-
BlogHer Ad Network More from BlogHer Advertise here BlogHer Privacy Policy -
"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." --Gloria Steinem
-
May
4
LGBT Equality and Justice Day 2008
Filed Under LGBTQ issues, activism, excursions, feminism, human rights, legislation, politics | 2 Comments
My apologies that I didn’t get to this sooner, but I’ve been alternately busy and dealing with various personal shit. I can’t say that it has been the best week. But even though my memory is slightly less clear than it was when I should have written the post, I did still want to write about Equality and Justice Day.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Apr
24
Why We Need to Stop the Democratic Infighting
Filed Under Democrats, Republicans, assholes, class and economics, discrimination, legislation, misogyny, parenthood, patriarchy, politics, pregnancy, sexism, work | 12 Comments
Because John McCain is a misogynist nutbag. As are his fellow Republicans.
Yesterday, Republican Senators successfully filibustered — that’s right, not just voted against but fucking filibustered — a bill that would provide those who have been the victims of discriminatory pay with more legal recourse. In other words, they filibustered a civil rights bill. Because Republicans have so learned the error of their prejudiced ways.
Republicans said the proposal to ease the time constraints would prompt more lawsuits and lead to litigation over outdated cases. “This debate today is not about allowing, favoring or supporting discrimination,” said Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia.
[. . .]
Mr. McCain, who was campaigning in Louisiana, skipped the vote but told reporters he would have opposed the bill since it could contribute to frivolous lawsuits harmful to businesses.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, accused Democrats of unfairly trying to paint opponents of the bill as unsympathetic to victims of salary discrimination. “The only ones who will see an increase in pay are some of the trial lawyers who bring the cases,” he said.
Um, what exactly, Senator Hatch, is being unfairly represented? Victims of unfair pay discrimination need a recourse, and you are actively denying it to them. You’re openly protecting companies who have a history of discrimination. And you are allowing, favoring or supporting discrimination, Senator Isakson, by refusing to hold those corporations who have engaged in it responsible for their actions. This is pretty fucking simple.
John McCain didn’t show up to vote — but did support the “it would provoke lawsuits” argument (um, assholes, that’s the point), and had this to say:
“They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else,” McCain said. “And it’s hard for them to leave their families when they don’t have somebody to take care of them.
“It’s a vicious cycle that’s affecting women, particularly in a part of the country like this, where mining is the mainstay; traditionally, women have not gone into that line of work, to say the least,” he said.
Oh, I see: so Senator McCain, you’re going to start supporting flexible work schedules and reduced working hours for both parents? You’re going to promote men taking a more active role in child-rearing and support social services that help women with child care? You’re also going to support those who are genuinely stuck in low paying jobs because a lack of educational opportunity with resources, and work to improve school systems and economic equality?
Um . . . no. McCain supports the “free market” — the very same free market that allows employers to discriminate against women, racial minorities, the disabled and LGBTQ individuals. He’s just using an opportunity to remind everyone that women belong back in the kitchen with a child on each hip. He also needed to point out that women are only paid less is because we just can’t stop popping out the kiddies, are uneducated and don’t do equal work — even though the Ledbetter case shows that this argument is a bunch of shit.
Below the jump, what I think of McCain and the Senate Republicans (all but six of whom voted to block the measure).
Popularity: 18% [?]
Apr
17
Maryland Court Rules That No Actually Means No
Filed Under assholes, courts gone crazy, legislation, media, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 1 Comment
Maryland’s highest court has overturned a horrid ruling and joined seven other states in recognition of the fact that a woman (and hopefully any person?) can revoke her consent to sexual activity — and that, shockingly enough, when a person continues sex after being told to stop, that sex becomes rape.
I’m thrilled that the court has made this ruling. Though I really shouldn’t have to applaud them for what basically amounts to common sense, I do. It’s also extremely reassuring that the decision was unanimous.
But it makes me want to bang my head against the wall that we are living in two thousand fucking eight, and until yesterday forty-three states in the USA did not legally regard as rape certain kinds of sex that continue once one of the parties has clearly said “no” or “stop.” Especially since that number of states still today holds at forty-two. And though wholly unsurprised by it, I want to rip my hair out at the misleading nature of a lot of the reporting/blogging. (Please do not google this case; doing so made me want to cry.)
Popularity: 18% [?]
Apr
15
Mother May I?
Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, assholes, cross-post, legislation, misogyny, patriarchy, pregnancy, rape and sexual assault, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, violence against women and girls, women’s health | 4 Comments
Who remembers the 2005 and 2006 California propositions that tried to instate parental notification rules for minors seeking abortions? You know, the ones that failed? Well, not so fast. Looks like it’s probably going to be on the ballot this year, too. Meet the man you can thank:
Jim Holman, owner of the San Diego Reader, has spent millions trying to persuade Californians to pass a law requiring parents to be notified before their underage daughter has an abortion.
After two failed ballot measure campaigns, Holman said last year that he didn’t want to try again.
But when other anti-abortion advocates, including winemaker Don Sebastiani, launched a third campaign, Holman couldn’t resist opening up his checkbook once again.
“Sebastiani was not deterred. He said, ‘We have to go back again and again,’ ” Holman said. “He led with big donations and I sort of followed.”
The result could make California political history.
The $1.8 million donated by Holman and Sebastiani so far is likely to put a parental-notification initiative before voters for the third time in four years. The measure would require a physician to notify a parent or guardian 48 hours before performing an abortion for a girl under the age of 18.
If the measure qualifies, it would be the first time since the California initiative process was established in 1914 that the state’s voters will consider the same measure so many times in a four-year period.
Planned Parenthood is arguing that Holman, while not doing anything illegal, is abusing the electoral process, and I agree. No, money alone does not get an initiative on a ballot, but if you spend $1.8 on an issue that inspires the kind of passion abortion does and don’t manage to get the just-under 700,000 signatures needed in a very large state, you’d have to be pretty damn inept. Holman is, of course, perfectly within his rights — that doesn’t mean there’s nothing unethical about it.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Apr
10
Because a Woman’s Free Will is of Their Utmost Concern
Filed Under Democrats, abortion, anti-choice extremism, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, patriarchy, politics, rape and sexual assault, reproductive justice | 4 Comments
I know that in crazy anti-choice wingnut land, logic isn’t exactly popular. But I do believe they’ve reached new heights of insult to basic reason. The Oklahoma Senate has passed a new bill that is more or less a hodgepodge of anti-abortion legislation. Take a look at the emphasized lines at the end of this excerpt.
SB 1878 combines various pieces of abortion legislation proposed this session.
One provision would require women who seek an abortion to undergo an ultrasound within one hour of the procedure.
Dr. Dana Stone, an Oklahoma City physician who is the chairwoman of the Oklahoma Section of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said the ultrasound legislation was of great concern to her because of its invasive nature early in pregnancy.
“The patient has no ability to opt out,” she said.
Lamb noted that the legislation does not require a woman to view the ultrasound images.
It does require that the images be displayed so the woman may see them. It also requires the examiner to give a medical description of the images, to include dimensions of the embryo or fetus and the presence of cardiac activity.
The bill also would require minors who seek abortions to provide written parental consent. Lamb said that is needed to ensure that minors aren’t coerced into ending pregnancy.
I reread those sentences several times, flabbergasted and convinced that I had interpreted them incorrectly. But no, I can still read. An author of the bill is actually arguing that requiring a minor to get written permission from her parents to have an abortion would ensure that she has not been coerced into ending a pregnancy.
Here is a list of anti-choice beliefs that one would have to buy into for this to make even a remote amount of sense:
- All men are sexual predators
- Therefore, women do not want abortions but are always pushed into them by their partners who want to continue having casual unprotected sex without consequences
- The decision to end a pregnancy is somehow fundamentally different from the decision to continue a pregnancy
- Until 18, all females are the property of their parents
- Until 18, one does not have a fundamental right to health care
- All parents are anti-choice, and none of them are abusive, which means that they could never be the ones who are coercing their daughter into an abortion
- Somehow, these anti-choice parents would never use the requirement of written permission to coerce her daughter out of an abortion, except . . .
- As stated, pregnant women are helpless and one could never actually want an abortions for her own reasons (like not wanting a baby). And if she does, she just needs to be talked down because all those baby-making hormones are making her a little irrational and unable to understand how very badly she really does want to become a mommy in several months. So allowing parents to force their daughters to give birth is a plus.
What really does scare me though is that 38 out of 48 legislators apparently bought into this argument. All who opposed the bill were Democrats, but 14 Democrats were in favor of it. And here is one of the fucking geniuses who OK Dems can count among their ranks.
Sen. Debbe Leftwich, D-Oklahoma City, voted for the measure but said she was concerned that it would require victims of rape and incest to view an ultrasound.
Well, it’s good to know that she had some concern for the extreme emotional distress that the bill could impose upon victims of rape and incest who are already going to be in the middle of an unthinkable experience . . . and then voted for it anyway.
What a proud day for democracy, both capital and lower D.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Mar
5
Not the Kind of Consent I Support
Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, assholes, courts gone crazy, discrimination, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, patriarchy, reproductive justice, sex and sexuality, slut-shaming, social conservatives, women’s health | 5 Comments
Arizona, apparently discontented with simply attempting to strip pregnant drug addicts of their human and civil rights, has now decided to work on destroying any rights that pregnant teenagers in the state may have left. A new bill would mandate that the only way a teenage girl can get a court waiver for an abortion without parental consent is to prove that she is mature enough to make the decision. Sound kind of vague? It is. And that’s precisely the point.
A minor would have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that she is mature enough to get an abortion without her parents’ consent, under a bill passed Tuesday by the House of Representatives.
Supporters say that HB 2263 just codifies a 2003 ruling on the existing parental-consent law by the Arizona Court of Appeals, in which the court specified criteria that can be used to determine if a minor is mature enough to make the decision to have an abortion.
Under the bill, the court could consider factors, including whether the minor has traveled on her own, handled her own finances, lived outside her parents’ home and made other significant decisions.
The measure also requires the court to weigh whether she has considered all her options and the potential consequences.
You know, the standard “a teenage girl who can’t confide in her daddy about an abortion needs her legislators and judges to take his place, and a daddy’s job is to restrict his daughter’s life no matter what the consequences” kind of fare. But what the hell does “mature enough” mean? Does anyone know? And what teenage girl handles her finances while living outside of the home before age 17? A few, certainly, but come on, now.
In this article we get a vague but somewhat more reliable description of how “mature enough” will actually be interpreted:
Popularity: 22% [?]
Mar
3
Pregnant Women and Drug Addicts: They’re People, Too.
Filed Under WOC issues, abortion, class and economics, discrimination, human rights, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, patriarchy, pregnancy, race and racism, reproductive justice, women’s health | 6 Comments
Last week, reader Jessica sent me a link to a story about new legislation being considered in her state that would forcibly imprison pregnant women suspected of being addicted to methamphetamine, sending them to drug treatment facilities against their will. The Arizona bill is, of course, designed to protect fetuses, not women.
The Senate Judiciary Committee took the first steps toward approving SB 1500 Monday, mandating that state Child Protective Services workers go to court if they know or have reasonable grounds to believe a mother-to-be is using meth and is not getting voluntary treatment.
That order would require the mother to cooperate.
The legislation would let CPS ask a judge to have sheriff’s deputies actually pick up the woman and bring her to a facility for treatment.
Sen. Pamela Gorman, R-Anthem, said she’s not normally a proponent of government intervention into private lives.
“But I do think that the state has some very specific roles,” she said. “And one of them is to protect people from harm from other people.”
Indeed: the state has a specific role to protect people from harm, so long as the person isn’t a pregnant woman being harmed by the government who thinks that pregnancy gives them total control over her body.
The bill would expand the child abuse statutes to include methamphetamine use during pregnancy — essentially, defining child abuse as something a woman does to harm herself, intentionally or unintentionally, while carrying a fetus. It seems that all legislators opposed to the bill are doing so on the basis that it challenges abortion rights, or at least presents a slippery slope for challenges later on down the line.
Critics of the proposal are concerned that Gorman is trying to give the measure some teeth by extending the definition of what now constitutes “child abuse” to fetuses.
Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, pointed out the existing definition of child abuse includes acts that endanger the life of a child. He said Gorman’s bill could be interpreted as prohibiting abortion.
From a practical standpoint, Cheuvront said he doubts that Gov. Janet Napolitano would sign any bill she believes interferes with the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy.
Gorman said that wasn’t her intent.
But committee members refused to remove that language.
While I thank Cheuvront for opposing the bill and hope that he and other legislators continue to vocally do so, I think that his reasons are troubling and just plain off the mark. The problem is that, regardless of what Cheuvront actually feels, this kind of argument suggests that if it were possible to pass the legislation without putting abortion rights in any sort of danger, there would not be a problem.
I’m naturally wary of slippery slope arguments. They are often valid, but they often aren’t. Even when the slippery slope is a very real possibility, I think that this is just a shitty way to make your case. Okay, so the bill could potentially be used as a basis for anti-abortion legislation in the future. This is bad. But if it’s capable of doing this, there has to be a problem with the bill right now, a reason why this legislation is a bad idea for what it is and not what it could later encourage.
Luckily, there is such an argument, and it’s one that I’m actually far more concerned with at the moment.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Feb
26
If Anti-Choicers Want Women to Know Their Rights, I’ve Got an Offer They Can’t Refuse
Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, assholes, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, patriarchy, pregnancy, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, slut-shaming, women’s health | 20 Comments
Following in the great misogynist leader South Dakota’s footsteps, anti-choice havens Kansas and Missouri are working on new legislation to restrict abortion, burden providers, condescend to patients, and all around cause more hardship and pain to any woman unfortunate enough to be pregnant and not jumping for joy over it.
Of course, they’re not going phrase it like that. (Would you be so delusional that you’d accuse an anti-choice legislator of intellectual honesty?) No, the Republicans are going to ride in on their white horses to protect women from being coerced and forced into abortions.
The stated aim of the proposed requirements is to ensure that women are not coerced into undergoing abortions. In Kansas, the new restrictions would apply only to abortions after the 22nd week of development, while most of the Missouri proposals would apply to all abortions performed in the state.
In both states, legislation would require doctors to provide the woman with the opportunity to view a sonogram of the embryo or fetus or listen to the heartbeat before performing the surgery. Abortion offices would be required to have a prominent sign stating that no one can force a woman to have an abortion.
In Missouri, two bills would require women seeking abortions to be shown brochures or a video developed by the state Health Department providing a description of the developing embryo or fetus. The materials would include “color photographs or images of the developing unborn child at two-week gestational increments” from conception to full term.
The woman would be given a list of adoption agencies and maternity homes that could assist her in maintaining her pregnancy. She also would be given a statement that she would be eligible for child-support payments if she carried the child to term.
The doctor would have to provide a list of potential medical complications from abortion and discuss theories about whether a fetus can feel pain.
Planned Parenthood, in its weekly newsletter, criticized the bills, calling them a “convoluted checklist of bills (that) demonstrates a lack of understanding of how professional abortion care is provided.” It said the bills’ requirements were burdensome and interfered with a woman’s rights to determine when an abortion is appropriate.
Supporters said the legislation was intended to ensure women are fully informed about the risks and consequences of abortion — something already required, but with less detail, by Missouri law.
Let me just say first of all that I get a lot news from the Kansas City Star about anti-choice activities. And believe me, they are far from perfect. I do, however, think that they have a higher degree of integrity on reproductive rights issues than most newspapers, and they actually tend to do a decent job of clarifying the facts against the rhetoric. Like here: anti-choice legislators claim that they are concerned about women and want them to know the risk, but the fact of the matter is that this is already required.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Feb
22
South Dakota Brings Back That Woman-Hating Feeling
Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, politics, pregnancy, reproductive justice, slut-shaming, social conservatives, women’s health | 1 Comment
A new anti-choice bill has just been passed in South Dakota and is now awaiting the inevitable signature of the state’s anti-choice governor. It will require OB/GYNs who perform abortions (not “abortion doctors,” as the article calls them) to ask their patients if they would like to view the ultrasound images of their fetus prior to an abortion. No, they won’t force her to look at the ultrasound, but the legislators behind the bill are pretty damn upfront about their goal.
Doctors already do sonograms to determine the stage of pregnancy and protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits, said Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon. Women who get abortions pay for those sonograms and should be asked if they want to see them, he said.
Asking women if they would like to see sonograms may cause more of them to change their minds about abortions, Hunt added.
“All that this does is require that doctor performing the abortion to fully inform the woman of all of the same medical information that that abortion doctor has access to,” he said.
“All we’re doing is wanting to make sure that the woman who is making a decision about her unborn child is fully informed,” Hunt said.
Aw, thanks Captain Paternalism! Aren’t we ladies lucky to have nice daddy legislators looking out for us?
Popularity: 21% [?]
Jan
31
Manila Women Fight for Birth Control
Filed Under International, WOC issues, abortion, activism, anti-choice extremism, class and economics, discrimination, legislation, patriarchy, pregnancy, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | 1 Comment
Female activists from poor communities in Manila are demanding access to contraceptive services:
Women from three slum communities in Manila asked the appeals court on Wednesday to allow them access to contraceptives in public clinics, revoking a local law that bans condoms and pills.
In 2000, the capital’s mayor issued an order stopping doctors, nurses and other health workers from promoting and distributing contraceptives, instructing them to teach only the natural method of family planning.
“We want to decide for ourselves how many children we would have, and not the government to tell us how to do it,” Lourdes Osil, a mother of six, told reporters after her lawyers asked the court to declare the seven-year-old local law unconstitutional.
“We were denied not only access to contraceptives, but even our rights guaranteed in the constitution to make a free choice were also ignored and violated.”
Home to an estimated 89 million people, the largely Catholic Philippines has one of the fastest-growing populations in Asia with around 2 million babies born every year.
Under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a devout Catholic who relies on the support of politically powerful bishops, the central government promotes natural family planning methods such as abstinence when the woman is ovulating.
Emma Monzaga, one of the petitioners, said she was getting injections once every three months to prevent her from becoming pregnant, but was told on her third visit to a public clinic that the treatment was no longer available.
“I was asked to go somewhere else to get the shots because the city hall has stopped funding the family planning program,” Monzaga said, adding her family could not afford to spend extra for contraceptives.
“We used to get it for free. It’s becoming a burden because we have to eat and send our six children to school.”
I’m sure that Monzaga is far from being the only one who cannot afford to spend money on birth control in an area where many struggle to put food on the table. And as important as the right to personal autonomy and reproductive choice is, this situation goes far beyond those kinds of concerns. We’re literally talking about life and death:
Popularity: 21% [?]
Jan
28
Bad Ass Women’s Activist of the Week: 20 Years of Legal Abortion in Canada Edition
Filed Under International, abortion, anti-choice extremism, bad ass women’s activist of the week, legislation, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | 5 Comments
Today is the 20th anniversary of the R. vs. Morgentaler decision that legalized abortion in Canada — more or less, a Canadian version of Roe. Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the doctor whose arrest for performing abortions illegally was the basis of the case, is quite the hero to all who believe in medical privacy and the right of women to control their reproductive capacity:
The Polish-born physician, a survivor of the infamous Dachau concentration camp, quit his family practice in Montreal in 1968 to open his first abortion clinic in defiance of the laws of the day.
He was moved, he has often said, by the suffering of women at the hands of backstreet quacks whose amateur abortions left them in pain at best or dead at worst.
Morgentaler soon found himself before the courts, where he was acquitted by a jury that accepted his defence of medical necessity for the abortions he performed. But the verdict was overturned on appeal and he went to jail.
It took three more trials and three more acquittals - two in Quebec, one in Ontario - before he carried the day at the Supreme Court.
Looking back, in semi-retirement and two months short of his 84th birthday, Morgentaler is philosophical about the personal toll.
“I had to accept the fact that a certain amount of sacrifice was required of me,” he says. “I have no regrets.
“Women in Canada now have access to good abortions done by doctors in clinics or hospitals where their life is not in danger.”
We in America, often seen as the home of bitter contention over abortion, had things relatively easy. Amazingly enough, we managed to secure abortion rights fifteen years earlier and with far less personal sacrifice asked of any one individual (”Roe” never did receive her abortion; since converting to Christianity she has claimed that she never really wanted one and has unsuccessfully tried to overturn the decision on this basis).
Popularity: 16% [?]