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Abortion/General interest/Reproductive rights/Women

January 2, 2014January 7, 2014

Dr. Ken Edelin: Warrior for women’s rights

Women everywhere suffered a loss on December 30 with the death of Kenneth Edelin, retired ObGyn and longtime champion of reproductive justice. Dr. Edelin died of cancer at his home in Florida. He was 74.

: Photo Courtesy: LifeNews.com

Ken Edelin’s obituaries all lead with the story of his sensational manslaughter trial in 1973. As the New York Times reports, “Dr. Edelin (pronounced EE-da-lin) was charged with causing the death of the fetus of an unwed 17-year-old during an elective abortion in her sixth month of pregnancy. In a six-week trial in Boston that explored uncharted legal ground and made headlines across the country, Dr. Edelin, who was black, was vilified as a baby-killer and defended as a victim of racial and religious prejudice being tried for an action that had never been defined as a crime: killing a fetus that may or may not have been a “person,” and whose rights had never been specified by law.” He was convicted, but later acquitted of all charges.

Edelin’s long career, though, was much more than that event. It included teaching, writing, mentoring, and advocating for reproductive justice, especially for poor women of color. Among other honors and awards, he received the Margaret Sanger Award, its highest honor, from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 2008.

In the several times I spoke with Ken Edelin during research for Perilous Times (about his story, which appears on pages 109-111) and after its publication (to thank him once again) he was gracious, generous and supportive. He was particularly proud of the book he wrote about the Boston trial, Broken Justice: A True Story of Race, Sex and Revenge in a Boston Courtroom, and understandably a little miffed that it had not received the recognition he felt it deserved. It may have been too exhaustively detailed to find a major publisher or a host of readers, but Broken Justice makes certain that the full story of that episode is preserved.

It was an honor to have encountered Ken Edelin, even only in phone calls. He will be missed.

General interest

November 23, 2013

Win some, lose some…

by Fran Johns

It’s a not-too-encouraging new twist on the old baseball adage: win some, lose some, some get rained out.

Women’s health & rights recently won one – Albuquerque – lost one – Texas – and guess who still gets left out? The woman (and often her husband or partner) who simply wants to exercise a constitutional right to make a very personal, very private and usually very difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy.

The Albuquerque issue was a blatant attempt by right-wing ideologues to circumvent the law and ban late-term abortions outright. It would have immediately affected the entire state, since the only two clinics (and specifically the openly-advertising Southwestern Women’s Options) performing the procedure are in Albuquerque. Although late-term abortions are a tiny, tiny fraction of all such procedures, they are often the most wrenching, difficult and extremely private of decisions; for now, New Mexico women at least retain the right to make such decisions when necessary — and the access needed to carry them out.

Texas women fared worse. The Supreme Court turned down an appeal to block another blatantly anti-women law passed by Texas in July, which will force the immediate closing of as many as one third of the clinics in the state offering abortions.

Texas Governor Rick Perry proudly proclaimed that this means Texas women “are now better protected from shoddy abortion providers operating in dangerous conditions.” Excuse me? If I could get Mr. Perry to read my own story in Perilous Times, he might know what shoddy abortion providers operating in dangerous conditions are actually like. Tragically, because they are now denied access to safe and legal procedures, Texas women without resources may be forced to turn in similar directions.

Highly trained, dedicated physicians have been available to perform abortions in Texas clinics. Whether they have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic — as is now required — has absolutely no bearing on “the safety of Texas women.” But the law now enables one harsh, strident, anti-women segment of the state to impose its will on disempowered women. All but a handful of clinics in Texas will be forced either to close or to stop offering abortions. Some Texas women will be able to travel the long distances necessary to access safe procedures but others — women without money or power, desperate to end an unwanted pregnancy that could bring lead to unbearable hardship?

They not only lost one, they are now left out. My heart aches for those women.

General interest

November 12, 2013

Life & death decisions: who chooses?

by Fran Johns

Scale of justice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was pleased to be included in a panel on Advance Directives recently for the Bar Association of San Francisco, surrounded by three very smart women. Organized & moderated by SF Bar’s John O’Grady, the panel included Harriette Grooh of HGA Personal Care Consultants, Sara Stephens of Good Medicine Consult & Advocacy, and Attorney Elizabeth Krivatsy. The audience — in post-event evaluations — gave us mostly all fives out of possible one to five ratings, which would be a nice touch to my resume if I had a resume. I was there as writer on end-of-life issues, and acknowledged as the wearer of two hats. My death & dying hat alternates with the abortion hat, which I explained was how never to be invited to cocktail parties.

But this panel’s focus was on end-of-life decision making: how, if we consider it, would we prefer to die? Most of us say: At home, at peace. Physician aid in dying — now legal in four states and a movement that is finally gaining ground around the U.S. — is key to peaceful death for many of us, and significant to my work in the area. But opposition to this rational, humane way to die comes from two powerful directions: The Catholic Church (NOT most Catholics, certainly not the excellent folks at Catholics for Choice) and the far right — mostly religious fundamentalists who somehow believe that pain and suffering at the end of life should never be shortened.

The issue becomes one of who chooses: the dying individual, or religious and political powers.

My hats are interchangeable. Comprehensive, justice-rooted women’s health cannot put the fetus in control and cannot take the potential decision to choose an abortion away from the individual. But opposition to this rational, humane way to live comes from two powerful directions. You guessed it: Catholic officialdom and the religious/political right.

Happily, there’s progress, slow but sure, in end-of-life justice and my hat is off to all — Compassion & Choices in particular — who are leading this battle. Unhappily, my other hat might need to be a helmet to protect against the slings and arrows of those opposed to reproductive rights.

General interest

October 22, 2013October 23, 2013

After Tiller: A film for pro-life & pro-choice … and for opening dialogue

by Fran Johns

George Tiller: Boston Vigil (Photo credit: qwrrty)

Late-term abortions have to be the hardest to defend, and the most complex to consider — a segment of the abortion debate that I personally would want to stay as far away from as possible. But in “After Tiller,” filmmakers Martha Shane and Lana Wilson present a remarkably clear-eyed and comprehensive picture of the men and women who took on the job of providing this constitutionally-guaranteed right after the murder of Dr. George Tiller in 2009 by anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder. And force the viewer to confront the issue as a piece of the broader reproductive rights issue.

The two filmmakers, who co-produced and co-directed the documentary, are not taking sides or making points; their hope is to promote dialogue — and I wish them every success. Having seen “After Tiller” online, and later on the big screen at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, I congratulate them on honest coverage of an incredibly difficult issue. They were curious, they say, about the providers themselves and their relationships with their patients. So the film spends at-home and in-the-office time with the providers, Warren Hern, a friend of Tiller’s who practices in Boulder, Colo.; LeRoy Carhart, who considered coming to Wichita after Tiller’s death and now provides abortion services in Maryland; and Susan Robinson and Shelley Sella, who run a clinic in New Mexico.

For the anti-choice forces “After Tiller” offers a bombshell of a quote, when one of the women physicians looks directly into the camera and says, “This is not an abortion; this is delivery of a stillborn baby.” Third trimester abortions are surely nearing the time when “fetus” becomes “baby.”

But if you believe in a woman’s right to make her own choices and her own decisions, “After Tiller” shows just how wrenchingly difficult and complex the decision to have a third-trimester abortion must always be. Most of the cases shown depict parents facing a choice between delivering a live baby who might live a tortured few days or months or a stillborn whom they want to spare such a fate.

In a perfect world, those who oppose abortion at any time and those who believe in a woman’s right to choose could use this difficult but forthright film to talk about — maybe even to begin to comprehend – each other’s viewpoints. Unfortunately we are living in a polarized time and an imperfect world. Still, one can hope.

Go see the movie if you have a chance.

General interest

October 19, 2013

A glimmer of sanity in Kansas

by Fran Johns

Scales of justice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Associated Press reports that the Kansas Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended the law license of anti-abortion crusading former KS Attorney General (2003-2007) Phil Kilne. During his time as Attorney General, and throughout a subsequent stint as Johnson County District Attorney, Kline aggressively attacked Planned Parenthood and abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. The intensity of that relentless battle led to the killing of Dr. Tiller by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder on a Sunday morning in May, 2009.

No one is pinning blame for the murder of the widely-beloved physician on the anti-abortion obsessed former attorney. But Planned Parenthood supporters and pro-choice activists have to be cheering the small light that’s now shining on Kline’s egregious misconduct. The 154-page Supreme Court decision lists 11 specific violations of the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct committed by Kline while he was in office. As county D.A., for example, he filed 107 criminal charges against the Planned Parenthood clinic, all of which were subsequently dropped.

Third-trimester abortions, which are performed by fewer than a handful of providers in the U.S., are in many ways the hardest to defend, for those of us committed to protection of women’s reproductive rights. But I can absolutely promise that no one chooses a late-term abortion without strong, urgent and very personal reason. It’s a complex procedure with attendant complex effects. But Dr. Tiller chose to offer this procedure to women in need, and others are working hard to preserve the right as part of his legacy.

A new documentary, “After Tiller,” just opened in the San Francisco Bay area. It focuses on the four physicians who now openly offer late-term abortions. Film maker Martha Shane, co-director with Lana Wilson, is in town and speaking at a Q&A session following today’s showing at the Roxie Theater (where I’ll simultaneously be signing copies of Perilous Times.) The event is sponsored by Trust Women Silver Ribbon campaign.

Which brings me full circle back to Phil Kline. Obsessed with his conviction that abortion is a sin and must be banned, Kline brought excessive, unnecessary and costly disruption to Planned Parenthood services — which extend far, far beyond abortion: counseling, breast cancer screening, free screening for STD, contraception, countless services critical to boys and girls, men and women in the area. It was cruelty bordering on the insane to those countless innocent people in need of such services. So as I head over to the Roxie I am personally grateful for the Kansas Supreme Court and the note of sanity it has now brought to the state.

General interest

October 15, 2013

Encountering a legend

by Fran Johns

She was there when I walked in to do a reading at A Great Good Place for Books (which is indeed a great good place): a tall, reed-thin woman with a still-beautiful face that radiated strength.

“I’m Pat,” she said.

I shook her hand and thanked her for coming, then kept walking to the back of the bookstore to finish up some miscellaneous details. While walking, my brain clicked in. I turned around and walked back.

“You’re PAT MAGINNIS?”

She smiled. She was indeed.

Pat Maginnis’ story is part of my new book, Perilous Times: An inside look at abortion before – and after – Roe v Wade. It’s a story too long to tell again here, but in brief: In the 1960s, if you were pregnant and desperate in Chicago you looked for Jane. If you were in California, you looked for Pat Maginnis. She was a one-woman Planned Parenthood/ NARAL Pro-Choice/ TrustWomen force, when there were few forces to protect the lives of women with unintended pregnancies.

I had last talked with Pat three years ago, when working on Perilous Times; she was aging (something we both continue to do) and in poor health. I had lost track of her, and recent efforts to find her led nowhere. But here she was.

There are legends in our time. Pat will be at the Commonwealth Club for a panel discussion on Thursday the 17th — not on the panel, but she’s planning to be there. She’s going to make my day twice in the same week.

General interest

October 13, 2013

Malala, and messages of compassion

by Fran Johns

Malala Yousafzai at the Global Education First... — Malala Yousafzai at the Global Education First Initiative anniversary event (Photo credit: United Nations Information Centres)

It’s probably enough to leave a lot of us — not just Jon Stewart — speechless: lovely little Malala Yousafzai reporting with a smile on her thoughts about the Talib pointing a gun at her:

“I started thinking about that, and I used to think that the Talib would come, and he would just kill me. But then I said, ‘If he comes, what would you do Malala?’ then I would reply to myself, ‘Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.’ But then I said, ‘If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat others with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education.’ Then I said I will tell him how important education is and that ‘I even want education for your children as well.’ And I will tell him, ‘That’s what I want to tell you, now do what you want.'”

There are skeptics, of course, and people back home in the once-peaceful Swat Valley who worry that all the publicity will bring more terror to their area. But I say, Go for it, Malala.

Imagine what might happen through dialogue. Maybe the government could even come un-shut. That is, if you use the word’s definition as a verb: “take part in a conversation in order to understand different sides and reach a solution to a problem.” What seems to happen more often in Washington is not dialogue, but monologue v monologue.

To come down to the issue which currently consumes about 90% of my time these days (thanks to new book): What if there could be education so girls like Malala would know about how to prevent unwanted pregnancy? And about ALL of their options should such a thing happen? Education along the whole spectrum, for girls and boys alike?

And then, what if there were real dialogue, as in “understand different sides and reach a solution to a problem.” One side would need to back off of the abortion-on-demand-and-without-apology stance, and the other would need to back off the ban-abortion-and-then-everything-will-be-solved stance.

Now back to Malala. I’m glad she didn’t get the Nobel, she’s got plenty of time left — assuming the Taliban don’t get her. In a world of obstinate monologue and increasing brutality, her gospel of dialogue and education are a breath of fresh air.

General interest

October 8, 2013October 9, 2013

Who’s fighting for reproductive rights?

by Fran Johns

AC-TI-VIST: Vigorous advocate for a cause. Or, Lisa Lindelef (among a lot of others. )

As Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion rights, turned 40 early this year, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 7 out of 10 Americans want the law to stand. Those who believe otherwise, though, have been working to make abortion access difficult in many states, and are reportedly preparing a case that will lead back to the Court and potential repeal of Roe v Wade.

Enter the activists. They include the staff and countless volunteers for Planned Parenthood, the forces of groups like Trust Women Silver Ribbon campaign, the people of National Abortion Federation, National Organization of Women and…

NARAL Pro-Choice America. NARAL Pro-Choice is the one that’s drawn the interest and energies of Lisa Lindelef, one of the panelists on the Commonwealth Club of California’s October 17th program, Women at Risk: What’s Ahead for Reproductive Rights. She’ll be adding the perspective of a long-time activist to that of other panelists; if you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, come join the discussion. Lisa currently serves on the board of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, whose mission is “to support and protect, as a fundamental right and value, a woman’s freedom to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices through education, training, organizing, legal action, and public policy.”

About her personal motivations, and decision to work with NARAL, Lisa has this to say:

“I’ve been involved with the pro-choice and reproductive rights movement since before Roe, ever since I saw young women I knew “disappear” and never reappear. As choice gradually, and now increasingly, has become threatened by restrictions designed to weaken the Roe decision without actually undoing it, I decided it was time to put serious time and resources into the fight. The pro-choice coalition has many admirable and steadfast members but NARAL Pro-Choice America has been, and remains, the political leader of the pro-choice movement. With its combined state and federal organization structure, it is uniquely positioned to lead the fight to protect a woman’s right to choose.

Since 1973, safe and legal abortion has been offered by physicians across the U.S., including members of Physicians for Reproductive Health, and through clinics maintained by Planned Parenthood and other groups such as the Feminist Women’s Health Centers in Atlanta, GA and Washington. Those who oppose abortion rights have been whittling them away, state by state, through restrictive laws and regulations, putting women with unintended pregnancies often at considerable risk; having been one of those women in the days before 1973, I know the risks.

Which is why I applaud the activists for choice like Lisa Lindelef.