What are you doing here? Go read this Nation article!

In the past year-and-a-half-ish, there's been a lot of noise (well, relative to the usual silence, at least) about women self-medicating with misoprostol to induce an abortion. The first piece, the New York Times article "For Privacy’s Sake, Taking Risks to End Pregnancy," was short on data (which is unfortunately bound to be the case with reports of activity that is both rare and hidden) and long on extrapolation (which is unfortunately bound to be the case with NYT trend pieces). It implied that lots of Dominican women in New York are endangering themselves via illegal abortion despite easy access to cheap legal procedures. (Lots of broad brushstrokes in there, don't you think? Technically a self-induced abortion isn't even "illegal" in NYC!) The letters to the editor included some thoughtful additional information (most of it anecdotal), by the way. More to the point, there were substantive critiques (like "Side Effects: Complications at The New York Times from DIY Abortions" at RH Reality Check) of how the paper was written and that extrapolation I mentioned, including objections from the researchers involved in the study cited.

This summer, Nicholas Kristof wrote a surprisingly nice column ("Another Pill That Could Cause A Revolution") about misoprostol's revolutionary power to save women's lives in multiple ways. Considering that he's been reluctant in the past to even mention abortion, even when writing about pregnancy-related mortality, and considering that his writing tends toward simplistic reduction of complicated problems and even toward cavalier moralizing about the decision-making of the poor, well, that was a pretty nice column, considering.

And this week, Laura Tillman at the Nation brings us "Crossing the Line," which explores in a bit more depth the reasons that in many situations -- even among US residents, even among speakers of English, even among US-born women -- it might be entirely logical to obtain medication under the table and induce an abortion at home. I'll just post an excerpt here to give you an idea, but you should read the whole piece.

A single mother of two boys, Diana was unemployed and in the hospital when she began to suspect she was pregnant. It was December 2006, and she had missed her period for two months. Her doctor conducted a urine test, which came back negative, but when Diana still hadn't gotten her period in January, she started to panic. She knew it wasn't the right time for another baby. She wasn't working and had been suffering severe symptoms of brittle diabetes, a rare form of diabetes that requires frequent hospital visits and brings bouts of depression. She felt unstable and wasn't able to afford her medications. "I thought, If I am pregnant, I want to take something to not be pregnant," she says.

For most women in the United States, this would mean a trip to a doctor or abortion clinic. But where Diana lives, in Brownsville, Texas, just north of the border, Mexican pharmacies are only a few miles away. Items said to be abortifacients—including pills, teas and shots—are well-known to be cheap and accessible just across the bridge. Misoprostol, a pill that makes up half of the two-drug combination prescribed for medical abortions in the United States, is easy to purchase over the counter in Mexico because of its effectiveness in treating ulcers. When used alone and taken correctly, it will produce a miscarriage between 80 and 85 percent of the time. ...

Go read the rest! And have a good week!


PS: Lots of very interesting research has been done on misoprostol (and mifepristone too) in the past year or few -- on both clinical and psychosocial aspects of medication abortion -- and I hope to talk more about all that in a few upcoming posts. Hope that sounds good to you :)

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?

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.