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. 

**Today Only!**

I interrupt my regularly-scheduled blog post to bring you this news:

Today, March 18, 2011, you can view free of charge "Silent Choices", a documentary elucidating the struggles of black women and the black community in talking about abortion.

This is a very important topic to me, because a) it's largely ignored by the media, even when abortion itself is a topic, and b) I've witnessed the phenomena of the silent abortion and the coerced motherhood in my own community. It's increasingly relevant, too, as black communities are coming under attack by anti-choice groups (remember Sparky's post?), but community members themselves are unheard thanks to internalized disenfranchisement promulgated by evangelicals and holier-than-thous.

No more! I've only watched 10 minutes of this so far, but I am glued to the screen. All women should watch this, and learn to appreciate the sociocultural barriers that black women face when dealing with reproductive health issues. It will help you become better case managers, better clinic directors, better doctors, better counselors, better people!

"Silent Choices" normally costs $4.99, but today only you can view it for free. Please do!

"I understand the sentiment behind it, the idea that abortion has been a central focus of white women's organizing for reproductive freedom, and black women and other women of color have fought for a broader understanding of reproductive freedom. But abortion is part of a broad complex of issues and needs and services that are required for all women to have complete control over their reproductive decision-making and for there to be complete reproductive justice in this country." - Dorothy Roberts, Northwestern University School of Law.

(Special thanks to Vegan Vagina, for bringing this to the Abortioneers' attention!)

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.

New Abortiony Documentary!

As I was perusing the interwebs to find something to blog about today, I came across a film that is in this year's Sundance Film Fest called 12th and Delaware. There was also a piece about the film in the LA Times today.



The film is about an abortion clinic and a CPC that is located across the street from it. What intrigued me the most about it was how very insistent both directors were that they were being totally unbiased in the filming, that they were just trying to capture both sides. Other Abortioneers probably felt a lot of the same things I felt when I was watching the video above. At first I was annoyed -- I personally feel that CPCs are lying disingenuous pieces of crap. It seemed to me at first like they were trying to make the CPC "look good" or something. But the more I watched of the video clip the more I believed that they were really trying to create an accurate representation of what they saw and felt out there on that street corner in Florida. Also worth noting, the filmmakers showed the movie to both the CPC and the abortion clinic depicted in the film and both said it was fair.

Anyway, I am not how easy it would be to see this in a theater (I'm guessing pretty difficult), but it looks like it will be good, definitely worth checking out!