Making ‘women’s issues’ community news at Want2Dish.com

I recently began writing for Want2Dish.com, a hyper-local online news magazine in Frederick County, Maryland. My plan is to write about women’s issues and relate them to the community, so keep checking the site for new stories.

My first article about a new birthing community, “Sacred Roots Birth Community Seeks to Empower Women during Pregnancy,” ran yesterday. It was refreshing to meet the women behind this birthing community and to know that their mission is to empower pregnant women in making the best decisions for themselves when it comes to birthing. They’re non-judgemental too, which is an attitude that is desperately needed, considering the scrutiny and judgement that pregnant women are constantly subjected to.

Check out the article and share!

I support a woman’s right to an abortion.

This post is a part of NARAL Pro-Choice America’s Blog for Choice Day 2013. 

I’ve been thinking this morning, on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, about the phrase “pro-choice.” There are conflicting views within the feminist community on the value of the “pro-choice” label and that’s a good thing. We need to have those discussions about what it means to support abortion rights for all women and not only for those who can access it the most, because then the choice to have an abortion is easy for some and extremely difficult for many.

Does the label fit me anymore, knowing that my views and understanding of abortion have shifted and expanded from a purely reproductive rights standpoint to one that embraces reproductive justice? Not exactly. But I still believe it’s a simple, useful phrase in theory because it implies that women decide if or when to become a mother. That women are in control of their bodies and fates. Forty years after Roe, this idea is still powerful and radical when so much of our culture and conservative politics dictate the opposite.

As a teenager, I came into reproductive rights activism through pro-choice organizations like NARAL, Planned Parenthood and Feminist Majority. In the spirit of sharing our stories in this blog carnival, and in honor of my pro-choice beginnings in reproductive rights, here is why I will always support abortion rights:

 

• Without the right to a legal abortion, I lack personhood, autonomy and citizenship. The right to privacy as enshrined in the Constitution (the legal bedrock of abortion rights) means that I have the ability to decide my reproductive future and control my own body.

 

•  Listening to the women and girls who call the DC Abortion Fund hotline. Their personal stories turn from fear to anxiety, relief and gratitude as they tell me about their struggle to find a clinic near their home, schedule a convenient time for the procedure, find transportation to the clinic and childcare while they’re gone, and pay for an abortion. In other words, the hurdles they need to overcome to exercise their right to a safe and legal abortion. I support abortion rights because I know that I could be one of them.

 

• My exposure as a teenager to conservative, right-to-life Catholicism that is anti-woman. There is no justification for male clergy of any religion (or religion) to dictate women’s reproductive choices. Religious extremism is inextricably bound to misogyny.

 

•  I trust women. There is no better reason to support abortion access and rights than this.

 

New Evangelical Christian group advocates for family planning

It’s not everyday that I hear evangelical Christians loudly proclaim their support for contraception during a Washington D.C. press conference, and urge other evangelicals to follow their lead. But that’s exactly what happened Oct. 15 at the National Press Club when The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good released its new report, “A Call to Christian Common Ground on Family Planning, and Maternal, and Children’s Health.”

Based in Tennessee, the New Evangelical Partnership (NEP) is an organization that espouses a Christian advocacy and public engagement that cares for the good of humanity by standing for human rights, Muslim-Christian dialogue and nuclear disarmament, among other issues. The organization views itself as an alternative to the culture-war evangelicalism that damaged the American church’s evangelism. Partnering with public health experts, the NEP wrote the new report to create discussion among evangelicals at home and abroad on the importance and significance of family planning. It lays out the argument that contraceptive use is linked to, and necessary for healthy families, maternal and child health and abortion reduction. For feminists and women’s rights advocates outside of the evangelical community, this is a well-known position. Promoting contraceptive use is also a good common ground where religious communities, feminists and women’s rights advocates can meet.

Dig deeper into the report’s framework, and there are some major stumbling blocks to creating more common ground, particularly in determining who should use contraceptives, the definition of family and the marginalization of abortion. It’s expected that as evangelical Christians, the NEP’s report acknowledges but doesn’t condone pre-marital sex, narrowly defines marriage between men and women and understands sex as “intrinsically procreative.” The report doesn’t include abortion in its definition of family planning. (In response to an audience member’s question on the topic during the press conference, a doctor on the panel unequivocally stated that contraception is not abortion. Thank you, doctor, for publicly setting the record straight!) As another selling point for wary evangelicals, the NEP links the use of contraceptives to preventing and decreasing abortion.

It’s clear that the NEP’s report defines and condones women’s contraceptive use within the confines of the heterosexual and married family. The language of “family planning” instead of “contraceptives” or “birth control” underlines its family-centric, procreative focus. I could go on about why limiting contraceptive support within heteronormativity and marriage is not good policy and healthcare. What’s troubling me more about this report is the marginalization and complete erasure of abortion as a necessary and legitimate part of women’s reproductive health care and maternal health. It’s understandable and acceptable that abortion for some religious people goes against their faith. You have your beliefs, I have mine. However, whether you condone it or not, abortion, like pre-marital sex, exists and is connected to the complicated reality of women’s lives within their families, relationships and communities. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 6 out of 10 women seeking abortions in the U.S. already have a child. They’re mothers and many describe themselves as religiously affiliated. Women have abortions for many different reasons, from finishing school to being unable to financially support another child, to rape, incest and to save her own life. Not discussing abortion because of the fear of further alienating evangelicals from supporting contraceptive use further stigmatizes abortion and hurts women’s access to a safe, legal and necessary medical procedure. Supporting women’s right to only prevent pregnancy (not during) is not giving women full control of their bodies and denies them autonomy as persons. It’s simply irresponsible and callous to ignore abortion when tens of thousands of women around the world die from unsafe, illegal abortions. Here in the U.S., women are finding that their right to a safe, legal abortion doesn’t mean much if they can’t access it because the closest clinic shut down, the cost is too high, the state’s mandatory waiting periods are too long or some GOP lawmaker wants to legislate transvaginal ultrasounds.

Considering the consistent, virulent attacks on birth control in the past year –  from Rush Limbaugh’s slut-shaming of Sandra Fluke to Catholic bishops opposition to healthcare plans covering contraceptives – it’s refreshing to see a religious community voice full-throated support for birth control. It reaffirms that some religious communities in the U.S. are willing to stand up for women’s rights. As feminists and women’s rights advocates, we should support them for taking a controversial stand in their communities. But it’s not enough. Advocating for contraceptive use is a basic, elementary position. Progressive-minded evangelicals must continue to push the envelope on women’s reproductive health, including abortion, no matter how difficult and painful it is within the evangelical community. Women’s lives depend on it. What’s also desperately needed and not discussed is evangelical support for comprehensive, scientific sex education in schools. Without education, women and men will not know how to use contraceptives, plan the size of their families and reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions. Talking about one part of the picture (contraceptives) is not enough. It’s just a start in the right direction toward the common good of all women and men.

No One Wins a (Tug-of) War on Women: From Uteri to Personhood, Why Feminists Must Reframe the Debate

Yesterday, Fem2pt0 published a piece that I co-authored with my colleagues at Feminist Friends!

Click here to read the article, “No One Wins a (Tug-of) War on Women: From Uteri to Personhood, Why Feminists Must Reframe the Debate.”

We worked collaboratively on the piece for months through many edits and interviews with Maternity Care Coalition, a reproductive health organization in Philadelphia, and Steph Herold, founder of IamDrTiller.com. The response has been positive and we at Feminist Friends couldn’t be more excited.

Let us know what you think on Twitter (@FeministFriends) and be sure to follow us!

“Trust Women”

“There are a lot of people in the United States that don’t like what we do…Our response was and continues to be, ‘Hell no, we won’t go.” -Dr. George Tiller, speaking to Feminist Majority Foundation in 2008.

More news + blogs on the 3rd anniversary of the murder of Dr. Tiller:

• Watch Democracy Now’s report today on the continued attack on reproductive rights.

• The terrorism that killed Dr. Tiller remains a threat.  (by feminist organizer Shelby Knox)

• “When I met him he talked about why women have abortions and how they understand them in terms of their religious faith and spirituality. He described his efforts to serve them with respect, making possible rituals that would allow them to say goodbye to fetal life that they in fact valued.” (from RH Reality Check)

• How can the pro-choice and reproductive justice movements better support the people who have later abortions and providers who perform them? (a call for collective blog remembrance by Abortion Gang)

Writer’s guide to Reproductive Justice

I had the amazing experience yesterday of attending NYC Reproductive Justice Coalition’s first Reproductive Justice Media conference in Manhattan. Listening and learning from the organizing, research and writing of reproductive justice activists and writers like Pamela Merritt, Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, Jamia Wilson and Belle Taylor McGee, was a rare opportunity for me to delve more deeply into a movement that is gradually reshaping my own thinking of women’s health. It’s also incredibly inspiring and enriching to be in a room full of badass, smart women who are making things happen. Being able to meet them outside of Twitter was even better.

NYC Reproductive Justice Coalition, an outgrowth of SisterSong NYC, organized the conference in collaboration with Women’s eNews in order to reframe the discussion of what reproductive justice means, how to create messages and communicate them to the media and public. In this spirit, the coalition created a Tumblr stylesheet for writers, activists and media folks to use when discussing reproductive justice. One entry, “Reproductive Justice, Reproductive Rights (difference),” states:

Reproductive justice is the theory, practice, and movement to ensure that people are supported in their decisions to create families—or not—in the most optimal situations possible.

Reproductive rights concentrate on fighting to keep abortion a safe, legal, and accessible reproductive choice with some discussions on birth control and and family creation. It also centers the sexual and reproductive capabilities of cisgender women to the exclusion/erasure of trans people and non-binary/genderqueer people because it defines the ability to give birth as a hallmark of “womanhood.”

Use it and share it! NYC Reproductive Justice Coalition is also live tweeting the entire conference (@NYC4RJ) (#RJmedia2012).

Rethinking Reproductive “Choice”

The simple, feminist statement, “I am pro-choice,” is pretty straightforward. It means I trust and support a woman’s right to make decisions about her sexuality and body. I believe that abortion is a part of reproductive health care that women should access without interference and shame from the patriarchal church, state and family.

I’ve most recently affirmed this deeply held pro-choice belief two weeks ago, standing outside the clinic on Wisteria Drive in Germantown, where Dr. Leroy Carhart provides late-term abortions. (See photos from previous post). From rush hour to dusk, I held large, colorful signs  from the classic, round “Keep Abortion Legal” sign from NOW to a bright blue and white sign that boldly proclaimed, “This Clinic Stays Open.” Most drivers honked their appreciation, gave a thumbs-up, peace sign or fist pumped as they passed me and other reproductive rights activists standing on the sidewalk.

We on the pro-choice side came from New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maryland to join the weeklong clinic defense organized by Summer Celebration of Choice. Down the road and on the other side of the office park, I witnessed the religious crowd of anti-choicers praying, singing hymns and performing an exorcism (yes, you read that right). In contrast to our pro-choice gathering, most of the anti-choice crowd was white, male and middle-aged or older. It was also hard to ignore the large number of young children in the crowd and the teens who had scrawled anti-choice propaganda and phrases in happy, bright chalk on the sidewalk.

However exciting the Summer Celebration of Choice was, I have become increasingly critical of the usefulness and meaning of the word “choice” as a framework for the reproductive rights movement and abortion. While I believe that abortion is one choice out of a few options, what if you live in a county that has no abortion provider and the nearest one is hours away? What if your state has strict, anti-abortion laws or obstacles like waiting periods? Is abortion really a choice, then, if it’s not available or difficult to access thanks to the onslaught of anti-abortion laws introduced and passed in state legislatures in the past year? What does “choice” mean, when for most women abortion is under attack? Not much, I think. We’re simply fighting to defend our right to privacy reaffirmed in Roe v. Wade and not gaining new, meaningful ground in the fight for our bodily autonomy.

I came across a great 2008 publication by Hampshire College titled, “10 Reasons to Rethink Reproductive Choice,” that criticizes the discourse of “choice” and advocates for a framework of reproductive justice. Reproductive justice is a holistic political vision that links the well-being of women to their communities and what they need to exercise reproductive freedom. Of the publication’s 10 main points, here’s what really got me re-thinking the word “choice”:

1. Choice homogenizes reproductive experiences, which vary and are shaped by race and class. For example, a white, middle-class woman has much greater control and access to abortion and contraceptives than a poor woman of any race. During American slavery, black women’s sexuality and child bearing was systematically manipulated and controlled by their slave masters. This history in particular, has direct consequences today on black women’s reproductive experiences and in the way we view black female bodies, motherhood and sexuality. (For more on this, I suggest reading Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts).

2. Choice disconnects abortion from the rest of women’s lives. This argument ties into other criticisms of choice – that it is individualistic and a market concept in our capitalist, consumer-driven society. I agree. The word we choose to frame women’s reproductive right to abortion – “choice” – indicates that it is an individual decision, a good to be bought and sold that we as female consumers need to be able to access (buy) for our health and well-being. And what doesn’t sound more American, more capitalist than concepts like individuality, choice and freedom? What “choice” doesn’t convey is the complexity and shades of gray within our lives – the nature of the relationship we’re in or our financial and living situation. Good luck if you can’t afford an abortion or don’t have health insurance – you don’t have much of a choice. And it’s not systems of oppression (poverty, racism, classism) that deny you social and economic power – it’s you!

So I’d prefer to think about abortion rights not as a homogenous, individualistic, market-driven “choice.” Instead, I like thinking about the complicated, messy realities of what abortion access and rights mean to real women and their lived experiences. I don’t believe that we can fully fight for true reproductive justice unless we consider how our lives and consequently our choices are sometimes constrained and shaped by our locations in life as determined by race, class, sexuality, nationality or religion. Until then, we’ll never truly have “choice” in our reproductive decisions.