Feb

23

Anti-Choicers Target Women of Color: How Should Pro-Choicers Respond?

Filed Under abortion, activism, anti-choice extremism, class and economics, feminism, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, patriarchy, pregnancy, race and racism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | 7 Comments

Earlier this month, Renee wrote a post about an Atlanta billboard targeting black women’s reproductive rights by pointing to the higher rates of abortion among black women, and claiming that abortion clinics are attempting to abort black children out of existence. It’s a great post, touching on many things that will come up here, and you should go read it.

It turns out this issue is about more than a billboard campaign — SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective clues us in to the fact that it’s also turning into an issue of legislation and public policy. Anti-choice legislators in Georgia have introduced HB 1155 – The Sex and Race Selection Bill, and while it sounds warm and fuzzy on the outside, SisterSong assures us that it’s not (pdf):

This bill seeks to ban the solicitation and targeting of women of color by abortion providers throughout the state.

This misleading issue of abortions for sex- and race-selection in Georgia means that we have to use facts and science to stand up for women of color without undermining our support for abortion rights or without enforcing racial stereotypes about women of color. Intent on driving a wedge between reproductive justice and racial justice organizations, and pro-choice advocates, the bill reflects the false assumption that abortion providers throughout the state “solicit” women of color. If implemented, this bill will adversely impact abortion providers by requiring them to prove that they are not targeting women of a certain race or ethnicity. This burden could result in delayed medical services, particularly for women of color. Additionally, this legislation would alter the racketeering laws of the Georgia Code to include abortion providers. This is unacceptable as abortion is legal in the State of Georgia, and the alleged abuses of this medical procedure are unfounded. Such a bill would have a terrible effect on women’s ability to access reproductive health care services throughout the state.

While explicitly targeting women of color and attempting to coerce them into abortions would obviously be a horrific, racist thing, as the press release states, there’s no indication that it’s an issue requiring legislation. Further, the legislation is not a benign preventative measure, but an effort to restrict abortion access further than it is already restricted. The women who would be impacted, as is always the case, are those who are already marginalized. It’s clear that proponents of this bill, and those behind the billboard, do not have black women or children’s best interests in mind. They are rather simply opposed to any and all abortions, and find that non-white targets are easy to hit, for a myriad of reasons.

For all of the above reasons, and because I always trust people on the ground to know what is best for their communities much better than I ever could, I strongly support SisterSong in their campaign to defeat HB 1155. As of yesterday, the bill was approved through sub-committee, but the full Judiciary Committee has suspended consideration and not yet voted. SisterSong is urging Georgia residents to call Chairman Rich Golick of the Non-Civil Judiciary Committee TODAY and urge him to VOTE NO TO HB 1155. His office number is 404.656.5943, and his email address is rich.golick@house.ga.gov. If you are someone who can take action, SisterSong has also prepared a list of talking points for your email or phone call (pdf).

But while we are on the topic, I’d also like to discuss the subject of these types of anti-choice attacks a little more closely.

Read more

Jul

14

Women Who Would Have Medicaid-Funded Abortions Instead Often Give Birth

Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, class and economics, misogyny, patriarchy, politics, pregnancy, reproductive justice, women’s health | 3 Comments

A new study just released by the Guttmacher Institute (pdf; news release here) determined that “approximately one-fourth of women who would have Medicaid-funded abortions instead give birth when this funding is unavailable.”

Whatever the actual number of women who are essentially forced to give birth due to a lack of funding for abortion is, as a percentage it’s a gigantic and terrifying figure.

Of course, such news is likely to be cheered by advocates of the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal dollars from funding abortion, and similar state funding restrictions.  The results, after all, were incredibly easy to predict, and while they are indeed shocking they’re not hugely surprising.

What it goes to prove that restrictions on abortion funding aren’t really about ensuring that a woman’s reproductive choices aren’t funded by those who may disagree with them.  (After all, there are assholes out there who think that it’s “wrong” for women to give birth under “certain” circumstances, but we still fund prenatal and birth care.)  It’s about ensuring that women without their own funds don’t get to actually make a choice at all.  It’s about forcing women to give birth because they have no other option.

Since anti-choicers have been unable to institute an outright ban, they go the way of restrictions which, as all abortion-related restrictions do, only impact economically disadvantaged women.  They’re the only ones for whom a few hundred dollars in the way can make such a life-altering decision.  And since the class system is still structured rather strongly along racial lines, it’s also having a disproportionate impact on women of color.  Indeed, a North Carolina study cited in this same Guttmacher paper showed that when public funding for abortions was made available, there was a 10% increase in abortions among black women, compared to a 1% increase among white women.

Currently, only 17 states fund all or most medically necessary abortions.  The rest (with the exception of South Dakota, which is in breach of federal law), only cover abortions in the case of rape/incest or life endangerment.  So, as the ACLU blog astutely notes, the women mentioned above who would have had Medicaid funded abortions given the option but instead gave birth also includes women with health-threatening conditions (such as cancer or heart disease, to name only two of many) that pregnancy poses an increased risk to.

Last week, I posted about anti-choice efforts to exclude abortion funding from proposed health care reform legislation.  The good news is that some of those efforts just failed in committee — hopefully indicating a willingness of all but the most anti-choice Democrats to stand up for women’s rights and health.  The bad news is that anti-choice legislators will have plenty of opportunities left to try to reinsert such provisions.  And they likely will.  After all, as the information above proves, such efforts have served their goals quite well.

via Abby Jean

Jul

9

Americans Broadly Support Abortion Coverage in Health Reform

Filed Under Democrats, Republicans, abortion, anti-choice extremism, assholes, class and economics, misogyny, patriarchy, politics, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | 2 Comments

You my have heard — or you may not, as it seems to be getting little mainstream media coverage — that health care reform is in trouble. With Republicans and blue-dog Democrats sensing that some sort of of government coverage is likely to be successfully created this time around, they’re shifting tactics somewhat from attempting to defeat mounting legislative efforts to attempting to gut them. And a big area where they’re focusing that gutting is reproductive health care:

Imagine our dismay to see the proposed amendments submitted to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee this week by Republican Senators Michael Enzi, Orin Hatch and Tom Coburn:

  • Coverage for abortion would be banned;
  • Health providers and insurers would be protected against “discrimination” for refusing to provide health care requested by their patients including abortions, emergency contraception, aid-in-dying (such as in Oregon, Washington and Montana, where this is legal) or really just about any health service they find objectionable;
  • Federally-qualified health centers could not provide abortions and still get government grants;
  • Any independent medical board appointed to determine the benefits that would be included in national health reform coverage would have to include “professional ethicists…with specialty in rights of the life of the unborn.”

The really interesting thing is that while traditional wisdom suggests there is rather broad support for a ban on government subsidization of abortions, new research from the National Women’s Law Center suggests that it’s not actually true — not by a long shot:

  • Voters overwhelmingly support the broad outlines of reform and requiring coverage of women’s reproductive health services. Seven-in-ten (70%) favor a proposal that establishes a National Health Insurance Exchange with a public plan option. If the reform were adopted, voters overwhelmingly support requiring health plans to cover women’s reproductive health services (71% favor-21% oppose).
  • Absent coverage for women’s reproductive health services, majorities oppose reform. If reform eliminated current insurance coverage of reproductive health services such as birth control or abortion, nearly two-thirds (60%) would oppose the plan and nearly half (47%) would oppose it strongly.
  • Supporting coverage of comprehensive reproductive health services would benefit Members of Congress. A plurality (45%) would feel more favorably toward their Representative if they voted to cover reproductive services, while 24% would feel less favorably, and 32% said it would make no difference.
  • Voters would feel much less favorably about their Representative if they voted to cover services like Viagra for men, but excluded reproductive services for women. Voters overwhelmingly reported that they would feel less favorably toward their Member of Congress if they voted for reproductive services for men and not for women (71%), while only 9% would feel more favorably toward their Representative.

Read more

Jun

11

Late Abortion Care Will Return to Kansas

Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, pregnancy, reproductive justice, women’s health | 4 Comments

When I learned the other day that Dr. Tiller’s clinic Women’s Health Care Services would not reopen with new providers, I found the news extremely depressing and lamented the significantly reduced access to much-needed, and sometimes life-saving, abortion care.

Now, against the odds, it turns out that another brave abortion provider is stepping in to take Dr. Tiller’s place, and provide late abortions in Kansas (h/t):

A Nebraska doctor said Wednesday that he will perform third-term abortions in Kansas after the slaying of abortion provider George Tiller, but would not say whether he will open a new facility or offer the procedure at an existing practice.

Dr. LeRoy Carhart declined to discuss his plans in detail during a telephone interview with The Associated Press, but insisted “there will be a place in Kansas for the later second- and the medically indicated third-trimester patients very soon.”

“I just think that until everything is in place, it’s something that doesn’t need to be talked about” in detail, Carhart said a day after Tiller’s family announced his Wichita clinic was permanently shutting its doors.

Tiller’s clinic was one of the only facilities in the country that performed third-trimester abortions. Carhart has run his own clinic in Bellevue, Neb., since 1985, but had performed late-term abortions at Tiller’s clinic because of Nebraska’s more restrictive abortion laws.

Dr. Carhart was a long-term friend and colleague of Dr. Tiller, and had worked with him on past occasions. He had also previously been a part of plans to reopen Dr. Tiller’s clinic and provide services there along with two other doctors, before Dr. Tiller’s family ultimately decided that the facility would not reopen. Apparently determined to ensure that late abortions are still available in the state (which has significantly less restrictive late abortion laws than many others), he has now developed alternate plans. And I know that I, surely along with countless other advocates, am breathing a huge sigh of relief.  The women and otherwise identifying people (some intersex and genderqueer individuals and trans men, for example) who will unfortunately need late abortion services have likely just been spared a lot of additional pain and/or health risk.

Dr. Carhart also has a long history as a reproductive rights hero.  He has been an abortion provider since 1985, has long provided late abortions himself, and reports an increase in patients at his clinic since Dr. Tiller’s murder less than two weeks ago.  And you may recognize his name from the infamous Gonzales v. Carhart Supreme Court case, which upheld the ban on so-called “partial birth” abortions.  Dr. Carhart had challenged the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act on the basis that it provided no exception for a patient’s health.  Though the case was lost at the highest level, it was a correct and absolutely necessary challenge.  Now, he is stepping in to fill Dr. Tiller’s shoes, knowing full well the kind of terror that is almost certainly awaiting him, merely for his determination to provide a legal medical service.

So, thank you Dr. Carhart.  I am beyond grateful for your strong commitment to reproductive health and rights.  And I can only believe that Dr. Tiller would be extremely pleased.

cross-posted at Feministe

Jun

9

Dr. Tiller’s Clinic Will Remain Closed

Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, assholes, misogyny, patriarchy, pregnancy, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | 7 Comments

tiller-clinicOh god. This twists both my heart and my stomach up into tight, hard knots.

The family of slain abortion provider George Tiller said Tuesday that his Wichita clinic will be “permanently closed,” effective immediately.

In a statement released by Tiller’s attorneys, his family said it is ceasing operation of Women’s Health Care Services Inc. and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic.

“We are proud of the service and courage shown by our husband and father and know that women’s health care needs have been met because of his dedication and service,” the family said.

This is awful.  Just awful.  I feel quite literally ill and nauseous at the moment.

I can’t blame Dr. Tiller’s family.  I don’t blame his family.  I understand that they have risked, and lost, far more than enough.  No one could have ever blamed Dr. Tiller if he had decided, after the years of harassment and threats on his life, to give up practicing at his clinic.  And so we certainly can’t blame his family now for shutting the clinic doors, once those threats were actually carried out.  And I also hear what Dr. Hern, who provides the same type of late abortions that Dr. Tiller did, is saying.  Who would want to work there?  We can talk about principle all day long, but when it comes down to it — a man was murdered because he worked there.  How many of us would be willing to take is place?  Exceedingly few.

But that doesn’t change the loss, and that loss is huge.  The nation has now not only lost one of its bravest, most compassionate abortion providers.  It has also lost one of only three clinics that performed life-saving and therapeutic abortions this late.  (Please note: dozens of clinics perform abortions that would be considered “late.”  Dr. Tiller’s, however, was one of only three that provided abortions as late as they did.)

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Jun

5

Who Was Dr. George Tiller?

Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, personal and self-promotion, reproductive justice, women’s health | 3 Comments

I have a post (my first!) up at Global Comment. It’s about Dr. George Tiller . . . a subject I’ve been silent on here since his death (though I did write a bit at Feministe).  A taste:

Any doctor who chooses to provide abortions in America, where there is a pervasive and largely accepted climate of harassment and intimidation against those who do, is undoubtedly an immensely courageous person. Dr. George Tiller, murdered by an anti-choice assassin in his church this past Sunday, was in a league of bravery very much his own.

Dr. Tiller was famous for many years prior to his assassination, thanks not to a desire for the spotlight, but to his commitment to performing late abortions in the highly conservative and religious Bible Belt.

Extremist anti-choice activists responded by loudly and publicly dubbing him “Tiller the Killer.” Dr. Tiller aborted babies on their due dates! – they yelled. He performs these horrible abortions for any reason at all. He’s breaking the law. He’s in it for the money.

Since his death, you’ll have heard these assertions repeated over and over again, in the same breath that anti-choice leaders use to supposedly denounce his murder. But the true Dr. Tiller was a decidedly different man from the bogeyman anti-choicers portray.

Finish reading here.

May

28

Anti-Choicers Push South Carolina “Born Alive” Bill

Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, legislation, reproductive justice, women’s health | 7 Comments

Via Daisy, I’ve learned of a new bill moving through the South Caroline legislature being referred to as the “born alive” bill.  The legislation would purportedly prevent “abortion” through the method of allowing a fetus/baby born alive to die without medical treatment.

A bill that would prevent a fetus from being thrown away as medical waste or to die outside the mother’s body as a form of abortion moved one step closer to law this morning after it passed a Senate subcommittee.

Senators amended the House-passed bill to note that nothing in the legislation affects state or federal laws on abortion or affects generally accepted medical standards.

The “born alive” bill now moves to the full Judiciary Committee.

The legislation defines a person as anyone who is breathing or who is born with a beating heart, no matter the means of birth or whether the result of an abortion.

If this bill sounds vaguely familiar to you, it’s likely because you’re thinking of a very similar one that was considered in Illinois — and which then Senator Obama was lambasted for opposing.

The question, of course, is what this bill is about.  Because if you know very much about abortion, you’ll know that the overwhelming majority of abortions are performed before it’s even remotely possible that a fetus could be born alive, and that with those abortions that are performed past that point — almost universally for medical reasons — a fetus being “born alive” is ridiculously rare.  In fact, the discovered fetus that spurned this legislation may not have been aborted at all, but miscarried — there’s seemingly no evidence where it came from.  Further those who know anything about medical ethics also know that doctors are already required by oath to provide medical treatment in such a circumstance.

Which means two things: 1. the bill is unnecessary because it legislates a situation which virtually never occurs and 2. even if the situation did arise at an even remotely frequent rate, this law wouldn’t change anything.

So, what’s the point?  Well, many would argue that it’s to extend the definition of personhood to include fetuses and thus undermine abortion rights.  It’s certainly possible, but if the definition described in the article quoted above is correct, it explicitly excludes unborn fetuses, as they do not breathe and, um, have not been born.  So while that’s always the first suspect, I’m not seeing it here.  Others could argue that it’s to scare doctors away from performing abortions.  But again, this would only work if aborted fetuses being born alive was an even remotely frequent occurrence, and if doctors were actually willing to then throw them out with medical waste while still breathing, therefore giving them something to worry about.  And you could say that it’s about undermining women’s health and safety by forcing doctors to use different methods of abortion, but the current methods work just fine and ensure that the chances of such botched abortions are negligible at most.

Therefore, I think that this is all about something else entirely — politics, of course.  The point is to portray fetuses as “babies,” to further the myth that abortions regularly take place at the late stages of pregnancy, and to remind everyone of how icky the procedure is.  It’s also to further the myth that abortion providers are heartless, baby-killing monsters who just throw living fetuses out with the trash.  It’s to present the exceedingly rare occurrence of an aborted fetus being “born alive” as common, and for doctors to kill it outside of the uterus as similarly frequent.  And lastly, it’s to place pro-choice politicians in a bind — either accept and reinforce this myth, or risk also being portrayed as heartless monsters.

Which is, in the end, about undermining a woman’s right to reproductive health care after all.  Just in the court of public opinion, thus setting the stage for future actually restrictive laws, rather than in the law books.

Mar

6

Catholic Church Excommunicates Mother and Doctors Over 9-Year-Old Rape Victim’s Abortion

Filed Under International, South America, abortion, anti-choice extremism, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, violence against women and girls, women’s health | 14 Comments

In Brazil, there is a horrific story of a 9-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated (h/t Falloch’s comment).  It’s believed that the rape was committed by her step-father.  The girl was not only pregnant at that young age, but also pregnant with twins.  And so, as makes perfect sense, she had an abortion.  Because she was raped, because she was much to young to have a child, and because the stress of having twins would of course have been far too much for a 9-year-old’s body to handle.  And she could have died.

Now, the Catholic Church has excommunicated both the girl’s mother and the doctors who performed the abortion, which likely saved the girl’s life.

Well then.  At least they didn’t excommunicate the girl, right?  Maybe they decided that she was much too young to have made the decision to have the abortion on her own, or to understand what was happening.  But not too young, apparently, to be forced to give birth to the twins caused by her rapist.  Not too young to quite possibly die in the process.

In defending the decision, the Church’s lawyer has said:

“It’s the law of God: Do not kill. We consider this murder,” Miranda said in comments reported by O Globo.

But rape, apparently, is a-okay.  After all, I don’t see the step-father, who allegedly admitted to having raped the girl since the age of 6, being excommunicated.  Killing a fetus is apparently worthy of such censure and shunning.  Horrifically violating a small child, though?  Well, we all make mistakes.  And this stance is of course nothing new.

The lawyer also argued that the girl just should have carried to term and had a cesarean section.  Because obviously a lawyer knows the girl’s condition better than her own doctor.  And obviously the girl’s mental well-being doesn’t count for a damn thing.

Who knows what a cesarean section would have done for the girl, since the doctors didn’t present the issue of her giving vaginal birth as being the main health concern here.  But oh well.  God says.  Clearly, if this child died in the course of fulfilling “God’s wishes,” it would have been a lesser tragedy than the cold-blooded murder of those innocent little fetuses.  After all, in other extremist Catholic doctrine, a woman is better off dead than raped anyway.

RH Reality Check asks: Is this what religious objection to abortion looks like?  Seeing as how the point of the entire anti-choice movement is indeed to erase any and all concern for the woman in question, in fact to erase her very existence if at all possible . . . clearly, yes.  In an extreme nutshell, this is exactly what it looks like.

cross-posted at Feministe

Feb

28

Arizona Legislature Considers Numerous Abortion Restrictions

Filed Under Republicans, abortion, anti-choice extremism, assholes, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, patriarchy, politics, reproductive justice, women’s health | 10 Comments

Just as anti-choice, time-wasting nonsense gets cleared up in South Dakota, we find ourselves some more in Arizona.  Indeed, as Miriam and Ann note, anti-choicers seem to be going pretty wild all over the nation.

This particular piece of ugly Arizona legislation would impose a whole ton of restrictions:

Legislation to impose the first new restrictions on abortion since at least 2002 coasted to easy approval Wednesday in the House Committee on Health and Human Services.

Democrats, seeing they were going to be outvoted anyway, walked out, leaving their Republican colleagues to vote 5-0 for HB 2564.

Since 2002, abortion foes have managed to get various measures through the Republican-controlled Legislature only to have each vetoed by Democrat Janet Napolitano.

This bill mandates women be given certain information, in person, about their unborn child and their legal rights if they keep the child. It allows a wide range of medical professionals to refuse to provide abortions, allows medical professionals to refuse to provide the “morning-after” pill, and changes the regulations for minors getting an abortion without parental consent.

The article then goes on to say that there’s also a 24-hour waiting period included in the bill, along with requirements that the woman be told at the start of this period all about prenatal services available to her, as well as “the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics” of the fetus at her particular stage of pregnancy.

Read more

Feb

11

Senate Committee Kills Anti-Choice Bill

Filed Under abortion, legislation, reproductive justice, women’s health | 2 Comments

My prediction from yesterday turned out to be correct!

Hooray!  I can’t say just how glad I am to see this dangerous proposal shot down.  Maybe now legislators will finally get the message.  There are more than enough abortion restrictions in place in South Dakota.  The last thing you need is more.  And, once again, they’re also not what South Dakotans want.

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