Like everyone on December 14, when I learned of the killings of 20 children and 7 adults a combination of heart break and horror washed over me.  Who could do such a thing?

We didn’t know much about the shooter, Adam Lanza, and we didn’t know his mental health status, yet, there were many assumptions made about it. The earliest news reports pegged him as a young man with autism/asperger’s syndromes, others speculated about the various spectrum of mental illnesses.

While there has been no link established between autism/asperger’s syndrome and extreme violence against others, however, in the wake of this tragedy, Adam’s story, present an opportunity for dialogue and real change as it applies to mental disabilities.

I grew up with a family intimately affected by mental disability. My parents who were newly settled immigrants, were still working and putting themselves through school raising me and my younger brother.  My brother was a healthy newborn, and a gregarious infant meeting his developmental goals until noticeably he grew inexplicably silent. Finally, the doctors told my parents, it was autism, a developmental disability that affects the brain’s development of social and communication skills. They did not have endless resources or even extended family members to help them and so through my childhood, I watched my parents fight patiently and ardently for my brother. They tirelessly worked to make sure he could eat real food, when all he wanted to eat was melted ice cream and that he could sit in public with the rest of us without violently rocking back and forth. My parents and teachers worked on his communication, as people with autism can be so locked within their own internal world, they are unable to verbally and physical communicate. They achieved slow success, first through sign language, then eventually, finally, through words.

My brother progressed through public school in the special education programs in our county in Virginia. He did increasingly well but we all knew he would never completely be able to live an independent life. When he finally reached 21 years old, per the law, he was no longer able to use the public school system programs.

My mother, who also worked as a nurse  spent many untold hours with  my brother’s caseworker and with social services. Watching her exhausted but determined diligence to ensure his access to needed services was sad and infuriating all at the same time but not unlike those in her situation.

I live in Virginia, a state where Medicaid funding was slashed tremendously last year.  Enacted in 1964 under Title XIX of the Social Security Act, Medicaid provides medical services to low-income people including those with disabilities and mental illness.

In addition to this basic care, Medicaid funding directly funds home care and community-based residences, for those, like my brother, who are unable to care for themselves. Many Virginia parents and other family caregivers like my mother still need to work. Unable to afford expensive private assisted living and residential facilities, these Medicaid funded residences provide families needed relief of knowing their loved one is cared for when they have to be away from home.

However, these consideration of families appear to be irrelevant in a debate always fraught with political fighting particularly in recent years. House Republicans led by Paul Ryan, tried to change Medicaid so that states could minimize eligibility. Democrats vetoed the idea. In the 2012 Presidential election, Mitt Romney, who also selected Ryan as his VP, largely championed Ryan’s plan, while President Barack Obama, pushed back emphasizing those disabled and elderly people in need of Medicaid

Not to say this discussion is not relevant, the intense recession of the last year has increased the number of individuals on Medicaid’s rolls, however dropping those without a safety net shouldn’t be the immediate answer. There is a tendency to politically demonize those who use Medicare, Medicaid or even disability as welfare kings and queens working to game the system. When in reality many of them are like my mother, working hard to preserve their families.

In the end, expanding Medicaid, not limiting it, will be the only way to meet need. Without it, working families are in a bind and would be forced to turn over disabled and elderly people to state institutions, an even more expensive proposition for government. I challenge those elected officials that believe in family values to enact policies to empower and preserve families. For those who don’t have a family member who is elderly or disabled and of limited means, don’t believe the welfare queen hype. And for those like my family, be counted, write a letter to the editor, get to know your legislators, because people’s lives depend on it.

Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist who has staffed seven political campaigns and other progressive causes with a focus on women’s rights and political empowerment.  Currently, she is National Vice President of the Young Democrats of America and she also serves on the boards of the DC Abortion Fund and Planned Parenthood of Metro Washington Action Fund.  Follow Atima on Twitter @atima_omara.

Photo credit: just.Luc via photopin cc.

When my editor sent out a request for us to ponder which woman inspire us, I posted the question on Facebook. I was curious if there would be a consensus (there wasn’t). And I was curious to know what kind of woman it was that invoked such an awesome emotion. After all, to inspire someone is pretty magical.

There were quite a few nominations for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as Vandana Shiva. Others nominated were Frances Fox Piven, Mother Theresa, Kathleen Hanna (love that!), Aung San Suu Kyi, Kathleen Zellner and many more. Indeed, I was impressed by how many women there are to be inspired by! A few people mentioned that they were inspired by people who are not politicians or at all famous, including family members.

As much as I am inspired sometimes by famous women, the truth is when I think about which woman, or women, inspires me most I always go back to my grandmothers.

My grandmothers could not have been more different, even though they were born and raised in the same Midwest state, less than 50 miles from each other. I had what you might call a Country Grandma and a City Grandma, but for all their differences, both of them taught me so much about life and being a smart, fierce, strong woman in this world.

My Country Grandma was born, raised, and died on the same farm. Widowed and left to raise three young girls on her own, she stared bravely into the face of an American culture of the 1960s that did not take kindly to single mothers. Having survived a sexual assault as a girl, she taught all her girls how to shoot guns and drive a car before they were 15. Life was hard on the farm and they were miles away from anywhere. But she put herself through night school and became a nurse in the maternity ward of the very same hospital where I was born. (She gave me my first bath!) As she continued to have a productive cattle farm (her livestock was sold for meat), she had to make men respect her, even as they looked down on her barely 5-foot frame. And when my mother became another unplanned teenage pregnancy statistic of 1976, my grandmother took us in and became my rock. No matter how strange things got with my often inept young parents, my Country Grandmother was there, full of spit and fire and a sureness about life that was at once comforting and, indeed, inspiring. What I learned from her more than anything else is that you have to respect yourself before anyone else will respect you. And that sometimes you have to make a lot of noise and make people really uncomfortable before they will give you a seat at the table. But you won’t get anywhere if you give up.

On the other side of the coin was my City Grandmother. Where my Country Grandmother would dole out folk-wisdom and fill a room with a hearty bellow of a laugh, my City Grandmother was all class. She was a lady in an era of ladies. She wore an apron and her garden always had beautiful flowers smiling up at you. But this is not to say that my City Grandmother was conventional. As a young woman, she got a music scholarship from playing the violin, which meant she left home and went to college in an age when that was quite rare. After college, she worked as a teacher even after she married my Grandfather. (Working after marriage! Such a rebel!) And she continued to juggle her many talents — from teaching, to secretarial work, to work as a seamstress and tailor — throughout my father’s childhood. When I was girl, my City Grandmother, then working as a librarian, taught me how to write a well-crafted, hand-written letter (my first foray into story-telling), and she encouraged me to use my imagination to turn the mundane — like metal tins full of old buttons — into a thrilling afternoon, dancing around her living room with home-made maracas. If my Country Grandmother taught me to walk with a big stick, my City Grandmother was the one who helped me understand how to speak softly while using it. And perhaps because the world around her couldn’t understand her desire to work outside the home and to use her artistic side to create beautiful things — she was once made me a life-size baby doll, making every stitch of the doll, its clothes and hair — my City Grandmother always reminded me that having a big imagination and marching to your own beat is a blessing, not a curse.

Together my two grandmothers showed me the strength and power of being a woman. They taught me the thrill of making mud pies and the thrill of making something beautiful. Each of them encouraged me to be my authentic self and never let the outside world force me to compromise my spirit for the sake of fitting in or being popular. They also were living examples of the fact that there is no such thing as “women’s work.” There is just work. And it needs to get done.

Sadly, both of my grandmothers have now passed away. I think of them all the time, especially now that I am raising my daughter. But the lessons I received will be passed down and I can only hope that I can match my Country Grandmother’s fire and my City Grandmother’s imagination in my daughter’s eyes.

Here’s hoping that whomever you see as inspirational, that you use that to propel you forward in 2013!

Photo credit: Jason A. Samfield via photopin cc

The YWCA USA is thanking those Senators and Representatives who have supported extending tax cuts for the middle class. Join us and thank your Congressman or Congresswoman – send a letter, tag them in a Facebook holiday card, or send them a Tweet. 

When I was attending graduate school, I interned at the YWCA Madison (Wis.), which served homeless and low-income women and their families, and many elderly or disabled populations. We worked with women whose economic security was fragile at best.

One day, a local restaurant dropped off leftover food at the YWCA to share with our residents. After we arranged the aluminum foil containers on our front desk counter, we notified the residents that food was available in the lobby. The next thing I remember is a line of women between the ages of 40 and 70 with mental and physical disabilities, standing in line near the front desk counter and holding plastic containers. I can still recall how excited and grateful these women were for leftover food. They stood in line talking excitedly about how they were looking forward to the food and I remember them thanking us. I have never been as humbled by anything as I was that day.

I vowed to always fight for those women who, day in and day out, struggle to make it and don’t ask for much, yet who are so grateful for what they do get. And, right now, I’m thinking of the women who rely on YWCAs across the country, as the budget and tax debate unfolds in Washington. It makes me sad and sometimes angry that members of Congress are refusing to help 98% of families in this nation, even as they publicly agree that it is the right thing to do.

Our nation’s unemployment rate is still high, and people are still struggling under our weak economy. Right now, tax cuts that help poor, low-income and middle-income women and families — that’s 98% of us — are set to expire on December 31, 2012. A bill to extend these tax cuts has already passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote. A similar bill (H.R. 15) is stalled in the House because some are refusing to let it come up for a vote. Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) decided it was time for the House to act, and he drafted a petition to force a vote on the bill.

In the last two weeks, some in Congress have had a change of heart: they’ve spoken up and urged their colleagues to pass these tax cuts now.  To date, 179 members of the House have signed onto Rep. Walz’s petition, meaning we need only 40 more Representatives to vote in favor of the petition to force Congress to vote on H.R. 15 before December 24!

The YWCA USA needs your help. Let’s work together to tell Congress to stop putting the economic security of women and their families in danger.

Join us today so that we can help Congress do what is right for 98% of women and families this holiday season.

How you can help:

• Email your Representative! Click here to type in your zip code and find out if your Representative has signed Rep. Walz’s petition. If they have, send them a message thanking them. If they haven’t signed it, send them a message asking them to do so!
• Send your Representative an Ecard! Click here to find out if your Representative has signed Rep. Walz’s petition.  If they have, click on the graphics below to tag and share one of our holiday thank you e-cards on Facebook. (To tag your Representative on Facebook, click the card below and click “Tag Photo.” Type the name of your Representative and click on their Facebook page when it appears!)

Dear @[Rep]: your support for middle class tax cuts will help 98% of #women & families. #fiscalcliff #YWCA
Click to Tweet this now

Dear @[Rep]: millions of #YWCA families are affected by middle class tax cuts. Will you support them? #fiscalcliff
Click to Tweet this now

For more information on the YWCA Campaign for a Women’s Budget, visit www.ywca.org/budget.

Randi Schmidt is the Director of Economic Empowerment Policy for YWCA USA. She has worked at the organization for nine years. 

This post is originally published on YWCA USA.  It is cross-posted with permission.  Images via YWCA facebook page.

I was born on April 20th, 1984. On June 5th, nearly two months after being placed on an adoption list in Montreal, I met my parents and became Kathleen.

I can’t be sure what occurred during the two month gap between my birth and the introduction to my family; perhaps it’s an ‘adoptive limbo’, a space in time full of unknowns and solitude. Regardless, I’m thankful I was far too young to remember it. However, what I do know is that April 20th and June 5th have become equally important dates; in fact, I call them my two birthdays – the day I made my grand appearance into the world as we know it, and the day I became part of someone else’s world.

November is National Adoption Month, with the 17th hailed as National Adoption Day. While for many this designation may seem like an attempt to grant yet another cause calendar recognition, for others, like me, it’s significant. At a time when abortion, although deservingly so, has received center focus, it’s time to shed light on an equally important choice – to raise awareness, debunk longstanding myths, highlight outstanding needs, and give a deserving voice to those whose lives were changed by adoption.

And there are a lot of voices to be heard; the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute suggests that 1.5 million, or 2% of American children have been adopted. This results in nearly 60% of us having some connection with adoption, be it through our own adoption, by becoming an adoptive parent, knowing someone who has been adopted, or having forfeited our parental rights for adoption.

As a result of our common bond, we, as a society, also see adoption as a beneficial process, with nearly 80% of us recognizing the need to connect available children with eager parents. Yet, there still remains a lack of understanding about adoption, and far too many misconceptions about the process. In honour of National Adoption Day, it is my hope to help debunk myths about adoption with an aim to promote awareness and inspire others to become part of a very special community to which I am proud to belong.

Truth One: Adoption takes on many forms

Adoption has many sides, in spite of the stereotypical image of ‘Orphan Annie’ that society would have us believe. Sure, many children are adopted from foster care, but others are adopted through private agencies, within the same family (referred to as kinship adoption), by a stepparent, or internationally.

Truth Two: Hundreds of thousands of children of varying ages and geographical location are desperate for a family

As of 2011, over 100,000 children in the United States alone are waiting to be adopted into loving homes. Many children in foster care are older, with an average entrance age of 8 and remain in care, on average, for 2 years. At home, adoption rates have declined over the past several decades but as a large database regarding foster care and adoption throughout Canada and the US is not available, an exact understanding of the domestic adoption need is limited.

Children in the developing world face an even more uncertain future; rates of international adoptions have decreased by nearly 60%, resulting from heightened inter-country adoption restrictions in response to corrupt practices, including bribery and the buying and selling of children. As a result, some countries like Romania have chosen to close their borders to North American and European families.

Truth three: There are large barriers to adoption

Far too many children experience the ‘adoptive limbo’, and eager adoptive parents are forced to wait patiently for their chance to begin their family. The Adoption Council of Canada suggests that adoption, depending on the method, can take anywhere from just under a year to nearly a decade. I was unbelievably fortunate as my adoption occurred soon after I was born, but my parents spent nearly 5 years on waiting lists until it was their turn. In actuality, they were given just 5 days notice prior to meeting me for the first time.

Adoption also comes with a cost; legal international adoptions can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and private domestic adoptions are nearly as expensive. However, adoptions out of foster care are much more affordable and could be faster if potential parents are willing to adopt an older child.

Truth Four: Adoption is an option for anyone

While we still face conflict with international adoption policies, domestic adoption has seen significant improvement; in Canada, single men and women as well as same-sex couples can freely adopt and, although determined on a state-by-state basis, the US is slowly but surely getting there. Additionally, both Canada and the US have adoption tax credits available to help alleviate monetary strain, as well as the option to take parental leave upon the arrival of their child. There is also the provision of readiness training and post-adoption programs to assist the transition process. Great organizations, some of which I have listed at the end of this blog, are also available to help parents and children (pre and post adoption) develop strong, long-lasting relationships.

Truth Five: Children put up for adoption do not necessarily have pre-existing, and will not necessarily develop behavioural, psychological, or biological concerns

I was once told by a fellow student in high school that she would never consider placing her newborn child up for adoption for fear of them becoming “messed up”. I’ve also been asked “what was wrong with me” and upon revealing my adoptive past, am often faced with a barrage of questions that indicated that somehow I am at fault. Sadly, such thoughts persist.

Sure, being adopted is far from easy. Many adoptive children, such as myself, may struggle and perhaps well into their adult years. Others may encounter feelings of abandonment, resentment, and isolation. Many who lack an understanding about the reasons for their adoption may feel unloved or ‘not good enough’, assuming, like others do, that there must be something wrong with them in order to be ‘given away’. Children who have been in foster care for extended periods of time have a heightened risk of developing personal issues, resulting from a lack of perceived security and stability. Such struggles may be challenging to overcome, but they can be battled in much the same way as all of us, adopted or not, battle our daily demons. The majority of adoptive children will grow into successful, healthy adults. Gerald Ford, Nancy Reagan, Steve Jobs, Jesse Jackson, Edgar Allen Poe, Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy’s), Faith Hill, Aristotle, and even Superman have, if that’s any indication.

Truth Six: Adopting a child makes them your ‘own’

The results of a 1997 study outline a devastating reality: the majority of us see adoption as ‘not as good’ as having your ‘own’ biological child. Furthermore, 1 in 5 believe adopted children were ‘less loved’ by their birthmothers, and 1 in 4 assume it is harder for adoptive parents to love adopted children in the same way as biological children.

This is perhaps for me, and I’m sure for many others, the most painful societal belief – a disconnect that tells us that biology determines an ability to parent. Far too often I am asked if I know my ‘real’ family, as if to assume that those who dedicated 28 years raising me are in some way ‘fake’.

Yes, adoptive parents miss the gestational period, and they may not understand the joy of birth following a long pregnancy. Yet, I would challenge anyone to ask an adoptive parent how they felt the first time they laid eyes on their child. The feeling, from what I’ve heard, couldn’t be more similar and perhaps even more profound.

However, as right as she usually is, perhaps my mom explains this best. In a letter my mom wrote to me that was published in my hometown’s newspaper for a special Mother’s Day edition, she so poignantly states: “biologically, you do not share our DNA, but you do share our unconditional love”. Arguably, it takes a special kind of person to adopt a child; it requires patience, understanding, committment, and a whole lot of love – what is required of any parent, and perhaps much more. Yet, in the end, the joy felt from giving a deserving child, your OWN child, a home, far outweighs any of the negative.

In the end, it’s not where you come from that matters, but the love that is shared that defines a family. Biology, in my opinion, is far too overrated.

For great adoption resources, please check out the following organizations:

National Adoption Day

The National Council for Adoption

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (US)

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (Canada)

The Adoption Council of Canada

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

AdoptUsKids

The National Adoption Center

Image credit audi_insperation via the Creative Commons License.

It’s here!  I can’t believe tomorrow is finally Election Day.  By now you’re probably exhausted from all of the pleas for your vote.  I know I am.  But hopefully you’ve already registered and, if you didn’t vote early or by absentee, you plan to vote tomorrow at a polling station.  Well if you’re tired of being asked to vote and already plan to, ask someone else to vote!  You could also volunteer to knock on doors, tweet, post an article to Facebook, make phones calls, do whatever you can.  The possibilities for activism are endless, and crucial when there are still people out there who are apathetic, discouraged, or not making it a priority to vote for whatever reason.  I couldn’t convince my 19-year-old brother to vote, but maybe there’s still time to convince the undecided 19-year-old you know!  Every vote counts.

Women and all who love women seriously need to rock the vote tomorrow and protect our rights!  We know what’s at stake.  If you’re still convincing someone to vote, and also don’t forget to vote for marriage equality in the states where it’s on the ballot, here are a plethora of posts from Fem2pt0 for you to share with someone right now:

• Undecided Women, Don’t be Fooled: Your Control of Birth IS ABOUT Jobs
• What Women Want 2012: A YWCA USA National Survey of Priorities and Concerns
• Do Women’s Reasons for Having Abortions Matter? No…and Yes, and Here’s Why
• Pandering and Lip Service Not Required: Romney Isn’t A Mystery On Women’s Issues
• Is it Your Body or Not? Draw The Line, People
• #Motherfkd: Economy Will Suffer If People Cannot Plan Parenthood
• Women: A Helpful Chart for Determining What to Trade Your Fundamental Rights For
• Legislators: Women Are Not Cows and Pigs
• Todd Akin: It’s Not a War on Women. It’s a War on Critical Thinking and Democracy
• 10 Tips for Avoiding Jail When You’re Pregnant

And one more time… VOTE!

Photo credit Theresa Thompson via the Creative Commons License.

Most women (and their spouses), whether personally comfortable with abortion or not, don’t automatically think about whether or not they might end up in jail, arrested while in labor or strapped to a hospital bed to undergo a forced Cesarean when they get pregnant.  Laura Pemberton certainly didn’t before it happened to her.  And what happened to her could just as easily happen to you or a girl or woman you know as a result of the  expansion of the “personhood” for zygote movement embraced by the leaders of the Republican party (including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan), written into their platform and pursued, state-by-state, systematically for several years.

Abortion, while the focus of our national conversation about women’s “reproductive” rights, is only the very tip of the iceberg. The same people who are seeking to overturn Roe V. Wade have made it possible, in some cases, necessary, for doctors to lie to their patients, for women to pay for unnecessary medical procedures, for health care clinics to misinform deliberately, for women to be denied healthcare entirely, for women to undergo what feels like the torture of seeing their dying babies, for 14 year old girls to kill their babies because they aren’t being taught where they come from.  Obstacles, laws, taxes and shaming procedures do nothing to reduce abortions, they just make girls and women vulnerable and their lives more precarious.  The toll that these measures take on girls and women is immeasurable. That’s why I put the word “reproductive” in quotation marks. Have you ever considered why we use that qualifier?  No such descriptive prefix exists for men, right?  Women’s rights shouldn’t be qualified either.  As it is, they are subject to the whims of legislators (86% of whom are men), voters, judges, police officers, pharmacists, well – just about anyone really.

This is why the question “Will you make abortion illegal in all circumstances?” is  the wrong one to ask a candidate.  Please stop and consider these questions instead: “How will your policies criminalize pregnancy and infringe on women’s rights?”  ”How will your actions lead to women losing their freedom and the privileges of citizenship?”  And, I’m not talking about women in other countries. 

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan support personhood for fetus legislation.  And, despite Mitt Romney’s attempts to appear moderate on the “abortion issue” he is explicit in his intent to change the composition of the Supreme Court. This is the result:

1. Give the government the right to seize a woman’s body to protect a fetus
2. Empower hospitals and doctors, with government support, to force a woman to bear a child and/or have a Cesarean or other medical procedures against her will
3. Criminalize abortion (including all circumstances: rape, incest, life-threatening pregnancy, severe fetal deformity) and certain miscarriages
4. Criminalize stillbirths in some situations (who decides which?)
5. Treat all women of reproductive age as potentially pregnant with related consequences

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are as anti-choice as candidates can be.  You may also believe that abortion is the wrong choice for you personally.  But,  that’s usually where the conversation stops.  And that’s a dangerous mistake.  It’s not about abortion yes or no.  It’s about women’s personhood and rights.  If you are unfamiliar with this concept, and you don’t have time to read this post — take time to watch these three videos.  Put aside culture war language that deliberately and superficially pits ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’ people against one another and consider the following: The women and families in these videos, many of whom oppose or opposed abortion, came, too sadly, to understand through horrific personal experience why “choice” is actually about freedom and why denying women their rights is a betrayal of fundamental American ideas regarding citizenship.

Video No. 1

Since this video was made, the number of states where these bills, explicit in their language, have been introduced has expanded to more than two dozen. If you consider the hidden personhood bills the number is much higher.

In December of last year, while you were working or food shopping or working out or reading to your kids, Republican presidential candidates quietly signed Personhood USA’s Personhood Pledge promising to pursue an amendment to the Constitution that would protect the full inalienable “personhood” rights of zygotes by extending the protections of the 14th Amendment to fetuses from the moment of conception and outlawing any medical technology or practices that inhibit implantation of a fertilized egg.

In addition to creating a petri dish for criminalizing pregnant women, personhood legislation, both overt or disguised, bans most forms of birth control (including pills and IUDs) and in vitro fertilization. Yes, many of these bills outlaw birth control and shut down fertility clinics.  The treatment of dangerous ectopic pregnancies becomes a matter of possible imprisonment for doctors and life or death for women experiencing them.

Video No. 2

This video has some overlap, but includes crucial additional information.

Now, I’m not keen on pitting a woman’s rights against those of her fetus. Although useful to understand certain issues, it sets up a false and misleading dichotomy.  Gestation, during which a woman chooses to share her body in complex, fully integrated ways, is the exact opposite of separation. Women are not separate from their fetuses.  A key strategy of this movement is to pretend that they are and to enshrine that idea in dangerous laws. Women are not heartless production facilities or vessels or any number of other updated variations of spermist theory homunculous container.  But, because of the constructs being established by this movement on “behalf” of zygotes, a hospital can waive your right to life, in violation of your or your family’s instructions, to save your fetus.  Indeed, forget the hospital, just ask Paul Ryan about his no exceptions for life of mother legislation or read the GOP platform.  Why would I ever take the advice that “they’ll never do what they say” when,  like Melissa Rowland, I could be charged with murder if I exercise my right to informed medical decision making?”

Ms. Rowland was charged with murder after one of her twins was stillborn, allegedly as a result of her decision not to have cesarean surgery two weeks earlier. Yes, you can be imprisoned like Bei Bei Shuai, a woman living in Indiana who attempted suicide while pregnant (committing suicide – the result of  the fully human experience of uncontrollable existential despair – is not a crime, by the way).  Friends managed to save her, and although Ms. Shuai did everything she could, including undergoing Cesarean surgery, her newborn died shortly after birth.  She was arrested and charged with murder and attempted feticide and locked up without bail.  (A Free Bei Bei petition was recently launched on Change.org.)  Your 11-year old daughter, if raped and pregnant as a result, would be forced to carry the pregnancy to term or face criminal charges.  I don’t have the time or space here to go into what happens to a pregnant woman who is already incarcerated.  Consider Amanda Kimbrough, a woman struggling with meth addiction, convicted of chemical endangerment under a statute making it illegal to bring a child into a meth lab. She is only one of more than 40 women in that state alone imprisoned for substance abuse while pregnant.  But, here’s the thing – today the chemical endangerment is meth.  Tomorrow it could be your chemotherapy.

Which brings us to a really important point: The fact that the personhood movement is openly seeking to institute a theocracy does not mean that there aren’t deeply religious men and women who recognize the implications of what they are doing and reject them.  The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which was founded in 1973 is a case in point. The coalition includes a broad and diverse interfaith group who understand the profound issues related to “choices.” Consider this last video, produced by Atlee Breland and the Parents Against MS26 organization during Mississippi’s personhood bill debate.

Video No. 3

Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women founded the organization to protect women’s rights and dignity, particularly pregnant and parenting women and those who are most vulnerable usually low-income women, women of color, and women who are substance dependent. Why her name is not a household one is beyond me. Melissa McEwan, who earlier this year started a Personhood for Women petition suggesting that “a person identifying as a woman and/or having a uterus shall retain all of the full, basic, and fundamental rights of a U.S. citizen understood the danger, too.

Personhood-based initiatives are being introduced, debated and passed across the country.  A few months ago,  in an attempt to end run an overtly “personhood” failure, Arizona state Senate passed what the ACLU described as the most extreme bill of its kind.  The bill not only moved to ban abortions after 20 weeks (that would be 1.5 percent of abortions, usually those most deserving of kindness and sympathy for the people involved) but also sought to extend the definition of pregnancy to include the two weeks before conception — that would be while a woman has her period. The implication, as Amanda Marcotte pointed out in RH Reality Check is that “they’d simply prefer a situation where all women of reproductive age are considered to be pregnant, on the grounds that they could be two weeks from now.”

In addition, as Paltrow and Emma Ketteringham recently pointed out in this article: This is not just a legislative concern, but also a judicial one. “If judges decide that the homicide law permits the prosecution of a teenager whose fetus is stillborn because of drug use, then all pregnant women who suffer such losses can be prosecuted for the crime of homicide. This is because such a decision isn’t about being a teenager or using drugs — it is about a personhood measure: redefining eggs, embryos, and fetuses in such a way as to give the state power to investigate, control, and punish women in relationship to their pregnancy outcomes.”

Think hard about what happens when we create legislative or judicial precedents based on what could happen to a fetus and punishing women for decisions they make while pregnant.   ”Personhood” and feticide laws already on the books in 38 states are insidiously dismantling any semblance of women’s equality and although extreme personhood bills are being defeated, even their introduction makes anything short of their passage, in the form of a diluted version of their original intent, seem like some kind of “gift” that women should be grateful for as opposed to the absurd and truly radical assault on rights that they represent.

The Personhood movement would have you believe this is a simple matter of stopping bad people from selfishly killing defenseless “children.” But, as Paltrow points out in her work, somehow it is women who turn out to be the bad murderous people doing the worse kind of “killing” by having abortions when in actuality it is the same women, you, me, your spouse, your daughter, your best friend, who also give birth to and raise our children. This is how they put it on their website: “Personhood is the new civil rights movement of the 21st century… these are the times that test men’s souls.” 

That is CORRECT. These are the times that test men’s souls and strip women of their hard-fought for and fragile rights and dignity.  Every time a potential president, legislative body or judiciary champions this cause this is what it is committing every girl and woman and family in the country to.

If these are fundamental betrayals of freedom I don’t know what are. “Personhood” for zygotes cruelly subverts the very idea of a culture of life and potentially criminalizes every pregnant woman. If you vote for people who support this movement because of their or your personal religious beliefs this is what you are doing.

As Americans in particular we are proud of our individual liberties. Women have the right to chose for themselves. Just as Romney and Ryan can choose for themselves. The difference is, these men and too many of their party peers seek to impose their belief on all of us through legislation, whereas no woman is asking them to have abortions. Or risk their lives. Or risk their health. Or impoverish their children. Or imperil their ability to go to school and work.  Our system only works if we  trust people – and that includes WOMEN –  to decide for themselves what is best for them.  Women are morally competent.

We are forgetting ourselves.

Follow Soraya Chemaly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/schemaly

A country of over a billion, India isn’t a stranger to the baby-boom. Over the last few years, this fertility has been captured into a new business – known as commercial surrogacy or “wombs for rent”. Commercial surrogacy is legal in India as of 2002. Combine that with India’s relatively affordable and high standard of healthcare for developing countries, and couples from developed countries are coming to India (and similarly positioned countries in the developing world) to fulfill their parenting dreams and aspirations. A recent story in Mother Jones shared the following difference in costs – “[An India]clinic charges about $15,000 to $20,000 for the entire process, from in vitro fertilization to delivery, whereas in the handful of American states that allow paid surrogacy, bringing a child to term costs between $50,000 and $100,000.” The same story also estimated that this is a $2.3 billion business for Indian clinics.

What about the women that “rent” their womb? Who are they? How do they navigate the socio-cultural reactions to the physically visible pregnancy? What does this mean for the clients who seek out surrogates in India and other countries? Is there a legal framework to keep in check the exploitation associated with surrogacy? I spoke with India-born and US-based filmmaker Arpita Kumar about her take on these issues in her latest film ‘Sita’, along with the challenges of capturing such a powerful and complex story on camera.

Q: Give us a glimpse into the story of Sita.
A: The film pries open a small window onto a day when the repercussions of a young Indian woman named Sita’s desperate act for change disrupts societal order. When Sita rents her womb out to a Canadian woman, her commercial surrogate status opens a can of legal and ethical worms. My audience for this story is both Indian and global. There are no villains in this film, just people who have their reasons. Therefore, we empathize not only with Sita here but the Canadian woman who has struggled for all these years to have a baby.

Q: How does Sita fit into the dialogue around gender and class in India?
A: The surge in medical tourism and commercial surrogacy in India is largely because this artificial reproductive technology (A.R.T) is cheapest though not necessarily the safest or most ethical in India. Most Indian commercial surrogates are women struggling financially. Similarly, the intended parents who travel half way around the world to rent a womb are not rich. They seek a commercial surrogate in India because either it is illegal back home or they are unable to afford it. However, the inequality of the global economic structure is such that it allows for a middle-class American or Australian to rent the womb of an underprivileged Indian woman. There is significant difference in what it costs to employ the services of a commercial surrogate in the U.S. compared to the services of a commercial surrogate in India. There is always the question of the quality of services provided to the intended parents and there is a lot of news around a surrogate often running away with the child born out of surrogacy. However, very few films capture emotional and psychological effects of commercial surrogacy on an Indian surrogate. Rarely is there a film that highlights the Indian surrogate’s point of view as she journeys through the surrogacy. Rarely is inquiry made about her subjectivity, or her awareness of the dangers to her health and psychology, the legal complications she might get embroiled in. These are the dialogues Sita hopes to initiate.

Q: Tell us about your work as a reproductive rights activist and why you chose this cause?
A: My reproductive rights activism has been largely through my work that draws inspiration from gendered narratives of the body and its reproductive control. I grew up hearing heartbreaking stories from my mother about how her educated, upper –middle class patients would put their health at risk and seek illegal sex-selective abortions. The women had no say over their pregnant bodies and its reproductive rights — a family patriarch or matriarch made the decision for them. Later, one of my first jobs in the U.S. was with Planned Parenthood, and it amazed me that an organization that provides reproductive health care and education to nearly five million women, and men worldwide finds its funding under constant threat because it advocates a woman’s right to choice. The constant threat to ban abortions in the United States reveals once again how state and religion control and maintain the female body. Commercial surrogacy is another control of the female body but this time through commerce. Through my film I don’t advocate against commercial surrogacy. In fact, commercial surrogacy can be a blessing for couples struggling with infertility. However, my film highlights how the commodification of a woman’s body can lead to potential abuse and health risks.

Q: Let’s talk about being a female film maker – this is another one of those industries where the lack of prominent women directors stands out. Is it tough being an Indian female filmmaker, especially when your subject broaches such a sensitive topic?
A: It is tough being a filmmaker despite your nationality or gender. However, yes, white men dominate filmmaking like so many other professions. It is harder then to break into a world where you are not the standard. Therefore, it becomes even more important to make films against the grain. My films have strong female lead characters and highlight narratives that raise questions about equality and female agency. I work and seek out people who work in a similar way and have similar work ethics. During my shoot in India, my entire crew was male and my cast was female. However, I have a dominant personality and it definitely helped empowering my presence on the set.

Q: Tell me about filming in India for Sita compared to your previous experiences. Anything that particularly struck you as brilliant, odd or surprising?
A: My main actor, Garima Bhardwaj, transformed herself physically from a middle-class Indian woman to a woman from a financially and socially disadvantaged background to play Sita. In the film, Sita is from rural Uttar Pradesh and Garima was very impressive in how she transformed the way she dressed, walked, talked, and held her body. However, the most shocking and absurd thing was the reaction of people in Delhi to Garima. We were shooting in a posh hospital and once Garima was in costume and make-up, the security guard would not let her in the hospital. It was shocking and a great revelation for all of us because we realized how somebody like Sita’s womb is desired in this hospital but not Sita herself. Sita is too poor to gain access in such a space. But, the hospital was not the only space. Our next shoot location was a temple and the temple priest practically chased her off the steps thinking she was an “untouchable.” Once again, a shocking and horrifying indication of how marginalized Sita is and how often abused and mistreated.

Q: What’s next?
A: We are about to embark on the international film festival circuit. Where and when Sita’s film festival premiere takes place depends on which festival we get accepted into and where we find distribution. Some prestigious festivals in Mumbai and Delhi are on our list so stay tuned and wish us all the best as we begin our festival journey. You can follow us for updates on our website http://sitathefilm.com or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SupportSita.

Photo via the Support Sita Facebook page.

We can drone on about sound bites and rehash debate comments all we want.  We can debate the facts laid in campaign ads, and count up how many lies have been told.  We already know where both Obama and Romney stand on women’s issues, so let’s drop the pandering and lip service and be real for a minute.

While I’d be among the first to admit Obama has not done as much as he could, he’s made more headway to change laws and protect women than any president in my life.  And, while I am certainly not the target audience for any Mitt Romney ad, when he speaks to women’s issues, it comes across hallow and insincere, like a promise our lives will be better because he’ll lead us back to the 1950s. Once upon a time, college was something some girls did, to meet a husband, learn how to run a house, or gain skills to work until they were married.

Once upon a time, birth control and abortion were illegal.

Once upon a time, women were ostracized for wanting a career, and a life outside the home.

Once upon a time, paying women less than men and limiting their ability to move up in a company was commonplace, expected.

Once upon a time, women were expected to keep quiet about abuse, and try harder to please their spouses.

And once upon a time, women chose to fight back and change the social structure of this country.

It didn’t happen all at once, and the work isn’t over yet. It has been passed from one generation to the next, for several generations now.  We have come so far, and the frightening thing is, the ideal world for some would take us back 50 years.  Fifty years of struggle and progress could be wiped out with one election.

Last year I wrote about The Handmaid’s Tale, an often forgotten book about what happens when no one stands up to defend the progress made.  Yes, it should be a part of your library.  And yes, while reading this I was terrified of the parallels I saw as I watched the Republican Primary debates. Our narrator informs us that no one really thought life would be rolled back in time like it was.  No government, especially a democracy would let such a thing happen.  And then no one stood up to the first, minor changes.  It parallels other terrifying times in history.

A Romney presidency will not change our way of life into something akin to The Handmaid’s Tale, though what a cautionary tale it is.  We know from what he has said about women’s issues, from his lip service and pandering, that our fight has been lost on him, as have so many for equal rights.  The warning signs are there.  Yes, the “binders full of women” comment was awful and insulting. It is offensive anyone who has held public office, or anyone for that matter, would say something so condescending about half the country.  But let’s not forget that didn’t happen as told either.  Romney didn’t ask for those binders, they were given to him, full of resumes of well -qualified job candidates, who happened to be women.

We know where Romney stands from his sidestepping question after question about equal pay, and his claim children of single mothers are more likely shoot people.  We’ll disregard the fact the 42^nd and 44^th Presidents of the United States were raised by single mothers. We know Romney prefers employers decide if a woman should use birth control, rather than the individual.  And we know he believes higher education is something only for those who can afford it.  But who can afford it?  Surely not the 47%!

Ann Romney and Janna Ryan have both worked hard to raise families and participate in their communities. Yet neither is a voice for the women’s movement.  Neither one would be a voice of reason or moderation to their conservative husbands.  Neither has ever faced the struggles other women face, raising children alone, or on a tight budget.  They have never had to do the dance between career and family, or dealt with childcare, or had to worry about an illness or injury to cause the family to go bankrupt. Neither of them knows or understands the myriad of reasons another woman may find herself facing when choosing an abortion, or the relief at knowing she no longer has to go spend all her extra pay on birth control.   In fact, we know very little about either of them, what issues they are passionate about, or what kind of agenda, or voice they would have, if any.

In the final debate, Romney paid lip service to women’s issues; in a last ditch effort to gain support.  Yes, we need to protect religious minorities and women in the Middle East, because no country can be successful without developing all of its population.  And yes, it felt like pandering, from both candidates.  What Marie Claire pointed out, which should really be obvious to everyone by now, a sitting president will come off more authentic when it comes to women’s rights abroad over a former governor who appears to have little interest in women’s rights anywhere.

We know where Mitt Romney stands and on these issues, regardless of the sound bites he offers to entice undecided female voters.  We already have an ally in the White House, and he brought many more allies with him.  Without their binders.

50 years ago, women attending college wasn’t nearly as commonplace as it is these days.  And if they did, nine times out of ten it was only for them to get their “MRS” degree. For those of you unfamiliar with this degree plan, it’s when a woman goes to college not to pursue any educational pursuits or ambitions, but to find a man actively pursuing his, marry him and then proceed to live out her days as a devoted wife and mother.

Before I go any further, I want to stress that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing this if it’s really what your heart desires.  Some people long to do nothing more and nothing less than raise a family—and that’s nothing to scoff at.  Parenting is the toughest gig in the world. You’re in complete control of another human’s existence, and you don’t get to take a vacation from it.  If that’s not overwhelming then I don’t know what is.

Opting to be a homemaker because your husband and others around you deem his professional endeavors more worthwhile than yours is where we start to have problems.  The “MRS” system implied that things HAD to be a certain way. The woman was supposed to give up her hopes and dreams to find a man because God forbid she end up alone and possibly INDEPENDENT…OH MY! Luckily for me and future generations of free-thinking women everywhere the times have changed.

At colleges across the globe women are studying everything from aerospace engineering to elementary education. Our interests and talents are far and wide and our involvement on university campuses reflects that.

More women than ever before are enrolled in school and pursuing higher education, and not only that, they are said to be outnumbering their male counterparts. According to the U.S. Department of Education 12.1 million women were enrolled in a degree-granting institution compared to just 9.1 million men. Compare that to statistics from 1970, which showed male, female enrollment at 5 million and 3.5 million, respectively.

Talk about changing tides. Data also revealed that women are gaining ground in traditionally male-dominated fields such as business and math-based disciplines.  So, not only are they getting at home on campus, girls are branching out of their traditional comfort zones, likely in an attempt to remain competitive in this fierce economy.

Another way women are striving to stay employable is by gaining not only bachelor’s but masters and doctorate degrees as well.  In the last few years, statistics have shown that women have consistently earned the majority of masters and doctorate degrees. That’s an impressive accomplishment when you look at where they were just 30 years prior.

However, amidst all of this progress, there is still one area where women have yet to surpass men, and that is in the realm of equal compensation.  A year out of college, women are said to be earning 80 percent less than their male counterparts. Some say it’s partially because of the tendency for women to go for professions that historically pay less, but analysts says that’s not enough to account for the immense pay gap.

News like this is nothing but discouraging. What does this teach the present and future generations of women? That their work and effort is not valued? That they still need a “man” to succeed and thrive? Whatever the cause, we can all agree it’s sending a conflicting message to our planet’s female population—both young and old.

Women and men alike need to unite and stand for equality together, because until someone stands up to the broken system, what hope do we have of it changing?

Maria Rainier is a freelance blogger and writer for several educational websites and regularly updates an online degrees blog. Maria believes that online degrees and online universities are the future of higher learning. She is interested in all things concerned with higher education and is particularly passionate about life after college. Please share your comments with her.

Photo credit NazarethCollege via the Creative Commons License.

This post is originally published on The Opinioness of the World.  It is cross-posted with permission.

Even if you don’t watch trashy reality TV, you probably know socialite Taylor Armstrong, from Bravo’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH), survived domestic violence.  RHOBH has aired episodes involving an intervention with Taylor about her abusive marriage.

I cringe at the thought of people knowing I watch the Real Housewives. But sadly, I do. Call it feminist research. Or a guilty pleasure. Feminist media critic Jenn Pozner, in her groundbreaking book Reality Bites Back, argues the detriments of reality TV for its horrifically negative portrayal of women. Many of us might brush it off as a harmless indulgence. But we should question what we’re watching.

Now, I normally wouldn’t even mention the Real Housewives except to deride it for its horrifying message to women about materialism and cattiness. But watching as a domestic violence survivor, I noticed some things that other people might not pick up on. Who says you can’t learn something from watching TV?? Whether or not you saw the show, it raised some common misconceptions about domestic violence that I want to dispel.

Domestic Violence Myths:

1. Only poor people suffer domestic violence. Now, I hope to god people realize this isn’t true. But I have a sneaking suspicion that many people still believe this pervasive myth. Domestic violence doesn’t know income, class or socio-economic status. The only reason why it might appear that rich people don’t face abuse is that they often have the money to afford staying at a hotel if they leave their abusive spouse. Those without disposable income might stay at a domestic violence shelter or turn to law enforcement to intercede. Being rich doesn’t inoculate you from domestic violence. In the U.S., one in four women will face domestic violence in her lifetime. Domestic violence is an insidious crisis that affects us all.

2. If you can’t see bruises or cuts, there isn’t abuse. On RHOBH, Camille Grammer told Taylor she’s confused as to whether or not she’s telling the truth about her abusive marriage (getting hit, having her jaw broken) since she has no bruises or cuts (and stays in her marriage…but we’ll get to that myth in a moment). Physical abuse might not be apparent for a couple of reasons. Some sneaky abusers won’t mark your face to conceal abuse from the outside world. Abusers might punch you in the stomach or crack your ribs. Abuse also escalates. What starts off as pushing or shoving can advance to slapping and then punching. But abuse isn’t just physical. Even if no visible signs of abuse exist, violent threats and intimidation constitute abuse too. Abuse can be emotional or psychological. Abusers can control your finances, not allow you to see your friends or family, tell you you’re fat, ugly or worthless. You should never doubt someone when they confide in you about their abuse.

3. The abuser is SO nice, calm, mellow, _________, s/he can’t possibly be an abuser. On RHOBH, Adrienne Maloof’s husband said he just couldn’t believe Taylor’s husband abuses her. He’s too nice and calm. Appearances can deceive. Just because someone seems nice or shy, doesn’t mean they aren’t a total douchebag behind closed doors. Facing domestic violence is a horrific experience. We must take domestic violence claims seriously; people do not bring violence on themselves. Abusers are the ones to blame, not the survivors.

4. If someone says they’re abused, they would never stay with their spouse or significant other. If they do, they must be lying. The women on RHOBH can’t seem to wrap their heads around why Taylor (or anyone for that matter) would stay in her marriage if it’s abusive. If abuse happens once, why stay? Many people just don’t understand. A violent relationship often exists in a cycle. Things may go well for a while. Then you bicker, arguing turns into fighting, and that’s when physical violence may occur. Next comes the “hearts and flowers” phase (which Faye Resnick points out on RHOBH). The abusive partner apologizes, professes their love and swears they will never hit again. Then the survivor thinks, “oh they didn’t really mean it” or “they were stressed.” The abuser goes out of their way to make amends. Then the cycle begins again.

Many women stay in abusive relationships because they love their partner and truly believe things will change. Others desperately want to leave but can’t as they’re bound by fiscal chains, worried they have nowhere to go and no way to support themselves. Or their partner threatens them by taking away their kids. Or withholds their passport and reporting them to the authorities if they’re an undocumented immigrant. Others stay for they don’t want anyone to know their dark shameful secret. We shouldn’t assume someone’s lying when they say they’ve been abused. We never know what goes on behind closed doors; we never know the private pain someone faces.

5. If I reason with a person in a domestic violence situation, logic will spur them to leave their abusive relationship. Ahhh, it’s so easy, just leave! I know that’s what many people think. What people who aren’t domestic violence survivors don’t realize is that it’s not that simple. When you’re being abused, you feel as if you’re losing your mind. You question every choice you make, every word you say. You often blame yourself, thinking you could have done something different or that somehow you provoked it. “Logic” often doesn’t work here. If you happen to know someone in an abusive relationship, as much as you want to, you can’t make them leave. As hard and as frustrating as it is, they must leave when they are ready. What you can do is provide them with love, encouragement and support. And let them know that love should never hurt. Ever.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call Safelink at (877) 785-2020.  It’s multilingual, free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Photo credit USAG-Humphreys via the Creative Commons License.