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.

Not all abortions are unwanted pregnancies

Renee's commentary on the ridiculous Judy the talking embryo from ChoiceKills.com got me thinking about another type of choice often overlooked in the abortion debate. She writes, "Choice does not always end in abortion but it does mean that every child that is born is a wanted child."

In addition, not all abortions are unwanted pregnancies.

Sometimes women and families have to make the painful decision to terminate a pregnancy on medical grounds (both mother and child) when the child is very much wanted. Often, these women go to late term abortion clinics and in some states, force fed "Women's Right to Know" bullshit on how much pain a fetus can feel and shown pictures of a developing fetus.

What to know what I think women have a right to know? That they can make their own personal and medical decisions free from another person's judgment, especially during a terrible time such as terminating a pregnancy due to health reasons.

Just one more reason we need to keep reproductive rights safe, legal, and in my opinion, free from pro-life harassment.

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.

"Pregnant women get the crazy all up inside them"

One of my good friends pointed out to me the completely ridiculousness of the media coverage surrounding the recent delivery of octuplets. When she first delivered, it was "MIRACLE! BABIES ARE CUTE!" talk, but once the media found out she already has six children, then it became an "ethical dilemma." Apparently women, once pregnant, aren't emotionally stable enough to make rational decisions for themselves.

The title of this post comes from the chat where my friend sent me the link to a CNN article. I think I'll let CNN speak for itself:

Rosenthal, on the other hand, questions the woman's capacity to make a good decision under the circumstances. Some neonatologists believe that when pregnant women are told about dangers of prematurity or have great expectations about giving birth, their judgment can be impaired, she said.

The situation raises the issue of whether a doctor ought to override a patient's wishes for the sake of saving lives, she said. Although the health care system in America gives patients autonomy in making decisions about their own bodies, when emotionally distraught, some people decide poorly, she said.

You know, once the pregnancy gets all up inside someone, everything they do is crazy emotional and irrational. My friend pointed out that these ethicists don't trust the what pregnancy does to women; although if they don't trust women in the first place, it's an easy jump to blaming it on pregnancy hormones. They don't trust the emotional state of pregnancy enough to suggest that it's worth stripping a woman of the right to physical autonomy.

The article states that "when emotionally distraught, some people decide poorly." Poorly by what standard? Who decides what is and is not a poor decision? I think what they mean to say is that instead of people deciding poorly, it's women deciding poorly, i.e. not what that particular person thinks. People (men) don't decide poorly - it's those hormone driven women.

This just seems like one more reason given by "the powers that be" to justify denying women bodily rights, regardless of the circumstances. If a situation like this sets the precedent that the state of pregnancy causes hormonal imbalances which lead to irrational decision making and this is worthy of denying rights to women, then we're just steps away from stripping women of the right to choose at all.

Stuff like this doesn't exist in a vacuum - taking away women's rights in one place just makes it easier to take away women's rights in another.

mzbitca wonders if the media coverage would be different if there was a man in the relationship, as opposed to a single mother. She writes, "I just can’t help but wonder, if there was a man smiling in the pictures behind Nadya if any of these accusations would even be around?"

However, I'm going to have to go with Melissa at Shakesville's approach: None of our business. Whatever issues are involved, it's not my decision and not my place to judge.

The only way I can be sure* that my own reproductive decisions won't be judged by others is to not judge others. It's a small step, but it's a start.


*I'm not 100% sure that my own decisions won't be judged, but I'm going to trust others that I won't be judged when the time comes and extend a little bit of the golden rule/Kant's catagorical imperative.

Adoption as a feminist issue - the right to mother?

There's a great article on adoption in the Twin Cities Daily Planet today written by Korean adoptee Katie Leo:

I am part of a growing number of adult adoptees who view adoption as a feminist issue, part of a continuum of reproductive rights. This perspective extends to the right to raise one’s child the same importance as the right to choose whether or not to bear one.

...

As a woman dealing with the pain of my own infertility, I did not want to think through all these questions when I first considered adopting a child. Frankly, I just wanted to be a mother. My decision not to adopt after realizing that adoption was in conflict with my political beliefs is my personal choice. I do not condemn all adoptive parents, my own included, whom I love profoundly. Nor do I condemn adoption across the board. I do think, however, that we need to reframe our discussion of adoption. And though this story is about international adoption, I believe this discussion should include domestic adoption and foster care.

I believe that if the spirit of feminism creates solidarity between women across social, economic and racial barriers, feminists should work to remove the obstacles that render women around the globe so powerless, rather than using their situations as a reason to take their children from them. We should also question adoption language that carries implicit judgments of who makes a legitimate mother. Other issues to address are using children as a commodity, and racial coding of mothers and children. And we should work toward the extension of reproductive rights to include the rights of women to raise their children.

Check it out.