Alaska's Parental Notification Law

This story has been making the rounds in the feminist blogosphere for awhile now, but I somehow missed it until my sister brought it to my attention a few days ago.

Apparently, in Alaska, if a woman is under the age of 18 she does not have the right to her own uterus.

The state [Alaska] also became the 35th state to require some kind of parental notification or consent for a minor to obtain an abortion. As Alex Gutierrez reported from the state itself, this measure was controversial. The total expenditures to fight and promote the measure combined totaled more than $1 million —that’s more than $2 per registered voter in the state.

...

Parental consent and notification laws are one of those things that are politically popular among conservative — and even moderate — voters. What I find dangerous about the law is that it taps into a stereotypical parental protective instinct, sort of a mom- or dad-knows-best mentality. Fundamentally, though this simply isn’t practical or good policy.

In some instances, girls and young women seek abortions because they have been sexually abused by one of their parents. A law that requires both parents to consent could potentially put a minor in an abusive relationship in danger. Opponents of the new Alaska law fear the new law cause confusion and teens seeking an abortion might see the restriction a straight-up ban. For some teens, seeking an abortion is terrifying enough without piling on restrictions. Furthermore, Alaska is an extremely remote place — getting to another state with better abortion access might be particularly difficult and expensive.

It seems to me that if advocates of this law were truly concerned about young women having someone be aware of the procedure in the event of complications, then they should require that she have an emergency contact person (not necessarily a parent). What this law is really saying is that a woman under the age of 18 does not have the mental capacity to decide to terminate her pregnancy on her own and therefore has to clear it with her guardian first. This is not only problematic for the reasons above, but because a woman has the right to choose whether or not she is ready to carry a child to term and she has the right to make that decision any way she chooses- which means with or without the go ahead from her parents.

Trust Women: Blog for Choice Day

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?

Debra Haffner and Jim Wallis on Stupak

One more reason why I'm not a Jim Wallis fan - his piece at Huffpo titled "Health Care: Keep Your Eyes On The Prize."

You can read it all for yourself, but he writes,

"Whether every American woman has a health plan that pays for abortion or not, tens of millions of currently uninsured women in this country will be much better off with health insurance than without. Therefore a focus on "women's health" cannot just be restricted to access to abortion."

Yeah, but you can't talk about women's health without realizing that access to reproductive health care is part of that.

I just can't believe that he put quotes around "women's health." As if it's not real. Fake. Pretend. A figment of my imagination. If he has his way, my access to affordable, comprehensive health care will be a figment of my imagination. I'd like to think my health is more than just a series of air quotes in a lengthy and puffed up Huffpo article.

If I went on, I'd just be restating what Daniel Schultz says in "Jim Wallis' Egregious 'Memo To Nation's Leaders' on Stupak" over at Religious Dispatches. From Schultz, "In his passion for health-care reform, he seems not only willing to toss aside basic questions about human rights without a second thought, but unable to understand that some people might have a problem with that. Even worse, he's quick to blame the people who got screwed for not making a compromise more quickly."

Also over at Huffpo is Rev. Debra Haffner's take on Stupak in light of King Solomon, compassion and justice. She rightly juxtaposes the role and authority of religious institutions to the Constitution, quoting from the Religious Insitute's Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Abortion as a Moral Decision. The document states, "No government committed to human rights and democracy can privilege the teachings of one religion over another. No single religious voice can speak for all faith traditions on abortion, nor should government take sides on religious differences."

Let's hope our congresspeople remember that we are a nation not bound to one religion or doctrine and thus cannot legislate on one interepretation of morality.

Quote of the Day: Pro-Choice Michele Bachmann

"That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions." - US Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

I hope Planned Parenthood and NARAL put her on their mailing lists ASAP. Another woman for choice!

Twin Cities candlelight vigil for Dr. Tiller

Minnesota Choice Coalition is putting together a candlelight vigil for Dr. George Tiller, the doctor murdered this weekend for providing late-term abortions in Wichita, Kansas.

Where: Loring Park
When: June 2, 9-9:30
Bring your own candle

NARAL Pro-Choice writes, "There will be no speaking program, no bullhorns, no chanting and no political rhetoric. We just want to gather to silently reflect on one man's life and contribution to the pro-choice movement, and to mourn among other pro-choice supporters."

If possible, RSVP to danb@prochoiceminnesota.org.

Hope to see you there.

Crashing a car into a PP clinic is a VIOLENT act

There's been a lot happening at the Ford Parkway St. Paul Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota lately. The Archbishop of the St. Paul/Minneapolis diocese showed up at a Good Friday protest that the clinic traditionally uses to raise funds through "sponsor a protester" - by showing up himself, more anti-choice protesters showed up and inadvertently raised more funds for the clinic.

Also, back in January Matthew Derosia crashed his SUV into the front of the clinic, saying Jesus told him to do so. He plead guilty and sentenced to 111 days in jail last week, but the state is now looking to have him committed for mental illness.

Derosia's mother, Georjean Derosia, and the radical Army of God group have rallied to his cause, sending out fundraising emails. In an email explaining her actions to the Minnesota Independant, Georjean wrote, "[It is] the state of Minnesota’s intention to LOCK UP my son for a non-violent protest against Planned Parenthood for THE REST OF HIS LIFE!!!"

I don't know about you, but RAMMING A SUV INTO A BUILDING IS NOT NON-VIOLENT. It is violent at its very core, done with an intent of inflicting destruction. If you hit a person with a car, it is a violent act. Just because he didn't physically injure anyone doesn't mean it's not violence. I'd be willing to bet that the women and men who work in and go to that clinic have experienced emotional violence as a result of his actions.

While I hope Derosia gets the mental help he may need, his actions were certainly not non-violent. I hope Georjean and the Army of God recognize this, because it's certainly not helping their case at all.

Pro-life protest raises 14k for family planning

Here's some funny news out of Minneapolis/St. Paul - every year on Good Friday, a pro-life group protests at a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul. This year, Planned Parenthood did "sponsor a protester" as a fundraising technique. For every protester that showed up, someone donated x dollars.

Weeeeellll, the Archbishop of the archdiocese of St Paul/Minneapolis showed up this year, meaning that there was an even larger crowd of protesters, which means that Planned Parenthood raised way more money than anticipated. Apparently they raised $14,000 and carloads of donated food for food banks.

The money raised at the expense of anti-abortion protesters will go toward family planning services at the clinic. PPMNS said it provided more than 300,000 units of contraception and 20,000 breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings to women in Minnesota and the Dakotas within the past year.

Nice work, Archbishop Neinstedt and your posse of pro-life protesters. I'm glad you could do your part in preventing unplanned pregnancies and working for women's health issues.

Bush and "Sanctity of Human Life Day"

What are you trying to do, President Bush?

Anger as many people as possible before you leave the White House?
I didn't think you could sink any further, but apparently, I was wrong.

Read the article for yourself.

via.

Unwanted vs unplanned pregnanies

Today Rev. Debrah Haffner, from the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing, addresses Jim Wallis (from Sojourners and God's Politics) and some statements he made in Newsweek online.

Wallis said that although he believes abortion to be a moral tragedy, he doesn't think the best way to prevent abortions is to criminalize them. He asks, "The question is how can we actually prevent unwanted pregnancies, protect unborn lives, support low-income women, offer compassionate alternatives to abortion, make adoption much more accessible and affordable, carefully fashion reasonable restrictions, and thus dramatically reduce the shamefully high abortion rate in America?"

Haffner responds by suggesting that it's not unwanted pregnanies Wallis should be concerned about preventing, but unplanned pregnanies. She writes,

What Rev. Wallis isn't telling you is that the abortion rate is at its lowest since 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade. Abortions are coming down in the U.S. The abortion rate is down 100,000 since 2000, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

What Rev. Wallis isn't telling you is that a majority of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and that 62% of mainline Christians and 84% of Jews believe that.

What Rev. Wallis isn't telling you is that according to the Guttmacher Institute, placing retrictions, whatever "reasonable restrictions" might be, doesn't make abortions rarer, it makes them less safe.

And despite my reading his paragraph over and over again lest I missed it, what Rev. Wallis isn't calling for is hope for young women for productive futures through quality education and job opportunities (as was missing in last week's stories on the so-called pregnancy pact), sexuality education, and high quality family planning services. Rev. Wallis, as a pro-choice feminist and minister, I will do everything I can to work with you on assuring adoption services and high quality prenatal care and parenting support -- when will we see you working to assure women AND men have access to the means to prevent pregnancies in the first place?

If anti-choicers really want to prevent abortions, they should support easy access to birth control and family planning services because that's what prevents unplanned pregnancies, not misleading information and abstinence only education. Just one more reason that the anti-choice promotion The Pill Kills is more about imposing conservative sexual mores on society than it is about preventing abortions.

Last week, James Dobson from Focus on the Family said that Obama was "deliberately distorting" the Bible to fit his own theology. Haffner critiqued Dobson, writing,

"I find it almost laughable that Mr. Dobson (he is not a minister, he just plays one on radio and tv) doesn't understand that he too uses the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own theology. After all, the Bible is silent on birth control, silent on abortion, and silent on consensual same sex adult sexual relationships as we understand them today, yet Mr. Dobson says he is talking about a Biblical morality when he opposes them. And as a Unitarian Universalist minister, I understand that of course, we bring our own worldview and our own theology to understanding our sacred texts."

Exactly what I was thinking. If Dobson doesn't realize that individual experience and beliefs shape the way we see the world (including individual understandings of theology), then he's sadly out of touch with human experience. And because we all have different experiences and viewpoints, we must be able to make our own decisions for our own lives. That's the beauty of choice - I'm not fighting for abortions; I'm fighting for women to have the ability to make their own choices regarding their bodies and their lives.

Bookmark Haffner's blog and keep reading - she's consistantly proving that religion, feminism and choice can, and do, go hand-in-hand.

A Dialogue on Choice

In case this got lost at the end of my post about This Common Secret, I'll restate it here because I'm sure some of our readers with differing opinions than my own will want to take me up on my offer:

I think it'd be interesting to read This Common Secret from an opposite political stance, something I myself don't do nearly enough. So here's my challenge - if any anti-choice commenter on here wants to read This Common Secret and discuss it with me, I'll read an anti-choice book of your recommendation and we'll discuss that too. I think it's easy to read books you already agree with; it's harder to pick up something with a completely different worldview than your own.

It's a simple deal - I'll read a conservative/anti-choice book if one/some of our conservative readers read This Common Secret. Write up your thoughts on the book(s) and I'll post them here, along with my own.* Leave book suggestions and I'll choose one based on topic and library availability.



* I do reserve the right to edit responses for length and hate speech, but I don't anticipate having to edit anything. Or at least I hope not to, anyway.

This Common Secret Book Review

I've recently finished reading This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor by Dr. Susan Wicklund. I can't remember which blog recommended it, but I've had it on my reading list for months and it finally made it to my library list last week. Ok, after a little searching, I found the Salon article that suggested the book in the first place, and a recent Feministing post by Miriam about raising funds for Dr. Wicklund's new Montana clinic.

This memoir covers Wicklund's adult life, from her own abortion in 1976, through her decision to go to college to become a doctor, working with several clinics in the Midwest and Montana, up through present day. She writes about her own life and the patients she's encountered over her 20 year career as an abortion provider. There are lots of women in lots of different situations she helps though counseling, and sometimes, through abortions.

I thought her emphasis on patient care over medical procedures was reassuring, especially in a world run by HMOs and the bottom line. Wicklund describes the process she goes through with each patient she sees, beginning with counseling sessions where she makes sure all options are presented and thoroughly discussed and only proceeds with abortion when it's absolutely the right decision. As a pro-choice reader, I'm glad knowing that abortion providers aren't just there to do abortions, but to help women discern if that's the right choice for her. Wicklund says that her biggest fear is having a patient regret her abortion, and after reading her book, I can see why.

Another aspect of the book talks about Wicklund's experiences with anti-choice protesters. They marched in front of her clinic and house, followed her at airports, and even blocked her driveway to prevent her from leaving. She describes at great length the fear anti-choice protesters created in her life, from the people outside her own clinic to the violence done against abortion providers in other states. Wicklund worked in Wisconsin and Minnesota, states I've lived in/currently live in, so it's a bit frightening to know that there are fanatic people in my midst.

She chose This Common Secret as the title of her book because often times, abortion is a secret topic, a "shameful" past people don't talk about. Wicklund tells stories of people in her own family affected by illegal abortions, about the women in her community who she's done abortions for, about anti-choice women who get an abortion one day and then picket the next. Women who have had abortions are not alone - many women have one and if we stopped stigmatizing it, it wouldn't be such a taboo secret.

Overall, I found Wicklund's memoir touching and interesting. I recommend it to everyone - especially to people who are anti-choice. I think it'd be interesting to read it from an opposite political stance, something I myself don't do nearly enough. So here's my challenge - if any anti-choice commenter on here wants to read This Common Secret and discuss it with me, I'll read an anti-choice book of your recommendation and we'll discuss that too. I think it's easy to read books you already agree with; it's harder to pick up something with a completely different worldview than your own.

Online Forum by UNFPA

I've started summer language class and a new job in the past week, so I've been kinda busy, but I wanted to pass this along. It's from Americans for UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) about an online forum discussion about the 08 election and party/candidate positions:

Online forum: Are the world’s women part of our political agenda?

When: Tuesday, June 3rd, 1pm-4pm EST (first discussion period)
Where: RH Reality Check blog (www.rhrealitycheck.org)
What: An online discussion of global women’s health and the Republican and Democratic Party platforms.

In this pivotal election year, we must make sure that the issues we care about are represented in the agendas of both candidates who seek to lead our nation.

To achieve that goal, we will be discussing global women’s health and women’s issues in general, and how they have been treated by the two major parties.

On Tuesday, June 3rd, our forum will begin with a video statement from Anika Rahman, President of Americans for UNFPA, and the insights of Democratic and Republican activists about their parties’ treatment of women’s issues. You are invited to join independent journalists in responding to Ms. Rahman’s statement and the activists’ insights, and to discuss the prospects for changing the treatment of women’s issues in 2008.

To help us have a count of the number of participants, please sign up in advance. RSVP through our Events Page.

And remember to log on to the forum between 1pm and 4pm EST on Tuesday, June 3rd.

Lithuanian pro-choice protesters

I've been to Lithuania numerous times for mission trips and I consider the place a second home with people who live there who are my friends and family. Needless to say, it was distressing for me to see they are considering banning abortion.

Pro-choice to the rescue!


Awesome protesting and I think each and every one of those protesters is badass. Nice work, feminists!

I hope the right to choose is protected for all of the young girls I know in Lithuania, in case they may need to make that choice one day.

All the naked ladies

I think that the human body is beautiful in its many shapes and forms, and I think that it should be respected. I think it's great that people can love their bodies enough to want to take photos. Even nude photos. But I wonder if Hollywood feels the same.

The ABC website featured this slide show of women who have taken off their clothes for magazine covers, and it really makes me wonder: In Hollywood, do women really have a choice about whether or not to keep their clothes on?

I sort of touched on this issue in my post about Miley Cyrus, but I will admit, I don't know Hollywood that well. But all these pictures of young, nude, female stars make it seem to me that it might not be so much of a choice after all.

I know that there are women who love their bodies and would be excited to do a nude cover shoot. I also know that taking one's clothes off in front of other people could possibly be a liberating experience. But when we look at all these magazine covers in context, do we really see these nude women as being empowered?

In American society, I would say, it is rather common to see famous young women dressed provocatively, and covers like the ones I linked to are not uncommon at all. The reason that these covers are so commonplace is that they help sell magazines. It's true. So if a a naked young female star's body on a magazine means that a magazine will sell more copies, doesn't it also mean that if a female star wants the most exposure to the most people, she should take off her clothes?

Women in Hollywood are not dumb. Many of them know what will sell easily, and that happens to be, very often, at least near-nudity. And when things sell with their bodies associated with them, it means that they will make more money. So is it really a choice, then, for women to take their clothes off? Perhaps. But it seems to me like it may be one of only a few choices that Hollywood allows these women to make if they want to make money.

As a side note: It bothers me that women's bodies are what people focus on in Hollywood, because it means that a lot of times we only see perfection, not reality, and that does not send healthy messages to girls who look real (click on the porfolio link at the top - thanks to Shakesville).

Wisconsin girl dies as parents try praying

11-year-old, Weston, WI girl, Madeline Kara Neumann (right), was sick for a month with untreated Type 1 Diabetes before she slipped into a coma and finally passed away.

Her parents opted to pray instead of seeking medical assistance for their child, even though "the family does not attend an organized church or participate in an organized religion" and despite desperate pleas from other family members in California.

Apparently, the girl had not been to a doctor since she was three years old when she received vaccinations.

According to Nancy Grace's show, Leilani Neumann (the girl's mother) gave this statement: "We are just a normal family. We are non-denominational. We do not consider ourselves religious. When we are sick, we just lay our hands on the sick to heal them. We believe in the power of prayer."

This may not be a strictly feminist issue, but it is personal to me. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes three days after my 12th birthday. I was only a little older than Madeline.

According to the American Diabetes Association, "In type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar (glucose), starches and other food into energy needed for daily life."

Symptoms may include vomiting, excessive thirst and urination, loss of appetite and weakness. I personally experienced all of these in the month before I was finally diagnosed with the disease, and it was an awful experience. I also lost a lot of weight, and looking back at some of the pictures of me at that time, I looked obviously sick and very thin.

From personal experience, I know that Madeline's death had to be painful. Before my diagnosis, my worst problems, at the beginning, were the extreme thirst and the nearly-constant urination. I could not sit through a 40 minute class period without needing to be excused. I was able to largely hide these symptoms from my parents, making excuses, or just plain stories to hide these embarrassing symptoms. But some of the other signs I could not hide. My mother finally took me to the doctor after I had vomited several times, as my body tried to rid itself of the undigested sugars in my system, and had excessive trouble sleeping.

That said, I cannot imagine how her parents could sit there and watch her condition slowly deteriorate and eventually die. The worst part is that Type 1 Diabetes is easily treatable...when you get the proper diagnosis and treatment. I have been living with the disease for over seven years now.

It angers me to know that I could have been put in a similar situation, but my mother took action and got treatment for me, and I have had the opportunity to live a fulfilling life, an opportunity that Madeline will never have.

Why? I have trouble understanding her parents' reasoning. Her mother claims that they don't consider themselves religious, and they do not affiliate with any organized church or religion. Why did they let their daughter die?

This was all preventable. How do you feel about parents being able to choose the treatment their child receives?