My antenna zoomed up in February when Loretta Ross, currently Activist-In-Residence, at Smith College, in her key-note address at the Take Root conference, spoke about how Reproductive Justice framing had been stimulated by women of color’s exposure to and interaction with the international women’s community. The human rights framing that international activists spoke from was not commonly used among US based groups at the time, in the early 1990s. As a kind of side comment, Ross mentioned that their Reproductive Justice concepts were now beginning to expand and deepen international human rights work.

Two simultaneous images popped into my mind’s eye. One was the significance of learning from and being exposed to groups in other countries and cultures. Second, is how good old American ingenuity, in this case personal is political experiences of women of color, can deepen the human-rights-political context.

Since stepping into my present work to galvanize, and resource, the US based women-lead media community with a long term aim to encourage its interaction with the international women’s media community, I had instinctively known a part of this equation of global interactions. Suddenly, Ross’ comments provided me a new framework in which to explore and deepen an analysis of women’s media within a gender justice frame. Most critically, I began to see how points of evolution within the trajectory of Reproductive Justice can propel growth of gender justice media forward.

“We were making double time to keep up. It made us very humble. Something most Americans are not used to,” recounted Loretta Ross when I spoke with her on the phone in March. She was describing how American women of color health activists were behind the curve at the 1994 global meeting in Cairo, UN International Conference on Population and Development.  Ross described how a number of these women of color “de-briefed” shortly after the Cairo meeting at the Illinois Pro-Choice conference.

Zakiya Luna, MSW, PhD, University of California, President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at the School of Law, has been documenting the history and evolutions within the Reproductive Justice movement since 2007. About the Black Women’s Caucus at the Chicago Pro-Choice conference in 1994, she writes “reproductive health integrated into social justice” became the new framing that these women crafted from the combined lessons of their own practice and their interaction with international human rights activists. This new theory was midwifed from practical, experiential activism.  Over time, and through creation, and evolutions, of a national network, SisterSong, the 1994 phrase has been shortened to Reproductive Justice.

In Ireland, I called Niall Behan, Chief Executive of the Irish Family Planning Association, the country’s leading sexual health charity. “We are always looking to the international community for what new issues are emerging.  A few years back Loretta Ross gave a very informative seminar,” Behan recalled. He explained how the complications of a blanket ban on contraceptives makes achievement of their mission “promoting the right of all people to sexual and reproductive health information and dedicated, confidential and affordable healthcare services” challenging.

“Loretta gave us a framework in which to look at all these issues. Also on class issues, how failure to have comprehensive reproductive health care impacts most severely on poor women. People can see the links, that there is a common thread between poverty and health care, for instance.”

Behan concluded our conversation with this important comment, “Anti-choice work in Ireland is borrowed from evangelists in the U.S. So, it is good to get something back. Loretta’s analysis is very very helpful.”

Luna points to various other developments and international organizations that are crafting Reproductive Justice concepts into their work. Resurj is an international network of global young women “realizing sexual and reproductive justice” with a very powerful vision statement.  Among their work is a Call to Action in which they seek a revisit of Cario@20 platform originally formed two decades ago.  Especially in light of today’s youth demands for “fulfillment of human rights, including sexual and reproductive rights” they desire a fuller, more comprehensive analysis.

In Oakland, CA Core Align has a mission to “build a network of leaders working innovatively to change policies, culture and conditions that support all people’s sexual and reproductive decisions.”

Also, Luna outlined how new laws, for instance in California prevent all shackling of pregnant women. This evolved from a better understanding of what it means to be a pregnant incarcerated woman.

A sprinkling of brand new academic programs such as the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice, at the Yale Law School and Program for Sexual Rights and Reproductive Justice (SRRJ) at the University of Michigan are addressing reproductive justice analysis in their studies. A third program is the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law where Luna leads the center’s working group. She joined Kristin Luker and Jill Adams in “founding and shaping the first – and to date the only – multi-disciplinary policy research center dedicated to reproductive rights and justice.”

For women to see their many layered, lived experiences as the fundamental impetus for their actions is the true benefit that reproductive justice is bringing to women, not solely women of color. This was abundantly clear in story after story that unfolded at Take Root. The integration of many issues—economy, housing, education, information, etc—into an over-arching analysis is re-invigorating activism, going back to original roots of the early women’s liberation movement. As Luna states, “The problems are mutli-faceted, so therefore the solutions need to be multi-faceted, as well.”

A conference, Reproductive Justice: Activists, Adocates and Academics in Ann Arbor at the end of May is a strategic meeting ground for formulating new research that is informed by applied projects and advocacy.

There is lots of organizing to do, papers to write, systemic change to make in women’s real lives that the dynamic theories of reproductive justice can foster. There is a vital role for gender justice media making – as a cacophony of women’s voices, visions and information exchange – to play in broadcasting these processes and women’s lived experiences.  The good international gathering place to shop that energy around is the next International Forum of AWID, in Spring 2015 spurting a big learning curve for all of us! Check out AWID’s Resource and Learning Hub: Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women’s Rights and Justice, as a first step.

Ariel Dougherty, national director of Media Equity Collaborative, writes about the intersections of gender justice media, women’s rights and their funding. Research and documents she has developed over the past years can be found  at http://www.scribd.com/ariel_dougherty

Credit: Charlotte Cooper, under Creative Commons

Last year, Savita Halappanavar, an Indian woman being treated in a hospital in Ireland, was denied a life saving abortion because of the country’s strict Catholic code of conduct.  She died. The world was outraged as it came face to face with the horrifying truth that when religion guides your government, the death toll rises. Now we are again facing a situation in which a woman is being killed by her nonviable fetus, and the country in question adheres to strict standards that do not consider women’s lives a priority.

22 year old Beatriz – already a mother of one –  is suffering from lupus and kidney disease, conditions made even more dangerous by her nonviable pregnancy. The fetus she has been carrying for 4 1/2 months has no brain and only a partial skull. It has virtually no chance of survival. The fetus is also killing Beatriz.

But in El Salvador, all abortions are illegal. There are no exceptions, no extenuating circumstances, no options. If Beatriz’s doctors were to perform an abortion anyway, they could all face years in prison. For Beatriz herself, it could be even worse. After enduring these harrowing conditions and the trauma of such an abortion, she could be penalized by up to 50 years in jail.

A Catholic Country
Religion has always played a huge role in the inflexibility of the pro-life stance, declaring a life to begin at conception and that nothing and no one should kill that child for any reason. But when I think of El Salvador, I think not just of the iron grip of these strict Catholic teachings. I think also of the doctrine that grew out of the understanding of a few brave priests, who determined that in order to serve their people, they needed to interpret the Bible from a place of solidarity with the poor. This is liberation theology.

Liberation theology grew out of the desperate poverty, fear, and injustice imposed on the El Salvadoran people after centuries of colonial domination and then decades of military dictatorship, followed by civil war that disproportionately punished the indigenous and the poor. Traditional Catholic teachings said that the poor’s only hope for salvation was through obedience and acceptance. But Jesuit teachings and those priests who worked among the people knew that such doctrine could not and would not ring true with a population so marginalized and so terrorized. Instead,  they joined with the workers and the poor to fight back against structural hegemony that threatened the very lives and livelihoods of the country’s people.

How is this relevant? Financial hardship, lack of access to comprehensive sexual education, and no health care make poor women disproportionately affected by the need for reproductive health and abortion services worldwide. Once again, we see the institutional privilege of the church overwhelming impacting poor people – in this case, women – by devaluing their lives and their very humanity in order to preserve ancient customs and power structures that support the Catholic Church’s influence on the El Salvadoran government.

And so what is interesting about Beatriz’s story is that the same Catholic doctrines that are preventing her from receiving this life saving medical procedures are the ones that have traditionally oppressed the people of El Salvador. These teachings aren’t about compassion or justice. They are – as they have always been – about propping up the control of the Church and sacrificing the lives of the poor in order to do so.  Beatriz needs an intervention of liberation theology to save her life.

Woman, Criminal, Felon
The hospital where Beatriz is being treated has petitioned the Supreme Court to allow their doctors to perform this life-saving abortion, but months later, they’ve received no response.  This isn’t surprising considering not just the grip of the church on public life, but also how very brutally strict the anti abortion laws are in El Salvador. In 2006, the New York Times published an article called “Pro-Life Nation” that speaks of horrifying methods of control over women’s bodies and criminal prosecution for anything that seems to consider the word abortion. Doctors are required by law to report to the authorities if they see a patient whom they suspect of having had an abortion. And then there’s this:

In the event that the woman’s illegal abortion went badly and the doctors have to perform a hysterectomy, then the uterus is sent to the Forensic Institute, where the government’s doctors analyze it and retain custody of her uterus as evidence against her.”

During the course of an investigation, a woman’s body is literally considered a crime scene. This is all even before a woman (and her doctors and anyone associated with the “crime”) is put through the trauma of a trial and convicted. Because believe it or not, it can get worse. In El Salvador, longer sentences are considered more prestigious ”wins” for the prosecutor, and so we’ve seen an increase in the number of late term abortions being classified as aggravated homicides.  Aggravated homicide can carry penalties of up to 50 years in prison.

How the Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Movements Can Work Together to Save Beatrice

Working with our allies over at RHRealityCheck and Care2, I started a petition to the government of El Salvador to allow these doctors to perform this abortion and save Beatriz’s life.  As of now, the petition has over 21,000 signatures from outraged men and women all over the world who are in shock and disbelief that our global community is allowing this to happen yet again.  But what’s struck me though is not just the outpouring of support for this woman, but the support that is coming from people who self-identify as pro-life.  Read the petition and its signatures here  and you’ll see what I mean.

Two years ago, I wrote a blog post for Fem2.0 about finding common ground with the pro-life community. About how I’d be more willing to work with them if the movement itself wasn’t almost entirely rooted in punishing women for having sex. That’s what it means when you are anti sexual education, anti birth control, etc.  Of course, there are rays of hope.  All Our Lives is an inspired organization that should really get more attention than it does.  From their mission statement: 

Are you pro-birth control? Pro-sex education? Pro-LGBT rights? Pro-every-life, before and after birth? Welcome to All Our Lives! All Our Lives defends women’s right to voluntarily make all non-violent choices about sexuality and reproduction. We defend a woman’s right to choose her own sexual partners without shame or coercion or discrimination, to have no sexual partners at all if she so desires, to choose to attempt conception or to prevent it by the methods that work best for her, to raise any children she might bear in safety and with dignity, and to be free of dominance and violence. We promote a sexual ethic that combines freedom with responsibility toward not only one’s self and one’s partner, but also toward any children who might be conceived.

These are the kinds of people who are also standing behind Beatriz.  Who are calling on the government to have compassion and concern for this woman, to save her life. In this, when the fetus is nonviable and is responsible – like a parasite – for killing the mother, in this we can all surely stand together.  Because there is nothing pro-life about allowing Beatriz to die.

Gaining Support
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights have called on the government of El Salvador to save Beatriz’s life.  Both El Salvador’s Minister of Health and Attorney General for Human Rights support allowing an exception to save Beatriz’ life, yet still  the Supreme Court has delayed making this literally life and death decision. Now this impoverished young mother has entered early stage renal failure as her pregnancy steadily destroys her kidneys.

The UN is behind her, El Salvadoran government officials are behind her, even pro-life advocates in the United States are behind her. It’s imperative that we keep up the pressure and demand they save her life. I don’t know about you, but I can’t allow another Savita Halappanavar to die. We can save Beatriz – we must save Beatriz.

We may only have days. Please, share this story and sign the petition: bit.ly/savebeatriz.

Beatriz hasn’t given up hope yet – we shouldn’t either.

Photo Credit: Vernon Shaw via Creative Commons

Dear Anti Sex Ed Crowd:

Greetings and salutations! I bet you’re surprised to hear from me. After all, you’ve spent some time lately calling me a terrible mother (on television no less) because I advocate for a much-needed update to Nevada’s sex education standards — originally passed at the height of the AIDS-panic-1980s — that at its core is a mandate for abstinence-only scare-tactics about diseases on your privates. But we’ll get to that.

Maybe because Mother’s Day is right around the corner, I’ve been thinking about you and your unsympathetic, aggressive campaign against bringing comprehensive sex education to Nevada. Surely, you only compare things to Hitler and Nazis when they really, really deserve to be villianized as lacking any moral compass whatsoever. You don’t just go around TEXT SHOUTING onto the public record that sex education in schools is a PARENTAL COP OUT unless you have some solid data to back that up, right? I mean, that would be an irresponsible abuse of the standards of basic human decency and decorum that we live by in a civilized society. And, I know you’d never be one of those people who physically threaten violence when someone tells a story you disagree with at a public hearing. Because that would be immoral.

You’re very fond of talking about morality. It makes me wonder what would Jesus do if He saw you up on that moral-high-ground perch you’ve climbed onto. Not a lot of passages in the Bible about Jesus telling people to judge others — at least, not in the Bible I read at church every Sunday.

But with all your wisdom about morality, I’m sure you know that comparing a bill about school curriculum to Nazi genocide is immoral. They’re not even in the same league, and it belittles the real suffering of people who went through the Holocaust. Stop that. The same goes for calling whole groups of people terrible parents because they advocate for public education. That is immoral. Threatening violence against another person simply because you disagree with them, well, we know that’s immoral. Because if I’ve learned one thing from the pictures of dead fetuses you like to send me, it’s that you have a reverence for life. Your zest for life is so super-charged, it elevates a fetus above a fully formed, sentient woman any day of the week (twice on Sunday)! Now that’s a respect for life!

When I was sitting in church this past week, I was thinking about you. And yes, it’s a real-deal, Christians-who-love-Jesus United Church of Christ church. I was thinking about how you might be sitting in church at that same moment, reading or listening to scriptures from the Bible and nodding affirmingly to whatever sermon you were hearing. I was sitting next to my husband of almost 16 years (we’re high school sweethearts even!) and our beautiful daughter, the joy of our lives. Probably not that much different than what you do on Sundays either, right? So, I was thinking about you as my reverend was talking about forgiveness and grace; that we as Christians are charged to live by example and to take God’s shining light into the world. We are charged to give of ourselves, to lift up the down-trodden, and to go forth humbly because none of us are without sin. I was nodding. I was saying, “Amen!” But secretly, I was thinking about you. And I was wondering how I could ever forgive you for the things you are saying, not just about me, but about our neighbors and fellow Nevadans.

How can I forgive you for hating me and everyone I am trying to lift up — when we have never even met? Would you say those things to my face? Would you call me those names in front of my two-year-old? After all the times you’ve called me an evil whore, a baby-killing slut, and godless jezebel who will feel the fires of hell — and that was before you started calling me a bad mother — I must admit to struggling mightily to find a way to turn the other cheek. Again. And again. I struggle to just ignore you, let alone forgive you.

Because I can’t understand, let alone forgive, a person who would deny others a right to a complete public education. How can I forgive a person who wants to use my religion as a bludgeoning tool? How can I forgive a person who speaks on the public record about how homosexuality is “deviant behavior” and a “lifestyle choice” — as if Jesus made a distinction between who was worthy of His love and forgiveness and who was not? How can I forgive people who work to stop education that could save lives? Do you really think God approves of leaving young people in ignorance of their bodies? Do you really think that God wants young people to get diseases or have unintended pregnancies that they are not emotionally or financially ready for? If you so revere life, why wouldn’t you want to save lives by making sure people know how to protect themselves? Why wouldn’t you want to make sure there are less abortions because there are less unintended pregnancies causing them?

The only answer I can see is that you have absolutely no idea what the concept of morality is.

Because willfully denying people education that can save their lives — and make no mistake, understanding safer sex practices helps stop the spread of diseases like AIDS that kill people — is a public health issue. It is immoral to stand by and let people die out of ignorance. You are not just enabling ignorance, you are encouraging ignorance and that is true immoral behavior! And even as I feel the power of the Lord in my life as I write this, I feel certain that God weeps when people die of preventable diseases.

But let’s set the diseases aside for a moment. Because disease is not the only symptom of an uneducated, ignorant community — and let’s be clear that is what you are advocating when you rally against sex education. There is more to the health and well-being of a person than just worrying about diseases. Let’s look at teen pregnancy. Nevada has the fourth highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. And you are fond of negating that statistic with the fact that our teen pregnancy rate has declined by nine percent. True. But that’s why we’ve gone down from being first in the nation to being fourth. Are you really proud of still being in the top five worst states for teen pregnancy? Is that really something to applaud? Whoopidydoo! We’re not the worsty-worst!

How about asking yourself why we are so terrible at helping our youth prevent unwanted pregnancies? I’ll tell you why: Abstinence-only. Nevada’s current sex education curriculum requires a unit on AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as “sexual responsibility,” with an emphasis on abstinence. And while comprehensive sex education standards also emphasize abstinence, the difference here is that Nevada’s current law only gives abstinence information. In most cases, there is little to nothing about birth control. There is nothing about what consent means — and why a lack of consent to sex is the definition of rape. And that’s if — and only if — you happen to live in one of Nevada’s 17 counties in which there is actually a designated educator for the sex education unit. According to testimony in the 2011 Legislature for a similar bill, by their own admission, many Nevada counties do not have a sex education curriculum or designated educator for their curriculum. They are willfully breaking the current law. So, I guess the students in those counties are just, well, screwed. Is it moral to treat students unequally? I thought the point of public education is that the standards are equal, so all people are treated to an equal education.

Abstinence-only is not only demonstrably a failure in Nevada, it’s a failed sex education system across the board. A Congressional study already confirmed that abstinence-only education does not work and the American Academy of Pediatricians has recommended a comprehensive sex education approach, which includes but is not limited to abstinence education. Indeed, studies show that medically accurate, comprehensive sex education actually results in a delay of the first sexual experience. Probably because when young people get all the facts, they realize that they are not ready for sex!

So, if you’re goal is to prevent kids from having sex, then teaching kids comprehensive sex education is actually exactly what you want!

But I can just hear you now, shaking your fist at the computer screen, saying, “But I don’t want the schools to teach my kids about sex. That’s my job!”

And I say to you: Go forth and teach your kids sex education! I hope you know what you’re talking about. Do you know what to say about sexting? How about cyber-bullying? Rape? What does herpes look like? Can boys get HPV?  … Whew! It’s a lot to cover on your own. Good luck!

The reason why I can happily wave to you as you trot off to not-talk-to-your-kids-about-sex-because-it-scares-you, is that there is an escape hatch for folks like you built right into the law. You can opt-out of letting your kid(s) get educated! In fact, it’s probably one of the few times in your parenting career when you will face little-to-no shame for willfully removing your child from the classroom. Think about it. You can’t opt your kid out of math, science, or reading, but you can opt them out of sex ed? What a country! That’s because there is no graduation requirement to have sex education in Nevada. And, like I said before, you can totally opt your kid out!

Now, you may have heard that the proposed comprehensive sex education law, AB230 in the Assembly, is changing the parental permission standards. True. It’s going from a permission slip to be allowed to be IN class to a permission slip to be taken OUT of class. Right now, Nevada is one of only three states with an opt-in requirement, meaning that parents actually have to sign a permission slip to allow kids to have sex education. About four percent of students end up sitting out of sex education simply because they forgot to get the permission slip to their parents (or forgot to return it). So, really we’re talking about the four percent of kids who are missing out on education that their parents want them to have just because of a paperwork problem. That’s the dumbest reason ever for a kid to miss a class!

The other thing I can hear you screaming at me is that the new comprehensive sex education bill would “take away local authority.” Or, actually, the exact opposite. AB230 has a requirement for a local committee to oversee and approve regular updates to the curriculum. It’s actually pretty much the same thing we have now. I know, I’ve sat in on the Clark County committee before. True story: They didn’t want to allow a text book because it had a drawing of human anatomy. So, there’s your local control, working hard to control any kind of enlightenment whatsoever.

And don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of people from rural counties with legal brothels that pay their property taxes being against sex education. (Not that all rural folks are against sex ed.) What do you think the people at the brothels are doing? How is it possible that you can drive right by the brothel that pays for your fire department services and turn in to a meeting to talk about how we should never, ever, ever, ever talk to kids about penises and vaginas? It boggles my mind. And you do realize that rural counties have a much higher rate of teen pregnancy than anywhere else in the nation, right?

And come on, those are just red herrings anyway. Be honest now. You are just terrified about talking about sex with your kid(s). You don’t want them to learn that there are different people in the world, some even that you judge to be “bad” people. But just because you don’t like those people, it doesn’t make them disappear from existence. Just because you don’t like thinking about your child having sex, it doesn’t make them not have sex. Please! If that worked, I wouldn’t be alive! Yes, I am the product of a teen pregnancy statistic! (Cue: Gasps)

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. I can feel you judging my mother right now. Yes, she was a teen mother. She also dropped out of college and raised me in poverty because of it — two things that are highly correlated to teen pregnancy, in fact. But right about now, I bet you’re sort of wishing she’d had that abortion when she was pregnant with me. Because then maybe you wouldn’t have to put up with this pain-in-your-ass prochoice, Christian, suburban, married, stay-at-home mom (really, we have so much more in common than you like to think) who keeps talking about why our state needs comprehensive sex education. I was there on April 1 when you were testifying before the Assembly committee about “unwed teen pregnancy” being a “natural punishment” for premarital sex. As if my childhood wasn’t hard enough, I have had to deal with people like you my whole life talking about my very existence as a punishment for my mother’s bad decisions. What was that thing the reverend said on Sunday? Oh yes: Judge not, lest ye be judged. But thanks for belittling my existence by implying that in my case there was no “miracle” to my conception, but rather a Job-like sentence made flesh, from a wrathful God. Thanks for that. On behalf of all “bastard” children everywhere, I thank you for your charity, kindness, and loving spirit in God’s name. You’re really nailing it.

That sort of brings me back to where we started when I sat down to write this letter. I wanted you to get to know me, your apparent foe. Because from what I can tell by what you are saying about me online and on TV and on the public record in legislative meetings, you don’t know me at all. You’ve created a sort of convenient caricature of me, and people like me. You’ve cast me as a godless sodomite who seeks to destroy the fabric of our society by advocating that public education has a minimum standard that includes sex ed curriculum that is medically accurate and age-appropriate. You’ve vilified me as a terrible mother because I recognize that not all families are whole and functional. Indeed, not all people are whole and functional. Some of us are ill-equipped to tackle big topics like sex education with our kids. And not everyone is as lucky as me to have friends who work as professional sex education instructors. Does it make us bad parents if we seek outside resources to shore up our weaknesses? I don’t have a clue how to teach my daughter Calculus. If she expresses a desire to learn it, am I a failure as a parent because I can’t teach her myself? I seem to recall some of you testifying that you checked out materials from the public library to teach your own kids sex ed. So, you can access publicly funded educational materials, but if we seek to make that available to everyone in a classroom setting, we’re abdicating our parental responsibility?

No. You’re wrong. You’re a hypocrite. You do not have the moral high-ground just because you throw God and Jesus’ names into the mix. You do not know more about being a parent than me because you have more children than me. You do not know what is best for my daughter. I do. And in the face of you hurling insults and mischaracterizations at me, I still respect you enough to make sure that you can legally decide what you think is best for your child(ren). It doesn’t matter if I think you’re wrong in how you raise your kids. I respect that you have that right. I was perfectly happy to turn my cheek again and again. Because unlike you, I don’t claim to know what’s best for your child(ren). I don’t take some imaginary moral high-ground and call you a simpleton or a fear-monger or a closed-minded bigot because you’d rather teach people to hate those who are not like them than to just simply acknowledge that they exist, without judgement (as that guy Jesus commanded). I don’t shame girls for having sex or making decisions about their bodies. I don’t threaten people with violence because they do not agree with me. I don’t create a culture of fear in the classrooms of young men and women so that they are too afraid to ask the important questions that need asking. The questions that can lead to valuable information that maybe, just maybe, might save a life. I advocate for comprehensive sex education because I want my daughter to have comprehensive sex education.

I think standing in the way of education is morally bankrupt. I think standing up and judging people (for their purported mistakes, like being raped) in a public forum is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. And I think that just because I believe in Jesus and I have a path that is right for me, that does not give me the right to force other people down that same path. I don’t demonize those who have a different faith (or none at all) than me. That’s not my business. And it’s not yours either.

You claim to be standing up for your beliefs. I’m doing the same. I’d like to think we can each have our opinions and debate them in a peaceful, respectful way. But that would require you to be a peaceful, respectful person. Everything you show me is quite the opposite. You want to attack any person who is not exactly like you, who does not believe exactly like you. That’s not the country we live in. We live in a country founded on the idea that people have a right to worship as they please, and to pursue happiness. You don’t get to decide what everybody else believes and what makes everybody else happy. And whether you believe in God or little blue fairies, it doesn’t change the fact that comprehensive sex education saves lives and prevents pregnancies (which in turn, prevent abortions and we all know how you feel about abortions).

It’s too bad that you don’t like comprehensive sex education, but that’s your right not to like it. But I’ll be damned if I let bullies like you silence me or anyone else from advocating for it. Because when you try to smear us or brand us as bad people, you are being a bully. And you are trying to keep me quiet. But I have right to say my piece.

And just one more thing: I want you to look around for a moment. I want you to remember the children, those very same little humans you are always claiming to be doing everything for. They are watching us. They are watching us have this debate. What are they learning from you right now? What are they learning about how to have a civilized, peaceful debate with somebody? What are you teaching them about your own ethics and morals right this minute when you call me a whore or a terrible mother because I disagree with you? Is that good parenting? I think actions speak louder than words, my friend.

I know we are far from finished with this debate. Going forward, I do hope for one thing: That we can have this debate as respectful adults, not children on a schoolyard. I hope that when we disagree — and we probably will — that neither side resorts to petty name-calling. But I really hope I never, ever again see a group of so-called Christians sit in a public hearing and make jokes during testimony from a rape survivor. That is grotesque cruelty. Be the people you say you are. Act as you believe God would want you to act. Really and truthfully think about what that means. Does God command us to go out and bully others to think like us? Or, does He ask us to lead by example in humble service to the world? Let’s discuss this thing as peacefully as possible. Open your heart to new possibilities and understanding. And at the end of the day, let’s remember that we are each other’s neighbors.

And for the love of God, stop calling names to those who are on the opposite side of the issue as you! There’s nothing morally superior about that!

Respectfully,

Emmily

This piece was originally posted on the The Sin City Siren and it’s cross-posted here with permission.

Photo Credit: Paree from Creative Commons

The Virginia State Board of Health voted just yesterday to adopt stricter building regulations for abortion clinics. These new regulations are designed to – you guessed it – force the clinics to close as it is virtually impossible to comply with the new standards in the time frame allowed.

This is the new front of the abortion battles – anti choice lawmakers pushing through legislation with absurd building requirements so as to force abortion clinics to close when they can’t comply. It’s not just in Virginia, either. Four days ago, Alabama’s Governor Robert Bentley signed a TRAP bill (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) requiring these clinics to have such things as wider hallways and bigger parking lots, as well as be staffed only by doctors who have admitting privileges at local hospitals. (For what it’s worth, these restrictions are so severe that even most hospitals would not be able to obey the regulations.)  Mississippi is another state whose TRAP law makes such strict requirements.

But back to Virginia.  Where do all these laws come from? In Virginia’s case (which as I mentioned is just the latest state to pull this trick), it can be traced to Ken Cuccinelli.  If you’re not familiar with him, if his name doesn’t roll off your tongue (as you sport a look of total disgust of course), practice saying it a few times. Because if you don’t start paying close attention to him, he’s going to be Virginia’s next Governor. And he’s going to bring the 1950s back with him.

This is pretty much what we mean when we talk about “extreme” – extreme abortion restrictions and extreme politicians.  ”Extreme” should really be Ken Cuccinelli’s middle name as far as the pro-choice advocacy community should be concerned. Because it goes much farther than his recent efforts to overturn a court’s decision deeming the Virginia’s anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional.

Let’s just take a quick look at some of his choiciest anti-choice sentiments:

Here’s a sample of what he thinks about women’s decision-making capabilities when it comes to their own bodies:

Here he is bragging about trying to deny women access to basic health services:

And my ultimate favorite: here he is comparing the fight to combat abortion with the fight to end slavery.

Yes you read that right -SLAVERY.

And so we see where we are – a man who thinks the Catholic church is too dependent on government, who thinks there’s no such as thing as safe homosexual sex, and who is proud of his efforts to deny medical procedures to women in need. And make no mistake, he’s been making his mark on Virginia.

The majority of the members on the 15 person VA Board of Health were appointed by Governor Bob McDonnell, another gem in the anti-choice movement’s roster of politicians who just want to “protect women.” However, even these members thought the call for new restrictions was too much, and they tried to amend the regulations by grandfathering existing clinics from the new building requirements.  Here’s what the Richmond Times Dispatch reports happened next:

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli refused to certify the regulations saying the board lacked the authority to make a change that in the attorney general’s view was inconsistent with the original law. The memo from Cuccinelli’s office also suggested that board members might not qualify for representation from the office if they deviated from the legal advice that had been offered.

I’ll give you one guess as to whether the Board members stood their ground (hint: the answer is no). Luckily, there was at least one Virginia government official who took a stand here – Karen Remley, the Health Commissioner (in case you’re wondering, appointed by pro choice advocate Tim Kaine, current VA Senator and former VA Governor).  For Commissioner Remley however, it wasn’t just about standing up for women. She ended up resigning her position over the issue, declaring that the regulations had “created an environment in which [my] ability to fulfill [my] duties is compromised.”

Duties such as promoting the public interest? Protecting the public’s health? Yes, I agree, Ken Cuccinelli’s involvement does seem to bring about an inability to do that job.

Now that the Board of Health has voted to adopt the regulations, they will again return to Ken Cuccinelli and Governor Bob McDonnell for final review. And we can add yet another state to the list.

This piece was originally posted on the Left Standing Up Blog and it’s cross-posted it here with permission

Photo credit: KenOnTheIssues.com

This post is originally published at Choice USA.  It is cross-posted with permission.

Do you ever look at anti-choice news websites? I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you want to spend a good hour or so hate-clicking on sensationally titled articles out of a masochistic fascination. Reading their take on things is like looking in a fun-house mirror. Abortion causes breast cancer. Planned Parenthood is an abortion mill. Contraception ruins sex.  You thought Beyoncé’s super bowl performance was awesome, right? Nope, it turned our children into guinea pigs for “an unfettered, out of control social experiment.” Up is down, down is up.

But sometimes news comes down that is unequivocally pro-choice.  What do anti-choice news site do then? Spin, baby, spin… and sometimes straight up lie.

For example, earlier this month two separate reports were released that showed historic drops in teen pregnancy, one nationwide and one that focused specifically on New York City schools.

Quick caveat here: our discussion of these studies should not suggest something inherently wrong with teenagers being pregnant or becoming parents. Lord knows, there is enough shaming and stigmatizing young people for their sexuality and reproductive health decisions – we’re not trying to add to that. But studies show that 82% percent of pregnancies among teenagers are unintended. It’s safe to assume that these large decreases in pregnancy among teens reduced that rate of unintended pregnancy.

So, fewer teenagers are finding themselves in the difficult situation of dealing with an unintended pregnancy. Break out the party hats, right? Not so fast, the studies show this decrease happened because – record scratch sound – more teenagers are using contraception.

“I think the main thing behind this is increased contraceptive use, and better contraceptive use,” Dr. Krishna Upadhya, who studies teen pregnancy at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told Reuters Health.

This theory is further strengthened by the results in NYC schools. From 2001 to 2011, the rate of teen pregnancy dropped 27% (!). During that same period New York City public schools have increased the availability of birth control and emergency contraception in schools.

So how can anti-choice news websites spin this pro-choice news? Well many just ignored it. Some credit abstinence-only programs, despite the fact that the study states with abstinence-only programs have the highest teen pregnancy rates.

Some note the study’s assertion that contraception caused the drop, but then suggest that contraception does not prevent pregnancy.

But then others just choose to lie about it. Live Action News (the young, hip anti-choice site) took this opportunity to gin up fears about the NYC contraception program, Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Health (CATCH). Without even mentioning the drop in teen pregnancy rates, they paint CATCH as an extreme program with out-of-control school nurses inserting IUDs in little girls without parents knowing it and morning-after pills “handed out like candy.”

The truth is that this program makes accessing contraception private, easy, and free – removing the barriers regularly keep young people from accessing sexual and reproductive health services. Of course, contrary to what Live Action reported, parents were able to opt their children out of the program. CATCH does provide a variety of birth control methods and although they make recommendations for IUDs, they do not insert them in schools.

It may not be surprising that anti-choice websites spread this misinformation, but it’s important to counter with facts because anti-choice lies and spin can have real influence on those with the power to turn their distortions into policy.

Kate Londen is the Communications Manager for Choice USA.  Before joining the team at Choice USA, she worked as a Communications Associate for the global nonprofit, One Economy. When she’s not writing, talking, or reading about reproductive justice, Kate can be found pursuing the perfect handmade pasta, watching college football, or playing with her dog, Toby.  

Photo credit: outcast104 via photopin cc.

As a reproductive justice advocate at one of the most conservative colleges in the country (that is The Catholic University of America) the last few years have been nothing short of challenging. Figuring out how to get around the no condoms policy, being slut-shamed by a doctor at my campus health center, getting my favorite professor in deep shit for allowing me to talk about my pro-choice views in class, volunteering as a clinic escort at the same clinic my some of my peers sit and pray outside of — yes, I’d say it has been a challenge.

These challenges have made me bitter. Bitter about the fact that I’m consistently denied my right to do or say anything about these issues. But bitter has made me want to speak louder, it has made me want to talk about it more, listen to people’s stories, strategize, obsess, and do something about it. And as I’ve come to obsess about this, I’ve gained a bit of a reputation. I am that girl. The girl that drives around in the bright blue car covered in liberal bumper stickers that has been dubbed by some as the “dykemobile.” The girl that always talks about that “reproductive justice” stuff. That girl that knows everything about sex. The girl you go to, and you send your friends to, for any question you may have about sex.

Becoming that girlhas been awesome, especially because I hope to one day become a real human sexuality educator. But being that girlat The Catholic University of America? It’s also terrifying. Not because I fear getting caught, but because the stories and questions my peers (and even a professor or two) have shared with me are scary. So many of these people have no clue about their sexual health; they were never taught about it, and now, as adults, they don’t know where to go or who to talk to.

Most of my friends are not on birth control. Most of them have never been tested for STD’s (in Washington, D.C., HIV is an epidemic). Most of them use condoms most of the time, but not all the time (like those drunken 3AM nights when spending your last $5 on pizza seems like a much better decision than spending it on a few condoms); and never during oral sex. Most of my friends had abstinence-only education. Most of my friends can’t ask their family members about sex and their bodies because they fear their parents’ wrath. Most of my friends can’t go to our campus health center because they refuse to offer any services that might encourage more sex.

Most of my friends are having sex, yet they feel like it’s something to be ashamed of. What would my parents think? What would my church think? They have been taught their entire lives that sex outside of marriage is bad, they have been denied their right to comprehensive sex education. Most of them are comfortable in their decision to become sexually active, but so many of them feel ashamed, embarrassed, and uncomfortable talking about it. They were never given the tools to take care of their bodies; they either don’t know where to start, or they don’t understand why they need to start.

Most of my friends have been lied to, and as they begin to navigate the world as adults, they seem to struggle in determining what is true and what isn’t. “I would be on birth control but I’m not because I just don’t have enough sex to be paying that kind of money. I go months without sex, that’s months of money spent on birth control for no reason.” And, “I’m under CUA’s insurance. You think I’m going to spend $100 a month on birth control pills? I’d rather just have sex when its safe.” (Safe, she claimed, was the first few days after her period.)

So many of my peers seem to be lost. They simply don’t understand the risks they are taking by not being safe about sex. Why would they? How are they supposed to figure it out if they don’t even know where to look? What if they don’t know why they need to to look?

It is because of this that I will be watching carefully how the new opt-out of the contraception mandate will be implemented. The devil will be in the details. The Obama administration has clarified that for non-profits who consider themselves to be religious institutions, such as my alma mater, they will not have to pay for contraception in their health plans. However coverage will be provided in a wholly separate plan provided by the insurance company. It is probably safe to assume this extra step of a separate plan will involve additional paperwork and processes to get the contraception-only coverage activated. This may sound simple to some, but for those who are navigating the healthcare world on their own for the first time (and the sexual world!) this may prove harder than it seems.

This White House has brought an unprecedented expansion of access to contraception and a whole host of other sexual and reproductive health services. I hope these rules are implemented in a way that doesn’t tarnish that record by putting barriers up for students at religious institutions. Students at my school are having sex, not talking about it, and have been continuously brushed to the side, as though we need access to contraceptives less than everyone else. Please trust me when I say, I used to live in a fraternity house, we need our contraceptives. We deserve access to contraceptives, to information, to sexual health resources. We demand it.

Callie Otto is a Catholic University Students for Choice co-founder & Choice USA intern.

The piece is cross-posted with permission from Choice USA

Photo credit: Spentpenny via Creative Common 

Like many young women and men who are activists in the DC pro-choice
community I looked forward to the Roe v. Wade Dinner that NARAL Pro-Choice
America held earlier this month. This year was special not just because it was the
40th anniversary of when abortion was declared legal by the Supreme Court, but
because the new NARAL President, Ilyse Hogue, would make her official debut.

After much fanfare in 2012, NARAL President Nancy Keenan decided to step
down. In her stead she very much wanted a younger woman who could speak to a
younger generation of activists in a way she no longer believed she and others of her
generation could. At the dinner there was much chatter about what Ilyse would say.
What I saw throughout the dinner and heard from Ilyse and others is a recognition
of the need to change the game in the fight.

NARAL knows young people are crucial to this fight. At the dinner was the debut of
Choice Out Loud their project targeting millennials and our experience and voices
for choice. They also debuted a short film about a young anti-choice activist every
bit as committed to his work. And recently, NARAL has re-activated its campus
program too. As young people, we have taken to this fight on not only working on
political campaigns to elect pro-choice candidates, volunteering for abortion funds,
investing in clinic defense work, but also online blogging, tweeting, and facebooking
the importance of reproductive health and rights.

Ilyse, a Gen Xer who made her name in the progressive community in part because
of online strategy work, celebrated this by yelling at the dinner “Stand up if you
are tweeting during this dinner”. A bunch of hands including mine’s sheepishly (or
proudly) went up, all primarily young.

From Ilyse’s interviews since the dinner, it sounds like NARAL is gearing up for
redefining their strategy and messaging for the offense, as they should.

According to a recent article in TIME, 92 abortion regulating provisions—a record
number—passed in 24 states after Republicans gained new and larger majorities
in 2010 in many state legislatures. According to the recently debuted Makers
documentary on PBS, abortion providers nationwide have shrank by 40% in the
1980s. And it’s not getting any better.

In a recent Huffington Post interview, Ilyse expressed annoyance at repro rights
activists always having to play defense. “I think your biggest challenge and
opportunity as a movement is to not play on their field all the time, not respond to
every crazy bill, but to start to reclaim what is essentially a debate about a medical
procedure into a values-driven conversation about how women are treated in this
society”.

This sounds promising. What that exactly will look like, time will tell. But an
aggressive playbook that will help the more embattled NARAL affiliates would
be great. A plan that will help small but valiantly fighting affiliates do their job
to not only defeat legislation but introduce and pass legislation with a successful
coalition that is not just around abortion but is around ensuring access to abortion
for those who never have been able to due to numerous restrictions introduced
over the decades since Roe. Some of these restrictions are but not limited to the
Hyde Amendment, parental consent laws, to defunding Planned Parenthood,
writing Targeted Regulations for Abortion Providers (TRAP), required mandatory
ultrasounds, attempts to restrict contraception access in the new health care reform,
and the personhood legislation so extreme that even voters in Mississippi to one
look at that bill and voted it down.

All of these have made the intent of the antis clear, restrict access for women, since
the real fight of overturning Roe has alluded anti-choice activists for years. Indeed
rolling as much back as possible is the next logical step.

By not only reshaping the dialogue about abortion to talk more broadly about access
to women’s health care, young women and men across the country I believe will
become more engaged with NARAL. Millennials are the most diverse generation by
race, ethnicity, sexual orientation.

Because we are so diverse, young people in particular respond to a reproductive
justice framework that not only takes into account that Roe must remain law of the
land, but we must work to ensure that the promise of Roe is available for everyone.
According to research from Advocates for Youth, millennials specifically care about
reproductive and sexual health and access to services: they are “more likely to
support to support access to abortion” within their community (68 percent support)
and comprehensive sex education (88 percent support), than any other generation.

Young people work to fight for individuals and communities having the resources
and power to make these reproductive decisions. As a friend of mine said eloquently
once: “we are fighting for reproductive justice so everyone has their reproductive
rights.”

And I’m looking forward to what NARAL Pro-Choice America will bring to the fight.

Photo credit: ProgressOhio via photopin cc

Roe v. Wade recently turned 40 — and what better time than now to sort through the language we use to communicate about women’s right to safe and legal abortion. I say that with just a dash of sarcasm, but also with a great deal of seriousness.  The past two years of unrelenting assaults on abortion and birth control, in state legislatures and in Congress, might seem to call more for action than navel-gazing about language.  But the words we use really do mean something: They have the power to stir hearts, intrigue minds and inspire action.

“My body!  My life!  My right to decide!” was one of our chants at the candlelight vigil outside the Supreme Court on January 22.  I like that chant because, while it overtly affirms a woman’s right to choose abortion, it goes beyond the concept of choice.  It expresses a fundamental and universal aspiration — the desire to have final say-so over one’s own body, one’s own health, and indeed over the path one walks through life.

Far too often, the choices available to a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy are so few and bleak that it seems cruel to ask her to “choose” between dreadful Option A and really-no-better Option B.  Maybe her partner just lost his job, and although they’d love another child, they can’t afford it. Maybe she is overburdened, caring for her elderly mother and struggling to keep her kids clear of the gang that recently moved into the neighborhood. Maybe she just left a violent husband, and having a baby would give him access to her and the child for the rest of their lives, and that is simply not a future she deserves.  In none of these cases does Roe provide the woman the choice she might want. But it puts the decision in her hands, and that is something no one should be able to take from her.

Many organizations, including the National Organization for Women, have long observed that “choice” doesn’t fully encompass women’s need to control their own reproductive lives.  So these groups began advocating for reproductive rights from a social justice perspective. “Reproductive justice” advocates recognize, as do “pro-choice” advocates, that in order to participate equally in all aspects of society, women must be able to control their reproductive lives.  But reproductive justice advocates also recognize that in order to control their reproductive lives, women must have access to the full range of reproductive health services, including prenatal and postpartum care, screening and treatment for STDs, HIV, breast and cervical cancer, and comprehensive sex education, in addition to birth control and abortion. Blocking women from these services, whether by legal restriction (as with abortion or birth control) or by economic deprivation, is equally wrong, and our efforts must be equally and simultaneously aimed at changing both.

A reproductive justice lens allows us to see that lack of access to these essential services is not random, but experienced disproportionately by specific groups: women of color, immigrant women, Native American women, women with disabilities and young women.  Moreover, legislators’ attempts to restrict abortion have resulted in grievous collateral damage to other reproductive health services, which falls primarily upon those same groups.  For example, in the name of preventing tax dollars from supporting abortion services, right-wing lawmakers have defunded family planning clinics, depriving vulnerable people of all the reproductive health care services they were receiving at those clinics.  Similarly, TRAP laws (targeted regulation of abortion providers) aimed at closing clinics where abortions are performed deprive patients of the prenatal and related care those clinics also provide.

The mention of reproductive justice in a recent Time magazine article shows the concept is moving into mainstream consciousness.  Moreover, new polling suggests that the “pro-choice” label is no longer the only indicator of support for Roe v. Wade.  In fact, although public support for the Roe decision is higher today than it’s been in years, people are increasingly reluctant to call themselves “pro-choice.”  How is that possible?  It’s because more than a third of those who embrace the term “pro-life” do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe.

These latest surveys are undoubtedly making the leaders of the right-wing machine squirm.  Suddenly, they are no longer in control of what it means to be pro-life.  They coined the phrase “pro-life” in the first place because it played better than “anti-abortion.” And they have succeeded in attracting growing numbers of people who think of themselves as pro-life.  But now it seems their rhetorical strategy is backfiring, as a strong plurality of pro-life individuals insist on caring about the lives of women.  Who knew?

Pro-choice activists may find these developments confusing as well.  Doesn’t support for Roe, leaving the decision in the woman’s hands, automatically make a person pro-choice?  How can a person be both pro-life (that is, anti-abortion) and pro-choice (that is, supportive of Roe)?  Planned Parenthood offers a pragmatic way out of this semantic conundrum.  Looking at the shifting trends, it concludes simply that attitudes about abortion are complicated and highly personal.  Rather than allowing ourselves to be “boxed in” by the pro-choice versus pro-life label, we should be having conversations about abortion “based on mutual respect and empathy.”

I couldn’t agree more that choosing our words, and the frameworks that lie behind them, is critical to our mission.  Yes, women come from different life experiences, different mindsets, different backgrounds, and different generations — but those differences will prove to be our strength, not our downfall.  For some, the concept of “choice” speaks to us, it motivates us. For others, being ”pro-life” includes recognizing the integrity of women whose paths are different from our own.  Increasingly, “reproductive justice” more accurately reflects our calling, our charge. Some will still want to unapologetically talk about “abortion rights.” We should put all of these terms to use when and where they serve us best. After all, how can a movement go wrong by advocating for the ideals of freedom, rights, choice, access and justice?

Photo credit: Kelly Schott via photopin cc.

****SPOILER ALERT!****

Dear Sybil:

First of all, you aren’t alone.  Now in 2012, in July of 1920 when you died, and all the years before that, you weren’t then and aren’t now, alone.

Because even today, every 90 seconds a woman in the world dies from childbirth.   As has been written in other blog posts, of the estimated 210 million women who become pregnant each year, 20 million will experience life-threatening complications.  And 50% of maternal deaths take place in the 48 hours after delivery - just like yours.

You may be wondering what, exactly, killed you. It’s a condition know as eclampsia.  First, you had preeclampsia, evidenced by high blood pressure accompanied by a high level of protein in the urine. Untreated, preeclampsia becomes eclampsia, which is the final and most severe phase, often leading to seizures, coma, and death. We don’t know – even now – exactly what causes it.  Only that being diagnosed early with preeclampsia and being treated for it lessens your chance of it developing. As one of your doctors noted: “once the seizures begin, there’s nothing to be done.”

Here in the United States, pregnancy is still a huge risk to both mother and child.  The U.S. is ranked 50th in the world for maternal death rates, and that’s just because we’ve been steadily declining (death rates nearly doubled  between 1990 and 2008. Compare that to the fact that worldwide, maternal death rates were nearly cut in half during approximately that same period). Every year there are 6 million pregnancies, which basically means every year almost 6 million women are exposed to an enormous number of life-threatening conditions. In recent years, an average of 875,000 women have experienced one or more pregnancy complications in the United States. It’s just one reason why we are so incredulous every time another law passes permitting abortions only in the case of a “threat to the life and health of the mother.”

All pregnancies – as you’ve discovered – potentially threaten the life and health of the mother. Pregnancy is incredibly dangerous for a woman.

But back to you.  The strange thing is that you were living just on the cusp of a revolution in maternal health care. Maternal death rates began to drop dramatically and uniformly in developed countries around the 1930s, mostly due to better training for doctors (trained and experienced midwives had performed the deliveries in the past), and the introduction of a drug which effectively attacked a strain of fever that had been one of the leading causes of maternal death. Both sadly and ironically, conditions such as yours went from being the 3rd leading cause of death in developed nations to the first.

My friends had strong reactions to your death, and not just because we’re invested in your family and in your lives.  But because you were the one who got away. My smart, strong, independent, politically active and feminist friends had barely a chance to get to know you well before you were off to rallies for women’s rights and then to Ireland, having shrugged off your upper class upbringing and married the chauffeur whom you had always loved.

Now it’s true that a lot of us have since become interested in Edith – poor Edith – who is not quite as beautiful as you or Mary and has struggled as the middle child to find her place in the world. When she’s offered a position as a writer for a newspaper column shortly after your death, all we could think was “because that’s what unattractive women without husbands do – get jobs.”

But even so, you were the one who ultimately suffered the greatest punishment of all. You weren’t to be allowed your freedom and your happy life with your loving, working class husband. And truth be told, the pain and fear you went through touched a nerve for so many of my friends – even the middle class, healthy ones who are more likely to come through a pregnancy without complications.

I haven’t been through that stage of my life yet, but as a young woman in her late 20s, I am surrounded by friends who have. Becky has been trying to get pregnant for almost 4 years, and has suffered two miscarriages already. She didn’t see your death coming, and it impacted her deeply.  Jamie’s cousin had had placenta previa, a dangerous condition which left both mother and child fighting viciously for their lives. She, also, was struck silent and then deeply upset by your death.

Jessica Valenti, a feminist author and activist, wrote a compelling article in a magazine called The Guardian about a year ago which has stayed with me. In it, she details her own unexpected battle with pre-eclampsia, and the war she and her newborn daughter each fought to survive.  And how mother and child had then later struggled to bond as naturally as she had been led to believe they would.

On the fringes of such stories, I can hardly imagine such fear and pain for my life.

The risks are many, even almost 100 years after your death.  Today, three of the “Four Horsemen of Maternal Mortality” as they are called, are severe bleeding, infections post childbirth, and high blood pressure (preeclampsia and eclampsia, as you experienced).

The fourth is, of course, unsafe abortions. Every year, 42 million women seek abortions to terminate unwanted and unplanned pregnancies.  Half of those procedures are deemed unsafe, and 68,000 women die as a result each year, accounting for 13% of the global maternal mortality rate.  Of those who undergo an unsafe abortion and manage to survive, 5 million of them suffer serious, long-term health complications. Where you live in the United Kingdom, abortion wasn’t legal until 1967 – and even then, the law didn’t extend to Ireland.  It is only recently, after the death of a woman named Savita Praveen Halappanavar, who was denied an abortion at an Irish hospital and later died from pregnancy-related complications, that the country is considering altering their strict laws regarding abortion.

Of the hundreds of thousands of women who died last year due to complications from pregnancy, most of them suffered deaths that could have been fairly easily avoided. 35% of babies around the world are still delivered without the aid of a nurse, midwife, or doctor, significantly increasing the chances that mother or child or both will die.  Too many are delivering children with no prenatal care, no electricity, and in locations prone to infections and disease.

One of your doctors insisted that all was well, and both you and your baby would be fine. The other appropriately diagnosed you and claimed that your life would be at risk unless you were rushed to the hospital and the baby immediately delivered. As it turns out, the latter was right.

Better information, increased access to health care facilities, and the attention of competent health care professionals all dramatically increase the chances of survival and dramaticallydecrease the chances for complications and health problems for both mother and child.And some studies show that increased access to contraception and family planning could decrease maternal mortality rates by almost 1/3.

It’s too late to save you.  And I don’t know how my friends and I will feel as we wait for next week’s episode to show us how it is possible for a family to come through such a tragedy – even though hundreds of thousands of families do, every year, all over the world.

But what we can do is press on.  We can continue our work to end maternal mortality, which we’ve had quite a lot of success at over the past decade especially.  True, we have a long way to go before we are able to say that we have reduced these deaths by 75% from 1990 to 2015, as the United Nations Millenium Development Goals declare. But 13% of countries are on track to meet that goal and since 1980, there’s been a 35% decrease in maternal deaths globally.  This is progress.  Although it’s slow, we are at least heading in the right direction, increasing access to contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, expanding health care services to the most vulnerable (poor, rural women in developing countries), and training health care professionals in maternal care.

We’re better off now than we were at the time of your death. But the truth is that your death could have easily happened in the world we live in today as well.  And saving the lives of the 210 million women who will get pregnant this year needs to remain one of the highest and most urgent priorities of the global community.

We’ll miss you, Sybil.

- Abigail, a fan.

This post is originally published on Left Standing Up and is cross posted with permission.

Photo credit: homestilo via photopin cc.

There are some things that are only good on paper. Disastrous recipes. Bad dates with good resumes. Certain haircuts and, generally, photoshop. One thing not so good only on paper is Roe v. Wade.

In 1973, the United States Supreme Court declared that privacy as defined under the due process clause of 14th Amendment of the US Constitution extended to a woman’s right over her own body and her decision whether or not to have an abortion. Basically, it disallowed many State and Federal actions against abortion, and tied the procedure to viability.

40 years on, despite being a constitutionally protected right, a woman’s choice is still vehemently attacked by State law and physical violence that roams the scale from intimidation to murder. From South Dakota where a federal appeals court upheld a law requiring doctors to tell patients that abortion causes a rise in suicide attempts (which John Hopkins has stated is absolutely bogus), to North Dakota where medication-induced abortions have been banned despite medical testimony to their safety (and apparent moral superiority to, you know, the other kind of abortion), to Kansas where Dr. Tiller was shot and the doctors who attempted to take over his practice where physically harassed into quitting, to Mississippi where the last abortion clinic is closing because hospitals won’t grant obligatory admitting privileges to its doctors, to Virginia where abortion clinics now have to abide by architectural zoning laws for their patient’s safety (though no previous reports suggested the clinics were unsafe), and I could go on and on… abortion providers have been physically and legally harassed into oblivion.

Too often, however, we forget the faces of the people most affected by the lack of abortion and sexual health care. Surprise! Quite the opposite to those men restricting health care provisions, they are all women. Women of all ethnic backgrounds. Six in ten who’ve already had a child. 40% of whom come from households making less than $18500 a year. 7 in 10 of whom report being religious.

No, women do not use abortion as a method of contraception. No, they are not spoiled brats or whores as the Republican party has been so vocal in labeling them. No, they are not on the fringes of our society. In fact, if these trends continue, it’s presumed that 35% of women of reproductive age will have had an abortion by the time they are 35.

Although really just another medical procedure, abortion has divided the country along moral lines, and reasons for abortions are given particular weight within political discussion. These range from financial difficulties to an inability to provide care to none of your damn business. Reasons, in this case, don’t matter. Abortion is a constitutionally protected right to privacy. As soon as reasons begin to matter, they take precedence over a woman’s right to choose. And Roe v Wade took care of that.

Supposedly.

Statistically, the country has been pretty much divided along the same lines that it was in the 1970′s – Gallup states that 52% of Americans think it should be legal under some cases, 25% want it legal all the time and 20% want it outlawed all the time.

All that seemed to take a significant turn, however, in the recent 2012 elections. Spurred by a rise in state sponsored laws, 130 bills aimed to reduce access to abortion since 2010, women at the polls significantly voted for politicians who were not engaged in the very real war on women. Republicans in Missouri (Hello, Todd Akin) and Indiana, largely expected to win, lost their seats to Democrats after making horrid comments about rape and women’s bodies. Personhood amendments all over the country were scaled back as grass-roots movements rose to object to their ridiculous terms (a few cells endowed with the rights of a human being from the moment of conception? Whom are we kidding here?). Planned Parenthood, attacked on all sides by Republicans who insisted it not be federally funded (despite that funding going to everything from mammograms to pap smears to cervical cancer treatment and only 3% going to abortive measures) still managed to come out resilient and emboldened. The Komen debacle was a good example – when the Susan G. Komen For the Cure foundation pulled funding for Planned Parenthood under political pressure, the backlash was so harsh they reversed their decision in 72 hours.

But 2012 remained scary for the reasons so well reported almost daily throughout our media: the attacks on a woman’s access to sexual healthcare and abortion were very real – and showed no signs of abating if we didn’t do something about it.

So what do I think of the fact that 40 years on a woman still has to battle the world for the right to choose over her own body?

A few things.

First, as if we didn’t quite get the Roe v Wade message, the Supreme Court also ruled, in 1992, that States could not place undue burden on women who seek to obtain abortions. It did, however, allow States to begin applying different regulations (24 hour waiting period allowed, parental consent allowed) making abortion more of an illegal right than a constitutionally protected one. To me, this is a joke. As the plurality opinion (re)stated in Planned Parenthood v Casey:

“If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”

Either there is right, or there isn’t. A woman’s body is not a territory to be divided along state lines or by moral fervor, often at the behest of old white men. Just as soon as reasons start mattering, as soon as a woman’s right to choose is placed under scrutiny, she becomes a second-class citizen. A bread oven, if you will. And then the Handmaid’s Tale is just around the corner.

I also find it strange that the very same people who want to prevent all abortions also want to prevent access to contraception (37 states mandate abstinence education.  It’s not working). You’d think it would be the opposite. Because it isn’t (note the outcry at contraception and Obamacare – which was a ridiculous lie anyway), this would seem to reinforce the moral/religious reasons behind preventing women from accessing their rights: women should not be engaging in sex to begin with. Sex is for procreation first and foremost. If you do get pregnant, too bad. This is the punishment for your whorish actions. Which, again, is strange. If pro-lifers cared at all about children – why would they want these fetus-infants to be born to parents that didn’t want them, couldn’t afford them and can’t take care of them properly?

Why does all their caring end in the delivery room?

40 years on, I guess you could say that ‘on paper’ isn’t working so well for Roe v Wade. Luckily women are tired of having Congress sit in their uterus so much, and they have taken to the polls to demand change and representation. The US currently has the largest number of women Senators (20) at any times of it’s history. They’ve elected Barack Obama to a second term (I only say this because the alternative, Mitt Romney, had spoken about changing the composition of the Justices of the Supreme Court, making Roe v Wade vulnerable to being overturned). Grass-roots movements are mobilized. Young feminists care about their bodies. They care about their reproductive health and rights. A woman’s right to contraceptive services and sexual health that includes abortion is her ticket to engaging in a society’s economy. That was the huge success of The Pill. That is the continued success of the reproductive healthcare system today. In this economy it is more important than ever. In this economy, more than at any other time, the choice to have a child is one to be taken with extreme measures of caution and care.

So on this anniversary, it would be very nice to see a further legal move, if only on paper. Make a woman’s right to choose constitutionally protected by disallowing any State action against it. Prosecute those who would intimidate and physically harass abortion providers and care workers to the fullest extent of the law.  Mandate access to sexual health care for women and men across state lines and protect those offices and clinics from harassment and ridiculous zoning regulations. Given that access is today’s biggest problem for abortion, mandate increased access in the most vulnerable and hard to reach zones. And someone should ask that the Supreme Court stop being so wishy-washy every time it is presented with a case that challenges Roe v Wade.

It is important to remember one key thing: all the Supreme Court did in 1973 was recognize a right that already existed. It gave legality to a right and enshrined it under the Constitution. But this right should not be honored because of the benefits it brings. It should, instead, be protected on the basis of its principle of human rights, dignity, privacy and equality. The added benefits of giving access to the economy, to opportunities and to family planning are all fantastic wins, but they are all secondary. Roe v Wade must be protected because it is an innate right and not simply one that has been recognized.

And in 1973, the Supreme Court recognized this and gave women the rights of a first class citizen.

Hopefully the United States will not want to move backwards on that. 

So Happy Anniversary Roe v Wade. May you live long and strong.

And maybe even stronger.

Photo credit: Phil Roeder via photopin cc.