But at a conference so committed to progress, and the progress of women, the gender disparity and poor showing of women is jarring, and worrying.

To give you an idea – only about 17% of the attendees were female.  And only 20% of those invited to attend the WEF and discuss issues on panels were women. It’s not that women are choosing not to attend the forum, it’s that they’re not being invited either.
The issue, of course, is not Davos-specific.

Davos is symptomatic of a much larger trend; the world economic forum invites leaders from around the world to attend, and the lack of women in attendance is a clear reflection of the fact that there are too few women in positions of power and influence across the world.

This is not to say that there haven’t been increasing numbers of women in positions of influence. We’ve had a female vice-presidential nominee and seen the likes of Meg Whitman and Sheryl Sandberg in business.

But these women are few and far apart: only 3% of the chief executives running Fortune 500 companies are women and women comprise only 18.9% of the world’s legislators.

The numbers really say it all.

Even though we are taking steps toward progress, we are far from equality. Even though we are seeing higher numbers of women getting college degrees and joining the workforce (even in traditionally male-dominated professions), they remain a minority at higher levels.  The world is still run, in large part, by men.

At Davos, Sheryl Sandberg tried to explain the reason for this situation, saying: “Little girls are called bossy…success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.”

While such culturally ingrained stereotypes ring too true and will take a long time to change, the fact that we’re now talking about bossy little girls is a step in the right direction.

And to work toward gender equality at all levels of leadership around the world, we need female leaders, such as Sandberg, to be part of the conversation.  That is to say, we need events like the World Economic Forum not only to acknowledge the significant disparity (as they have done), but also to help change the ratio themselves: to invite more women and involve them in the conversation.

Photo Credit: Wold Economic Forum via Creative Commons License.

This is all part of the way women have been taught to almost be seen and not heard.  People are constantly trying to make us smaller!  Don’t laugh too loud, it’s unladylike.  Don’t eat too much, being more than 100 pounds is unsightly.  Don’t be too pushy, too aggressive.  And don’t take up too much time talking in a meeting or use up too much space on the conference table.  In essence, do everything you can to minimize yourself as a human being, and then maybe men won’t be so uncomfortable or threatened by your presence.

I thought this was incredibly insightful, and I realized that it wasn’t just me who was doing it on an individual level.  It was the women’s movement as a whole.  We’re always trying so hard not to offend people, to convince the mainstream that we’re not crazy, psycho feminists who are out to get you.  It takes something as extreme as the Stupak Amendment or the Mississippi Personhood Amendment to really get our engines going.

Actually, convincing the world that women are crazy and irrational is one of the smartest and most effective campaigns to destroy women’s lives that has ever been waged by the patriarchy, especially the US Republican establishment.  Instead of fighting on our issues and spreading awareness about perfectly legitimate threats to women’s rights, health, and well-being, we’ve gotten ourselves sucked into the argument about whether these threats really are threats.   It’s like being a candidate for President and spending all your time and energy just trying to get on the ballot.

Instead, we’ve taken to messaging around “women’s issues”  by demonstrating how little these things we fight for actually matter.  We sell our strategy by saying “but this wouldn’t allow any federal money to specifically fund abortion!” and “but Planned Parenthood only spends 3% of its money on providing abortion services!”

This messaging is dangerous, and it falls right into the category of “we want you to know that we value your concerns about abortion and we are doing everything we can to try to not get in the way of your beliefs while still saving women’s lives.”

You may be wondering what inspired me to write this post on this topic tonight.  It wasn’t just the disaster that was the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Foundation‘s decision to stop financially supporting Planned Parenthood, although that was the catalyst.

It was the collective support of my friends/colleagues/acquaintances, and other random people who happen to be Facebook friends with me, who clicked “Like” on a post I dashed off a little bit ago:

In the past 30 minutes, dozens of my Facebook friends have liked this status, and the number is growing even as I type.  This got me thinking.  Maybe I’m not the only one.  Maybe I’m not the only one who is tired of making excuses, tired of apologizing for “having to bring up feminist-y things again”, tired of pretending these things aren’t a big deal or aren’t that bad, just so that everyone else who is causing me problems in the first place won’t be so offended/annoyed/disturbed/threatened/bothered/harassed.

Know what?  Going to bat for – screaming at the top of lungs in support of – organizations that save women’s lives and protect women’s rights is not something I will apologize for.  It’s not something I will lower my voice for.  It’s not something I will attempt to justify because you’re a misogynistic moron who would rather see me and anyone who looks like me die than give me the rights all other human beings seem to be born with.

So I’m going to stop with the “qualifying justifications.”  With saying “oh but we’re reasonable because we’re allowing exceptions for this and that,” or “yes but here’s how we’re going to make sure that we don’t use any of your hard-earned money to support women – I mean, abortion.”  I’m done with that.

I will stop saying “this abortion-banning bill doesn’t even include an exception for the life of the mother!” as though such an exception would somehow make such a bill acceptable to me.  I will no longer consider it reasonable that federal money can’t be used to fund abortion or an abortion-related services.  And I will no longer try to reason with, or appear reasonable to, people who think women’s lives aren’t worth saving and women’s rights aren’t worth protecting.

Oh, and that Facebook post I mentioned earlier?  It’s at 33 likes and counting.  Looks like I won’t be alone in my newfound intolerance for dumbed-down messaging.

Maggie:

I went to bed early and gather there were only the two early mentions of women – great mentions, but the same thing we’ve heard for years.  Plus, I went to bed pissed off about his energy and environment points.  If I didn’t have a bad cold I would have been writing about what a bad idea it is to expand our use of natural gas and not even mention the word fracking while he claims it will be done safely without harming residents.

Christina:

I liked the President’s tone and the fact that he took Congress to task for their inability to work together. But it was very obviously a campaign speech and very focused on the economy. While talking about social issues might not sway moderates, that doesn’t mean they deserve to be ignored. I’d like to see something more substantive from that realm.

Lori:

It’s as though the speech was finished and someone said “Wait — don’t print that out yet! We need to stick something in there about women!” It’s pretty clear what’s in there just for appeasement. I’m interested to see what happens with the proposal to require students to stay in school until they graduate/turn 18. Does it do anyone any good to keep students in school against their will, or is it just for statistics’ sake, like standardized tests he spoke out against? Seems contradictory to me.

Abigail:

Some good “fairness” policies introduced, which should resonate well with Americans, and I agree with Christina in that it was clearly a campaign speech meant to draw contrast to Mitt Romney.  Regarding #Fem2 issues, “Equal Pay for Equal Work” is one of the easiest nods to women’s equality ever, so I’m not terribly impressed with his mentioning that.  Overall, while I appreciate calls for teamwork and bipartisan cooperation to get things going, I didn’t think the speech was terribly ambitious or courageous. In order to inspire some, you’re going to have to alienate others.

Katie:

Two points for actually mentioning women in the SOTU. Equal pay for equal work – what a novel concept! For a Prez focused on jobs, jobs, jobs, he almost pointed out that investing in women might help the economy. Looks like we’re making progress?

Violet:

I couldn’t agree more with Katie. And I think the end part of the speech was phenomenal! I wish I could vote in the next election!

 

So you’ve heard our initial thoughts!  What are yours?  Did the President do enough for women last night?  Does it matter?

Photo by H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

And this got me thinking about the famous JFK quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

Indeed, isn’t it time that we all took action to do what we can to end the War on Women?

Here in Nevada, things are just heating up with a third attempt at a anti-choice ballot initiative. Because when the first round of two similar personhood initiatives (that were struck down in court) came down the pike… that just wasn’t enough. If you thought that Mississippi burned with the personhood debate, it looks to get pretty hot here in the Silver State (among several others) as I’m sure Republican candidates are going to start falling all over themselves to declare their absolute hatred of women’s autonomy over their own bodies and their access to health care in all forms.

Let’s face it, none of the Republican presidential candidates are even remotely interested in women having control over their own bodies. All of them are pro-life. You know so because they signed the pledge, after all. And from defunding Planned Parenthood to declaring all abortions illegal, without exception to codifying abstinence-only mis-education in our schools — it feels like the Republican primary season is merely a boot camp for the next throes of the War on Women, filled with vitriolic hatred for half of the people on earth. Despite his pandering this way and that, Romney is clearly anti-choice.

In Iowa, Newt and Rick Perry were tripping all over themselves to break to the front of the anti-choice line. And Mr. Ass Juice Santorum is so hard-core that his politics would have killed his wife, if he had successfully gotten laws he backed in place. Oh, and then there’s Ron Paul, who is an OBGYN himself (proof that the universe has a wicked sense of humor, indeed)!

Man, if GW was bad, how much worse are these a-holes going to be if one of them is elected president?

Sometimes when I’ve heard so much anger aimed directly at my uterus, it really starts to get me down. My mind ventures toward the macabre and images of The Handmaid’s Tale. Sometimes it feels like if we can get through this election cycle and still have the ability to choose which tampon we like, that will be a miracle.

So maybe that’s what this Blog for Choice Day is for me: A rallying cry! A pep talk through the interwebs!

It’s clear that 2012 will be a bloody one on the War on Women battlefield. We must steel ourselves for the fights ahead. But fight, we must!

What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates? Maybe the question should be: What won’t you do?

This post is part of the Blog for Choice Blog Carnival hosted by NARAL Pro-Choice America in commemoration of the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

The reason I am pro-choice, and why the fight to keep the right to choose is so important to me, is because I want to retain ownership of my most personal, intimate possession– my own body.  The title of Merle Hoffman’s new book, “Intimate Wars,” accurately reflects how the abortion battle occurs on terrain that is personal property.

Intimacy is closeness – a factor of proximity or nearness.  Some people say that sex is the most intimate physical act that exists between two people.  Sex can be the ultimate expression of love or intimacy.  But when sex is unwanted and forced upon someone, violently or non-violently, sex becomes the most intimate of violations.  A violation of the most sacred thing a person possesses – and in many ways the only thing a person can ever truly possess: our body.

Pregnancy, the state of a body being enclosed/engulfed/surrounded entirely by another, is also an intimate physical experience two human beings share.  To me, the intimacy of sex pales in comparison to the intimacy of pregnancy, of a person using the air they breathe, the food they swallow, and the blood their heart is pumping to sustain another.  So isn’t an unwanted pregnancy, violently or non-violently occurring, also an intimate violation? An occupation of intimate space that was not welcomed.

Sex and pregnancy are similar to war in that there are two opposing sides or experiences that contradict each other, as well as an act of moving into another’s personal space.  It seems absurd that there can be two diametrically opposed truths about the same set of circumstances.  But it exists.  To invite a person to share your body can be one of the best human experiences and yet to have someone do the exact same actions uninvited can be one of the worst.

Abortion opponents are insisting there is only one truth and one option that will work for America.  But like war, there are no limits to the messy and unclear factors that shape our decisions about our most intimate experiences, even those that are the most common.  The right to choose is a right each woman needs to have because only she can judge for herself whether an experience is welcomed or intruding, a pleasure or a violation.  No one should be forced to suffer a violation of their own body or have their bodies subjugated for someone else’s purposes – the ‘innocence’ of that someone else is not the point.

Legal and safe abortion allows women to choose the decision that is right for them.   It allows the existence of more than one universal truth, more than one option.  Choice is about preventing women from being forced to give up possession over their physical self because of other people’s theoretical frameworks, needs or desires.  The end (someone’s birth) does not justify the means (someone’s violation).  I believe each woman has the right to make her own decisions about her own body for her own purposes.

This post is part of the Intimate Wars Blog Series appearing at Fem2.0 and On the Issues Cafe January 17-18, 2012 in celebration of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the release of Merle Hoffman’s memoirs, Intimate Wars.  You can purchase a copy of her book here.  To submit a post for the blog series, please contact us, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter using #intimatewars.

Photo Credit: Trevor Blair via Creative Commons License.

Hold a Dialogue With Believers
Thus, in recent months my feminist “action” has taken place with people I meet in evangelical churches. I have learned a lot from them; they are very warm people. I listen and ask them what they think about the low status of women. Women find it normal: “woman is a help for man,” “with gentleness and patience, a woman can get everything from her husband.” But I cannot talk openly about feminism – if I do, my friend may be removed. So I ask questions, I ask them their opinions. And that makes us think together. Once, a woman I had never talked to said, during a meeting whose subject was “How to Avoid Divorce”: “You men you talk about equality, but these are only words. You never do anything at home, we are your equal when it suits you.” The pastor listened, and let this woman speak. An angry man left the room.

Here are some notable phrases I’ve heard in evangelical churches: “the woman is a gift that was created for man”; “women’s emancipation encroaches on the pride of man”; “a man waits for a small intelligence from his wife: that she doesn’t humiliate him, for instance”; “the woman has a natural impatience”; “the woman has the natural temptation to break free of the man, as man has the one to escape its responsibilities, so if everyone stays at one’s place, there will be no trouble.”

A Matter of Interpretation
In spite of the existence of this patriarchal society that has lasted for thousands of years, I continue to hope. Jews, especially Orthodox Jews, wait for the Messiah. Christians wait for the return of Jesus. In fact, feminism or even Communism is like religion: that is to say, it is a utopia. It is an ideal in which we believe and we hope.

I have experienced horrible things, but I know there is always worse. Some situations are unbearable and then only God can carry us: He is like a rock that I can hang on. When I take this into consideration I see feminism as a weapon that God has given me for my self-defense and to allow me to stand up. Therefore, feminism is my fight and my faith is my strength.

One wonders sometimes, “Is God misogynist?” In fact, God is the greatest feminist because, firstly, He is the largest in all good things; and secondly, according to the Scriptures, the first human being exposed to free will as well as the imperative to make a choice, was a woman.

This post originally appeared at Feminists for Choice and is part of the Intimate Wars Blog Series appearing at Fem2.0 and On the Issues Cafe January 17-18, 2012 in celebration of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the release of Merle Hoffman’s memoirs, Intimate Wars.  You can purchase a copy of her book here.  To submit a post for the blog series, please contact us, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter using #intimatewars.

Photo Credit: Thomas Quine via the Creative Commons License.

In his latest column, Milbank criticizes abortion provider Merle Hoffman for raising a ‘false alarm’ about the threat to reproductive rights in this country.  He then goes on to cite the numerous marches and events that will take place on both sides of the debate over the next week as the country celebrates – or laments – the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in this country.

All of this attention troubles Dana Milbank.  He writes, “if these groups cared as much about the issue as they claim, and didn’t have such strong financial incentives to avoid consensus and compromise, they’d cancel the carnivals and get to work on the one thing everybody agrees would be worthwhile — reducing unwanted pregnancies.”

He chastises the choice movement by telling us that “not every compromise means a slippery slope to the back alley.”  He tells us to stop with the “sky is falling” argument and to acknowledge that the majority of Americans have legitimate concerns.

As you can imagine, I’ve never had a man tell me – a feminist – to “simmer down” and “be reasonable” before.  Maybe Dana Milbank doesn’t think the sky is falling, or that reproductive rights are being steadily rolled back in this country, simply because he’s so busy critiquing the “theater” surrounding the debate that he hasn’t bothered to really take a look at what’s at stake.

Milbank is on the right track with his admonishment of the Conservative side to pay more attention to family planning if they really want to reduce abortions.  But if he thinks that’s what we should all be focused on, and it’s the pro-lifers who aren’t willing to compromise on that, then what on earth is he admonishing the pro-choicers for?  Oh yes, for crying wolf and not being reasonable.  I’d like to take this opportunity to remind Mr. Milbank that “being reasonable” is what got us the Hyde Amendment.  Milbank wants us to find common ground with the pro-life movement and work on that.  Except as I’ve written about in the past, there is no common ground with the pro-life movement.  They aren’t anti-abortion; they’re anti-women.

The unprecedented efforts we’ve seen in 2011 to repeal a woman’s right to choose how to live her life and how to exercise agency over her own body goes far beyond just Roe v. Wade.  And yet, Milbank seems to just want us to focus on getting along and finding middle ground in reducing unwanted pregnancies and – always – to learn to play a little nicer.

The sky isn’t falling? The Guttmacher Institute has a solid (yet depressing) overview of 2011 already, so let’s just do a quick review, shall we?

- In all 50 states combined, more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related bills, amendments, and pieces of legislation were introduced.  Of these, 135 were enacted in 36 states, and 68% of these new provisions—92 in 24 states—-restrict access to abortion services.

- North Dakota was added to the list of 36 other states that require abstinence-only education.

- Montana, Texas, and New Hampshire all drastically reduced funding to family planning services out of proportion to cuts to other health care services.

- Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah adopted provisions prohibiting all insurance policies in the state from covering abortion except in the most extreme cases (life endangerment).

- Five states adopted provisions mandating that a woman obtain an ultrasound prior to having an abortion.

- Now that Texas and North Carolina have been added to the list, we’re looking at 26 states that mandate that a woman seeking an abortion must wait a certain period of time between getting counseling and having her procedure done.  Even stricter regulations were proposed in South Dakota (don’t even get me started on the host of other choice-related problems in South Dakota -only click through this link if you really want to feel sick.).

I understand that Dana Milbank doesn’t appreciate seeing “gruesome photos of fetuses” or images of bloodied hangers, but there’s a reason everyone’s coming out in full force.  WE’RE NOT GETTING THROUGH.

I’m outraged that “legal” in this country doesn’t mean available, accessible, or affordable.  I’m outraged that in addition to literally trying to close abortion clinics, pro-lifers are trying to enact legislation that would make fetuses into persons (Ohio is the latest, for those who haven’t been keeping track).  I’m outraged that we’re still teaching kids in public schools that women having sex is a bad and dangerous thing – hell I’m outraged that abstinence-only education still even exists.  This debate isn’t just about abortion.  It’s about women’s health, women’s rights, and women’s choices.

Milbank uses as the “hook” in this piece a report commissioned by abortion-rights activist Merle Hoffman to examine the effect of economic need on abortion coverage.  Except one has to wonder if he even bothered to read the report.  The conclusions in the report were not based exclusively on “journalistic” reports, but also on newer research from credible institutions like Gallup and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and from peer-reviewed research that explored the increase in numbers of women choosing abortion for economic reasons. These are more than “journalistic” sources. Furthermore, all the data supported the trend presented, and none contradicted it.  The idea isn’t to wait three years for a full and comprehensive, state by state analysis to realize that there’s something going on.

But my bigger concern is that Dana Milbank thinks the pro-choice movement needs to acknowledge “legitimate concerns” and stop crying wolf.  This is because when it comes to reproductive choice and abortion rights, he doesn’t think the sky is falling.

But I suppose that’s easy to say when the sky isn’t falling on him.

For those who are interested in telling Dana Milbank (@Milbank) why abortion rights really are at risk in this country, you can email him at milbankd@washpost.com or post a comment to his piece.

Photo Credit: Ennuipoet via Creative Commons License

So, even as fear coursed through my shivering body, I also felt for the first time that I was doing something that mattered more than myself.  I knew that without access to safe abortions women die.  They die painfully and they die unnecessarily.

Outside that clinic, and later, inside the church where Operation Rescue was holding their sermons, I debated for hours with anti-abortion protesters and their leaders.

Back then, I was still a Christian (not a militant atheist as I am now) and so I debated scripture with Flip Benham of Operation Rescue and Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life.  I tried to argue that Jesus was about love and compassion, that he was against death and suffering.  They told me back that it was a woman’s place to be silent and to obey their husbands and fathers.  I told them how women died in the back-alleys before abortion was legal.  They told me that women who have sex outside of marriage are selfish, wicked, dirty and sinful.

It hurt to hear these things.  Especially from a man wearing a priest’s collar, a symbol I had grown up revering.

But even back then, as a painfully shy teenager, I knew their arguments were wrong.  It was probably the first time I felt confidence in my own moral conviction over the word of an authority figure.

Looking back almost two decades later, I recognize that that weekend influenced me more than anything I ever learned in the classroom.  Those men, in their Christian fascist insistence on taking every word in the Bible literally, forced me to reexamine many life-long assumptions.  Fortunately for me, someone loaned me a copy of “Liberation Without Gods” by Bob Avakian which helped me sort much of this out

What I came to understand was that the anti-abortion movement really doesn’t give a rat’s ass about fetuses.  Sure, they will use the fetus to play on people’s emotions, but when you get down to it the entire anti-abortion movement is driven by biblical scripture.  In 1 Timothy 14-15 it explains that the only way women can redeem themselves for allegedly having caused “original sin” and the “fall of man” is by having children: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”  This explains why every major anti-abortion organization is also anti-birth control.

Besides, fetuses are not babies.  They have the potential to become babies, but until they are born they are a subordinate part of a woman’s body.  They have no independent social or biological existence.

The anti-abortion movement really would be more accurately named the “forced-motherhood movement.”

It has now been 18 winters since the first time I stood up for abortion rights.  In that time, we have seen a dynamic where yesterday’s outrage becomes today’s “compromise position” and tomorrow’s limit of what seems possible.

Today, it doesn’t take an hours-long conversation with some of the most fanatical anti-abortion activists to recognize that we are experiencing an all out war on women.  Last year, 92 restrictions were passed on abortion throughout the country.  That shatters the previous record of 34 restrictions in 2005, under Bush.  On New Year’s morning a clinic was set on fire in Pensacola, Florida.  And Barack Obama personally upheld the decision made by his head of Health and Human services to ban over-the-counter distribution of Plan B (emergency contraception).

The “abortion wars” will not just go on forever in the background.  Eventually, one side is going to win.  Today, we are dangerously close to – and on a deadly trajectory towards – losing this war.

Yet, we do not have to.  There are millions and millions of us who do not believe women should be forced to have children against their will.  It is time we stand up and make ourselves heard.

In closing, I will skip ahead to the next time I will stand up for abortion rights.  And I will invite you to join me

Come to DC on January 22 and 23 to mark the 39^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  Every year, hundreds of thousands of anti-abortion protesters show their faces to the world.  They should not be the only voice.  Read and add your name to this call.  Give money to this effort.  And, if it is at all possible, change your schedule and get yourself there.

Women who cannot decide for themselves when and whether to have children are not free.  If women are not free, then no one is.

This post is part of the Intimate Wars Blog Series appearing at Fem2.0 and On the Issues Cafe January 17-18, 2012 in celebration of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the release of Merle Hoffman’s memoirs, Intimate Wars.  You can purchase a copy of her book here.  To submit a post for the blog series, please contact us, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter using #intimatewars.

 Photo Credit: Paul-W via Creative Commons License.

What does war look like?  Taste like?  Smell like?  Images and soundtracks come to mind from centuries of conflict: guns roaring, cannons booming, flesh burning, bombs exploding.

These are the sights and sounds that remind us of what we know to be a universal truth: no matter where, when, how, or why . . .

War is hell.

Children crying, blood spraying, families weeping.  Our moral compass cracks as it falls prey to what Clausewitz refers to as the fog of war – the uncertainty that accompanies the confluence of events, too many of them utterly beyond our control.  Frightening us.  Paralyzing us.

War is hell.

Forces viciously engaged in a combat to the death – whether over wealth, resources, rights, freedoms, or ideologies.  Each side utterly convinced that their moral superiority will see them victorious in the end, no matter the cost.

War is hell.

Lives are at stake.  The very breaths that we take and the very notion that we, as human beings, have souls encased in these bodies and superior minds to the others that walk this earth.  And that those souls and bodies and minds have INALIENABLE rights that literally define our humanity.  This is what is at stake.  This is why we fight.  This is why war is intimate.  Because I fight, every day, to claim my humanity.  To assert that I possess the qualities required to be considered a human being by other human beings, and that I deserve the rights afforded as such.  That my body, my physical cavity, is a sacred and precious thing.  And that NO ONE will protect it – and my rights to it – except me.

This is why war is hell.

War takes many forms.  War is the purposeful, engaged actions of a group of people intended to cause harm to another group of people.  And not just harm, but potentially death as well.  Destruction.  Annihilation.

And so when I say that there are people in this world, walking this earth, who have chosen to go to war on my body, on my rights as a human being to assert agency over my own flesh, I do mean war.

And now, they are after me.

They are sneaky about it.  Manipulative and tricky, withholding my health care, denying me resources, criminalizing me and claiming that I am too stupid to know my decisions and my actions.  Anti-choicers go to war with my body, on my body, over my body, because of my body.  And they hope that because it does not look or smell or taste or feel like other wars, that I will not recognize it as war.

But I do.  Because this fight is hell. And fighting this war is hell, and one does not escape hell by laying down the sword.  There is no escape in such a surrender.  The only escape is through my own agency.  My own control.  My own power.

Power, after all, is an awesome thing.  It overwhelms us at times, blinding us to the deeper, better parts of ourselves.  It is a scary thing: a Pandora’s Box of sin that we fear and desire and loath and crave in equal stanzas. It is no wonder that so many people go to war to prevent me from having it.  To prevent me – and so many other women – from having the power over our own lives. Instead, they would “protect us” from our decisions.  From our inevitable wrong decisions.  After all, once we kill one life within us, inside of our flesh, that box of immorality is open and we will run wild with it.

Our demons (those inner witches that brew potions and worship the devil) will be free.  To seek out and destroy all that the better angels of mankind have sought to empower as they rule the earth, seeking righteousness.

But while the men of power seek righteousness, I seek justice.  I seek autonomy.  I seek responsibility and agency and moral courage.  I seek the recognition and respect and awe of the power that accepts this truth: that my body is my own.

And so we go to war.  WAR.

The W is for Women.  For worth, warrior, witch, whimsical, whenever, whatever, wrath, waking, want . . . want . . . want.

The A is for Agency.  For ability, aggression, autonomy, amplify, anger, ambition, arduous, absolute, anticipate, ache . . . ache . . . ache.

The R is for Responsibility.  For ranting, reminder, reflection, resolve, reflex, remunerate, retain, regain, rejoice, renew, review, rave, rage . . . rage . . . rage.

What does war look like?  Taste like?  Smell like?  Images and soundtracks come to mind from centuries of conflict: guns roaring, cannons booming, flesh burning, bombs exploding.

Except now, the war is also at home.  At home in my body, on my body, because of my body.

And yet still, they do not understand that this WAR OF MY BODY is exactly that.  Of my body.

My body.
My choice.

My Intimate War.

Photo Credits: Galena Volunteer Fire Department and Sessions Magazine.
This post is part of the Intimate Wars Blog Series appearing at Fem2.0 and On the Issues Cafe January 17-18, 2012 in celebration of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the release of Merle Hoffman’s memoirs, Intimate Wars.  You can purchase a copy of her book here.  To submit a post for the blog series, please contact us, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter using #intimatewars.

As we celebrate the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the release of my memoir, Intimate Wars, I and others will be sharing our stories of how abortion and the right to reproductive freedom has been personal to us. Because for women whose bodies have become battlegrounds in the struggle for reproductive freedom and justice, the intimacy of this war is profound. Now is the time to reflect on just what the war on women means for the millions of us who are – and will be – touched by this very public debate of this very private act. Follow our journey today and tomorrow and be sure to join us on Twitter at #intimatewars. Below is an excerpt from my memoir about my own abortion experience.

An excerpt from Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room

My debate was taped on a Friday. I had taken a pregnancy test that morning, leaving my urine at Choices, the reproductive health clinic I founded. My period was a couple of weeks late, and I was worried. I was always so careful, almost obsessive, but no method of birth control is perfect.

As the debate progressed, I experienced an odd sort of splitting off. I responded to the gibes and questions of my opponent, all the while thinking that I could be pregnant. I felt removed enough to appreciate the irony of the situation, a battle being waged on multiple tracks. I was performing politically for the cameras and debating emotionally with myself.

In the closing argument I made a passionate plea for the importance of women’s lives, for remembering that the abortion “issue” was ultimately about that. Thousands of individual stories, thousands of different reasons, all culminating in one shared ambiguous reality—a reality I was beginning to enter.

I finished the taping and asked to use the studio phone to call my office. The assistant stood next to me, engaging me in conversation; I was talking, laughing. Then I got on the phone, spoke to my secretary, and found out that the pregnancy test was positive. It took my breath away.

Sweating profusely, I wondered whether I had stained the outfit I was wearing for the debate. I called a cab, flattened my back against the seat, and took slow, deep breaths, trying to keep from feeling suffocated. The idea of abortion was a valve, an opening, a way to breathe. There was no question of whether I would have one. As we crossed the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge, I held my stomach and said aloud, “Sorry little one, it’s just not time.” My diary entry from that night reads, “For one night I am

a mother.” I don’t remember whether or not I slept. I only remember my exhaustion and an overriding sense of inevitability. The next morning I dressed carefully in a red-and-white suit. What does one wear to an abortion? There are no traditional costumes like those for funerals or weddings. There is no ritual from one generation of women to another to look to as a guide. There are only functional considerations; you wear something that comes on and off quickly and easily.

At Choices, the steps of the familiar process played out in surreal reversal. The blood tests, the images of the sonogram, the table, the stirrups—they were all for me. Marty stood at the head of the table and held my hand while Dr. Mohammed performed the abortion. Now I was joined to the common experience of my sex. But as I lay on the table I had stood beside to support so many others, I felt irrevocably alone. The hands that touched and caressed my hair felt as if they moved through a dark porous divide that separated me from everything that I knew or had been before. As I spread my legs like all my sisters, I thought of the child whose time was not now. Strange how I thought of the fetus as female, as if that shared gender gave me a more special connection.

Yet despite that connection, the recognition of the fetus’s potential to become my child, I knew that I could not allow this pregnancy to come to term. My sense of self, my sense of time, the flow of my movement toward goals that I had created had been interrupted the moment my test came back positive. The fetus was an invader, a separate force growing inside me, demanding and creating potentially unalterable realities. I couldn’t let my life become someone else’s.

After my abortion, as I slowly awoke from the anesthesia, I became conscious of immense and overwhelming feelings: non-specific, non-directed. Love, relief—then sadness.

A few days later, walking down the hallway in Choices, I heard loud, wrenching sobs coming from the recovery room. A woman was waking from anesthesia and crying for her mother. I went to her bed, lowered the side rails, and gently tried to soothe her. As I bent down to her face she whispered in a halting Russian accent, “You’re the only one I have now, I’m all alone. You’ve saved my life by being here.” I held the woman close, enormously moved, savoring our connection. There was no good or bad, no issue of choice. There was nothing more than the pure energy of survival, and women doing what they had been doing for centuries throughout history, what they will do forever.

This post is part of the Intimate Wars Blog Series appearing at Fem2.0 and On the Issues Cafe January 17-18, 2012 in celebration of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the release of Merle Hoffman’s memoirs, Intimate Wars.  You can purchase a copy of her book here.  To submit a post for the blog series, please contact us, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter using #intimatewars.