Abortion Gang

As some of you know, lawmakers in Kansas have been attempting to pass an execrable anti-abortion bill that, among other things, would seriously interfere with the private relationship between a woman and her doctor.  The bill, which currently appears to be stalled in the Kansas Senate, would have allowed physicians to deliberately withhold information regarding a woman’s pregnancy if they thought such information might lead the woman to choose abortion.  In addition, it would have required abortion providers to tell their patients that abortion is linked to breast cancer, although that theory has been debunked by multiple scientists and organizations, including the National Cancer Institute.

As egregious as this is, it is not the topic of my post.  Instead, I would like to focus on an email I got from Planned Parenthood about the bill.  I truly appreciate the work Planned Parenthood does.  I contribute money to them (as well as to smaller reproductive rights organizations, including local abortion funds) and often call my legislators when prompted by their informative emails.  But this part of the email gave me pause:

Our allies need to stop using language that reinforces the false dichotomy of “Good Abortions” and “Bad Abortions.”  By creating a separate “class” of women needing abortions (in this case, those who are victims of rape or incest; but women who have health problems or have non-viable pregnancies are often similarly singled out for “exceptional” status), Planned Parenthood is unintentionally validating a deeply-ingrained societal belief that some abortions are more justified, more necessary, even better than others.  The final effect is to strengthen the stigma and shame attached to abortion for all women.

The bottom line: there is never any medical reason to lie to a patient, regardless of her circumstances.  That message by itself is powerful and strong, no exceptions required.

Yesterday, Bristol Palin wrote an awful, ugly, offensive, homophobic, thoroughly disgusting blog post in response to President Obama’s announcement this week that he believes two gay people should be able to get married. Reading Bristol’s words deeply hurt me because she’s a person that has the privilege of the national stage and she’s using it to spread hate.

What has been more hurtful – and I mean, almost devastatingly so- has been the quickness with which the feminist twittersphere and bloggers threw single parents under the bus. Right after reading Palin’s hateful post, I scrolled through my twitter feed full of so-called feminists and equal rights proponents only to notice a common theme in response to Bristol: What could a single, unwed mother possibly know about morality!?

Nice–women who have a kid outside of traditional, heteronormative marriage are obviously perfect examples of what immorality looks like, right? Because Palin should clearly shut up about parenting because she’s a single, unmarried mom, and therefore knows NOTHING about parenting! DUH! I mean, Bristol should actually shut up because she’s spreading hate and discrimination, but it’s way easier to say she’s not qualified to talk at all since she’s a stupid single mom.

And I feel like shit. It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday and just typing that makes me tear up. My son is seven, and he’ll no doubt present me with an amazing card (I frame each year’s card and put them on the wall) thanking me for being awesome and loving him, but I will still feel inadequate. I’ll still feel like I’m failing. Intellectually I know that self-hate is just another way patriarchy takes power away from us, that being a mother and being unmarried is not a bad thing, that I am no less strong, no less good than the Married Woman Next Door .

But I’m never going to fit into the “normal” model of ‘traditional” parenthood, nor should I have to. I know that my privileges in life, my incredible family, friends, and broad social network enable me to create a life for myself and my son that is comfortable and happy. I’m very much at peace with myself.

And yet, I’m still a bit insecure about my job at being a mother. Mostly becuase I freeze my ass off at my son’s baseball games (It’s not sunny here in the NW) and take on the jerk sideline-dads all by myself and think, it would be cool if I had a partner in crime right about now. Because this time of year I am bombarded with commercials and greeting cards of loving dudes presenting their pretty wives with thank-you trinkets in front of the two beaming kids and a dog.

I’m not that mother, I’ll never be that mother, and the insecurity comes when I forget that it is OKAY that I’m not that mother.

Shame works like that, making people forget that it is okay that their life is not the same as the so called “norm.” Reading the disparaging remarks from feminists about Palin’s status as a single mother were shaming and very hurtful. I’m not perfect, I’ve made my share of awful comments, but I think feminism’s response to Palin’s homophobic post is indicative of a larger problem within feminism today: when it suits the movement (sticking up for Obama and gay rights in this instance), everyone is all too quick to throw a group of people under the bus. In this case, it was single moms, and that’s wrong.

It shouldn’t have to be said that shaming single parents because one particular single parent wrote a really hateful blog post isn’t going to advance the numerous causes Feminism is currently fighting for. It shouldn’t have to be said that shaming single parents ALIENATES them and makes them feel unwelcome. It shouldn’t have to be said that defending one issue shouldn’t come at the expense of other people. But I guess it does have to said.

The White House wants you to register your fetus as a person when you take a tour.

Or do they?

Anti-choicers have been lighting Twitter up with tweets and links to post talking about how the White House wants you to register your “unborn child” if you’re going on a tour. The antichoicers have been talking about this as mixed messaging, acknowledgement of a fetus as a person, and other silly hoopla.

However, what they’re not tweeting is the full story. Luckily, Politifact  was nice enough to post about this topic. Here’s the part the anti-choicers probably won’t tell you:

“Schafer’s email was an explanation of how to fill out information for pregnant women who will bring their new baby on future White House tours. ” said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan.

In other words, if you are going on a tour of the White House on June 1st, they want to you include every person who will be on the tour on June 1st,  including your newborn infant… even if today is May 1st and you’re still pregnant with this to-be newborn infant.

“I know people are construing it as an unborn child, but the visit isn’t occurring (now). If a pregnant woman shows up at the White House, we don’t count two people. It’s sort of a way of expediting (the process) so no one gets hung up at the gate,” he said.

In other words, the White House doesn’t need you to register your fetus if you’re going on a tour while still pregnant. However, if you are going to give birth in between the time you register for a tour and the time you take a tour, it would be very helpful if you would include your to-be child in your list of people.There is no disconnect at the White House between recognizing fetuses for security and for rights. Because this isn’t about fetuses; it’s about infants.  This recognition of an infant before it is born is the same thing most women do when they have a baby shower before they give birth. It’s part of living in a world with a linear timeline. Anti-choicers should stop acting like this is some sort of meaningful sign in the abortion debate, and start seeing it for what it is: a matter of convenience for families visiting the White House.

Columbia makes all egg donors take a “course” prior to officially entering the program. The course consists of the process and risk information, a question and answer time period and learning how to give yourself the ‘trigger” shot (a shot of hCG that prepares the body for the release of the developed eggs). It was really interesting to learn about how the process works, but it was nothing I hadn’t already heard about either from friends who have donated in the past or from the coordinators. And the risk information was the same as what you’re told when you decide to investigate becoming an egg donor int he first place, just reiterated.

The most surreal part is learning how to administer the shot. I walked into a room that had a vial of sodium chloride solution, a sterile syringe with two needles (one for mixing, one for injecting), and, best part, a fake butt-cheek. So, we were walked through the process of preparing the solution for injection, as well as how to keep everything clean, and then we injected the fake butt with the sodium chloride solution. And that was it. Now, I’m not squeamish about needles… hell, I’ve pierced my own ears before… but for some reason, the idea of giving myself an intramuscular injection of something is kind of nerve wracking.

I was then taken for blood work (that genetic panel and STD test from my previous post) and met with a doctor to sign consent forms. The consent forms agree to HIV testing, receiving IVF medication and treatment, and agreeing to the surgical removal of the eggs at the end of the cycle. Basically, blah blah blah, do you know what you’re getting into? blah, blah, blah, yes. No big deal. The doctor also asks you if you’re nervous about anything, and you get the opportunity to talk to them in a counseling setting briefly. That part was nice and set my mind a little at ease about the genetic stuff. She clarified that testing positive as a carrier for SMA or cystic fibrosis isn’t a death sentence on donating like it’s made out to be. It is only one if the man tests positive as a carrier as well, and even then, it’s still up to the couple to decide if they’d like use your eggs. The idea that it’s not the “Worst Thing Ever in the History of Ever” and isn’t a death sentence was really what I needed to hear.

Luckily for me, I happened to be on the second day of my period, so I was taken for a cervical culture and for a baseline transvaginal ultrasound so that I could get started on the synchronization process (the part where you’re on birth control to sync your body with the recipient). So, essentially, I began the egg donation process last night when I took my first pill. If you’re not on the 2nd day of your period, you must wait for your next period so that you can start. I don’t have the science behind why it needs to be the 2nd day, but it seemed to be super important that it be exactly that day.

10 vials of blood, 1 transvaginal ultrasound, 1 cervical culture, and 1 package of birth control pills later, I walked out the door having officially started the process. At this point, pending the results of my genetic panel and STD tests, I’m pretty much good to go (my ovaries were called “beautiful,” containing 18 active follicles for this next menstrual cycle. Oooooooooo!)

I’ll write again once I have the results of my screenings!

As I wait to take my egg donor “course” at Columbia tomorrow, I’m suddenly stricken with panic. Now is the time to face the STD and genetic screening panel. So, STD tests are old hat. I’ve taken one almost every year since I turned 18 (wow, 10 years of tests…) but, true confession, the HIV/AIDS test always makes my heart flutter because… what if? Thankfully all of those have quickly come back negative, but still, a little piece of me is always nervous to get those results.

The behemoth that is the genetic screening panel is upon me, and it’s like the HIV test times 1,000. And of course, I’m the type who incessantly researches that sort of thing, so I looked up the more common types of panels. The Universal Genetic Test, more commonly known as Counsyl, is likely similar to the panel that Columbia will administer. After clicking around on their website, I noticed a tab labeled “Minorities at Greatest Risk.” Obviously I clicked on it, and to my surprise, found Caucasian listed. I say “my surprise” because when we, in America, are discussing race, “white” is usually not considered a minority. Even the label on the page doesn’t lend itself to the colloquial definition of minority; “One Test for One Billion People,” it proclaims. So anyway, I’m like… crap. Because I’m sure that “One Billion People” can harbor a ton of genetic variations, all of which, in my head, I’m suddenly harboring as a carrier. And sure enough, Italian and Irish are listed in the first paragraph as being especially prone to some more dramatic and awful genetic disorders. Double crap.

Clicking around the site isn’t helping me feel any better. What if I’m a carrier for SMA, or PKU? Or what have you? Do I really want to know? I mean, yeah, of course I do, because if I someday want to have my own kids, I think it’s better to know than to not know. But at the same time, isn’t ignorance bliss? Do I want to know and then maybe decide not to have children because it would be irresponsible based on the results of this genetic test? I know this doesn’t seem terribly dramatic to those of you reading, but I’ve sort of always pictured myself having kids, even if I’m not 100% certain that I will. So the idea that it could no longer be a possibility is jarring to my world-view.

As I think about this possibility, I’m also struck by the comforting (but probably totally wrong) idea that… PUNNET SQUARES. XY would be more likely to demonstrate X linked genetic variations and my dad doesn’t, as far as I know, have anything genetically weird going on (out of 5, we’re a generally healthy bunch). So, I’m genetically female, and I may have a normal X gene masking an X variation, but the Italian and Polish genetic disorders are less likely to show up because they’d have to have come from my dad, who, as I just said, appears to be genetically “normal…”

And I fully realize that I’m using 8th grade biology to set my frantic mind at ease. But I don’t need to be corrected at the moment because it’s the thing that is making me feel ok about opening Pandora’s box.

I’ll have another post about the class tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Disclaimer: It’s been a while since I’ve been able to write a post about the egg donation process, and I’d like to take a moment to remind you that I am not an expert on egg donation. I am merely documenting my experience with it as it is happening. If you would like more information about egg donation, please seek out information appropriate to your state (NYS information can be found here) or contact a major hospital with a fertility specialist in your area. Thanks for reading, and good luck!

We have a lot of discussions in the reproductive justice community about our struggles with the way women, particularly women we know personally and consistently interact with, handle every stage of reproduction, from preventing pregnancy to terminating it, from announcing that they are having children to actually raising them.

Men and genderqueer people along a range of the identity spectrum also have and raise children, but I will posit here that their needs are different than those of self-identified women, whether cis or trans, as are their struggles. What we deal with in reproductive justice centers mostly around the constructed identity of “women,” and the problems that are constructed to go right along with it. For instance, our editor sent an article around the other day, “Baby Bumps on Facebook All the Rage,” in which someone with “Dr.” in their title concern-trolled young women who posed with their “baby bumps,” (side note: WE MUST ELIMINATE THIS PHRASE. operation eliminate “baby bump”: commence. stage: early plotting.) expressing fear that their pregnancy would spread, like cancer or some other disease you get from breathing the same air as a person who already has it. The good “Dr.” felt it would be best not to make pregnancy look like remotely any fun unless a girl is good and married and financially secure.

Here’s the problem: there’s something to that argument, isn’t there? As a women’s rights activist, I want young women to have educational and career opportunities that may be closed to them if they get pregnant in their teens. I want young women to have independence from their families and certainly from significant others, independence that is harder to come by once you have children.

While we were discussing the article, one of our writers weighed in with her own experiences as a woman who had a child before she was twenty. She talked about enjoying being pregnant, and still wanting to look cute when she went to school, and why shouldn’t she? And as she asked that question, I had two simultaneous gut reactions: “Is it responsible to look happy about being a teen mom?” and “Why shouldn’t she?”

We’ve had discussions at Abortion Gang about people announcing their pregnancies early on Facebook (a lot of us expressed legitimate concern that it could make a miscarriage very painful, and there are obvious structural problems with the way these behaviors continue to reinforce heteronormative gender roles), about people announcing their miscarriages on Facebook (it’s great that people feel more open to talking about that now/it’s hard to watch people go through), about adoption as a birth parent, a parent, and a child, about all the stages of pregnancy and all the stages of preventing pregnancy, about STDs, about parenting as a process, and ultimately, this is what I would like to conclude:

Reproductive justice means never having to say you’re sorry.

The reason I, personally, have moved away from the “pro-choice” framework is because I find it limiting; I think we need a bigger framework now to encompass our understanding of “choice” as beyond pregnant or not-pregnant to how to get pregnant, how to stay not-pregnant, how to support pregnancy or not-pregnancy, and all of the heirarchies and indexes of citizenship and power that are written upon our unwitting bodies that allow or disallow participation in those choices.

I believe reproductive justice is about two things: awareness and access. Reproductive justice activism is about moving towards a world in which every person makes choices about preventing pregnancy, getting pregnant, having sex, parenting, not parenting, abortion, STDs, and the million other things that encompass “sex and our lived existence” (and that includes not-sex – abstinence is also about reproductive justice) with awareness (education about what their choices and options are, the structures of power and inequality that influence those choices) and access (the real ability to, having evaluated their options, choose what is best for them and then get it).

With that in mind, here is my brief queerifesto of reproductive justice:

When you educate yourself about all the ways to not get pregnant and then have great, communicative, open, glorious, mind-blowing orgasms by yourself or with another person or several other people,
that’s reproductive justice.

When you choose to parent a child or choose to have someone else parent the child you gave birth to knowing all of your options, with access to the economic equality necessary to make this decision about something other than money,
that’s reproductive justice.

When you wait until after your first trimester to announce your pregnancy on Facebook because you realize that you are in the most danger of miscarrying, and you need that experience, should it happen, to be private,
that’s reproductive justice,

and

When you post your pregnancy on Facebook the second that pink plus sign appears, and you understand that things can go wrong but you are prepared to deal with that with the help and support and love from your community you know you have,
that’s reproductive justice.

When you know you made a choice to parent or not to parent based on economic circumstances you couldn’t control, and you fight to empower other people so they can make their own choices without the economic inequality you faced,
that’s reproductive justice.

When you take a friend to get an abortion at a clinic that you know is good to trans people because he doesn’t want to have to discuss why his gender is “wrong” on his license,
that’s reproductive justice.

When you are thrilled out of your mind to be pregnant at 16 years old and you blog about it and sing about it and wear a really low-cut shirt to school because your boobs may never look this good again,
that’s reproductive justice.

When you help a friend decide not to have a baby because her husband is abusive
and you know a baby will make it worse
and then help her leave him and keep the baby and offer support while she raises that kid you love,
that’s reproductive justice.

When you get an IUD because you like that it is a non-hormonal form of birth control and you know the fucked-up history of IUDs and eugenics and you understand how the sacrifices of poor women and women of color and unmarried women and disabled women gave that choice of yours a history,
that is reproductive justice.

When you make sure no one ever forgets the ways that power gets written on women’s bodies in heirarchies of race and class and religion and a score of other things,
that’s reproductive justice with a vengeance.

I could write a million more verses to the song of why reproductive justice means never having to say you’re sorry, but I would most of all like to hear what reproductive justice means to you, what tune you sing that song in, in the comments. Whether it’s a manifesto, womanifesto, queerifesto, or otherwise – what is reproductive justice to you?

A guest post from  Jane Cawthorne.

My home province of Alberta, Canada just had an election in which the right wing party that has held power for 41 years (yes, you read that correctly) was challenged by an even further right party who were widely expected to win. The far right were stopped in no small part by controversy they created over abortion and other social and human rights issues.

The new Wildrose party ran on a message of change. Change was something Albertans wanted. After more than four decades in power, the reigning Progressive Conservative party had more than enough baggage weighing it down. The Wildrose were ahead in the polls even on election day.

So what happened? The power of bloggers, independent media and social media cannot be underestimated in this election. I am happy to be one of the bloggers who played a part in revealing the agenda of this party. As I always do, I asked each of the parties to answer a few abortion related questions, all of which were clearly pro-choice. Usually in Canada, no one says anything surprising, so abortion doesn’t become an issue. Tampering with abortion rights is widely understood to be political suicide in Canada. In fact, even I was a little bored with the questions I was asking. But what happened next shows we can never become complacent.

The Wildrose party replied that they would put “social issues like abortion” to citizen initiated referendum. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. I put it out there and my sleepy little blog was suddenly getting hundreds of hits. Then the mainstream media started calling. The Wildrose couldn’t dodge the issue, in spite of the fact the holiday Easter weekend intervened. By Monday, it was still in the news cycle and the leader of the party had to repeatedly promise she would not bring abortion to referendum. What she did not promise was that she would not bring abortion funding to referendum. Then her past statements that she did not believe abortion should be publicly funded came to light, and the issue stuck to her like dog doo on a shoe. She couldn’t shake the stink of it.

At the same time, another blogger dug up some disturbing dirt on several of the Wildrose candidates, and yet another blogger who had been a Wildrose party supporter in the past got upset about their promise to implement conscience rights. Conscience rights would allow doctors to refuse to refer women for abortions, allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control or emergency contraception and allow public marriage commissioners to refuse to marry homosexual couples. In Canada, we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and these conscience rights would override Charter protections.  Questions were asked about where the line would be drawn and if human rights could be protected at all with such a policy. Gay rights and reproductive rights were front and centre.

The Wildrose party also promised to disband the Alberta Human Rights Commission. No one seemed to care about this until these other issues made it to the centre of the stage. Just when Albertans were starting to wonder about the social agenda of the Wildrose party, things got even more interesting.

One of their candidates said that homosexuals would burn in the “lake of fire.” Seriously. Another of their candidates said he had the best chance to win in his diverse riding because he was white. I’m not kidding. Then the leader herself came out as a climate change denier. The bloom was off the Wildrose, and the party was starting to be referred to as “Tea Party North.”

Yet, while all this was going on, polling still had the party in the lead and projected they would win. To the mainstream media, the biggest misstep in the Wildrose campaign had been some poor placement of graphics on the campaign bus. They hadn’t caught up with what everyone else knew; Wildrose did not represent the values of most Albertans.

What are the lessons? First, we can never be complacent about our rights. Ask the questions. Every time. Every candidate. Every election, from dog catcher to President and Prime Minister. All it takes is a group of single issue misogynists to get into power at any level and we’ve got trouble. Second, although they are getting pretty good at it, the powers that be can’t always control the narrative. We have the internet and we know how to use it. This election narrative changed. Any narrative can change. Third, we progressives have more allies and more power than we sometimes recognize, even in Alberta.

Last night while on my ride home from work, I turned on my phone and began to devour the #M312 hashtag.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Canadian politics (come on! Why not?), Motion 312 is a motion introduced by Conservative MP (Member of Parliament) Stephen Woodworth, calling for a Parliamentary Committee to examine whether the Criminal Code definition of “human being” should be expanded to include fetuses. I can’t even tell you with a straight face that Woodworth is pretending this isn’t about abortion. The motion was accepted for debate, and said debate happened yesterday, in the House of Commons.

When I was fifteen and far too naive to understand it, I read a book of Sartre’s that I found on my sister’s bookshelf. Several years later, in my third year of university, I took a 20th century existentialism course because I had a crush on the professor. I got very little from either of these experiences; but riding home on the streetcar yesterday I finally realized what the “nausea” was that Sartre was talking about. I felt a lurch in my stomach that was somehow both physical and existential; I turned off my phone and stared out the window. “Is this really real?” I asked myself. 

Is it really happening that today, twenty-four years after the abortion law was struck down in this country, four years after the man for whom that Supreme Court decision was named won an Order of Canada, our elected (ha!) representatives are standing up in the House of fucking Commons, for goodness sake, and having a serious debate about – let’s face it – abortion? Is this really happening? Outside Parliament yesterday, a crowd of women dressed in handmaid costumes from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale stood and protested the gradual but inevitable regression of women’s rights in this country. “The Handmaid’s Tale is not an instruction manual,” they said.

Margaret Atwood must be shaking her head. Our mothers and grandmothers must be shaking their heads.

Anyway, the debate. Once I had sufficiently recovered from my existential malaise, I tuned back into the debate – livestream from the House of Commons, and in another tab, Twitter, and in a third, Kady O’Malley’s liveblog.

Woodworth opened with fifteen minutes of speechifying, during which time he managed to fire off an impressive array of anti-choice cliches, paying particular loving attention to the “slippery slope” argument. If we can abort fetuses, who’s next! he cries, forgetting that one of the original arguments he brought forward for amending the Criminal Code was that the definition of “human being” therein was based on 400-year-old science; surely if something was “next”, it would have it would have happened by now?

Woodworth proceeded to mangle and take out of context quotes from various sources, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to former Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson (who was a member of the court presiding over the R v. Morgentaler decision). The outrage from Twitter – and the exasperation from the New Democrat MPs in the House – was palpable, even from behind the tiny screen of my smartphone. Who is this jackass, and why is he allowed an audience for his nonsense?

Predictably, when the floor was opened for other MPs to speak their piece(s?), Woodworth was eviscerated. First up was NDP MP Francoise Boivin, who correctly characterized M312 as a “full frontal attack” on women’s rights. Liberal MP Hedy Fry called out Woodworth on his attempt to introduce “back door” legislation on fetal rights (as opposed to abortion rights) – a strategy that is not new to this government (remember Bill C-484?).

One by one our MPs lined up to cut Woodworth down, and to put a cherry on top, Conservative Whip Gordon O’Connor gave a strong and unwavering speech in support of a woman’s right to choose. Not even his own party could stand behind this gong show of a Motion – Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself will vote against it.

To be clear, nobody ever thought this would go anywhere, or that Woodworth would succeed in making any changes to the law, let alone changing the legal status of abortion. It is the fact that we are having this conversation that is such a slap in the face to Canadian women. It is terrifying that our rights are so fragile, we can “open the conversation” on a whim, even under a government whose leader promised he would not reopen the debate. Whoops, Harper, looks like that one got away from you!

The next debate on the motion will not happen before June, and most likely will actually occur in the fall. Don’t put away those handmaid costumes yet, ladies – you’re gonna need them, one way or the other.

For a full recap, watch the webcast on ParlVU (debate on Motion 312 started at 5pm), or read the Hansard, and for commentary check out the #M312 hashtagon Twitter.

In its second episode that aired last Sunday night, Hannah, Marnie and Shoshanna meet at the clinic where their friend Jessa is scheduled to have an abortion. Jessa is late to the appointment (“These things never start on time,” she says to the bartender, needing a drink before she heads to the clinic), leaving Marnie, who scheduled the appointment to get angry. “You’re a really good friend,” Hannah mollifies Marnie,  “… and you’ve thrown a really lovely abortion.” Earlier in the episode, Hannah’s sorta-boyfriend Adam registers his disapproval that she’s accompanying a friend to an abortion, or at least what he perceives as her nonchalance about the abortion. Hannah’s response? “Uh, what was she supposed to do? Have a baby and then take it to her baby-sitting job?” Adam is appropriately chastened.

Take, for example, Fox’s New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel. New Girl is actually something of a network television sibling of Girls. Both were created by screenwriting wunderkinds (Elizabeth Meriwether of New Girl, Lena Dunham of Girls) and both premiered to huge hype that highlighted their hip, young sensibilities. And on a recent episode of New Girl, a character was also forced to contemplate a possible unplanned pregnancy. The main character’s best friend CeCe thought she might be pregnant from her casual, no-strings-attached relationship with Schmidt. Obviously, I don’t expect network television shows to included honest discussions of abortion; I do expect half-hearted lip service, payed mostly via euphemisms.New Girl couldn’t even do that. In the course of the episode, before it was revealed that the character wasn’t actually pregnant, the only choices discussed were baby names, whether Schmidt would propose to a woman he’d never been on an actual date with and who’d be godfather.

No one would ever accuse New Girl of being grounded in realism; most of my criticisms of the show in general stem from its insistence on making Jess a child-like cartoon. An earlier episode centered around her inability to say the word ‘penis,’ and no functioning adult believes that unironically shouting “Hey, Sailor,” in a bar will get you laid. From what we can tell of Girls (again, only two episodes in) the show’s decision to treat adult women as, well, adults is paying dividends with stories like Jessa’s aborted abortion.

However, New Girl’s obfuscation may indicate a new normal, where not only is saying the word abortion is off the table, but even implying it is. That makes Girls, miscarriage copout and all, that much bolder. I think pro-choice audiences are allowed to have high standards when it comes to the pop culture they consume. In recent years, several TV shows have demonstrated it is possible to portray abortion in a nuanced light (Friday Night Lights and Grey’s Anatomy have both done this well). We should continue to demand stories that honestly portray the experiences of women across the spectrum of reproductive choice. But I think we should be appreciative when a show (even a flawed one) demonstrates an honesty we’d otherwise go without.

 Sarah lives in Boston and volunteers with Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund. You can follow her on twitter @SBHudson108.

A co-worker once told me that in her 10+ years of working in the reproductive health field, her peers in other movements validated time and again that our movement is the most fucked up. Not fucked up because we don’t have our hearts in the right place (we do) or because we don’t have science on our side (we do), but because of the way we treat each other, and the way our intra-movement politics operate.

Every so often several friends and I debate the merits of “outing” certain organizations for their legendary bullshit. Everyone knows that organization A has an executive director who’s a megalomanic. Everyone knows that two particular organizations bully other smaller organizations. Everyone knows that organization B likes to fire (almost) everyone every couple of years. Everyone knows that certain national organizations have less than cordial relationships with their local affiliates. Is there merit in pinning a name to these claims? What would happen to the person who decided to to do so? Would she be ex-communicated from the movement? Lose the ability to work or volunteer in the movement ever again?

Maybe my friends and I are just bitter (former) employees. But we also believe that our movement can and should be better than this. Is this bait for antis? Everything is bait for antis. I’m willing to bet that they have similar problems in their own organizations. In a time of unprecedented legislative attacks on reproductive health, it feels impossible to find a second to catch our breath and evaluate how we’re doing. I have to believe that making sure our organizations are functioning productively and treating their employees humanely is as important as the work we’re doing.

In an effort to be less vague, let me make it painfully obvious. Here are a few clues that the reproductive health, rights, or justice organization you work at may be a toxic work environment:

• You’re expected to treat your members/patients/donors better than the way your boss/upper management treats you.
• You’re afraid to confront your co-worker/your boss about something racist/classist/transphobic/etc she said for fear of losing your job.
• You don’t get insurance coverage. The insurance coverage you get doesn’t cover pre-natal care, contraception, or abortion. You don’t get decent maternity or paternity leave. Yet these are all values your organization supposedly champions.
• There is frequent turn over and burn-out because of low pay and high stress.
• Your volunteers, interns, or anyone with “assistant” in their title are treated as a commodity.
• Young people, people of color, and/or queer folks are not valued, are not expected to be leaders, and are tokenized.
• When you give thoughtful feedback about your job or about the organization in general, no one takes you seriously.
• Your organization primarily works with or on behalf of low-income communities, communities of color, and/or young people, yet those folks are not represented on the staff or on the board. And there are no conversations about class, race, or privilege among staff. Ever.
• You see young people being encouraged to take on responsibilities for which they are not being paid, for the good of the organization and therefore the movement.
• You find yourself having to mask your work conditions, including poor communication, bad management, and unclear organizational goals, while selling your organization to donors and supporters.
• You are underpaid and are made to feel uncomfortable for any mention of that, or for requesting to be paid fairly, because times are tough/the economy is bad/you should be putting the organization’s needs before your own.
• Your organization only cares about marginalized people in a marginalized place (hello, low-income Texan women!) when your org stands to make a buck off of promoting their rough situation.

I want to be clear that these problems don’t exist in a vacuum (certainly stigma and a small professional world both play a part), and that they don’t exist only in the reproductive health, rights, and justice world.  I think the above grievances feel particularly shitty because we expect better. We expect organizations that are fighting for basic human rights to treat their employees and volunteers like, well, human beings. No organization or movement is perfect. I certainly hope that my former co-worker is wrong and that we’re not the most fucked up. But in listening to dozens of folks who’ve done this work at the highest and lowest levels, I suspect that it’s more than just the non-profit industrial complex.

I originally ended this post with some tips for upper management folks on how to begin to correct the above issues, but let’s be real. They’re not reading this blog. Should we “out” the organizations that perpetuate these problems? Frankly, I don’t have the answer to that. So to those suffering any or all of the above conditions: You’re not alone. You’re not making it up. You deserve better. And if you need a space to vent or process any of your experiences: write about it, anonymously or with your name attached (e-mail us and we’ll even publish it here!). Find your compatriots who are going through the same thing, whether in this movement or others. Let’s figure out how to make our movement sustainable for everyone in it.

Thanks to those who helped me come up with the bulleted list. I won’t name you, in case your organizations might penalize you. You know who you are. Thank you.