feminist blogs

Today is the 37th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that secured abortion rights for women in the United States. Sally already wrote a great post about this year’s theme, “Trust Women.” Jos over at Feministing has also written about what “Trust Women” means for her, especially in light of Dr. Tiller’s murder.

For me, though, “Trust Women” rings a little bit differently — because, quite frankly, I don’t trust women to always make the right decision or the best decision any more than I trust men to. At the end of the day, human beings do foolish things all the time — we make bad choices, we lie, we cheat, we mess up, we hurt other people, we make mistakes. We do things we regret. We regret not doing things. It’s part of being human.

So, no, I don’t trust women to always make the right choice or the best choice. And one consequence of that is that I sure as hell don’t trust any other woman (or man) to make the best decision for me about my body.

Part of being human is accepting that no one of us is perfect or infallible, and that in structuring our laws and our society, one goal is to mitigate harm as much as possible while giving individuals as much freedom as possible. For me, “trust women” isn’t a rallying cry because women are the best decision-makers or because women don’t make mistakes or because every choice is a good choice; it’s a rallying cry because it emphasizes that women are human. We are imperfect, we are fallible, we will not always choose what any given outsider thinks is best — but we nonetheless deserve the right to determine, for ourselves, how and when and why we reproduce.

Why? Because who else is going to do it? To put reproductive rights in the hands of anyone but the individual whose body is doing the reproducing is to radically infringe on the most basic of human rights. It is in essence to say, “Your very being is not as important as my opinion.” And if we don’t trust individuals to make their own choices about reproduction, given their own unique set of circumstances, why in the world would we trust outsiders — who know significantly less about the whole of any one individual’s circumstances than the individual involved — to make such important decisions for them?

Trusting women doesn’t mean believing that women are morally superior or magically able to make the best choices all of the time. Instead, it means giving women room to be human — and trusting that no choice is perfect, that no human being lives in a vaccuum, and that we mostly do the best we can given our circumstances. And sometimes we don’t, and that’s ok too.

Here, I’ll echo Miriam’s point: That choice matters, and trusting women matters, but changing the circumstances within which women make their choices matters too. Women should have the right to determine their own reproductive lives, but that right is too often limited not only by anti-choice laws, but by the day-to-day injustices that women face because of their race, class, body, or a myriad of other factors. Actually work to give women a full range of real choices, and then I’ll take a little more seriously anyone who would put their opinions on abortion before a real live woman’s fundamental right to be free from bodily harm and physical intrusion.

Because make no mistake: Infringing on abortion rights does real, tangible harm to women. The abortion debate is often framed as an individual’s right to terminate a pregnancy, but that’s only half the story. It’s also about an individual’s right to be free from government intrusion when it comes to the most personal and fundamentally human things — choice, desire and self-determination in sex and reproduction. For me, the pro-choice position isn’t just “women have the right to abortion” (although it’s that, too); it’s also saying, “The government does not have the right to come in and tell me when and how I must or must not reproduce.” Putting the decision to have a baby (or not have a baby) in the hands of the government, or in the hands of anyone other than the person doing the having, is an unconscionable violation of physical integrity and human rights.

So I trust women, and I don’t. I trust myself, at least, to be the best moral arbitrator when it comes to how and when I reproduce. And I am not so arrogant to think that my opinion is more important than another woman’s evaluation of her own unique reproductive circumstances. So I trust her to do the same. And I trust that, because we are all human, we will not always handle our choices in a way that X, Y or Z person thinks is best. We won’t always handle our choices in a way that we ourselves think is best, at the time or down the road. It will be messy and imperfect. But at the very least, we will try to self-preserve. At the very least, to trust women is to say, “You, too, are a human being and you, too, deserve sovereignty over the little flesh-and-blood space that only you occupy.”

I trust that allowing all of us that basic bit of humanity is the least we can do.

To me, trusting women is more than just ensuring legal access to abortion. It's ensuring that women have the options to make their own decisions about their lives, health care and futures.

Trusting women means birth control. Sex education. Equal pay. Breaking stereotypes. Two words with a million different ramifications.

It's one of those things that's so simple, so fundamental that I can't believe we have to advocate for it.

I trust women. Do you?

Quick: Name a movie from the past ten years that tells a story about pregnancy. There are probably quite a few films that spring to mind. Knocked Up, Juno, Waitress, Saved! — there is no shortage of movies depicting pregnancy. Some of these films are better than others — of those listed above, my favorite is [...]

Hey hey, it’s Blog for Choice Day! Each year, they pose a question to spark the dialogue. Last year it was about our hopes for the Obama administration. This year’s question, in honor of Dr. Tiller, is: What does Trust Women mean to you?

As I was trying to come up with my response to this, I watched this video from GRITtv about reproductive rights as human rights. Do check it out if you have some time – it’s about 20 minutes long. It features Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars, Silvia Henriquez, E.D. of NLIRH, and Lynn Paltrow, E.D. of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. (I’m hoping I’ll have some time this weekend to add a transcript. If somebody else has one, please let me know.)

The dialogue here touches on a lot, here are some bullet points until I get a transcript:

• some (but not enough) improvement under Obama in terms of rights
• Latinas and immigrants need access they don’t/won’t have
• a reminder that pregnant women keeping their civil rights is still a radical notion
• stressing that local access is a particular problem
• the fanaticism in assaulting women’s rights and access
• abortion rights might not be the priority for most, but human rights should be
• anti-choicers focus on attacking the basic human rights of pregnant women but don’t try to reduce unplanned pregnancies
• contraception was the middle ground before, but now it’s lumped with abortion
• focusing on abortion is effective for Conservatives because it provides a distraction and prevents adequate health care reform
• abortion providers are constantly under attack and clinics are targeted more under Obama, but there are physicians committed to providing abortions
• we need to step it up with our activism and call them out on the misinformation they spread

Like I said, there’s a lot discussed, but there are two points in particular I want to focus on. The first is the notion that reproductive rights are human rights. To me, that’s the crux of what Trust Women means. Abortion is simply a medical procedure that allows a woman to do with her body what she wants and needs. Having a fertilized egg inside of her doesn’t suddenly make her incapable of making decisions, yet she is suddenly deemed unworthy of retaining her rights. The second point is closely linked to the first, in my opinion, and that’s education and information. If women are given access to accurate information about contraception, abortion, adoption, childbirth, etc., then why should anybody else be allowed to interfere with her decision and her rights?

If we set up a system built on mistrust and misinformation, then there is no hope for having a system that trusts women and puts women’s rights at the forefront. Yet that is the system we currently have. There are so many people who just aren’t informed, who don’t have access to contraception, and who don’t understand the basics of abortion. The video stresses activism, and I don’t disagree, but I think the activism has to be geared towards education and emphasizing that reproductive rights are human rights.

That’s my take on it, what’s yours? What does Trust Women mean to you?

(Cross-posted at Jump off the Bridge)

Every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, NARALPro-Choice America asks bloggers to blog the answer to a question.  This year’s question is in honor of the late Dr. George Tiller who was shot and killed at church one Sunday morning last May. Dr. Tiller often wore a button that read, “Trust Women.” So today, we answer the question: What does “Trust Women” mean to you?

Let me tell you about trusting women. I trust women because a woman gave birth to me, nursed me, cared for me and raised me. She made sure I was well fed, adequately clothed and got enough sleep each night. She got me to school on time and made sure my homework was done. She comforted me when I suffered rejection and then pushed me back out to try again. She made me feel safe when life got scary and she let me go when the time was right. I trust women, because the woman who raised me, trusted me when I moved 3,000 miles away and built my own life.

I trust women because I have worked for women. Women who mortgaged their homes to sustain their business. Women who had the courage to start their own companies in the midst of recession, with no funding, no loans, only their determination and Rolodex. I trust women because I have seen those women not only survive, but thrive. I watched them serve their clients, support their families, reward their employees and earn a profit –all at the same time.

I trust women because I have watched my friends nurse their babies all night, go to work, care for their families after work and begin the cycle all over again. I trust women because I have watched these friends when their babies needed stitches, spinal taps, and brain surgery. I trust these women who exhibited strength, grace and determination under pressure.

I trust women because I watch them serve my community. They hold elected positions, volunteer and fight for that which they believe. I trust women because I watch them challenge the status quo, build consensus, and motivate their constituents. I trust women because I watch them work tirelessly even when they don’t get any credit or public recognition.

And so, I trust women to know what is best for them. I trust women to make their own decisions. And I know that no one but a woman should control her body, because I trust women.

Talking about the topic of abortion makes [most] people uncomfortable—I mean, who wouldn’t want to talk about abortion that “is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo, resulting in or caused by its death” (from Gynaecology for Lawyers)*. There are so many ugly words [...]

Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, and that means it’s also Blog for Choice Day. Unlike last year (and more like myself), I have little interest in the theme, pro-choice hopes for Barack Obama and the new Congress.

I’ve decided that I want to write about something else. I want to write about the right to abortion and how it intersects with the issue of sexual violence. It’s no secret that these are two issues that are perhaps closest to my heart, and I care and write about both regularly on a broad spectrum. I think that the two issues are highly related. Simply, both are reproductive justice issues. Both are reproductive health issues. And both are sexual rights issues.

In practice, the two are directly connected on a regular basis. Sexual violence accounts for a particularly large number of teen pregnancies, many of which do end in abortion. Adult women are also prone to pregnancy as a result of rape, especially depending on who they are and where they live. Those women who have the highest risk of rape — say, immigrant women or women living in the Congo — also have the highest risk of getting pregnant as the result of that rape. They also, due to oppressed status, have the least access to abortion services and are most often forced to carry to term, or to attempt risky abortion procedures themselves.

Most visibly — and again, intersecting oppressions are generally responsible for which issues are most visible — sexual violence and abortion rights intersect when it comes to abortion restrictions. When potential abortion restrictions are put on the table, newspapers almost inevitably report breathlessly that the restrictions even apply to women who have been victims of rape. If they don’t apply to women who have been raped, it’s reported in a way that presents the restriction as therefore reasonable. And of course, hardcore anti-choice groups and individuals adamantly oppose exceptions for rape victims for any abortion restriction, whether it be forced ultrasounds, parental notification, “informed consent” or all out abortion bans.

I’ve long made clear my view that while the hardline “no exceptions for rape victims, because a baby is still a baby” rhetoric makes me throw up quite a bit in my mouth, it is at least consistent with their espoused ideals. This is still certainly true. But just as true is the fact that this rhetoric tells us something important about what is behind the words about “babies” and “life.” It tells us about how those who spout the words view women’s bodies.

The question most often asked by anti-choicers defending their “no abortion ban/restriction exceptions for rape victims” stance is “why should a baby have to pay for someone else’s wrong?” Yes, rape is horrible, they say. Just horrible. But the baby is a human being, and it deserves to live — no matter who its father is or what he has done.

On the surface, this sounds all well and good (or at least intellectually consistent). But I notice something else. I notice how strikingly similar this rhetoric is to the other rhetoric that anti-choicers use for abortions had by women who are presumed to have not been raped, and not just in terms of “fetus=baby.”

No, the question of “why should a baby have to pay for someone else’s wrong?” is common all around. There is usually a wrong implied by anti-choicers in all unplanned pregnancies. And usually, that wrong is heavily implied to not be on the part of the man who didn’t strap on a condom, but on the part of the woman who wasn’t “smart enough” to “keep her legs closed.” You know, the one whose bodily autonomy now hangs in the balance.

So really, in their heart of hearts, are they referring to rapists when they ask why a baby should have to pay for someone else’s wrong with abortion? Or are they just engaging in rape apologist rhetoric about women who shouldn’t have been wearing that, or who should have fought harder? (Or are they only referring to rapists in the cases of “real” rape where the woman was a horribly brutalized Christian virgin?)

Assuming, even, that they are referring to the rapists, an important question still lingers: what about women? I know, it’s a radical thought, but really: what of them? Why should they have to pay for someone else’s wrong? What about their lives? Don’t they matter a damn bit? Or again, are we just assuming that they are partially at fault for the wrong committed?

Of course, anti-choicers will argue that we’re looking at disproportionate interests/rights. The “baby” has a life; the woman just has “convenience” and her lazy, selfish desire to not have a physical reminder of her traumatizing experience every second of every day for 9 months, not to mention a child created by that rapist at the end of 9 months.

In fact, regaining control after a rape experience really can be about a woman’s life. Thankfully, I don’t know the trauma of having been impregnated as the result of rape. But I do know the trauma of rape itself. And I know, or can read in tons of readily accessible literature, about how rape takes away a sense of control over one’s body. It can, in fact, heavily make one question who that body belongs to.

And anti-choicers want that answer to be the government. In spite of the fact that the right to an abortion after rape really can be about a woman’s life — since a woman may be easily made suicidal over a forced pregnancy as the result of rape, or simply traumatized forever because of it — anti-choicers think that a fetus’ rights overrule it. When forced to choose between the life of a fetus, and the life of a woman (and often thereby her fetus due to simple biology), anti-choicers choose the fetus time and time again.

Of course, most Americans disagree. Most Americans think that rape victims deserve a right to abortion. But significant numbers also support restrictions on abortion in other cases. As a result, pro-choice organizations and advocates do admittedly exploit the rape angle in fighting anti-choice legislation. Rape victims are, seemingly, the perfect case for tugging at people’s heart strings.

Why are rape victims treated like the holy grail in abortion arguments? And why do supposed abortion “moderates” think that they deserve special treatment?

Granted, the most vulnerable people do deserve most of our concern, so to some extent focusing on their needs above the majority of American women who need abortions is appropriate. However, it would be silly to pretend that there is no political angle here that has little to do with social justice. And I think that this focus traces back to ideas about who is to blame, and to women’s sexual rights.

In other words, only some women are seen as worthy of having sexual rights. And it’s the women who have already had their sexual rights violated. In order to gain sexual rights, women first have to have them abused.

Further, those women then have to prove that they deserve those sexual rights, no matter how unfair the criteria for proof is. They usually have to report their rape just to have access to a medical procedure; they may have to provide a name of their rapist, or provide DNA samples from their aborted fetus for “evidence.” And then they still may be forced by law to undergo ultrasounds and diatribes about how having an abortion makes them a bad person.

Basically, they have to “prove” that they’re a rape victim by playing the part of the right kind of rape victim. The “real” rape victim. The good, moral chaste rape victim. And so either way, rape victim exception or no rape victim exception, women’s bodies are commodified and devalued.

This tells us something about the abortion debate itself — something that most of us probably already knew. Anti-choicers say that their stance is about “babies” and how those babies are valued. For that reason, they’d prefer to push women out of the picture all together, and ignore the fact that even if a fetus was a “person,” that would still make two people whose bodies are facing serious consequences. They prefer this because otherwise, we’d also have to also discuss how women’s bodies are valued.

And the answer to that question when it comes to the act of committing rape, the act of denying a woman the choice of an abortion, and the moment when those two acts intersect, is the same. Not at all.

I support Roe vs Wade, I support “choice,” and I support reproductive autonomy and non-coercion of all kinds, because women deserve better.

cross-posted at The Curvature

Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which means that it’s also Blog for Choice day. And finally, we have a Roe day that actually feels celebratory instead of defensive.

I’ll be putting my post up later today. Feel free to post your own blogs for choice in the comments.

Nice! Mac of Pesky Apostrophe is hosting a fundraiser for Medical Students for Choice:

After Roe v. Wade, hospitals stopped seeing a lot of injuries and deaths from illegal abortions and eventually most hospitals stopped performing them. As a result of this, as well as political pressure and fear of being targeted by anti-choice whackadoodles, many medical schools quietly removed abortion from their curriculum. Today your average first or second year medical student is lucky to get even a mention of abortion in a Pharmacology lecture, and it’s really rare for a third or fourth year student to see an abortion or abortion-related complication during the clinical part of their education. Even OB/GYN residents aren’t guaranteed education around abortion - only 50% of residency programs have an opt-out abortion rotation. I don’t particularly think it matters how one feels about abortion and whether it should be legal or illegal…I think we should want our doctors to be well-trained enough to deal with something that impacts over one-third of their female patients. Even if the doctor chooses not to perform abortions, don’t you think doctors should know something about it?

Look, 87% of U.S. counties lack an abortion provider and the pool of trained physicians willing to provide services continues to shrink (the statistics for Canada are no less depressing). Legalized abortion is under threat in this country, but the shrinking pool of providers threatens to make the legality issue irrelevant. And maybe you don’t care, maybe you’re thinking, “Good! We shouldn’t make it easy for women to find abortion services!” Well, consider this: most medical schools devote more class time to learning about Viagra than to all forms of contraception combined. Many medical students aren’t learning much at all about important things like sterilization procedures or pregnancy options counseling. You wonder why we keep hearing things about gynecologists refusing to prescribe birth control pills and perform vasectomies on unmarried men. And put into this context, the proposed Dept. of Health and Human Services regulations that would make it a federally-protected act to not just withhold information to patients on abortion and contraception, but provide false information, well…it’s frightening.

And so I’ll be running a fundraising drive to make better doctors. And there will be prizes!!! For every each $10 donated, your name will go in a drawing to win one of the following:

* one pair of handmade socks (you choose the color, I choose the pattern with input from you)
* one half pint of handmade watermelon rind relish
* one half pint of handmade peach butter
* one half pint of handmade plum barbecue sauce
* one half pint of handmade watermelon barbecue sauce
* one pint of handmade tomato-red wine sauce
* One handknit stuffed uterus
* One dozen of the most fantastic cookies you’ll ever eat: chocolate chip with sea salt. Made lovingly by me, y’all!
* Two skeins of handspun yarn

I have received a hand-knitted hat and a handspun skein of yarn from Mac over the years and can attest to their quality. Think about giving money to a good cause, and check her out on Twitter and at her blog to follow along. Her goal is $3000.

I wrote about this on Saturday, but today is the 20th anniversary of Canada’s biggest abortion-related Supreme Court case. For a super-comprehensive and fully informative take on Canada’s reproductive rights issues, I direct you to mattbastard. (Really, go — his post is awesome, and you will learn a lot).

Congrats, Canada, and here’s to 20 more years of progress.