Category: Reproductive rights

Abortion/Family and Friends/Feminist Collection/Healthcare/Politics & Causes/Reproductive rights/Women
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Hobby Lobby, 1 – Women, 0

by Fran Johns

(This first appeared on Huffington Post)

It is hard not to despair.

A woman entering a clinic for personal healthcare now must wade through potential hordes of obnoxious strangers getting in her face with stuff – often angry stuff, often misinformed and always unrequested. Where is the right to privacy, to lead one’s own life without the interference of obnoxious strangers?

And now, a woman working for Hobby Lobby, or for that matter any other corporation headed by a religious fanatic who believes his employees must submit to his beliefs, can be denied healthcare coverage for the most basic, most personal reasons: the need to control her own body, to make her own reproductive choices and family decisions.

Following the Supreme Court these days is hazardous to one’s health.

But let’s hear it for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg read the riot act to the five men – surprise, surprise, all of them were men – who dealt this latest blow to the women of America.

Saying that religious freedom demands “accommodation of a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners’ religious faith,” Ginsburg wrote in her dissent, is likely to wreak havoc. The havoc is only beginning. And only a small part of it will be the suffering of Hobby Lobby employees. No contraceptive coverage, no abortion coverage, no options, and – because we are not talking about rich people here – no justice.

One wonders. Are mandatory burqas next? Stranger things have happened than corporate CEOs whose religious sensibilities are offended by women’s uncovered heads. There are serious concerns that the ruling could lead to other corporations denying coverage for things that bother other religious groups – blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christians Scientists), psychiatric treatment (Scientologists) for example.

Freedom of religion? Bah, humbug, Ginsburg says in so many words. “(Y)our right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.” She might more properly have said, “where the woman’s uterus begins;” because indeed the religion-guarding gentlemen are swinging directly at women’s guts.

Call it what you will – religious freedom, protecting the unborn, freedom of expression, social conservatism – the denial of women’s rights will always, eventually run up against the voices of women who will not be denied.

Thanks, Justice Ginsburg

Abortion/Feminist Collection/Politics & Causes/Reproductive rights
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Chris Christie, Anais Nin and the Enforcement of Motherhood

by Fran Johns

What do New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and writer Anais Nin have in common? Not a whole lot, Christie would probably say. But a case can be made for their similar positions on one major issue: the importance of motherhood.

Christie has been everywhere in the news since his speech to the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, in which he drew loud applause when explaining his anti-abortion stance. Christie, like Mitt Romney and assorted other deft politicians, was pro-choice for a while. But he reportedly changed his mind when his wife was pregnant and he heard a heartbeat.

The way this works, for Christie, Romney and the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is that life in utero becomes sanctified to the exclusion of its carrier. The woman becomes simply that, a fetus-carrier, until she delivers a baby. And there it is: Motherhood.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition, along with Christie, Romney and conservatives everywhere, promotes the notion that once conception occurs motherhood must be enforced, and the fetus protected. This creates the noble, if tragically erroneous, belief that if abortion is banned it will simply never happen. But forced motherhood is not always possible.

This writer claims no insight into Gov. Christie’s soul, or expertise on Anais Nin, but I do know a lot about illegal abortion. If you tell women with unintended pregnancies that they may not terminate those pregnancies, they won’t listen. They will simply do desperate things to end their pregnancies, and unfortunately a lot of them will die trying. This is already happening in the U.S., thanks to conservatives’ success in denying access to safe abortion: poor women desperate to terminate unwanted pregnancies are again facing suffering and possible death.

Knowing of my interest in preventing more unnecessary deaths, a friend recently forwarded this comment made by Anais Nin in a 1940 diary recounting her abortion experience:

“Motherhood is a vocation like any other.”

Gov. Christie would agree, or proclaim it more exalted than others – except, perhaps, politics. But he and the Faith & Freedom folks would doubtless take umbrage with Nin’s following line:

“It should be freely chosen, not imposed upon women.”

 

Abortion/Health/Medicine/Reproductive rights/Women
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Vessel: New documentary, powerful voice

by Fran Johns

Working with Women on Waves – the organization determined to make safe abortion available around the globe – is not for the faint of heart.

Vessel, a new documentary currently being shown around the U.S., traces the progress of Women on Waves from its beginning more than a decade ago and through its now sister organization Women on the Web. That progress winds through angry protest mobs pushing, shoving, shouting “Murderer!” “Go Away!” and worse, and throwing eggs (and worse.) The women of WoW, mild-mannered though they may appear, retaliate by cutting the ropes of police boats attempting to tow them away, going nose-to-nose with burly guys on protest lines and breaking the seals of locks placed on their supply cabinets.

Meanwhile, the movement steadily grows.

Women on Waves was founded in 1999 by Rebecca Gomperts, MD, MPP, who was trained in both medicine and visual arts in her native Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (It doesn’t hurt, for the film, that Gomperts is also attractive, articulate in several languages and highly photogenic.) As a young Ob/Gyn Gomperts traveled – one might say trained – with the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior as its doctor and an environmental activist. While sailing in South America she was struck by the numbers of women suffering from lack of access to reproductive health services and safe, legal abortions – and inspired by their stories to start Women on Waves.

The group built a clinic-in-a-box, loaded it onto a ship and sailed into such unwelcoming ports as Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Poland and eventually scattered cities around Africa, Central and South America. The strategy was to anchor 12 miles offshore in international waters, where local authorities had no jurisdiction. Local authorities were seldom pleased. Gomperts was often on land, hanging banners announcing the phone number for pregnant women to call, drumming up press – usually unfriendly press – agitating the authorities and spreading the word, smiling pleasantly in the face of incredibly hostile opposition.

Once the medical abortion procedure using misoprostol became widely available and safe, if used as directed, Women on the Web began its own ambitious program of making the procedure available through the internet. And safe abortion slowly gained through changing laws.

The movement has one simple goal: to reduce the number of deaths from unsafe abortion. It is the same goal that motivates every other reproductive justice organization, from the Center for Reproductive Rights to ACCESS: Women’s Health Justice to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

But the film ends with a litany of places where poor women (if you’ve got money, you can manage to find a safe abortion somewhere) remain at risk for lack of access to safe abortion, notably including much of the U.S. Watching it in the U.S., where abortion has been legal since 1973, and being reminded again that women here are suffering and dying today, is sobering, and indescribably sad.

The sadness comes from hearing the same, tragic stories that first inspired Rebecca Gompers, and some years ago inspired this writer to create the book you see at the right. They come through the voices in the film:

“I’m scared to death.”

“I tried hitting myself in the stomach…”

“My family would disown me if they found out.”

“Can you help me?”

How can we be ignoring these voices in the United States today?

 

 

 

Abortion/contraception/courts/Healthcare/Politics & Causes/Reproductive rights/Supreme Court/Women
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On Making Abortion “A Thing of the Past”

by Fran Johns

This first appeared on Huffington Post

“One day our country will be abortion-free,” says Pro-Life Mississippi board member Tanya Britton.

Rose Mimms, Director of Arkansas Right-to-Life, wants to “make abortion unthinkable.” Read: impossible.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s stated goal is “to make abortion a thing of the past.”

We have been here before. None of the above zealots are old enough to remember exactly what it was like, but I could describe for them the time when abortion was unthinkable, impossible and illegal and the country was what Britton would describe as “abortion-free.” It was only legal-abortion-free, of course, and this is what that was like:

Women died. By the untold thousands. They died of sepsis most often, a singularly terrible way to die. They also died of things like puncture wounds, desperately trying to end what was a torment to their bodies and souls. They had found themselves with unintended pregnancies – most often caused either by uncaring and irresponsible husbands or by inexcusable acts of rape, incest or circumstances over which the women themselves had no control.

Women of means died less often; they could generally access a safe abortion, even if it meant traveling to a more enlightened country than these United States. Primarily, those who died had little money and less power; often they already had more children than they could care for. Those who denied them the right to an abortion did little or nothing to help them care for present or future children.

So here we are again.

Abortion opponents can make it impossible, unthinkable, illegal; they cannot make it a thing of the past. Because women desperate to end unwanted pregnancies will always, always, always find ways to do so. Some of them, as is already happening, will die trying.

At least Britton, Mimms and Perry are honest about their goals. Others continue to obfuscate. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties would have the Supreme Court believe that their corporate religious sensibilities are offended by employees’ having the right to terminate a pregnancy before it actually begins, since they equate contraception with abortion. In state after state laws are being passed that are medically unnecessary, scientifically inaccurate, and constitutionally illegal, all in the name of “protecting women” or “protecting the rights of the unborn.” In reality, every law is designed as another step toward making abortion “unthinkable,” impossible and again illegal.

Until they can make it illegal again, making it inaccessible is enough. Again, women of means are seldom being harmed; women without money or power are suffering and dying.

It is not possible to “end abortion.” Not even religious extremists in other countries are able to do that, even though in many countries religious extremism attempts to rule women’s lives. Every day, women in Kenya and Afghanistan die trying to end unwanted pregnancies.

As George Santayana put it, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Unless we remember the tragedies women faced when abortion was “a thing of the past,” we will be condemned to watch those tragedies return.

Women will die.

Abortion/Health/Politics & Causes/Reproductive rights/Women
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Hanging out with a hero

by Fran Johns

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-29-20140522_171056_216.jpg

I first met Willie Parker three or four years ago, researching my then work-in-progress book Perilous Times: an inside look at abortion before – and after – Roe v Wade. Couldn’t believe his generous affability and apparent fearlessness in the phone calls and emails we traded, his willingness to be quoted, identified, you name it — despite the obvious dangers facing abortion providers in areas of the country where opposition is fierce and hostility strong. It matters not to Willie Parker. He is dealing with real, live women and the injustice they face when denied control of their own bodies.

Fast forward to May, 2014. In an earlier email exchange the remarkable Dr. Parker had mentioned being briefly in California around this time and hopefully having a chance to meet. I held him to that, and managed to get him over for a visit. Here’s the report of that visit that appeared just now on Huffington Post:

It’s not every day you get to hang out with your hero.

For anyone invested in reproductive justice today, Willie Parker, MD, MPH, MSc, is at the top of the hero list. My own such list is long, thanks to the many people I’ve met in recent years who are tirelessly at work keeping justice alive for women everywhere — but Willie Parker is #1.

Parker holds degrees from Harvard and the Universities of Iowa and Michigan; has served as Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington DC, Associate Medical Director of Family Planning Associates Medical Group in Chicago and Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. His list of writings, honors, accolades and nonprofit board jobs is longer than my hero list, but in Real Time he is simply Willie. A man who believes ferociously in a woman’s right to make her own decisions, whatever her race or socioeconomic status, whatever her unique circumstances and needs.

This does not make Willie Parker an “abortion on demand” physician. Once the fetus has the possibility of survival — with or without “extraordinary support measures” — he will not perform an abortion. But Parker believes in a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions and to control her own body, and knows it is women of color and women without money or resources who are most often denied these rights. That’s where the complex issue becomes a simple matter of justice.

Parker sees what he does — which is, provide abortions up to 24 weeks and six days — purely through the eyes of the woman who seeks him out. She is usually a woman of color, African-American or Latino. More often than not she is someone who already has more children than she can care for. Sometimes she is still barely more than a child herself, unmarried, abused by a casual acquaintance or a favorite uncle. She has a story.

Once the woman with a story — and an unintended pregnancy — reaches Willie Parker, she’s in a safe harbor. He listens to her story, calms her fears, holds her hand.

Such women may be safe, but the abortion provider is decidedly not. Especially when he’s a big, affable, outgoing, very dark-skinned, gray-bearded guy like Parker.

“I sort of hide in plain sight,” he laughs. Walking around in casual clothes and a friendly grin, as he customarily is, he hardly looks the part of a multi-degree, high-powered physician. It was probably little comfort to the white, business-dressed reporter leaving a building with Parker recently when the latter remarked with a smile, “If they’re coming after the doctor, they’re gonna shoot you.”

Parker, grounded in Christian tradition and secure in his faith, says he is uniquely blessed by the certainty of knowing that his core moral, ethical and social beliefs come together with his education and skills. So yes, he will go right on being a very public advocate for reproductive justice — including the current fight to preserve the one remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi — and no, he’s not worried about personal danger.

“I don’t think about how I’m going to die,” he says. “I think about how I’m going to live.”

This is what makes hanging out with Willie Parker such a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

Abortion/California/Health/Healthcare/Reproductive rights/Women
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Can 70% of us be wrong?

by Fran Johns

Depending on which poll you read, anywhere from 55% to 70% of the people of these United States believe that abortion should be safe and legal. At the high end of that percentage are those who believe Roe v Wade should remain the law of the land.

How, then, could we be where we are? Today, more than half of the states have restrictions that effectively deny many women access to safe and legal abortion, never mind the Constitution.

Reproductive justice organizations, though, are far from caving.

Donna Crane, Vice President for Policy, NARAL Pro-Choice America, recently met with groups of supporters in the San Francisco Bay area to go over details of all this, and to reassure supporters that “although these (restrictive state laws) keep happening and we are losing ground, we’ve not lost power.” That power, Crane says, comes from the solid, and growing, percentage of people who want to keep abortion safe and legal and believe it is a woman’s right to control what happens to her own body.

“The public,” Crane says, “is not the problem. The problem is that our opponents have figured out how to get their way: they have switched (from working to overturn Roe v Wade) to the state legislatures. And there is a disconnect with American values.”

Crane outlined the dramatic increase in TRAP laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers), state regulations designed to put unnecessary burdens on abortion providers – but not other medical professionals – as a way to drive doctors out of practice and to make abortion care more difficult and expensive to obtain. Anti-choice measures in the states have increased from 18 in 1995 to a cumulative total of 807 by 2013. They include such requirements as unnecessary hallway widths in clinics, forced untrasounds, repeat visits and forcing physicians to lie to their patients. That’s just to name a few.

To this writer, none of this is about one side winning and the majority losing, it’s simply about justice. Anybody, anywhere with money and resources can access safe and legal abortion. But if you’re poor, down on your luck, living in a remote or impoverished area, and you want or need to terminate an unplanned pregnancy? Forget it. Legislators don’t have time for you; you probably don’t vote much. Politicians don’t care about you; you aren’t funding their campaigns. Anti-choice forces don’t care about you, only about your fetus. For you, there is no justice.

NARAL, however, has your back. Now we just need to get the rest of the 70% out front.,

 

Abortion/contraception/General interest/Healthcare/Medicine/Reproductive rights/Women
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Honesty in women’s healthcare? We wish.

by Fran Johns

This article first appeared on Huffington Post

A small victory for reproductive justice: Google recently removed deceptive “crisis pregnancy centers” ads that come up when users look for abortion services. (Tara Culp-Ressler has an excellent summary of the issue on ThinkProgress.) The ads imply that CPCs offer abortion services, although their primary purpose is often to dissuade women from considering abortion. NARAL Pro-Choice America, which pressured Google to take down the ads because they violate the company’s “credible and accurate” policy, found that some 79 percent of CPC ads on Google were misleading.

What would happen if we instituted a Total Honesty policy on women’s health facilities?

For instance, the finger-pointing messages about Planned Parenthood clinics being “abortion clinics”? Those clinics, which are being forced to close at an astonishing rate, do a lot more than offer occasional abortions or abortion counseling. They serve men and women alike with information about birth control, contraception, family planning and STD’s. They provide women’s health information, counseling, breast exams, mammograms and a lot of critical healthcare for people of all ages, sometimes the only such care they can access.

Then there are independent clinics such as the Feminist Women’s Health Centers in several locations and Women’s Health Specialists in others, struggling to find funding. A godsend to many, they offer a wide range of excellent services to women of all ages and financial means.

I would venture to say, at the risk of seeming to betray the reproductive rights movement, that some pregnancy centers offer good services and don’t lie. CPCs unquestionably promote misinformation they must know is untrue: Birth control causes cancer? Abortion causes infertility? Or mental illness? Enough, already. But some centers say up front they do not counsel, advocate or refer abortion.

Could they be encouraged to join a campaign for honesty? Probably not. But if all the clinics offering desperately needed healthcare to women could be allowed to do so without having to fight against lies, politics and extremism it would be a nationwide blessing.

And that’s the honest truth.

Abortion/General interest/Health/Politics & Causes/Reproductive rights/Women
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Introducing a new abortion provider

by Fran Johns

I’ve gotten to know the author of the following essay in recent months, and was delighted to have seen him honored with a 2014 Unsung Hero Award from the National Abortion Federation.  With re-publication of his blog (from sherights.com) it’s my pleasure to introduce Boomers & Beyond readers to a future physician — who represents the future hope of women’s rights and women’s health.

 

WHY I’M BECOMING AN ABORTION PROVIDER — by Sarp Aksel

Growing up, I was quickly labeled an ana kuzusu – Turkish for “mamma’s boy.”

This came from a love for my parents’ holiday parties. Each year, the gatherings brought promises of leftover turkey, börek, and Rus salatasi – a delightfully creamy potato salad I was only allowed to indulge during the peri-holiday period. They were also occasions for storytelling. While my dad would entertain the men with the latest happenings in Turkish futbol – a constant stream of scandalous player trades, colorful diatribes of overly glorified coaches against crooked referees, and frequently contested league rankings – I often found myself cozying up to my mother and her friends. Their tales had power and emotion, and they meant so much more to me.

Even at that young age, I recognized that it was a privilege to be allowed into their space. Those evenings weren’t to be taken for granted and I was grateful to be included. Still, I wasn’t always sure if I was welcome.

As a feminist man and future obstetrician-gynecologist, I recognize that I am not, and nor will I ever be, in a position to fully understand the myriad factors that women must consider when tackling certain challenges. This does not mean I cannot be present and supportive. It would be arrogant at best and offensively misogynistic at worst to be anything other than an observer, a supporter and a witness to the uniquely difficult decisions that women face. This means that I believe whole-heartedly in the principle of autonomy as it pertains to healthcare and women’s dominion over their bodies and healthcare decisions. It requires having a profound respect for female autonomy, particularly of bodily integrity.

The slogan “Trust Women” is well known in the reproductive rights movement. While I am an ardent supporter of Dr. George Tiller’s dictum, I have recently found myself questioning its relevance. As a pioneer and hero to #FeministMen, Dr. Tiller was steadfast in his commitment to woman-centered care. His clinic in Wichita for decades served as a beacon of hope for women who had no other options – and continues to do so to this day. And yet, I can’t help but wonder – why do we still need to be told to trust women? Why are we still suspicious of a women’s ability to govern her own healthcare decisions?

Unfortunately, across our country we see politicians legislating abortion care from mandating ultrasounds to waiting periods and counseling requirements that often contain scientifically inaccurate information. They find themselves compelled to make decisions on behalf of women about matters that they deem women incapable of resolving on their own.

But really I’d prefer to keep legislators out of the conversation entirely. For me, identifying as a feminist provider means actively rejecting the notion that anyone other than the woman is the expert of her life-defining circumstances.

This means asking a woman how she feels about an unexpected positive pregnancy test without making assumptions about what that test result means to her.

It means being there for her as an objective source of medical information regardless of what birth control method she chooses, if she chooses one at all.

And it means advocating for women on a public policy level to ensure that women have unfettered access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare, including abortion and contraception.

My interest in women’s health sprang from years of working as a teenager at a specialty-maternity hospital in upstate New York – with women, for women. On my first day, an energetic young woman was orienting me to the facilities, my responsibilities, and my colleagues. A couple hours into the day, my supervisor noticed me trailing uncomfortably behind her through the hospital’s hallways. After several attempts to get at the cause of my odd behavior, she finally stopped to ask me what was wrong. With much hesitation I answered:

“I need to use a restroom, but this is a women’s hospital.”

She gave me a reassuring grin, placed her hand on my shoulder, and pointed me down the hall.

“Of course we have a men’s restroom.”

And just as there was room for men in a women’s hospital, there is room for men in the feminist movement. After all, feminism is synonymous with humanism.

Aksel_headshotAbout the author: Sarp Aksel is a member of the M.D. Class of 2015 at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and is currently applying for residency training in obstetrics and gynecology. As an advocate for comprehensive medical education, he has developed tools to help students raise awareness and fill curricular gaps in sexual and reproductive health training, including abortion and contraception. He is also the immediate past president of Medical Students for Choice, where he served as chair of the international nonprofit’s board of directors,

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