My heart needs a break from breaking

Have you been reading the news lately? I have, unfortunately. It feels as though current events have just been an unrelenting stream of examples of the horrors and cruelty that human beings are capable of inflicting on other human beings. Thanks, murderers and abusers and rapists and torturers, but we don't need more examples. We get it. You can stop now.

And in the last several hours I've done only two things: read about the latest awful case of kidnapping and almost-unspeakable abuse, the one in Cleveland, or stewed over it while unsuccessfully attempting to focus on other things.

But I'm here trying to write something because there's a part of me that's sure someone will ask. Or assume. How many hours or days til the half-witted comments hit, ones about how this is all because of the "culture of death" that abortion perpetuates? OR the ones asking why I "care" about this but "don't care" about the trial of Kermit Gosnell, a man who stands accused of killing babies and calling it abortion?

I ask because because it's so, so, so routine; these words have likely been uttered on several prominent anti-abortion blogs today. But I don't want to go find out.

Sometimes, despite being a super-famous internet celebrity (humble joke), and despite bearing the weighty mantle of spokesperson for ALL abortioneers and being asked for comments on ALL bad things that happen to babies or fetuses or embryos (angry joke), a person's got to have some time to themselves to deal with pain.

We often have stuff to say about things that show up in the news, but I'm not interested in being a ripped-from-the-headlines current events commentator. I just wanted to tell my truth, particularly in times when it wasn't represented elsewhere. But you're probably sickened and saddened too, and that's the truth for all of us.

"Schooling Chris Smith" on abortion's role in the UN's Millennium Development Goals

Good evening! Just wanted to let you know that Kelly, the brilliant and gracious creator of Schooling Chris Smith, is hosting a cross-post of sorts by yours truly.

Before I get ahead of myself-- do you know who Rep. Chris Smith is? Well, number one, he's a douchebag, and number two under-informed and number three not very good at rhetoric; let's just say all that up-front before you read his op-eds and injure yourself trying to understand what the fuck he's going on about.

Number four, he's also a member of Congress (R-NJ4), and among other things he's the ranking member (second only to the chair) of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs's Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. What does all that mean? Well, as Schooling Chris Smith puts it, it means he gets "to be seen as a strong proponent of human rights despite his complete opposition to full human rights for women." To continue quoting Kelly:

Back in September, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Chris Smith urging activists not to sidetrack the U.N. summit on global poverty by talking about abortion (which is kind of hilarious, considering this is one of the guys who sidetracks women veterans' health care into abortion politics). His op-ed obviously speaks for itself by claiming all abortions cause psychological damage for women and implying that human trafficking and child soldiering are caused by abortion (I have to admit, that's a new one for me).

Some letters were published in response to this piece, but one wasn't. [That's mine! -PS]

So, yeah, being ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs's Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health (takeanotherbreath) also means he gets to say things about global health and international development policy and have them published in newspapers. Even though he hasn't done his research, doesn't know his facts, and can't string together a logical argument. (Am I bitter that I do ALL these things but don't get published in the paper? Not at all!) The Post published a couple responses that (rightly) pointed out Smith [a] was dragging abortion into the conversation from out of nowhere and [b] had glaringly omitted mention of the life-saving importance of contraception. But those responses themselves completely omitted mention of the many errors and false claims Smith made about the role of abortion in saving lives.

Even though it's well past September now, the inauguration of Schooling Chris Smith got me thinking that I shouldn't let a good letter die unread. (If I do say so myself.) Without further chitchat, here it is:

Re: "Abortion does not further children's health," Chris Smith, op-ed 9/19

Rep. Chris Smith's op-ed was long on claims, but short on facts. Having engaged in research, education and service provision in the field of reproductive health, I am left wondering on what evidence Rep. Smith based his assertion that abortion harms children's and women's health (the focuses of the UN's Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5). His attempt to exclude abortion from MDG efforts, discarding established medical evidence in the process, is the real threat to the health of women and the children they already have.

The statement that abortion is "by definition, infant mortality" is silly, as all abortions are, "by definition," performed before birth, which precedes infancy. Terminology aside, Smith's concern for embryo survival leads him to overlook the actual women who die when safe abortion care is out of reach: some develop severe pregnancy complications; some have ectopic pregnancies; others drink bleach, insert sharp objects, or jump from tall heights in an attempt to end pregnancy themselves. Each year an estimated 50 million women worldwide obtain abortions, half under unsafe conditions; worse, the vast majority (95%) of those unsafe abortions take place in the developing world where treatment for complications is harder to obtain. As a result, around 70,000 women die each year due to unsafe abortion, and millions more suffer nonfatal injury and illness. Yet abortion performed by a trained provider in a sanitary setting is one of the safest medical procedures in existence -- much safer than carrying a pregnancy to full-term delivery, as a matter of fact! Contrary to Smith's insinuation, repeated and rigorous cohort studies demonstrate the error in claiming that properly-performed abortion causes physical or psychological complications.

Disregard for the value of human life, as Smith calls it, is made manifest in the poverty, illness, and avoidable death experienced by families who cannot afford another mouth to feed or who lose a caretaker to eclampsia, hemorrhage or sepsis. If safe abortion is struck from the agenda, then unsafe abortion will simply continue to kill women and orphan their children.


placenta sandwich, A.D.D., I.B.S.
Vice-President of Irritated Blogging and Letter-Writing
The Abortioneers
Credentials Out The Ass

(Actually, I gave them my real name and my real credentials-out-the-ass.)

There was so much more I had wanted to say, but brevity is the soul of getting published, I was told. (Am I bitter that I chopped a bunch out but didn't get published? Not at all!) Like I also wanted to say that there's empirical evidence at the family level that maternal morbidity and mortality (for example from unsafe abortion) results in greater child mortality. Not a shocker. And also that anyone who knows anything about health infrastructure can tell you that women in Chile and Ireland survive (mostly survive) their countries' abortion bans because they have access to doctors trained to treat complications of illegal/DIY abortion, not because they've stopped having abortions! Anyone who thinks an abortion ban would not increase mortality in a country with poor health infrastructure and lots of remote rural area -- like, say, Ethiopia or Zambia -- would surely not qualify to be on anyone's Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, right?   Oh... wait. (Still not bitter!!)

I'll leave it there and ask you to head over to Schooling Chris Smith to discuss Kelly's question: What would your letter in response look like? What else has been left out?

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.

Transition

Doing some research at work on contraceptive prevalence in some developing countries to appease a lazy donor (duh, measuredhs.com), and we decide to give them some abortion data as well. The reasoning: if our programs increase contraceptive prevalence, then it also reduces abortion prevalence. Since the DHS doesn't capture abortion data (unclear on why; political issues?) we find some Guttmacher data. Initially I was concerned that this info might confuse our donors; since ab laws have been relaxed in many places over the last decade, abortion prevalence might increase and lead them to believe horrible things about contraception and the ineffectiveness of our programs. And it's not easy to talk a donor down from a ledge.

But check it! Worldwide, ab prevalence has actually gone down. From this particular data I can't say why, but of course we'll speculate that it has to do with increases in method use, especially long-term methods (IUDs and such). But read further: though overall abortion rates have fallen, rates of illegal/clandestine abortions have stayed the same!

ACK!

So the situation is actually pretty bleak. Because the most relaxed laws occur in the most developed countries, the women at greatest risk for complications from abortion are not granted access. This report mentions 19 countries have reduced restrictions, many in the developing world, but with the same access barriers and so on that have existed forever. God bless pro choice de jure.

With all the resource allocation and funding for ab in the states, what is the prognosis for that kind of support in the rest of the world? My org is not allowed to; which orgs are? Does anybody know of prospects for abortion access overseas? Is it too much of a hot button issue? I'm so confused. So many countries' women are dying and they don't care! How is it that the world has managed to (for the most part) get on board with HIV/AIDS within a decade, but has taken centuries to do so for ab? If you ask me HIV is as tricky an issue as ab, by which I mean it's not tricky at all. Give people things so they don't die.

SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD TO ME!

If I were Miss America, I wouldn't wish for world peace. I'd wish for world abortions.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

I just received an email stating the following:

"New rule from Dept. of Health and Human Services: women with pre-existing conditions like breast cancer, AIDS and diabetes will be banned from buying insurance coverage for abortion in
high-risk insurance pools. They won't even have the option to buy coverage with their own money. Outraged? So am I."

WHAT IN TARNATION?!?!?!

End the madness!

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ALSO!

As long as I keep getting distracted at work by checking email and IMDB and other distracting sites, I found the following while reading the Wikipedia entry for Nick Cannon (don't ask):

"Cannon's music video for Can I Live? reveals that he was almost aborted by his mother, but she panicked in the abortion clinic and decided to have the baby."

Sigh. I love when people talk about this stuff as though it's an argument for abortion banning. Not that this entry was explicitly anti-choice in any way, but it reminded me of other instances in which "My mom almost aborted me and etc etc" comes into the discussion. Remember when it's "pro-choice" and not "pro-strapping-women-to-tables-and-forcing-things-between-their-legs"? Why would we not want women to have babies if they want to have them? Ack ack.

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!)

The Case of the Minor

I would like to piggy back off of Revolutionary Vagina's last post about the young girl who self-induced an abortion using a lead pencil. An article about this was posted on lifenews.com, and contains several false and just plain ridiculous claims.

I am sure this story probably has most people wanting to vomit and cry at the same time as their hearts break for this little girl. I would also guess however that many of those same people would not even bat an eye if her method of killing her child had been a RU 486 prescription from the local Planned Parenthood. -Bryan Kemper, head of Stand True, a pro-life group

First of all, you cannot get the pill from Planned Parenthood to induce abortion after about 9 weeks. From the article, it sounds as if she was much much further along, but who really knows. If she was "delivering a baby," I would guess she had to been late second trimester. If she was that far along, wouldn't her parents have noticed? If she was in her first trimester, she wouldn't have delievered a "baby." She would have bled a lot. Kemper makes it sound like you can just take the pill at 25 weeks and boom you're done. Totally not the case.

Secondly, if this young woman would have been able to go to Planned Parenthood to get her abortion pill prescription, she would have had an interview with a counselor. Obviously, we cannot know if she would have told the truth to the counselor or not, but it would definitely have been in her best interest to talk to an adult about having an abortion before trying to perform one on herself. Thus it probably would have been GOOD for her to go to Planned Parenthood.

It is also a very different thing to perform an abortion on yourself and then have your creepy older boyfriend bury the fetus in a ditch. That is just not normal. That is very sad, scary, and bizarre. Having an abortion in an abortion clinic is normal. It is safe. It is not dangerous. The risk of even minor complications is very, very low when an abortion is performed in a safe, sterile environment with trained medical professionals, like at a Planned Parenthood. So, yes, I would not bat an eye at that. If that makes me a monster, then you have a fucked up definition of what it means to be a monster.

Kemper also said, "I can also hear the spin now, 'this is why we need safe and legal abortion,' -- even though abortions are already legal and are supposed to prevent such self-induced abortions." This goes back to precisely what Revolutionary Vagina was talking about. Pennsylvania has parental consent laws. She obviously did not want to tell her parents. How come none of the anti-choicers want to talk about that? If she was able to go to a clinic she wouldn't have been in this situation. THAT is the problem. Further, she is thirteen years old. She is child. I can say at thirteen I was in no shape to be having sex, and definitely not sex with someone SEVENTEEN years older than me. Can we take a step back and ask, why was this thirteen year old doing this? Her boyfriend/partner/creeper said he had sex with her "hundreds" of times. How did this happen? It troubles me this happened so many times yet nobody seemed to be aware. Of course, teens can be very sneaky and do a good job hiding things from their parents, but she is thirteen! I find it hard to believe a thirteen year old could sucessfully pull that off unless she is some sort of smooth talking magical pixie with a unicorn.

My favorite quote of the article is "'If the girl had gone to Planned Parenthood he would probably still be raping her as I doubt they would have turned him in," Kemper explained."

It is true there are cases where Planned Parenthood staffers did not appropriately follow state rules and turn in a man who was engaging in an inappropriate relationship a minor. I think that is terrible. It is beyond messed up. I would prefer if everyone followed the rules about that. I do think that each staffer was trying to act in the best interest of the minor, even if the staffer might not have been in reality. Either way, it is ridiculous to assume that all Planned Parenthoods everywhere just let minors get raped all the time like it's no big deal, because that is definitely NOT the case. I have worked with plenty of clinics that have bent over backwards to get guys arrested who were doing that kind of stuff. Planned Parenthoods and clinics, for the vast majority of cases, DO follow the rules. And rapists get caught. Which is a good thing because they might otherwise have not.

How come anti-choicers don't want to talk about how clinics often get bad guys in trouble. Or that this girl, who could have died, and just went through something terribly traumatic, didn't have to go through that. She could have just had a regular, safe abortion. It wouldn't have been the horrifying experience of shoving a pencil into your own uterus and then becoming violently ill and having to have your boyfriend who is not a doctor deliver your dead baby for you and then take it and bury it in a ditch. The fact she had to go through that is so fucked up. If she had access to a clinic, she would have been able to have an abortion with a doctor who knows what he/she is doing and with counselors who are trained to talk to her about her decision. A fucking sad state of affairs. Perfect example of what parental consent laws are dangerous.

Also -- if anyone stumbled upon this page by googling the story of the girl who used the pencil, and is thinking of using a pencil or anything to self abort. PLEASE DO NOT DO IT. Self aborting is very dangerous and often leads to at minimum serious complications and even death. If you have questions about where to go please see the National Abortion Federation's list of clinics or contact your local Planned Parenthood for a place in your area.

Restricting Abortion

I am so tired of the many abortion restrictions happening throughout the country right now. New ultrasound laws, parental notification/consent laws - all these do is hurt women who have already experienced a lot of pain. They don't stop someone who really wants an abortion from getting one. They just cause her to go through more trauma.

By now you all may have already heard the story of a 13-year old from Pennsylvania who tried to self abort with a pencil. This girl, impregnated by her 30-year old boyfriend chose to risk her life in order to end her pregnancy. Why did she do this to herself? Pennsylvania has a parental consent law. In order for this girl to have had a safe abortion, she would have had to get the consent of one of her legal guardians. Why wouldn't she talk to her parents? Well, she's 13 and was having a relationship with a 30-year old. Now, of course I don't condone the relationship those two had, and who knows what kind of control this man had this girl under. The fact is, she was afraid of being found out, so she inserted a pencil into her vagina, hoping to give herself an abortion, and ended up miscarrying. Why are these laws continuing to be created? Why do people think these laws are a good idea? This story shows that if someone wants an abortion, they will find a way do it and possibly hurt or kill themselves in the process. It makes me angry.

Some light in this bleak scene can come from unlikely sources. In Florida, Governor Crist appears likely to veto a law that would require all women seeking an abortion in the state of Florida to get an ultrasound. He made the following statement to the Pensacola News Journal.

"I have concerns about it," he said. "The notion that there would be a forced ultrasound, if you will, that would have to be paid for by the woman involved — you know, those are the things that seem to be pretty difficult for a woman already in a difficult situation."

Wow. I am amazed to hear a politician say this, and a Republican at that. Could there be hope?

Abortion Abroad: Part 2

I visited a semi-rural reproductive health clinic in Kenya. Impressive! My org has done a great job recruiting talented clinic staff and outreach counselors to give women accurate information (save for one glaring translation typo!) and quality services that I myself have utilized. They even have a system for providing affordable services to women who would otherwise not be able to afford prenatal care or birth control. I donated anyway; do you know how far a measly few dollars goes??

I sat and discussed patient issues with the provider at one clinic: how many IUD insertions he completes in one month (a lot); how many women have them removed (none); how many women/babies had been lost during delivery (only one woman, due to a surprise post-partum hemmorhage). Naturally, I asked - knowing the answer in advance - if he had ever performed an abortion. He had not. But he had seen a handful of women who had sustained injuries or illnesses from clandestine abortions. Every village has its man or woman who has abortion secrets and serves dozens of women in the community. Injuries happen frequently, he explained, though few women present for treatment because they are a) afraid of being punished, or b) dead already. These village practitioners use herbs, potions, sharp objects, the usual. Of course, we in the "developed world" know how dangerous these methods are (right?), but by the time a woman actually presents for treatment from such complications her condition is more dire than this comprehensive, yet limited, clinic can accommodate. The provider sends those cases to the area hospital, many kilometers away from his clinic, down a dirt road with a heavily worn surface that makes for a very uncomfortable, perhaps deadly, ride. The provider was excited, though, about the advent of MVA in the developing world. He had never performed an abortion, nor had he been trained in the technique, but he was optimistic that rural women would be able to receive safe abortion care (where permitted) in low-tech environments without issue. However, he lamented, MVA can only do so much for botched procedures and life-endangering cases. Alas.

Kenya passed its new constitution within the last week, including some controversial language about abortion. This was the subject of debate for months, rife with anti-abortion rhetoric and TV infomercials akin to clinic-protesting signs (yuck). And I just hope that clinic providers like my guy above can band together to, at the very least, uphold the life endangerment clause. I have my doubts however; a female doctor in one of those anti commercials described, in her "medical opinion", that abortion is a "senseless death". I guess having a new perspective helps me appreciate the way things are in the Nifty Fifty.

It's a long road ahead, for all of us.