US Supreme Court building, front elevation, steps and portico. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A new challenge to women’s reproductive rights could soon be heard by the Supreme Court, according to an insightful report posted by Linda Greenhouse September 4 on the New York Times Opinionator. The Court may decide whether or not to hear the case (Cline v Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice) by this fall, and its current make-up is unlikely to come down on the reproductive justice. It’s a scary scenario.
Scary because the case is going to be billed as “protecting women” while no one with a brain can fail to see it for what it is: a new attempt to make abortion virtually impossible for women in the U.S. A little sleight-of-hand interpretation of an old FDA ruling will translate to ending the use of RU-486. Greenhouse explains it better, but that’s the gist of it: medical abortion will cease to be available if anti-abortion forces win this case. State regulations continue to limit access, clinics continue to close; you don’t have to do much math to realize that reproductive rights are disappearing across the U.S.
We’ve been here before:
On one side is a woman. On another side is pregnancy tissue which is, in Greenhouse’s apt description, the size of a pencil eraser. Some of us believe the woman should have the right to choose what happens to that tissue within her body. Others of us believe it is already a life which must be protected at all costs and the woman be damned. Unfortunately, if access to safe abortion is again denied, women will again be damned. Damned to dangerous attempts to end unwanted pregnancies, or to “forced birth.” That “forced birth” phrase was used by a woman attending a recent reading of Perilous Times, who added, “We used to call that slavery.”
Whatever you call it, that tiny bit of pregnancy tissue is the real focus of Cline v Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, not the drug which can be used to cause its removal. The anti-abortion forces who value that bit of tissue over the woman carrying it have absolutely no concern for the woman. What they do have are political clout, irrational zeal, unscientific arguments, religious fervor and a Supreme Court likely to lean their way.
Creation of the Sun and Moon by Michelangelo, face detail of God. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A friend’s 3-year-old, I recently read on Facebook, concludes her mealtime/bedtime prayers with “Ah, man.” Her mom thinks it’s rather endearing. I think the kid may be onto something. I just have a feeling that God/Allah/Jehovah/Whomever (and I am quick to admit I believe quite deeply in the one who said we should love one another) is somewhere in cyberspace shaking Her head and saying, “Ah, man.”
I mean, look at the messes we’ve gotten into because somebody knew what God said. You can start with the crusades, but it would be just as easy to start earlier. In any event, today is an exemplary peril.
Take Egypt, for example (since it’s too painful to start with the U.S.) In the August 26th New York Times, David Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh report on the Egyptian military’s latest move, enlisting Muslim scholars to persuade soldiers and policemen that it’s their religious duty to kill their friends and neighbors who are supporting the recently deposed President Morsi. Why? Because God said to. On the side of the military in this is a televangelist (the U.S., it turns out doesn’t have a corner on televangelists) Amr Khaled who is out there assuring the troops, “You, you conscript in the Egyptian military, you are performing a task for God Almighty!” Ah, man. I have long since lost track of what whose god is telling whom in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and assorted African countries. In China no one seems to be listening to the Buddha, although it was indeed distressing when the monks got angry in Myanmar.
Closer to home, the troubles I am most often confronting these days have to do with what several groups presumably listening to the same (as in, Jesus) God believe that god is saying. “Life begins at conception. Abortion is murder.” What that correct? Or did She actually say, “All you children are made in my image. You may control your own bodies.” Who knows?
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone would quit believing he or she knows exactly what God is saying and started listening instead for the voice of god? I have no theological training, but I’d be willing to bet God isn’t saying “Now remember, abortion is murder.” Or even, “Get out there and perform this task of killing your friends and neighbors.” More likely, She’s somewhere in the ethernet saying, “Ah, man. Could you try to get along?”
Family Planning changes lives (Photo credit: The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood)
A thoughtful reader named Lydia left a comment in response to my blog (just below) giving thanks for Mark Ruffalo and his support for reproductive rights. If you’re not into reading comments, here is Lydia’s in full:
So, are you saying that killing your unborn child was a better option than allowing the child to live-maybe to be welcomed into another family’s life, and your secrecy was better than taking action to hold the rapist accountable for what he did? I have had an unwanted pregnancy, too, and as horrified and hopeless as I felt, I allowed my child to live and I have no regrets. Abortion is never the right choice, but I know it sometimes feels like the only choice. That is why women need to pick up the phone and call a crisis pregnancy counselor. Abortion is like suicide. It is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
If we’re going to talk, we have to listen. In trying to listen to Lydia I hear a couple of points of similarity and/or agreement. She and I each struggled with how to deal with an unwanted pregnancy (hers I suspect much later than mine in 1956.) We both appreciate strong & welcoming families. We both believe women need access to a pregnancy center which might offer help. Maybe we can build on these points. And try to work through some disagreements.
We need to set aside the business of holding the rapist accountable, at least in my case. In 1956, workplace rape was without recourse. I would have been laughed out of town — after destroying the fabric of several families, probably not including his. Today, women often fail to prosecute acquaintances who don’t hear No. Should they be required to prosecute, to relive painful experiences in the name of public justice? I’m not sure. Perhaps they deserve the right to make that decision for themselves, with legal advice if they choose and with the support of loved ones. Should they be required to carry the fetus that results from a painful experience for nine months in hopes that it might — might — be welcomed into another family? I don’t think so. I think they should have the right to choose otherwise, with the support of physicians and loved ones. I think no two such experiences are identical, so blanket dictates seem unwise.
Neither Lydia nor I have regrets about the course of action we chose. We differ on definitions. Lydia equates fetus with child, presumably because she believes life begins at conception. I respect the religions that teach this doctrine. I strongly support their right to protect the life of any fetus they happen to have, wanted or not. I just do not share the same belief about life’s beginnings. My own deeply held Christian beliefs see the beginning of life somewhat later on. But I think neither my religion nor Lydia’s has the right to tell other women — Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or nonbelievers — what they may or may not do with their bodies.
Lydia sees abortion as never the right choice. I see it as complex and personal, but sometimes the right choice. Mother Nature often sees it as the right choice when miscarriage happens. No one but the woman herself can know about her fetus, her body, her circumstances, her life, so I think it’s improper for me to presume to tell her what she must do. Often, counseling can help.
Which brings us to the crisis pregnancy center. Despite the fact that women have reported hearing untruths and accusations at crisis pregnancy centers, I believe many of them offer compassionate counseling and useful information. My greatly beloved daughter-in-law works at a pregnancy crisis center, and I know my daughter-in-law to be honest, kind-hearted and truthful. I support the right of pregnancy crisis centers to thrive and prosper although I do not support their promotion of unscientific theories. If we can talk, can we consider the possibility that pregnancy crisis centers might coexist with regular reproductive health centers? The latter, after all, offer many, many services unavailable elsewhere: information and testing about STDs; contraception and family planning services; pregnancy testing and counseling — even, in some of them, abortion. In that latter case, abortion is nearly always a tiny percentage of total services. Where they are being driven out of business, all of those services disappear and the results are tragic for countless men, women, boys and girls.
I can absolutely guarantee that when abortion is unavailable women suffer and die. I don’t think those on either side want women to suffer and die. Those on both sides want healthy women, few-as-possible abortions, healthy families.
What do you think, Lydia, is there any hope for conversation?
Mark Ruffalo at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I never met Mark Ruffalo‘s mother. But I am a new, big fan of her son.
Mark’s mom and I are of the same generation. We each experienced an unintended, unwanted pregnancy which we were forced to end illegally — because there was no safe, legal abortion in the U.S. before 1973. I don’t know the details of Mark’s mom’s abortion but I can tell you about mine. The result of a workplace rape, my 8 or 9-week pregnancy was ended by a back-alley abortionist in a dreary house on a dreary February day in Atlanta, GA. I told no one, not my closest friends or family members, no one. Until three years ago when the realization that those grim days are returning prompted me to speak out, and to begin work on a book. Perilous Times: An inside look at abortion before – and after – Roe v Wadewas published in June. Three years ago I could not have imagined how perilous these times would have become.
And now, Mark Ruffalo is also concerned about a return to the days of illegal abortions that his mother and I survived — though countless other women did not. His statement was read at a rally outside of Mississippi’s lone abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is threatened by new laws that would force it to close.
Here’s what Mark had to say:
“I am a man. I could say this has nothing to do with me. Except I have two daughters and I have a mother who was forced to illegally have an abortion in her state where abortion was illegal when she was a very young woman. It cost $600 cash. It was a traumatizing thing for her. It was shameful and sleazy and demeaning. When I heard the story I was aghast by the lowliness of a society that would make a woman do that. I could not understand its lack of humanity; today is no different.
“What happened to my mother was a relic of an America that was not free nor equal nor very kind. My mother’s illegal abortion marked a time in America that we have worked long and hard to leave behind. It was a time when women were seen as second rate citizens who were not smart enough, nor responsible enough, nor capable enough to make decisions about their lives. It was a time that deserved to be left behind, and leave it behind we did, or so it seemed. We made abortion and a woman’s ability to be her own master a right. That right was codified into law. That law was the law of the land for decades.
“My own mother fought to make herself more than a possession; she lived her life as a mother who chose when she would have children, and a wife who could earn a living if she so chose. I want my daughters to enjoy that same choice. I don’t want to turn back the hands of time to when women shuttled across state lines in the thick of night to resolve an unwanted pregnancy, in a cheap hotel room just south of the state line. Where a transaction of $600 cash becomes the worth of a young woman’s life.
“So that is why I am lending my voice to you and your movement today. Because I actually trust the women I know. I trust them with their choices, I trust them with their bodies and I trust them with their children. I trust that they are decent enough and wise enough and worthy enough to carry the right of Abortion and not be forced to criminally exercise that Right at the risk of death or jail time.
“There was no mistake in us making abortion legal and available on demand. That was what we call progress. Just like it was no mistake that we abolished institutional racism in this country around the same time. The easy thing to do is lay low, but then are we who we say we are? Do we actually stand for anything, if what we do stand for is under attack and we say nothing? There is nothing to be ashamed of here except to allow a radical and recessive group of people to bully and intimidate our mothers and sisters and daughters for exercising their right of choice. Or use terrorism and fanaticism to block their legal rights or take the lives of their caregivers. Or design legislation that would chip away at those rights disguised as reinforcing a woman’s health.
“I invite you to find your voice and let it be known that you stand for abortion rights and the dignity of a woman to be the master of her own life and body. I invite you to search your soul and ask yourself if you actually stand for what you say you stand for. Thank you for being here today and thank you for standing up for the women in my life.”
I imagine Mark Ruffalo’s mom is extremely proud of her son. I am proud to be his newest fan.
White dove with olive branch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Courteous conversations between bitter enemies? One group violently opposing the issues of another — three or four on each side quietly sitting down to talk things over?
It happens.
Often, these days, it happens thanks to the Public Conversations Project, or to local conflict resolution nonprofits like San Francisco’s Community Boards. Still, it’s hard to believe.
I recently participated in a teleconference with Joan Blades, however, and Blades can make you a believer. With her husband Wes Boyd, Blades founded MoveOn.org in 1987. That was the year everybody said, “Yeah, it’ll never go anywhere…” More recently she started MomsRising. No organizational structure, no venture capital, but as its website explains, just “a handful of women (who) came together, and then that handful became hundreds, the hundreds became thousands, and through friends telling friends, MomsRising is now more than a million members strong and growing.”
All of which makes it difficult to tell Blades that one or two people can’t get together and make a difference. I asked if she thought any sort of reconciliation could ever happen with reproductive rights, given the polarization, emotionalism and widespread misinformation that separates the pro-choice and anti-abortion forces.
Actually, Blades replied, it did. “I was not a part of it. But at the height of the violence against abortion providers in the 1990s, a group of pro-choice leaders sat down with anti-abortion leaders in an attempt to stop the violence. After that, the level of violence was reduced.” A 2009 Huffington Post blog by Mary Jacksteit explains how that went. Jacksteit is currently involved with LivingRoomConversations.org, which says on its home page: “We need to have collaborative solutions. Adversarial solutions are not working.”
Small groups, courteous conversations, two or three people on one side listening to two or three people on another — these may not change any minds, or change the world tomorrow. But don’t tell Joan Blades or Wes Boyd or Mary Jaksteit it’s not worth trying.
And for that matter, I plan to keep trying myself.
There are no winners when abortion is criminalized — unless you count conservative politicians and embryos. But there are losers.
Local public radio station KQED broadcasted an interesting hour of commentary on abortion rights August 7, one of its regular morning Forum shows. This one was hosted by Scott Shafer, and included Amy Everitt, state director for NARAL Pro-Choice CA speaking for choice and lawyer Jennifer Popick for the anti view.
The show included most of the usual arguments pro and con abortion rights, but one caller raised the issue that ought to be prominent in every news report: it’s poor women who suffer and die when abortion rights are denied. The caller pointed out that well-off women can simply go somewhere else for a safe procedure; women without money or resources have no option but to make desperate and often dangerous attempts to end an unintended, unwanted pregnancy.
I wanted to call in to read a few stories, put a few faces (like my own) on women yesterday and today without reproductive choice, but think it would be hard to do in just an hour.
Retired Presbyterian minister and former theological seminary president Laird Stuart, put it this way after reading Perilous Times: “If you doubt there is a war on women or a war on the poor, listen to the men and women, the boys and girls in this book.”
English: Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court justice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am definitely voting for Sotomayor. Oh, wait, she’s not running for anything. That’s a pity.
A little late — since it’s already got 931 reader reviews on Amazon — I just got around to reading My Beloved World. it is a tale told incredibly well, with kindness, humor and self-analysis so clear and so unpretentious it must fill every one of her Jesuit instructors with pride and joy. It certainly fills the reader with joy. Sotomayor makes you proud to be on the same planet.
With almost everyone and every institution in Washington too painful to watch these days, at least the justices of the Supreme Court (with the notable exception of Clarence Thomas) seem to be working. Unfortunately, half of them are working in directions — think Citizens United — that are downright scary, but we have to hope that justice will prevail among the justices.
Anti-choice forces are racking up laws so blatantly unconstitutional there’s no doubt where they want to wind up: back before the Supreme Court in hopes of overturning Roe v Wade. And THAT’s scary. Because they clearly expect to win, and to send American women straight back to the dark ages.
I have a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach about that prospect. I have no idea how any of the justices would vote. But because she radiates warmth and compassion and the brilliance of a gentle intellect, my vote would go to Sotomayor.
Do yourself a favor: pick up a copy of My Beloved World.
Blank map of the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
New York Times Columnist Charles Blow posted a column titled “Carving up the Country” not long ago that paints a sad picture of how this country is, in his words, “drifting back toward bifurcation.” He outlines the deep division of our not-so-United States into one group of states, primarily coastal, multi-ethnic , urban, liberal and leaning Democrat: and another group, mostly Southern and Western, rural, conservative and Republican.
Most of Blow’s focus is on how legislators in the latter group are rushing to enact laws that will strengthen Republican control following the Supreme Court’s essential voiding of the Voting Rights Act. It cannot feel good to be a citizen of one of those states and watch your right to vote disappear. It’s all about “sanctity of the vote,” the Republicans say; anybody with a brain knows it’s really about suppressing any votes that might go to the Democrats.
The other root of bifurcated America is deep in reproductive rights. Blow cites a recent Guttmacher Institute report that in the first six months of 2013 a total of 106 laws restricting reproductive rights were enacted, the great majority of them in Republican-controlled states. Twelve in Kansas alone, for example. Six in North Dakota, five in Oklahoma. It’s all about “protecting (fetal) life,” and “women’s health,” proponents say; anybody with a brain knows it’s simply about making abortion inaccessible. Only women without money or resources face suffering and danger from these restrictive measures — but then, they are less likely to vote anyway.
My question is: couldn’t some better solution be found than just to condemn millions of poor women to desperation and danger? Even the staunchest among pro-choice advocates (among which I strongly stand) would like to see fewer abortions. So common ground actually exists there. Not even the staunchest of anti-choice advocates really wants women to wind up maimed or dead: more common ground. Nobody wants more children who are unwanted and uncared for. Nobody can say when exactly life begins, unless their religion tells them so — but we still have remnants of common-ground belief in the separation of church and state.
Couldn’t we talk? Rather than expending every ounce of energy in making abortion impossible to increasing numbers of mostly poor women, couldn’t we talk about sex education, contraception, compromise? Many of us would give a little on, say, gestational limits if we could gain a little in protection for women whose reproductive rights are denied as clinics are forced to close because they don’t have enough parking spaces.
That good word “compromise” may have disappeared from the American scene. But all this win-at-any-cost, or my-way-or-no-way isn’t making us a better country.
