Please shut up so we can actually talk

Sometimes anti-abortion spokespeople act like it's huge news or a total outrage that abortion providers and abortion-rights advocates are hesitant to discuss flaws in their colleagues, partners, or movement. "See," the antis say -- and you can almost hear their crossed arms and satisfied smirk -- "They're only worried about protecting themselves, even if it means protecting their predatory, dangerous, greedy peers." And anti-abortion "activists" are constantly manufacturing problems to "investigate" and "expose" as well -- like when Lila Rose tries to prove that Planned Parenthood staff protect child traffickers, when actually they're telling the fake traffickers that young women can receive free checkups there (true), and then alerting the police (appropriate). 

In such an atmosphere, where tapes are heavily edited and even simple statements get twisted to mean something else entirely, is it any wonder that we fear perverse or disproportionate consequences, from antis and employers alike, if we speak up about the non-manufactured problems that do exist? 

Don't misunderstand: all of us, pro- and anti-choice, want dangerous abortion practices or abusive providers to be brought to light. But those are few and far between, way rarer than anti press would have us believe. So we have to spend our time dissecting what's real and what's BS, and meanwhile, there are more subtle issues that can't take stage, like "I prefer X style of abortion care provision while the only clinic in town provides it like Y," or "My organization has a fantastic mission but terrible leadership," and so forth. Stuff that I really want us to work on. Stuff that would move abortion care from "widely safe, usually decent, sometimes wonderful" to "uniformly excellent." 

I won't give a million more examples right now, but I'm working on it. But if, for example, you want to know why it's taken me weeks to draft (and months to conceptualize) a critique of Planned Parenthood's current position in our field, all you have to do is take a gander at shit like this: 

"AT LAST!! Former Planned Parenthood Director and "Employee of the Year" to Reveal Abortion Chain's WEAK LINK!"

The Sunny Side

When I was in the fifth grade, our class read (and was forced to memorize) The Optimist's Creed. Here it is:

Promise yourself:
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind;
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet;
To make all your friends feel that there is something good in them;
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true;
To think only the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best;
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own;
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future;
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile;
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others;
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear; and too happy to permit the presence of trouble;
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words, but in great deeds;
To live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you.



I always thought this was nice and appropriate for a 10-year-old. Get your introspection on and enjoy your last year of life without feeling sorry for yourself all the time. But can you guess my favorite part? I'll make it real obvious for you:

"To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others"

Just throwing it out there for all our picture-perfect anti readers to chew on.

You know what? Maybe some holy being will someday come down to Earth to reveal the truths of the universe to all humans. And maybe that truth will be that, indeed, abortion is a terrible, horrible thing that has angered him or her to the point that s/he could not sit back and watch anymore. And maybe all us Abortioneers are going to fry for eternity.

Perhaps.

BUT.

WHOSE PROBLEM IS THAT?!

Ours. Not yours.

So, you can continue as usual, protesting and mocking us and shouting hellfire and brimstone from your pedestals until your god finally arrives to prove you right, and you can jump up and down pointing fingers with your "TOLD YA!"s and look like complete A-holes in front of your god, such that he banishes you to the depths right along with us for judging and for not loving thy neighbor and doing unto others and the Abortioneers have the last laugh.

Or, you can just go about your day, being the best person you can possibly be, perhaps by helping families without enough resources to adequately care for their children (hint hint), praying for your own salvation and nodding hello to the Abortioneers as you simply pass by because you're too busy minding your own damn business, and when the rapture happens your god will be so impressed by your meekness that you shall inherit the earth and do whatever the hell you want.

Just sayin'.

It's funny. Last week at the clinic a protester started, as they all inevitably do, to speak Spanish to a tan woman. She clearly didn't understand, either because she didn't speak Spanish or because this boorish oaf's Spanish was dreadful beyond recognition. A fellow escort asked him why he was trying to speak Spanish to her. His reply: "What do you care what I do?"

!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*

Injuring and insulting women: legislative edition (Or, "Hereafter Known As The No-Good-Reason Act")

You need to know about this. Chris Smith, along with several other congressmen (many of them newly elected), feel that our representatives' first priority in the new Congress ought to be the passage of "insult plus injury"-style anti-abortion legislation. Enter the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." I want to discuss two especially stupid provisions, which this column summarizes nicely.

The tax credits that are encouraging small businesses to provide insurance for their workers could not be used to buy policies that cover abortions. People with their own policies who have enough expenses to claim an income tax deduction could not deduct either the premiums for policies that cover abortion or the cost of an abortion. People who use tax-preferred savings accounts to pay medical costs could not use the money to pay for an abortion without paying taxes on it.

I mean, this is purely symbolic for the legislators, and purely punitive for people who need an abortion! Republicans are going after tax deductions? Breezing right past that irony, let's consider: Does the fact that I can deduct my spending on medicine or a doctor's visit from my "taxable income" make me more likely to spend on those things? Not really, it just makes it slightly easier on me to afford the things I need without taking extra money from me at tax-time as though I had spent those dollars on "fun" stuff.

At my current income I don't actually have to pay federal income tax (shocker), but assume the default 20% bracket applied -- if I get to subtract, say, $500 spent on a first-trimester abortion from my total taxable income, I'll save $100 come April 15. Not enough to make me decide to have an abortion, and not enough to make me decide against an abortion if Chris Smith bans that deduction.

Another example, going further afield to tax credits, which really are a significant chunk of money credited to you directly (not just deducted from your taxable income base): if I have dependent minor children I can get $1000 taken off my owed taxes each year. Has that affected my decision to have or not have a child? Would it affect yours? Probably not; people decide to have children because they are ready to and want to, not because someone's giving them a coupon on it.

I know taxes are a drag, so we don't have to keep discussing, but you see the gist: this ban's purpose can't logically be to make people less likely to choose abortions -- it's only to injure them for it by taking out an extra $100 of their taxes (or more, depending on their income bracket), and to insult them by refusing to acknowledge that their abortion counts as a health-related expenditure. (Just like tampons and pads and menstrual cups don't count, either. Just like breast pumps don't count, either. I discern a fucking pattern.)

The Smith bill also would take certain restrictions on federal financing for abortions that now must be renewed every year and make them permanent. It would allow federal financing of abortions in cases of "forcible" rape but not statutory or coerced rape, and in cases where a woman is in danger of death from her pregnancy but not of other serious health damage. It would free states from having to provide abortions in such emergency cases.

FYI, as Sady Doyle notes, "70% of rapes are 'non-forcible.' Rapists consciously seek out people and situations where they’ll have to use a minimum amount of 'force'."

Currently I work in a state that doesn't provide any of its own funds for abortion coverage but supposedly abides by federally-funded Medicaid's mandate to cover abortions in cases where a pregnancy resulted from rape. Even the old-timers at my work say that they have never seen Medicaid cover a procedure, even when the rape was "forcible" (all rape is forcible, obvi, since that's the opposite of consensual, but by this Smith really means there must also be beating), even when prosecution occurred, even when the pregnancy was DNA-matched to the perpetrator. Many clinics don't bother trying to bill Medicaid anymore, so the state is passively stripping women of even the limited rights they supposedly have. Abortion patients whose pregnancies are a result of rape, even patients who do have Medicaid, overwhelmingly are already paying for their own abortion care (and often struggling to do so). And women who can't pay for their own abortion care overwhelmingly are already bearing their rapists' children. Doesn't that warm your Republican heart*? (Oh, a few Democrats too!)

So this provision, too, isn't going to prevent women from choosing abortion. If the federal government reverses decades of painstaking progress in legal thought, jurisprudence, and goddamn human rights, it isn't going to make women who were raped but just not beaten too feel that they deserve to remain pregnant any more than they did before. It's just going to bring written law more in line with the outrageous reality of states already not understanding rape or supporting rape survivors; add to the stigma of patients who choose abortion outside of the few 'acceptable' reasons (e.g. "I can understand it in cases of rape, but this wasn't even 'real rape'"); and in the process possibly fuck up criminal justice even worse than it's already fucked up.

Sorry, y'all: every time I tell myself I'll try not to rant, something comes up that just makes my brain start bleeding out my eyeballs.


*Update: also h/t Sady, these dudes aren't even in touch with their own supporters - in a November poll, "71% of American voters who voted for a Republican candidate opposed the Smith bill."

Update 2: Sorry, I should have included a What You Can Do!  The same post I linked above provides a handy-dandy link to your representatives' contact page and helpful hints (for a sample call, see rabbleprochoice):

Click on this, and it should take you to a page where you can find out exactly who your rep is, and what their contact information is. Look that person up on Wikipedia, to get a sense of who they are, if you don’t already know. Then, CALL THEM. Be polite; be professional; do not threaten or use violent or abusive language under any circumstances. Explain to them that their constituents don’t support this bill, explain how and why it’s a bad bill, and let them know that if they support or fail to oppose this bill, they can expect that to impact them in a very bad way when it comes to the matter of keeping their jobs.

Libertyville Abortion Demonstration

Antis are stupid: more at 11.


(sadly I cannot embed this video, but please follow the link and watch it!)

Common anti-choice bumper stickers and my responses to them

Because it's too cold to write anything of substance.

"Abortion stops a beating heart
Well, yes. Generally, that's the idea.

"Smile! Your mom chose life!"
I'll smile because she was able to CHOOSE, and if she had chosen otherwise, I wouldn't hold it against her at all, not to mention, I wouldn't have known the difference.

"Take my hand, not my life." (Accompanied by a photo of a fetal hand)
I'm not sure that's possible.

"It's a child, not a choice."
It's a fetus AND a choice!

"Choose life"
Wham! is back?!

"Abortion hurts women."
Wrong. YOU hurt women, douchebag.

"Adoption, not abortion"
You offering?

"Don't abort me!"
I won't, stock image kid, age 2.

"Pretend I'm a tree and save me!"
I don't want a tree growing in my uterus, either.

"I'm pro-life. Ask me why."
I'd imagine it's because you're a self-righteous, misguided misogynist asshole.

I think I need to stop now because I'm sick of Googling slogans to jog my memory.

Keep on bloggin'

Daughter of Wands is caught in some internet-hampering weather today. I am filling in, and would have done so a lot earlier if I weren't anxiously trying to finish three different late assignments before the end of the day. Lately several of us have had reason to ask for a helping hand from our fellow bloggers: exams, extra shifts at work, application deadlines, family stress, business trips.

We have so much going on in our lives (and so much of our work already contributes to the abortiony movement), why keep blogging? Why not drop this obligation every now and then, when "real life" gets crazy busy?

Here's one reason, from an article published a few months ago that bounces around in my head every time I think about taking days off of blogging: ‘Abortion’ Googled more where abortion access is restricted. (For a PDF of the original article in BMC Public Health, click here.)

Basically, two Children's Hospital doctors (who don't have any particular vested interest in abortion per se) proposed that internet search data might shed light on the regional impact of health policies, just like it might be shedding light on infection patterns (remember when Google searches for flu-related terms were found to closely mimic the pattern of flu infection?). To test this, they considered abortion both within the US and across countries, comparing the number of abortion-related searches in different areas, local abortion rates, and local abortion policies.

Abortion search volume was significantly higher in states where fewer than 10 percent of counties had providers, and in those with a mandatory waiting period, mandatory counseling, mandatory parental notification for minors, or mandatory parental consent for minors.

They concluded that both in the US and abroad, "the volume of Internet searches for abortion is inversely proportional to local abortion rates, and directly proportional to local restrictions on abortion."

The less abortion (and information) is locally and openly available, the more likely people are to search for it elsewhere and more privately. That's a reason that I try to keep up my blogging even when I don't feel up to it, even on days when I'm not sure what new insights my post can bring to others. If people out there are trying to find information about abortion that they can't access in their given environments (a library book, a family doctor, a trusted friend, a local professor) then I hope they'll be able to find information that is accurate in letter, true in spirit, and published with honest intent. So I show up to work, if you will, to help my blogging colleagues (see blogroll at right) in this effort to make that information available.

Of course, you could argue that we don't know if some of those Googlers are, say, anti-abortion bloggers from anti-abortion states just doing their research by looking up other anti-abortion bloggers to circularly cite. Who knows! But that's not in contradiction with the study -- after all, bloggers are people too, and they need open access to accurate information. I'd love for some anti somewhere to stumble across this site and learn a bit of accurate information (such as: murdering placenta sandwich would terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being that feels pain and tries to do right by born women).

(You could also say, maybe causality goes the other way, since we don't know which came first -- what if researching abortion teaches women that it's something they want to avoid? For example, if they meant to visit the National Abortion Federation at prochoice.org but instead end up at prochoice.com, which publishes deceptions and outright lies about purported risks of abortion, that may scare them away from licensed abortion providers just like lies in 'real life' have always attempted to do. But the comparative lowness or highness of abortion rates and abortion restrictions are fairly consistent and enduring -- they pre-date the internet and certainly search engines -- so it's probably not that.)

Reality vs Bullshit

Welcome to a little game I just made up called reality vs bullshit. I have recently been reading some anti-choice blogs (like Banana Grabber), and man-oh-man…they are riddled with bullshit. It’s fascinating how they sell it too in the boat loads…big steaming piles of it.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Abortion is dangerous:
BULLSHIT!

Abortion is so incredibly safe! It’s ridiculous! As someone who has seen very sick pregnant women…and some pregnant women die from simply being pregnant…abortion is a helluva lot safer than carrying a pregnancy to full term…or as close to full term as you can get.

Those pictures of fetuses antis like to show off:
BULLSHIT!

I get this gets the message across in a disgusting way, but the reality is most products of conception are just tissue (and the majority of abortions are before 9 weeks). Fetal parts are not visible. I guess that wouldn’t be as compelling. Most of those pictures look like fetuses that were probably born spontaneously and didn’t survive or were intrauterine fetal demises. Which is why there are actually these close-up pictures of them. Of course facts and the anti-choice community never seem to go hand in hand.

Make abortion illegal!
BULLSHIT!

The reality is that making abortion illegal just makes it unsafe. Women who do not want to be pregnant will make it so they are not pregnant…legally or illegally. History will repeat itself, guaranteed. Which further proves my point that antis don’t care about women. They would rather a woman shove a knitting needle through her cervix than have the legal right to terminate a pregnancy safely. If you block a woman from terminating a pregnancy, that woman doesn’t magically say “oh, I do want this baby.” Most women think about this decision for weeks before even making an appointment. I guess we are just pregnancy vessels. Physicians in South America rotate through labor and delivery and also the septic abortion floor…because women self-terminate. It happens and it will happen again the more you restrict abortion and if you make it illegal.

Abortion hurts women!
BULLSHIT!

Antis hurt women. When you scream at women making a difficult decision, you are hurting them. When you try to make legislation blocking women’s access to abortion services, you are hurting them! Looking at anti-choice organizations -- so many of them are led by white, privileged people. You don’t see the struggle we see in the clinics, in the hospital. You are hurting these women and it’s disgusting. Frankly, it’s bullshit.

"Why don't you..."

Ensure women are confident in the decisions they make about their problem pregnancies
Help women leave their abusive partners so they can have that baby
Combat domestic violence
Provide women with contraceptive services to avoid unplanned pregnancies
Find a job developing more effective forms of contraception
Prevent rape and sexual violence - so that "the innocent ones" don't have to have abortions, natch
Find counseling for assault victims
Throw them baby showers so they'll have "all the supplies they need"
Offer to adopt her children so she'll have time and energy for one more
Buy her kids the damn Christmas presents so she won't have to have the abortion (What?? Please work on distinguishing between a problem and its symptom, OK?)
Help her with the cost of a new baby
Pay their utility bills
Help them find safe cheap childcare...

*

Dear devoted denialist antis, regular know-it-alls, and well-meaning strangers/friends/family/bloggers who just think abortion "shouldn't be used so thoughtlessly": 


Thank you for your suggestions. We regretfully see that you consider yourselves geniuses for having hit on the one magic solution that no one has tried.


In order to keep this letter brief, I leave to your own heroic efforts the task of identifying which of these things we ALREADY DO that you just assumed we don't do, which of them we would NEVER DO because you are not adequately informed to dream up effective strategies ("tell her to Just Leave him!"), and which ones we would LOVE to do but lack the resources and/or magical patriarchy-busting power to do.


In fact the purpose of our reply is simply to ask you a question, since you brought it up.


Why don't you?


No, seriously. Why don't you do those things? Answer me, each of you, about your individual practices. And society-at-large, you answer me too. And when you've all answered why YOU don't do these things, I'll understand you a little better, and then one day maybe we can "discuss reasonable solutions" as you have proposed but are currently unprepared for.


We regret that we will not be working with you at this time but encourage you to submit future proposals that meet the minimum thoughtfulness standards.


Good luck,


Placenta Sandwich
VP of Irritated Blogging
The Abortioneers

Let's Watch a Video

So, this young lady has a lot of opinions on abortion. Many of which are ridiculous and laughable. I would like to highlight my favorites and discuss it with you all.

Early on, she says, "It's obvious that biology says that a human being becomes a human as a zygote." According to the dictionary, a zygote is "the cell produced by the union of two gametes, before it undergoes cleavage."

So a cell. A zygote is a cell.

Later, she is asked what is the best argument she has heard from the pro-choice side? She replies, "The very best argument is that a fetus is not a human being... it's a clump of cells. That's a thesis. What is the evidence for that?"

Um, doesn't biology "obviously" tell us something about zygotes? That zygotes are cells? How do you need evidence to prove that a clump of cells is a clump of cells? If a zygote is a cell then it is a cell. I think she is trying to suggest what is the evidence that it is not a human being? I would suggest the evidence that it is not a human being is because it is not living outside the womb. Also, it is a clump of cells according to biology but I won't bother with that point.

This fetus-or-human is a very important distinction. There are those folks who think that once the egg is fertilized, bam, human. No ifs ands or buts. There are those who think that once a woman becomes pregnant, it's not a human until it is born. There are some who think that it's human in third trimester. There are some who think after 24 weeks it is human. People are ALL over the map on this. Probably because there isn't a way you can actually prove when humanness begins. I don't know if we can all agree to disagree, but we can definitely agree pinning down when exactly a human is a human would be extremely difficult.

What I do know, is that I value the life of someone who already exists in the world, and is living -- I value that more than a clump of cells. I value that more than a fetus. I value that more than a baby who is still in the womb.

Later, Ana talks about abortion in cases of rape, incest, and to save the mother's life, and how those are indefensible because then you could kill anyone.

Actually, no, not really. An abortion to save the life of the mother is to preserve the life of someone who is already alive in the world versus a fetus/clump of cells/whatever you want to call in her stomach. I don't see how creating an orphan and letting the mother die in childbirth is really keeping the justice. Sure, the fetus has no say, but that's because the fetus is not capable of rational thought or discussion. The mother is already alive. She can reason, and think about things, and decide what she wants for herself.

Ana later in the video says that prochoicers support the murder of a newborn child if it is was in the way of the mother's life. Well, if that was the case, the baby could be put up for adoption. If a 40 year old was somehow in the way of the mother's life, maybe that guy should finally move out of the house? Those comparisons are not helpful because you are comparing apples and oranges.

I guess mostly these types of videos and commentaries disappoint me because I try to be open to listening to other people's beliefs and values and while this girl claims to be a listener, she seems really closed minded. Blerg.

Abortion on TV

I found out recently that the a couple of shows, both on major networks, produced episodes featuring abortion as a main story line. And not only did the story lines feature abortion, both characters had an abortion. One of them was shown on tv, the other did not.

Friday Night Lights, not a show I've ever watched before, centers around high school football in a fictional (smallish?) town in Texas. While football is the main story line, there are, of course, various personal story lines. One of them involves two teenagers, Luke and Becky.

"I Can't" centers mostly around Becky finding out she's pregnant and trying to figure out if at 15 she wants to have a baby or have an abortion. While during the episode Becky is obviously torn up about the abortion and telling her mom (who was a teen mom), she seems pretty clear throughout on her decision. She does find solace in the support and objective counseling of the high school football coach's wife, Tami, who doesn't try to talk her out of her decision but does encourage Becky to tell her mom after asking if it's safe for Becky to do so.

The show doesn't delve into a lot of specifics but does a pretty good job of portraying the story realistically and objectively. There's a brief scene with a doctor, at the clinic where Becky will have her abortion, giving the state mandated counseling. Like I said it doesn't go into specifics, so we don't see too much of the counseling process. I do think the show gave a pretty well rounded view, albeit packed tightly into an hour tv show that dedicates much of it's time to various story lines. I can't find any clips to put on the website, but I saw it on the NBC website and thought it was a pretty good episode that portrayed an abortion experience objectively.

The other show, had a slightly different portrayal of an abortion experience - the Family Guy. The Family Guy is a satirical cartoon, made for adults, that isn't afraid to take any controversial topic and poke some fun.

In the episode, "Partial Terms of Endearment", which Fox won't air but is coming out on dvd, Lois goes to a class reunion and runs into an old friend. This friend asks her to be a surrogate for her and her husband. Lois agrees and an embryo is successfully implanted in Lois' uterus. However, not long after, Lois' friend and husband are killed in a car accident. Lois isn't sure what to do and ultimately decides to have an abortion. While Lois does have the abortion in the end, there is a moment where Peter, her husband, tries to convince her not to have the abortion after talking to anti-abortion protesters outside the clinic. This leads me to my favorite scene from this episode. I did watch the entire episode, broken into parts on You Tube.

Hump Day

Dear Readers,

To get you through this Wednesday, I bring to you a collection of my favorite anti-choice propaganda. Unfortunately for us, it seems that anti-choice signs contain fewer typos than teabagger signs, so I'll have to give credit where it's due. Still, the logical fallacies remain.




This one infuriates me most of all. DUH. Nobody who was aborted is here. If I were aborted, how would I know? Would we be here having this conversation? WHAT'S YOUR POINT???!?!?!! Also, it's Uncle Sam. Why? Because women who have abortions are unpatriotic? Stupid.



Reason enough to keep an unwanted pregnancy, yes? Maybe your daddy raped your mommy, or maybe your daddy is conspicuously absent, but baby, you've got his eyes!



Melodrama: the anti's calling card. If you wanted to do this correctly you would say "Dead babies cry to me from the ground." Whether or not you believe that fetuses can cry, blood certainly cannot.



Not a typo per se, but this acronym is poor at best. Could you not have thought up "Not-born" for the "N" space? Man, I should be making these things for you guys.




Distressed sigh. How did Catholics go from being at the forefront of human rights issues (even liberal!) to this? Pro-death? I don't even know what that means.



Oh gee, well now I REALLY want to worship him.




I understand quite well the part about not shooting men in church.



Has anyone ever seen a Jew wielding this sign? I triple-dog-dare any anti to march up to a Holocaust survivor and tell him that abortion is comparable to what he went through. No really, go ahead. And if you don't get punched in the face I will pay out of my pocket to print 100 more of these.

Happy Hump Day, folks!

Cool Abortiony Vids

As a volunteer at the Global Health Council Conference, I had the opportunity to peruse the booths of other global health orgs and reproductive health ones. Always a fan of Ipas (see our previous posts referencing Ipas), I stopped by their booth and grabbed some literature, plus the obligatory "I <3 Reproductive Rights" swag. Then I went stopped by their YouTube channel, and I strongly recommend you do the same, if for no other reason than the following -- take 30 seconds and watch*:

Think About It


I assume this was filmed in Brazil, which is great because it sheds light on the situation in a heavily- Catholic and anti country.

Did you finish? Good. Let's discuss.

I've always had this theory that people who are not intellectual/politically involved/generally thoughtful just regurgitate things that they are taught. I've spoken with lots of folks who, when asked to explain their views on certain subject, respond "just because". It's simple recitation. You can tell that the person has never truly considered what he/she believes, or why, but just believes so because they were taught so by mom, dad, Father Flynn, or whomever else. That's what I love about this spot; everyone has an automatic reaction to they way they feel about abortion, simply because it's against Catholic doctrine. But when asked to consider the morality of the issue, they're stumped!

Granted, this spot was probably edited to emphasize the point, but I can't imagine that this attitude is rare in Brazil or other Latin American countries. It's crazy! Especially considering the Brazilian government's commitment to health and relatively good health indicators. And the way they've managed the HIV epidemic is laudable. It's sad how religion trumps health/human rights. Those minor details.

ANYWAY. Please check out the channel for other videos and promotions. A treasure trove at your fingertips!

*(Clip also available in Spanish!)

Surely I don't need to be writing this post at all. Right?

"It's time to stop treating us as two equal sides in a reasonable debate. Let's get it clear -- they are the perpetrators and we are the victims. Any discussion of how to de-escalate the situation should take place within the anti- abortion community. "We do not have anything to bring to the table," said Convisser. "We are not willing to say it's O.K. to shoot every sixth doctor or woman."

Recently I attended a conference all about abortion. It was pretty awesome. I met providers of abortion care, advocates for abortion access, researchers of abortion medical protocols -- and even some fellow abortion bloggers!

Speakers included lawyers who prepare court cases defending the right to abortion from encroachment by state legislators; counselors whose experience assisting abortion patients stretches back to before Roe v. Wade; and the women of the Chicago Abortion Fund representing their efforts at grassroots advocacy for patients by patients, which was incredibly cool.

You know who else was there? Security guards, lots of them, and police officers with explosives-sniffing dogs. Not because they were called in to investigate something, just, you know, every day of the conference as a routine precaution. There was a panel staffed by First-Amendment lawyers, criminal prosecutors, and law enforcement experts. It was all about how to respond to violence and harassment against abortion clinic staff and patients, and what threats are and aren't actionable. You could tell some of the abortioneers in attendance were relieved by the rare chance to talk about what they were enduring and to be around others who understood.

Curious what sorts of activities have been documented? Or what threats aren't actionable (or whether it depends on a particular judge's mood on a particular day)? You might be surprised. You'd definitely be disgusted. No matter what your political stripe, I'm pretty sure you think of yourself as a decent person who wouldn't stalk people, threaten harm to their families, kill their pets and destroy their homes and workplaces in order to get what you wanted. You might even go so far as to say, "Hey, that sounds like, um...terrorism?"

Or would you?

Does your movement accept someone who firebombs women's clinics? How about someone who bursts into them with a shotgun and murders whoever he sees first? Someone who conceals explosives underneath an overturned flower pot, maiming a nurse and killing the security guard who stops to straighten it?
Someone who burns down a doctor's house and barn, killing horses and a dog and a cat? Someone who shoots a hero in the fucking face in his fucking church?

How about the people who visit clinic builders' neighbors with photoshopped fetus posters or greet nurses by name at the door of their own homes? The people who park outside my friend's apartment building night after night, or the ones who followed my patient as she drove home from her appointment? The ones who line the sidewalks outside of clinics and jeer, insult, shove, and elbow pregnant women and their partners and their mothers and the people helping them get inside the clinic? Who say creepy but just-vague-enough shit to clinic counselors as they walk in to work, on the phone at work, in the mail at work?

Not the same, you say? They're only expressing their concern and compassion for the innocent? Protected free speech? I wonder what you'll say when yet another one of those "sidewalk counselors" is added to the list of those arrested for harming born, life-living women and men.

I hate that I have to choose between talking about this so that everyone will know, or reassuring my parents and siblings and partner and best friend that I'm fine, my clinic is fine, we have police-caliber security staff and bulletproof glass and a relatively quiet neighborhood populated with relatively friendly businesses. But those ARE the options, because quitting this work is not an option.

I'm fine, my clinic is fine. I just need to: take a different route to work each day, live in a walk-up, never be a homeowner, not shop online, marry a police officer, not have kids or pets, never be famous, not write about my school or my neighborhood or anything about my family, not tell people I meet about this wonderful blog for fear they might connect the dots. You want to talk about common ground? I'm doing lots to meet you there. What are you doing to prevent my murder?

Tax time

Sorry, I know you've seen this one before. It's just so apt. 

Did you file your taxes on time? I did, but just barely, because unlike the last couple of years, life was just way too crazy in January, February, and March to even think about anything beyond the coming week.

So I was doing the April-Fifteenth hustle and feeling anxious to hear how much I'd be getting back, because my bank balance has been dropping steadily over the weeks, much to this over-scheduled, under-employed wage-worker/student's dismay. And I thought of my funding clients -- the women who were struggling to make one paycheck stretch to the next, couldn't quite scrape together the full cost of their abortion care, and turned to local or national funds in hopes of pleading for the difference.

A couple springs ago, I was fully immersed in funding cases and found myself really impressed at all my clients who were so on top of their shit that they had already filed their tax returns. At some point it dawned on me that they HAD to be on top of their shit -- and they HAD to get an H&R Block "refund anticipation loan" or something similar, and give the preparers a cut of the return -- so that they could count on their tax return to help pay for their abortion services.

To so many of my clients, the idea of having savings for health emergencies is a nice dream. As shitty as it is to be faced with an unwanted pregnancy at any time, the spring clients could at least say, "Thank God this didn't happen in December," when obligations like traveling home and finding your kids a gift and keeping the gas account open would have made it even harder to raise the needed money for themselves. At least, since it was happening in February, they could get to work on a refund advance right away. Even if the tax people do turn it into a 15%-interest loan.

I can't tell you how sick I got of hearing, during this health-insurance reform circus, the petty selfishness of "Why should my tax dollars pay for abortions?" Even as people say that shit, thousands and millions of women out there are diligently filing their taxes each spring, hoping their measly take-home was measly enough to warrant a refund check to serve as non-existent health savings account, because "we" can't be bothered to provide a basic, extremely-common health service with "OUR MONEY."

This is all a very long, roundabout way of saying: Please fucking donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds Bowl-a-Thon. Even if it's just twenty, ten, or five dollars. Then email it to at least three people who might care. Can you do that? Please? It's the least we can do, living in this country full of very pious people who'd rather save their dollars to be dipped in the blood-bath of foreign wars and police abuse than see one cent of public "support" for the fact that women may choose not to be pregnant.

What's Your Sign?

I have seen A LOT of stupid anti-choice signs, posters, comics, etc over the years. Here are some of my favorites:


So... you were designed by God? Cool. I heard God designed a lot of stuff. Trees. Grass. Animals. Bagels. Apparently World War II? Isn't everything in the world a part of "God's Design"? If it's so bad to kill stuff God designed, why do you eat meat? And kill doctors?


AH! Yes, Mary. Full of life. The lady who magically became pregnant without having sex. She is definitely a good example of a normal woman's circumstance. I will definitely not have an abortion if I get pregnant without having sex.


EVERY baby is a blessing? What about the 12 year old who is pregnant with her father's child? That strikes me as unfortunate.


Ok, this is actually pretty good. Hahaha.


Well, people who supported slavery also supported the disenfranchisement of women. And anyone else who wasn't a white dude. Also just because I was born doesn't really mean I should therefore decide if other women get to carry unwanted pregnancies to term?


Um. Well first off all, nobody has elective third trimester abortions. NOBODY. And women aren't flippantly going around having abortions. It's a deeply emotional, difficult decision. So yeah....

Stupid Things Antis Say

No prologue necessary. Sensitive antis: take a hike.



1. That baby could be the next Gandhi!

That baby could also be the next Jeffrey Dahmer or "Jersey Shore" cast member.

2. How would you feel if you were aborted?!

.....I wouldn't.

3. Pick on someone your own size!

Bring it on, similarly-sized anti.

4. Keep your legs closed!

Everyone has sex. Even priests. With small children.

5. Babies are miracles/blessings!

Not to the women who end up killing their children -- you know, somewhat less legal than abortion. Also, we all know where babies actually come from, and it can be pretty unmiraculous.

6. I will help you raise your baby!

No you won't. When have you even given your address and phone number to a pregnant woman for free child care? Oh right, you only give out that information about clinic staff so your anti friends can stalk them.

7. Your baby wants to see your face!

Eh. I'm not sure babies actually want to be born. It's a frightening experience for them. That's why they scream bloody murder. The real world is noisy and freezing.

8. I don't want my tax dollars to pay for abortions!

Yeah, well MY tax dollars pay for wars and bailouts for shoddy industries, but it's something I have to deal with.

9. I regret my abortion!

Your bad. Most women don't.

10. The government is Socialist!

Really? Awesome.

Ways To Not Understand "Choice," or Patriots don't get pregnant

A 'C'? A 'C'? I got a 'C' on my coathanger sculpture? How could anyone get a 'C' in coathanger sculpture?


(who doesn't like a little humorous misapplication of a classic cartoon line?)


I can never tell if it's more frustrating or funny to realize I'm talking to someone who thinks pro-choicers support coerced abortion. It happens about as often as I venture into anti world -- which means, depending on how patient/masochistic I'm feeling. The thing that seems obvious to me is, "chosen" is like the opposite of "coerced," so you'd think pro-choice might suggest...anti-coercion.

The questions (they are usually questions, though I'm not sure if they're earnest or intended as a-ha! traps) are things like "What about that woman whose husband tricked her into taking the abortion pill" or "What about the woman whose parents threw her in the trunk of the car and drove her to an abortion clinic" or "What about the woman who was told by an evil genie that she had to either get an abortion or be sold into a harem on the lost island empire of Atlantis". #1 and #2 are specific examples of questions I've been asked, and they refer to actual events that have occurred. #1 and #2 are also called 'assault' and are punishable by prison time.

The other main twisting of "choice" that I hear a lot always feels like a punch in the gut, and I do hear this one a lot because our culture is full of slut-shaming, not just in anti world. People who think they're cute pipe up with this semantic tour-de-force that goes something like, "I believe in a woman's right to choose -- she could've CHOSEN not to spread her legs!" Ah, clever. The idea being, if you're dumb enough to CHOOSE to have sex, and then get pregnant from it, you fucked up and deserve to stay pregnant. I mean, we don't let speeding drivers seek treatment for their broken limbs, do we? Fifty-five means fifty-five! So if a woman finds herself pregnant in a situation where she can't stay pregnant, even though she knew from the get-go that getting pregnant would really suck, then she's an idiot and pretty much earned what she gets, which is to take her life into her hands, nearly kick the bucket, be refused emergency care from her own doctor, be told she's crazy by another doctor and also lose her job.

Say what? Well, you should read this: Military Abortion Ban: Female Soldiers Not Protected by Constitution They Defend.

“You hear these legends of coat-hanger abortions,” a 26-year-old former Marine sergeant told me recently, “but there are no coat hangers in Iraq. I looked.”

Synopsis, though I hope you'll just go read the article: active-duty military who become pregnant are discriminated against and those who seek abortions get it even worse. So they're trapped, and might do the next logical thing: the Russian roulette of DIY. (You can also see this sergeant interviewed in the documentary The Coat Hanger Project.)

And right on the heels of that article comes word of a recent policy on the ground in northern Iraq that pretty much codifies what's been going on all along: forced unsafe abortion for female servicemembers. U.S. personnel in Iraq could face court-martial for getting pregnant:

The policy, which went into effect Nov. 4, makes it possible to face punishment, including a court-martial and jail time, for becoming pregnant or impregnating a servicemember, according to the wording of the policy and confirmations from Army officials. ... The policy also applies to married couples who are at war together.

To recap, your beloved Department of Defense:
(1) forbids medical personnel to provide abortion care except in cases of rape or life endangerment;
(2) refuses to cover the cost of abortion care except in cases of life endangerment only;
(3) by its very nature stations its personnel in places it has utterly ravaged so that, if they ever did have safe specialty health services, well they don't anymore.
...so far so good, right? The DoD is doing an awesome job preventing abortion -- hell, they've made it practically impossible!

(4) engages in under-the-table discrimination against pregnant soldiers and, now, outright criminalizes pregnancy.

So now what? Well, like I said, now you take your life into your hands, nearly kick the bucket, get refused emergency care from your own doctor, get told you're crazy by another doctor and also lose your job. It's that or jail (or maybe both). You don't have much choice.


This blog is primarily for us to share from our perspective in the field, so you might wonder if now I've accidentally digressed into extrapolation or punditry. But I could tell you a surprising (to me) number of stories from work involving women in the military, or married into the military, needing an abortion as a result of their connection to the military and then having a hard time obtaining one as a result of their connection to the military. They're not all the same situation as that of "Amy" in the RD interview -- there's a lot of different ways to get screwed over for serving one's country while uterused. Maybe this will be a two-part post, so next time (around the new year) I can share some of those with you. But you don't need to hear them all to see there's an unjust price for being a woman in uniform.