Army of One

In the wake of all this anti-woman sentiment that’s been blowing around the last few years, the public has started to take notice of the plight of enlisted women in the armed forces. Entrenched in a nearly all-male environment, women have been victims of discrimination and violence since they were first allowed to serve during WWII. Women have not been allowed to fight in combat with men; they do not receive coverage for abortion under military health plans, nor can they receive abortion services in military health facilities. Most egregiously, they are frequent targets of sexual  violence by officers and fellow enlistees. I take that back; the worst part of all is that complaints of sexual violence are rarely taken seriously, assuming a complaint is made in the first place. Most cases go unreported, for fear of retaliation or punishment. 

That’s right. In the US Armed Forces, you can be punished for being raped. It sounds like something that might happen somewhere far away, like the woman from Morocco who killed herself after being forced to marry her rapist. But nope. This is happening right here at home. It would surprise me, but little does these days. 

I first learned about this phenomenon a few years ago watching The Coathanger Project, in which a former soldier told her story of being dishonorably discharged for having sex and then attempting an abortion. More recently, I watched The Invisible War, a documentary about women enlistees (and some men) who were raped, even drugged and beaten, and received no help from those in charge. They were slut-shamed, victim-blamed, or plain told to suck it up. When a group of victims brought a lawsuit against the military for mistreatment of them and their cases, it was dismissed on the grounds that sexual assault is an occupational hazard of being enlisted. 

Gag me with a spoon. 

If you haven’t seen the film, DO. I can’t remember the last time  I was so angry, so if you’re interested in draining yourself emotionally it’ll do the trick. One issue that wasn’t addressed in the film was the what happened to those who became pregnant as a result of rape (which can happen!). As we know, you can’t get an abortion with military funds or in military facilities, so I’m sure those people have quite interesting (and horrific) stories to tell. But I suppose that would become a six hour movie. 

You know, I’ve gotten lots of flack in my life for not loving my country as I should. For threatening to move to Canada if Bush was elected. For not buying that the military has anything to do with protecting my freedom. For hating American flag  and “Support our Troops” bumper stickers. For questioning why our defense budget is out of this world but we can't feed the poor. For not identifying as a patriot, because being a patriot these days apparently means toting a gun, driving a big car, and popping off firecrackers in a South Carolina rest stop in a "USMC" t-shirt. But the reason I don't love my country as I should is because, call me crazy, I believe in an America where women are treated as equals. Where they can fight alongside their brothers without fear of incest. Where they can love their country so much that they'll die for it without feeling unsafe around the people who supposedly keep us safe. Support our troops? Not as long as they're raping our other troops.

 Look, I have lots of thoughts on this, but sadly I don't really know what I can do except stand together with victims and support reform in the military. I think some minor changes are happening (better moves than these god-awful posters, and these, and these), but I'm pessimistic that nothing will change on a large scale until misogynistic looneys are six feet under. I guess I just want to raise awareness, and give readers the opportunity to learn and pass on their learnings to others. Talk about it, make sure that people understand why this is such a problem. And pray not only for our troops, but for the sad, angry place this country has become in hopes of REAL security and freedom. 

Lets go to the movies (and have an abortion...or not have an abortion)

Busy day here in abortion land so I am re-posting from a fellow kick a$$ vegan feminist blogger who goes by the name of Opinioness of the World. I subscribe to her posts and you should too! Check out her review of Abortion in cinema: HERE

Be my little baby

There are a handful of movies that I'll watch anytime they come on TV, no matter how many times I've seen them before or how far in the movie is. I'll drop everything for the following (in no particular order):

Titanic
Any Brat Pack teen flick
Jurassic Park
Dirty Dancing

Especially that last one. Since I was first introduced to the magical coupling that is Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, I have been a faithful fan of this silly film. I like watching it again and again, because I always discover something new.

At age 12 I discovered that Johnny was checking Baby out in the rear view when she was changing in the backseat.
At age 17 I discovered that Boyz II Men did a delightful cover of "In the Still of the Night", which was playing in the background the morning after their epic lovemaking.
At age 21 I discovered that this movie is about abortion.

It took me so long to catch on not because I'm an idiot, but because I obsess over movies about dancing and I spent most of the time wishing I were one of the background dirty dancers. So I kind of bleeped out the subplots about lies and betrayal and CLANDESTINE ABORTION.


Penny gets pregnant after sleeping with some twerp who works at the resort. He wants nothing to do with it, prompting Baby to borrow the money from her father for some secret yet noble purpose. As I recall it's something like $500. This is 1960-something! That's a lot of scratch! Of course Penny gets a raging infection, almost dies, and Baby's disappointed father has to save her life with his black medical bag of tricks (that he carries around on vacation, apparently). Baby teaches her dad that even dance instructors deserve a fair shake in life, and he becomes so liberated that he allows her to canoodle on the dance floor with a man twice her age.

I think it's pretty easy to gloss over all the adult material there, because the movie ends so happily and is so seductive for nerdy, frizzy-haired girls like myself. But there's a lot of macabre stuff going on. Struggling runaway trying to start a new life. A shithead "man involved" who has tons of money but won't spare a cent for an abortion (legality aside). A traveling quack who nearly kills a young woman with a rusty spoon in her cervix. It ain't pretty. And in fact, Dirty Dancing only gives a PG-13 account. What if Penny had died? What if Baby didn't find the money? What if her father refused to treat Penny's infection? Things could get even yuckier, and I'm glad they didn't because I still want to be able to enjoy my guilty pleasure movies.

At the end of the day, I am grateful for the courage of the screenwriters and directors to portray abortion in a reasonably fair light. I understand why the issue wasn't more prominent (this is a love story!), but for 1987 I think they made some seriously progressive choices.

Yay abortion in movies! What are your favorite movies about abortion?

UNBORN IN THE USA: Inside the War on Abortion

Land of the free: until you're faced with an unwanted pregnancy...

Lately I have found myself fascinated with people who are against abortion, particularly those people who are anti-abortion activists. My fascination grew as I began to collect the brochures discarded in our waiting room by women who were there to have an abortion. The pamphlets are handed out by anti-choice street "counselors." These pamphlets are an extreme embellishment of possible complications involved in abortion procedures and include dramatic photos of mothers and children, images of fetuses throughout pregnancy, and describe the procedure using words that create images of dismembered babies and knife like objects inserted into a woman's vagina. They are such an embellishment on the truth that I think it's safe to say these kind of pamphlets are lies!

I recently stumbled upon a documentary called UNBORN IN THE USA: Inside the War on Abortion. This documentary included interviews with dozens of pro-life activists and sheds light on the anti-abortion movement throughout the country. The documentary explored training institutes for college-aged students such as the Focus Institute where young people receive intensive instruction on how to "minister" to pro-choice people and women to encourage them to join anti-abortion forces. The students at this institute practice role playing in order to gain skills about how to approach pro-choice people. The tactics are pretty sick, including giant gruesome pictures of dismembered fetuses as a conversation starter. I have said it before and I will say it again we need a training institute for pro-choice, pro-women, pro-family warriors! The longer I work in this field the more I think we need practical training for doctors, medical assistants, nurses, ultrasound technicians, and counselors. Thankfully there are organizations like Medical Students For Choice. We need pro-choice people trained to provide the services necessary in abortion provision.

One of the most sickening things said in the whole documentary was during one of these training sessions. The facilitator addresses how to deal with the "concern" of rape. One of the questions the students are encouraged to ask women who have been raped is if the child should pay for the crimes of their father. As someone who has been raped before and who has helped many women who were pregnant as a result of rape seek abortions I cannot even comprehend how this seems plausible to anyone, anti-abortion or not. No person's experience of rape can be minimized to a "concern," and surely most sane people would not agree with the notion that a woman should carry a pregnancy that is a result of rape so that the "child" does not pay for its father's crimes.

Another key tool developed by the anti-abortion right are Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPC). Staff from a CPC located next door to Dr. Tiller's clinic was interviewed. This clinic offered multi-dimensional ultrasounds and was identified by the staff as a tool to help women choose motherhood. A Time Article from August 2010 estimates that there are over 4,000 CPCs in the U.S. and nearly five times as many CPC's as there are abortion clinics. These clinics purposefully choose location close enough to abortion clinics that they can easily be confused for the abortion clinic. I have spoken to dozens of women who have stumbled into these kind of centers. They are a waste of time, money, and energy. Maybe we could turn these centers into day care centers where women can bring there children during the multiple appointments that are often required to obtain an abortion.

Overall I found this documentary extremely informative; it shed light on the weapons used to fight against abortion. I hope to see the day that pro-choice people are fighting back even harder. The documentary is definitely worth checking out -- know thy enemy!

That's Entertainment!

Ah, TV. I'm not really sure where I'd be without you. Who better to supplement my early childhood education? Who better to boost my self-confidence with your pathetic reality slop? Who better to show me what real life is all about?

Wait. Scratch that last one.

My favorite thing about TV is how inaccurately it portrays everything (except, of course, for Sandra Lee's "Kwanzaa Cake" calamity, which is depicted with frightening accuracy). For example, very few programs or movies related to pregnancy address abortion as more than a sidebar comment. This problem extends beyond it's disdain for reality and thoughtful women; I wager that folks who are not involved in the pregnancy options world actually buy this tripe and take it as gospel. In the last couple years, since the outpouring of pregnancy-related entertainment, I've lamented to friends and coworkers time and again that abortion should be part of the story. Their responses are usually to this effect: "But Anti-Anti, if she had an abortion there would be no story lol!"

Apparently the media has made ignoramuses out of all the people I know and respect. No story?! People are actually starting to believe that abortion is a nonsense topic. It's something that people don't go through. It's something that people don't seriously consider. It's something that is not nearly as chaotic or side-splitting as a woman carrying to term an unplanned pregnancy brought on by some doofus with a stupid haircut.

Let's count the ways in which choosing an abortion continues to be an issue of substance:
1. the woman actually has to weigh her options to make a decision
2. the woman probably already has kids
3. the woman has a deadbeat partner, or an awesome partner who doesn't want her to have an abortion
4. the woman doesn't have the money for an abortion
5. the woman doesn't have an escort to get to her abortion
6. the woman is near the gestation limit in her state and has to get to her appointment NOW!
7. the woman has to get a judicial bypass because her parents would mangle her if they knew
8. the woman gets mugged and all her hard-scrounged abortion money is stolen
9. there is a fetal anomaly and the woman has to get to a specialized health center NOW!
10. the woman is homeless
11. the woman is a teenager
12. the woman is ill
13. the woman doesn't speak English
14. the woman has no support from friends or family and has to rely on total strangers
15. the woman was desperate enough to attempt a DIY abortion
16. the woman's pregnancy circumstances are not ideal, yet her biological clock is ticking
17. the woman belongs to some moron religion
18. the woman was a virgin impregnated by God, but still thinks it's not cool
19. the woman makes a living as a swimsuit model and doesn't want to compromise her figure
20. the woman wound up at a CPC and has to make up for lost time and lost sanity

Phew! With any combination of those circumstances I could write a Judd Apatow-esque comedy that would knock your socks clean off, about abortion! What's our world coming to? When did unplanned pregnancy become HILARIOUS? Something that is a wild ride while you're on it, but always feels better at the end? Screw that. I want to see a) an abortion comedy, where a woman does some hilarious things and faces zany circumstances to make her abortion happen or b) a pregnancy tragedy where a woman listened to all the folks around her telling her not to have an abortion and dies in childbirth and utters with her last breath, "If only I had chosen abortion, one of the safest medical procedures in the United States."

IT'S TIME TO GET REAL, TV!

On that note, I'd like to pay tribute to MTV, who aired a wonderful special on abortion last night. One of my fellow Abortioneers will investigate this topic in depth, but I'd like to first share with you the link so that you can see for yourselves just how interesting a story about abortion can be.

No Easy Decision - MTV Shows

Media Monday! "Abortion Democracy," the documentary

A few weeks ago I met a German woman named Sarah Diehl, who's in the US doing a screening tour for her documentary, "Abortion Democracy: Poland / South Africa." I saw a short preview of the film and have been looking forward to seeing it ever since.

Poland is one of the few countries in Europe that has criminalized abortion in almost all cases -- and this isn't an ancient law, either, but one passed in 1994. I remember a few years ago reading about a Polish woman who sued the government in the European Court of Human Rights after being denied an abortion that would have saved her deteriorating eyesight. Alicja Tysiac is functionally blind as a result of this denial; the court found that the Polish law did not even uphold the narrow exceptions it claimed to make for cases where a woman's health was endangered by pregnancy, the government had failed by the standards of its own law and  Tysiac's human rights had been violated. The court awarded her compensation, but of course that won't restore her sight. The story both outraged and terrified me: abortion policies aren't an abstraction limited to proving ideological points -- they are terribly, viscerally real for the women whose decision-making they vitiate.

South Africa, on the other hand, is one of the few countries in Africa that has legalized elective abortion. The law was changed in 1996 to allow abortion "on demand" in the first trimester and abortion on certain legal, medical or socioeconomic grounds in weeks 13-20. (Quick fact: "on demand" means that women are not required to stand before a judge, panel of doctors, or other jury who will approve or reject their 'case' for an abortion.) Yet legally-qualifying abortions are still quite difficult to obtain for many South African women, especially in the second trimester. In fact, "Abortion Democracy" suggests that it may be "easier to obtain an illegal abortion in Poland than it is to obtain a legal abortion in South Africa." In this sense, national policies are not the only thing that determines the nature of on-the-ground access, not by a long shot.

I'll be watching the movie tonight, so I'll be back with an update on how it was. In the meantime, I hope this trailer gets you as intrigued as I am.

"With all that you have to deal with..."

"Can I ask you a question? With all that you have to deal with, why do you still do this?"

"Because I remember when it was illegal for women to make this decision. I don't want to see those days come again. And also when a woman comes to me and says that she doesn't know what she would've done without my help...I know I'm doing the right job."

Sounds totally cheesy, right? Like, 100% fresh-squeezed saintly shit, not from concentrate.  (Ack, I'm already mixing my metaphors.) No one ever says stuff like that outside of movies. Probably anyone watching "If These Walls Could Talk" at this point rolled their eyes at the pro-abortioneer bias of the movie, because doctors don't talk like that.

And the part right before that, where Dr. Cher finally gets through the crowd of protesters and into her office, and takes off her coat and then her bulletproof vest: another eyeroll. Who actually uses those? Get over yourselves, filmmakers -- amirite?


"There are all sorts of dangers [for] postal workers, firemen, police officers -- everything has a risk to it. I would prefer, personally, to have a challenging, stimulating and emotionally and spiritually rewarding career that is short rather than having a long one that is filled with ho-hum, mundane mediocrity -- feeling as if you don't make any difference to people."

Dr. Tiller said that. I often have these moments of sharply realizing, all over again, how much we lost when the antis murdered him last year. Many of my friends say that brilliant blue-sky days always remind them of hearing the news that day; isn't that shitty? And I feel that way about Memorial Day weekend in general: from now on it's a time to remember one veteran in particular.

After Barnett Slepian ― an abortion provider in suburban Buffalo, New York ― was murdered in 1998, police brought the Carharts bulletproof vests. They wore them until, as Carhart drily noted, "we realized that the antis usually shoot providers in the head."

And then they killed Dr. Tiller, who wore a vest to work but was shot in the face at church. So his friend Leroy Carhart was right. But that doesn't mean Dr. Carhart has stopped providing abortions. Even if sometimes he carpools to work with U.S. Marshals.

Dr. Hern hasn't stopped either, but his blinds are always drawn and he never sits with his back to a window in a public place and every morning he checks the clinic roof for snipers. And at my clinic the (far less famous) doctors call ahead to let us know they'll be standing outside the back door in two minutes, the nurses are circumspect when registering their home addresses with the state, we get rides to work in others' cars during high protest times.

A lot of older doctors and nurses started learning to provide abortions when they were either mostly or entirely illegal. I think they got murdered less then, because antis tend to get violent when they start losing their legal domination. But they sure had to deal with the police. Why would those providers have risked prison, and today's providers risk death, to offer a relatively low-paying service that universally lacked in prestige among their colleagues?

Almost to a one, the providers who talk about it cite reasons like this:

and this: 

Gerri Santoro, dead in a hotel room at 29, leaving behind two daughters; she never made it to the emergency room, but doctors saw countless others like her, particularly in septic wards.


We talk and write a lot about how it isn't right or normal or reasonable or legitimate that we work behind bulletproof glass and incorporate security routines into our daily life in order to do something that is both legal and very much needed by a great number of people. It isn't normal. Take a minute to think about how not-normal it is! A lot of people seem to assume it naturally comes with the territory -- "occupational hazard," as one editorialist wrote about Dr. Tiller's death, right before comparing him to a mafioso -- and then on the other hand, others somehow seem so surprised to hear that it does.

Last night I told someone that I'd probably have assumed the Dr. Cher character was an absurd caricature of an impossible saint, if only I didn't know people who actually talk just like her and indeed wear bulletproof vests to work. And at the vest thing he said "Wait, really?" People say that a lot!

But they don't then say "that's ridiculous." They often say (always in the same voice), "Oh, wow..." and trail off meaningfully (I guess). And I don't need that. Like, thank you acquaintances, but: making it socially unacceptable for my life to be in danger would be SO much more helpful than voicing your admiration for my doing something that "must be so hard" as you put it. It isn't hard! It just is what I need to do. And it's wonderful, actually. I can be profoundly useful to others, learn a lot about medicine, learn a lot about people's hearts, spend time with great colleagues who share my values and, similarly, are just doing what they need to do.

As Sparky wrote yesterday, some providers are surly, some are sexist, some are looking out for the bottom line. But by and large, those are the people who probably find this work the hardest. To most of us -- whether doctors or counselors or administrators or whatever -- it's worth it, because and because and because. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't appreciate going to work free of firebombs and shotguns. Thanks for taking note.

Friday morning at the movies: praise and pans

Recently I organized a local screening of If These Walls Could Talk. If you've ever seen it or remember its HBO premiere in 1996, you know it's maybe a little hokey but also pretty powerful. Like, in the third vignette, the (married, distant) "man involved" is Coach of Coach, and Dr. Cher tells Anne Heche all about her commitment to providing abortions and sounds just like a hero.* But, you know, what Dr. Cher says is also surprisingly true to life. I wondered if the movie's writers might have had a modern-day abortioneer consultant, and who it was.

"I won't be leaving my wife after all. Here's two hundred bucks; take care of it." 

If These Walls Could Talk centers on the reproductive crisis moments of three different women living in the same house in different decades: a desperate widow in the 1950s, a harried married mother in the 1970s, and an embittered college student in the 1990s. After the movie there was a lot of conversation -- about the time before abortion was made legal, about "what it's like in an abortion clinic," about violence against providers and so forth. I was surprised to learn that about half our little discussion group hadn't heard of Dr. Tiller's murder -- they had gasped when they saw Dr. Cher take off a bulletproof vest to change into scrubs. (For me, that scene was actually a reminder of the doctor -- it might have been Dr. Carhart -- who was quoted saying there was no point wearing a bulletproof vest because the antis aim for the head. How Dr. Tiller was killed.) In any case, it was a good occasion to have a conversation about abortion issues with people who aren't part of the field and don't know a lot of the details.

Here's part of a scene that we discussed a good deal:



Some things I particularly liked (mostly remembering from the final vignette):
-Dr. Cher, as mentioned above. Her words are simple and true and familiar.
-Anne Heche's best friend (Jada Pinkett!), who at first is really shitty to her for even considering an abortion, eventually decides to support her friend and accompanies her to the clinic. It does happen! About A Girl's post about this is still my favorite.
-There's a wide range of protester behaviors in the real world, and the movie did portray a couple of different ones. The protesters in the previous day's scene were less numerous and less rowdy. This giant crowd is more typical of big clinics in the Midwest, say, or of staged "Summer of Mercy" type events, back in the 90s before the FACE Act was passed. Unfortunately, it took a lot of clinic violence to convince Congress to take action, not soon enough.
-It was nice that they showed the role of clinic escorts, who as you know are awesome. This clip doesn't show much of the clinic's single escort, though.
-In an earlier vignette, well, "liked" is a bad word for this scene, but I appreciated how well the interaction between Demi Moore and the pre-Roe illegal abortionist (from whom she requested a kitchen abortion) depicted women's lack of choices in finding safe and dignified care. It was a truly tense scene:

-The women are in different situations and have different decision-making processes, and not all the vignettes end with an abortion decision. (Imagine that!)

Some things that were a little ridiculous:
-Sissy Spacey (the 1970s mom) has a teenage daughter who's the perfect caricature of a feminist activist -- righteous, but a nosy pest; automatically believes that the best option is abortion; acts as though an individual woman's every personal choice is a political statement. She even practices yoga, which I think in the 70s was pretty far-out.

-Anne Heche's best friend, who goes to the clinic with her but is still an anti, ends up having an argument over abortion, with a clinic staff person, at the front desk. I guess you've got to lay out the conflict narrative in a movie, but no way would any of that happen in the environments where I've worked.
-The protester crowd outside Dr. Cher's clinic grew by the hundreds from one day to the next, without much explanation about why that would happen, which might have made it seem implausible. I wish they'd explained that events like "Summer of Mercy" really did overwhelm clinics suddenly and dangerously.

...And then I went home and watched Juno. I promise I don't normally do this! And, although I have always really liked Juno for its silly dialogue and sweet friendships and Kimya Dawson soundtrack (of course), this time I was again thinking about the things that first struck me when I saw it in the theater. The things that would've stuck in my craw had the soundtrack not washed them down.


Unfortunately, this clip is the closest one (chronologically) to the damn clinic scene that I could find!

Most particularly:

The clinic counselor. Of course. What the fuck is up with her?? She seems unqualified, untrained, uninterested, and unnerving. Just plain unprofessional. Over the hamburgerphone, she supposedly asked Juno how long she's been "sexually active" (mostly a device to allow Juno to rant about that phrase), which no one would need to ask just to make an appointment. In the clinic, she's playing a handheld videogame and doesn't make eye contact, has a "withering" expression if I ever saw one, and tells Juno that her "boyfriend's junk smells like pie" when he wears the clinic's boysenberry condoms.

I know it's only supposed to be funny, and she's not even the reason that Juno leaves the clinic (that was because of all the fingernails she noticed, which is also silly but funny), but wow! The friends I went with teased "Hey, that's you!" and I felt sort of sad because yeah, that's probably what some people think. Whereas it couldn't be further from my experiences with abortion work. Sure, you're tired some days or have periods of feeling un-challenged by your work, but even coworkers who are suffering burnout try not to take it out on patients.

Of course, aside from that and how un-scary the single (shy, teenaged) protester is, that's practically the only ridiculous abortion-related thing in that movie...because there's no other discussion of abortion in the movie. Well, except the stepmom asking, "Honey, have you considered..y'know, the alternative?" Man, I love Kimya Dawson, but give me another Obvious Child any day!

Obvious Child from Gillian Robespierre on Vimeo.



*Note: After drafting this post, I realized that Cher directed that vignette! Haha.