abortion

Interesting thread about abortion on doula site

MZP2 Comments

I found a thread on alldoulas.com about the article I wrote a while back about Being a Radical Doula, and specifically, how birth activism and abortion advocacy go hand in hand.

It’s interesting to see how doulas react to this discussion of the connections between the movements. I highly recommend checking it out.

Oh, and by the way, the tagline for the site is: AllDoulas.com - The Doula Megasite

I would say supporting women who have abortions falls under that category nicely…but you all know that already.

Here are some highlights that I think are interesting:

it *ABSOLUTELY* reflects my views and my experience as a doula & reproductive rights activist, and im super excited to have read it, and to see it on alldoulas! this is another kind of dialogue that helps us learn from each other, and im excited to welcome it into our community…my 2 deepest interests in this world are definitely birthing and abortion, both of which i support adamantly and am deepy committed to women’s right and access to…ive never mentioned the word abortion here before, and i dont think i ever would have unless id read this post today.

A less supportive one:

I’m also what might be considered more of a ‘baby activist’ than a ‘woman activist’, if that makes any sense? I don’t judge those who choose abortion because I have NOT walked in their shoes and it’s not my place to judge. I do, however, feel that they should be counseled…not necessarily against it, but to know where their baby is developmentally, to see it on an u/s, to KNOW what the entire process entails physically, emotionally, mentally. I just hate hearing women say ‘they told me it wasn’t a baby’ or whatever and no one ever told them what was really going on OR that they had more choices than just having an abortion. There is support out there for women who don’t have great families or partners, etc. There’s also adoption (but I know this is a whole other topic where women, esp young girls, could potentially be taken advantage of and made to feel inadequate…) Anywho…the moral of my story is I’m all for women being EDUCATED!

I hate that argument, that women don’t know what they are doing when they make a decision to have an abortion. Totally untrue–and just shows a misogynistic view of women, just like Justice Kennedy in his Abortion Ban decision.

And another not-so supportive opinion:

This will probably be my only post on this thread, as this is a topic that so saddens me. I am an advocate for moms and babies. Aborting babies is totally opposite from that in my view. As much as I believe in a mothers right to choose in how she will give birth, I also strongly believe in the baby’s right to live. If you could ask him/her, I’m sure that they would choose to live. We are even talking about baby girls…who should be our future women…whose rights have been stripped away.

When I was new in this doula work, I started out assuming that most in the childbirth field would naturally be pro-life. It was very hard for me to comprehend how doulas and midwives could be pro-abortion. It still is, actually. I guess that I’m not a radical doula by description of this article, and that is quite ok. I will go on supporting moms and their babies, which in my very strong opinion is anything but what I just read in that article.

Check out the complete thread here.

And thanks to the person who posted my article on the site, this is exactly the kind of dialogue doulas need.

Pregnant & Poor in Mississippi

MZPLeave a comment

Check out this fabulous article by Susan Sharon Lerner from Salon about women’s access to abortions in Mississippi. Unfortunately for women in that state, every barrier that you can imagine has been placed on their ability to access services, we’re talking lack of providers (there is only one in the entire state), waiting periods, high costs, strigent (even bordering on harrasment-like) requirements on the clinic and provider, hostile political climate, coupled with extreme poverty and a twelve week cut-off for abortions in the state, and you have a scary set of circumstances that means a lot of women in that state will continue with unwanted pregnancies.

Lerner sums it all up better than I can: 

It’s hard to imagine someone who can’t afford a bus trip taking responsibility for a new life — especially when she doesn’t want to.

PS If you’re interested in reading more reproductive rights related news–check out my organization’s new blog, Nuestra Vida, Nuestra Voz where I’ll be writing more about reproductive justice and the Latina community.

Ultrasounds & Abortions

MZP1 Comment

There was quite a bit of noise last week around this article written for Slateby William Saletan about his opinion on ultrasounds and abortions. Many awesome bloggers have already responded to it, so I’ll just link you to their own great opinions. They’ve said it all.

A Bird and a Bottle, Feministe, Feministing, Echnide, Lawyers, Guns and Money

One thing that is interesting to add is that ultrasounds have not only changed our opinions about abortion, but also about childbirth. Birth advocates understand that fetal monitoring and other technologies that serve to monitor the fetus independent of the mother can also be blamed for a lot of unnecessary interventions during childbirth. Another piece of proof that technologies that serve to isolate the fetus from the mother–serve also to limit her choices around pregnancy and childbirth.

There is a growing field of natal surgeons and specialists who focus entirely on the unborn fetus, even doing extremely experimental and dangerous surgeries in the womb. I’ve been told they have scary brochures for their practices where the fetus is depicted (usually by ultrasound) completely absent from the mother’s body. As if children are all of a sudden gestated in space. Creepy.

More proof that the Federal Abortion Ban hurts women and families

MZPLeave a comment

Read this testimony by Ilene Jaroslaw about why the Federal Abortion Ban would have prevented her from expanding her family, as well as putting her health at serious risk, in addition to possibly forcing her to carry a not-viable fetus to term.

Professor Maggie Little, abortion and censureship at a Catholic University

MZPLeave a comment

The evening before the decision on the Federal Abortion Ban came down (which is why it has taken me until now to post this) I attended an event hosted by H*yas for Choice, the Pro-Choice student group at Georgetown University. Note the star in their name–it’s the result of Catholic censureship at the university, who refused to allow a pro-choice group to affiliate itself officially. They can’t get money from the University, and they can’t use their mascot–the Hoyas. Nevermind freedom of speech, or preserving an academic environment that fosters dialogue and dissent. This is the same university that won’t stock birth control or condoms on its campus, and that is threatening to pull financial aid from law students affiliated with the law students for choice group. But I digress.

Luckily though the University’s efforts have not stifled pro-choice activism on campus. A really committed group of students continues to try and promote dialogue within an extremely hostile environment. The event I attended was part of a “Choice week” and the students brought together a panel of people to talk about abortion within the broader context of reproductive justice. Speakers included Marissa Valeri from Catholics for a Free Choice, Kierra Johnson from Choice USA, Emily Goodstein from Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and lastly Professor Maggie Little of the Georgetown Philosophy Department.

It was the arguments of Professor Little, who focuses her research of questions of ethics (particularly within Bioethics), that really resonated with me. Here are a few highlights from her presentation, and her answers to some really irrational and irritating questions from the almost entirely white & male anti-choice students who showed up at the panel.

  • The law has no place in regulating a woman’s continuance of gestation. There is a really strong equality based argument that pregnant woman are being treated unequally by being forced to continue gestating.
  • It is precisely because women take motherhood seriously that they might want to make the decision not to mother.
  • The law shouldn’t oblige me to provide my body for the use of another citizen. No other individual is forced by law to do so (for example in the case of a child who needed his father’s kidney to survive).

She rocks–and in a really radical way. She’s also currently writing a book about abortion, which I am really excited to see, because her arguments really cut through a lot of the emotional and political aura around the abortion issue and talk about the things that are really at stake: ethics, morality and what the government should and shouldn’t be allowed to legislate (particularly when it comes to an ambigious issue like abortion).

You can read more about her work on her website.

The #1 cause of death among pregnant women? MURDER

MZP1 Comment

An article in the newest issue of Mother Jones makes a great point:

And if the Supreme Court and abortion opponents really want to protect the lives of fetuses, they might consider this: Murder is the number one cause of death of pregnant women in the United States.

But of course we don’t really care about the women carrying the fetus, just the fetus itself. It’s frightening to think about the incidence of intimate partner violence and women as victims, the article also points out that one million women are stalked in the US every year. ONE MILLION women.

Another related crisis is the mass murder of women and girls in Guatemala. This is a human rights disaster, and its not being talked about. Women are being murdered simply because they are women.

Since 2001, more that 2,600 Guatemalan women and girls have been killed and the numbers seem to be accelerating – 110 were murdered in January and February this year alone. Only a negligible number of their killers has ever been convicted.

The scary thing about these murders? They are usually unprovoked. Similar issues have been documented on the US-Mexico border, as well as war-torn countries where rape is used as a weapon.

This weekend I finally saw the new Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, and what struck me about their Global Feminisms exhibit is how violence is such a pervasive theme. Many of the pieces used shocking imagery to represent the effect of war and national struggles on women’s bodies, including a video which showed a woman hula hooping with barbed wire. It was painful, disturbing and moving all at the same time.

It’s horrible that we have to waste our energy on five anti-choice men on the Supreme Court, when we have such big issues at hand. BTW, it’s National Call-In Day. Call your Congress people and tell them to support the Freedom of Choice Act.

More news about the ban

MZP1 Comment

Check out some of these articles/posts about the outrageous ban.

A bird and a bottle

NY Times

John Edwards

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Feministing

Als0, if you happen to be in Washington, DC, there is a rally at 3pm in front of the Supreme Court. Come. This is important.

Bush starts to work his magic…

MZP4 Comments

The Supreme Court just released it’s decision to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban of 2003–the first major abortion restriction since Roe vs. Wade. This is a HUGE deal and reflects how Bush’s conservative SC appointments are going to have an effect on women’s rights in the long term.

The ban includes NO exception for the life and health of the mother. And for those of you who are conspiracy theorists–the news of the tragedy at VA Tech will ensure that this news makes little noise.

More at SCOTUSblog

Abortion Doulas

MZP12 Comments

This is such an amazing idea—I’m sad that I hadn’t thought of it first. While at the From Abortion Rights to Social Justice Conference, I spoke with two awesome women who are trying to start abortion doula programs. What is an abortion doula? The idea is that a doula could provide support to women having abortions—very similar to the support that she would provide to a woman in labor. Women who have abortions in this country (all one million of them a year) many times do so in very unsupportive environments. They may not be able to tell their family members, either out of fear that they won’t be supportive or simply because they are afraid. They may not have a partner, or they may be making the decision to end the pregnancy alone. Abortion clinics are also under a lot of stress and pressure because there are so few of them, and so many women who need their services. So why shouldn’t doulas, who are trained to support women during birth, be able to provide the same support to women terminating their pregnancies?

At the Abortion Speak Out that opened the conference, women who had had abortions shared their stories—and many of them talked about the women who held their hands during the procedures. Most of them didn’t even know this person’s name, but years later still remember how much their presence helped them get through experience.

How many of you doula’s out there are with me on this one? Anybody in NYC want to try and start this (or know if it’s already happening?)? It would be pretty simple—get matched up with a woman who is going to have an abortion, and if there is time, meet with her beforehand to talk about how she is feeling and what kind of support she wants. Then go with her, talking to her through it, and holding her hand. Stay with her during the recovery, and then meet with her later to talk more and see how she is doing. Kind of the same model we use for birth doulas, a prenatal visit and a postpartum visit. I’m ready to do this now, let’s get it started.