would be great to have more of a pro-choice community in real life, but I love the online pro-choice community with all my heart, and I know that I can be open and honest with them. I may be a small town girl, but that does not mean I can’t be apart of the pro-choice movement. I know I belong, and the rest of you small town activists do, too.