Both Lives Matter has got away with a misleading ad. But using the language of human rights can’t hide its true agenda: subjugating Northern Ireland’s women
August 11, 2017
Pregnancy can kill. No one should be forced to give birth against their will
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion InformationLeave a Comment
August 10, 2017
Who’s Up For James Franco Arguing Against Abortion?
Posted by sophiapistisblog under Abortion, Abortion Information | Tags: abortion. james franko |1 Comment
I’m not a big fan of James Franco’s work, other than Freaks and Geeks and the first 20 minutes of Pineapple Express. But I’ve always kind of admired his eclectic interests. He doesn’t let Hollywood tell him what “movie stars” should and shouldn’t do, and he gets himself into all sorts of weird, esoteric stuff. He’s a dilettante, but at least he actually seems to care about the things he dabbles in. His latest venture is a YouTube series called Philosophy Time, where he sits around with academics and kinda-sorta debates various topics for a few minutes. In one recent episode, he jumped right in and stomped on that third rail: abortion.
Here he is discussing it with Elizabeth Harman, a philosophy prof at Princeton. See what you think of her argument for why abortion isn’t immoral:
I defend the view that there is nothing morally bad about early abortion. So, a lot of people think, ‘Well, it’s permissible to have an abortion, but something bad happens when the fetus dies.’ And I think if a fetus hasn’t ever been conscious, it hasn’t ever had any experiences, and we aborted it at that stage, actually nothing morally bad happens… So, James, when you were an early fetus, and Eliot, when you were an early fetus, all of us I think we already did have moral status then. But we had moral status in virtue of our futures… But some early fetuses will die in early pregnancy due to abortion or miscarriage. And in my view that is a very different kind of entity. That’s something that doesn’t have a future as a person and it doesn’t have moral status.”
“Can’t you only judge that in hindsight?”
I don’t mean to tell the professor her business, but when James Franco derails your argument in about 5 seconds…
In sum, Harman’s argument is that killing a baby isn’t immoral because… you’re killing it. You’re not wrong to kill someone (or as she’d prefer, something) without a future. The future that you’re taking away from it.
Like the guy who murders his parents, then pleads for mercy because he’s an orphan.
Do You Agree With These Comments By James Franco?
I’m not sure why this argument doesn’t extend to any human life. If I walk up to you right now and murder you, is it really immoral? If you only have “moral status” because you have a future, that status ends the moment I take away that future.
If you want to argue that you’re human because of your consciousness and your experiences, well… what if your experiences suck? What if your consciousness is dumb? What if I don’t think you serve any purpose? Why is it immoral to do something about it?
That whole worldview doesn’t sound right to me. I guess that’s why this lady teaches at Princeton and I’m just a silly blogger.
Wouldn’t it be more honest for abortion enthusiasts to admit that they’re just selfish? That they don’t want to deal with raising a kid, and they’d rather not think too hard about what that means for the kid? Just own it. “I care about human life right up to the point where it starts to inconvenience me. Sorry not sorry.”
Boom. No philosophy required. No need to embarrass yourself in front of James Franco.
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August 9, 2017
Trump’s Latest Judicial Picks Continue to be Terrible for Abortion Rights
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |[2] Comments
The conservative right is on a mission to immediately pack the federal courts with as many anti-choice judges as they can.
Although President Donald Trump has faltered in fully implementing some of his biggest campaign promises, he has been very good at packing the federal courts with officials that, should they all get confirmed, would change federal law for decades. Perhaps irreversibly.
Trump has already outpaced both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama on judicial nominations, with five judges confirmed since January, including Associate Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Not surprisingly, those judges exist far outside the legal mainstream. They align far more with the extremism of Justice Clarence Thomas than with the problematically squishy jurisprudence of moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The fifth and latest confirmation happened late last month, when the U.S. Senate confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Kevin Newsom, a 44-year-old attorney from Alabama who in 2000, wrote a law review article equating the rationale of Roe v. Wade to Dred Scott v. Sandford, the infamous 1857 decision upholding slavery. Here’s the only response needed to that nonsense.
President Barack Obama had nominated federal district court judge Abdul Kallon to fill the vacancy Newsom now occupies. Like Newsom, Kallon was a former partner at the Bradley Arant law firm. Once Kallon was nominated to the Eleventh Circuit, however, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) refused to return “blue slips,” the process in the Senate that advances judicial nominations forward. Without a blue slip, the Senate Judiciary Committee is unable to take any action on the nomination. That means under the Obama administration the seat was left vacant for two years.
Had Republicans not sat on the Kallon nomination, he would have likely become the first Black judge from Alabama to sit on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
But back to the judge we got for that seat instead. When Newsom wasn’t busy comparing abortion to slavery, after he was hired as Alabama’s solicitor general by fellow arch-conservative and rumored Trump Supreme Court short-lister William Pryor, he advocated aggressively for Alabama’s right to execute people. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled executing juveniles unconstitutional; Newsom expressed disagreement with that decision. He would then go on to defend Alabama’s policy of refusing legal counsel to death row inmates looking to challenge their convictions—that’s how strongly he believes in the state’s right to execute people.
Among Trump’s other nominees is Steve Grasz, an attorney currently in private practice focusing on business matters. But Grasz previously served as Nebraska’s chief deputy attorney general, during which he defended a Nebraska statute prohibiting so-called partial-birth abortion at the Supreme Court in Stenberg v. Carhart.
Grasz lost Stenberg v. Carhart, and the Nebraska law was struck down. Notably, however, Justice Kennedy authored a searing dissent in Stenberg attacking “abortionist” providers and appearing to wholeheartedly buy the myth that “partial-birth abortion” is a medical procedure, rather than an anti-choice marketing term used to outlaw a provably safe method of second-trimester abortions. Republicans in U.S. Congress would ultimately pass a modified version of the law, which the Supreme Court would hold up in 2007 in Gonzales v. Carhart. In his opinion, Justice Kennedy discussed “abortion regret syndrome,” another anti-choice talking point grounded in junk science that has evolved to claims that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks. Here, Kennedy appeared to be picking up largely on the failed rhetoric advanced by Grasz in Stenberg.
Should he be confirmed, Grasz would sit on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals where states like Arkansas, Missouri, and South Dakota have either passed or tried to pass dilation and evacuation (D and E) abortion bans. Arkansas passed such a ban, but it is currently blocked by federal court order. If one of the other states passes such a ban, and if a federal court—such as the Eighth Circuit—upholds it, conservatives may have found another pathway to attacking Roe. They are also hoping this kind of legal outcome happens while Justice Kennedy is still on the bench, as his dissent in Stenberg suggests he’s at least open to further banning specific abortion procedures.
This is, sadly, just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the threats Trump’s nominations pose to the federal courts. For example, the Senate last month confirmed former political blogger John Bush for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Bush also has a habit of comparing abortion with slavery, though during his confirmation hearing he tried to distance those statements as “personal views” rather than ones that would influence his decision making while on the bench.
With more than 100 federal court vacancies, reproductive rights advocates have a long road ahead to protect the fundamental right to reproductive autonomy. And it’s likely to only get longer.
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August 9, 2017
Texas House OKs bill to block insurance coverage for abortions
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |1 Comment
The Texas House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday — coined as “rape insurance” by its detractors — that would force women to pay a separate health insurance premium to get covered for a non-emergency abortion.
The bill, which the House passed 95 to 51, now awaits a vote in the Senate. It does not make exceptions for abortions that follow rape, incest or fetal abnormalities.
The lead author, Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, defended the legislation, saying people who oppose abortion shouldn’t subsidize it through their health insurance plans, the Texas Tribune reported.
“This isn’t about who can get an abortion. It is about who is forced to pay for an abortion,” he said.
“This isn’t about who can get an abortion. It is about who is forced to pay for an abortion.”
House Democrats sought to include exceptions for rape, incest and fetal abnormalities. They also tried to discard a provision preventing insurance companies from offering savings on supplemental health plans covering abortion.
But Republicans defeated all the suggested amendments.
Rep. Chris Turner, D-Fort Worth, claimed that asking women to get a supplemental abortion coverage plan amounts to deciding whether they wanted “rape insurance.”
“Women don’t plan to be raped. Parents don’t plan for their children to be victims of incest,” he said in the House chamber, the Tribune reported. “Asking a woman or a parent to foresee something like that and buy supplemental insurance to cover that horrific possibility is not only ridiculous, it is cruel.”
Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, also slammed the bill, saying the measure was a political stunt because few insurance plans cover abortions in the first place.
“What you are trying to prevent doesn’t exist,” she told Smithee.
Smithee fired back that the measure was needed to protect people with moral, religious and other objections from subsidizing abortions, the Tribune reported.
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August 8, 2017
What Happens When A Crisis Pregnancy Center Moves Next Door To An Abortion Clinic
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |[6] Comments
Jamie Beers is an administrator for Hartford GYN Center, a health center that provides abortions in Connecticut. In May, a crisis pregnancy center (CPC) — an anti-abortion center that tries to persuade women away from getting abortions — moved into the same complex as Hartford GYN, going by the name Hartford Women’s Center. That CPC is run by St. Gerard’s Center for Life, and as Beers says, “they’ve made it very clear that their intention is to, in their own words, lure abortion-minded women into their center.”
I spoke with Beers about the CPC next door on a phone call in June for Elite Daily. St. Gerard’s Women’s Center had a grand opening in late May, complete with a priest’s blessing. The Hartford GYN Center worries about patients accidentally going to the St. Gerard’s center when they have appointments with Hartford GYN. They are concerned that women will not get the health care services that they need.
Hartford is just one story; there are thousands of others. Expose Fake Clinics, a national campaign that launched in July, is collecting testimonials about women’s experiences with CPCs and the harm they can cause.
CPCs exist across the country, often near health clinics that offer abortions. They are often run by religious people and work to convince vulnerable pregnant women not to get abortions by offering monetary, emotional, and medical support — which they may not actually be able to provide. A 2006 congressional report noted that 87 percent of CPCs “provided false or misleading information about the health effects of abortion.”
CPCs have been known to use names and signs similar to those of abortion clinics, assumedly to confuse patients into entering. Many CPCs receive funding from local governments, a practice which has been protested, and otherwise get funding from donations. St. Gerard’s gets funding from donations, including church collections.
St. Gerard’s Center for Life has been protesting outside of Hartford GYN for years in attempts to stop women from getting abortions.
Hartford GYN
“They come up holding signs and they talk to patients as they are entering the walkway, coming in for services. They will shame and harass them and they’ll say anything they can to get them to change their mind about seeking services,” Beers explains.
For their part, St. Gerard’s believes they are simply providing options for women who may feel forced to get an abortion by financial or personal circumstance, executive director Leticia Velasquez told me in an interview with Elite Daily in May.
“We know that many of the women walking to Hartford GYN… are feeling under pressure,” Velasquez says. “They feel that they have no choice and, ‘if this situation were lined up, I wouldn’t be doing this.’ We’ve heard this from several women who went there for abortions … We feel very strongly that women deserve true choice, and we need to offer it to them right where they are.”
When patients make it to Hartford GYN after facing the protesters outside, Beers says, “they’re confused.”
“They just want to come in, get their care, and instead they’re handed pamphlets or they’re encountered by people that they just don’t want to have to deal with,” Beers says. “And they’re being given false information and being told lies about abortion.”
CPCs may tell women that abortion causes breast cancer and will cause mental distress — both of which are false statements.
When patients enter the offices after hearing this false information, Hartford GYN’s providers “use this as an opportunity to talk with people and we provide our care in a non-judgmental environment,” Beers says.
Meanwhile, CPCs may claim to offer medical services that they’re not actually able to provide.
“They provide unlicensed and unreliable medical services like ultrasounds that are performed by untrained staff that fail to recognize legitimate issues and inaccurately date pregnancies,” Beers says. “They delay abortion care, which can mean an increase in barriers, cost, and travel. These fake clinics manipulate women by promising support that never materializes, and is not enough.”
And on the other side of the Hartford complex, Hartford GYN has real doctors.
“All of our doctors are licensed medical providers. They’re all board-certified doctors and nurses and providers,” Beers says. “We give all accurate medical information to our patients. We provide answers to the questions that they’re seeking – the care that they’re seeking.”
St. Gerard’s providers, on the other hand, are not quite at the same level.
Hartford GYN is worried for its patients’ health with the center next door.
The St. Gerard’s center has registered nurses volunteering with them, their executive director told me in May. In terms of medical help, the St. Gerard’s center will offer sonograms — and otherwise referrals to a nearby hospital.
“We know they don’t give the health care services that women are looking for, and the fact that they shame and stigmatize women and help to limit their options – that bothers me more than anything,” Beers says. “What we care about at Hartford GYN is that people can plan the pregnancies that they want. … We’re dedicating ourselves to caring for the patients once they walk through our doors, and it’s really unfortunate that we have to spend our time worrying about whether people will walk through the right doors in the first place.”
In an attempt to keep patients from St. Gerard’s, Hartford GYN has trained escorts helping patients get from the sidewalk to the building.
“At this point, we try really hard to tell them on the phone clear markers and how to enter the building,” Beers adds.
Beers wants patients to know that despite St. Gerard’s presence, “we are absolutely dedicated to caring for our patients once they walk through our doors.”
Hartford GYN
“We are dedicated to providing compassionate, expert abortion care and other reproductive healthcare services to anybody that walks through our doors,” Beers says. “All of our physicians and all of our medical staff are licensed and completely qualified to provide medical care to all of our patients. We are compassionate, and everybody is dedicated to providing the best health care services they can possibly receive.”
While she’s comforting patients, Beers also has a message for St. Gerard’s.
“Truly supporting women to create the safe, healthy families they dream of means being honest with them and making sure they have all the information and health care they need to make decisions about what is best for them and their families — even if you don’t always agree with their decision,” Beers says she would tell the center’s staff. “We don’t always know a woman’s circumstances, we’re not in her shoes.”
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August 7, 2017
Ed Gillespie Would Defund Planned Parenthood In Virginia
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |1 Comment
Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Virginia’s GOP candidate for governor, Ed Gillespie, told a Planned Parenthood volunteer on Wednesday evening that he would defund Planned Parenthood if elected to Virginia’s top office, an explosive announcement given that Gillespie has dodged the question for years.
Gillespie revealed his stance on Planned Parenthood, on the record, during a “Women for Ed Meet & Greet,” event at Q Barbecue in Glen Allen, Virginia. In the recorded video, Sarah Smith, 30, a Virginia resident who has benefited from Planned Parenthood services, can be seen asking Gillespie what his plans would be regarding public funding of Planned Parenthood, if elected to office.
Virginia’s state legislature is currently controlled by Republicans who support abortion restrictions. In 2016, Dem. Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia vetoed legislation, passed by the Virginia General Assembly, to defund Planned Parenthood and restrict access to basic health care services for the 22,000 Virginians who rely on the organization’s health centers.
But, and as the state’s November general election inches closer, Smith says she’s grown increasingly concerned that Gillespie would divert public funds from Planned Parenthood if elected.
Instead of avoiding the question, like his usual style, Gillespie responded by publicly denouncing Planned Parenthood, stating in the video, “I would sign a bill that does not have taxpayer funding go to Planned Parenthood.”
“A Governor Gillespie would mean four years of dangerous attacks against the essential health care women in Virginia rely on.”
His office confirmed the action, noting that the women’s health organization has already voiced it’s support for Democrat Ralph Northam, the state’s sitting lieutenant governor. Planned Parenthood’s Virginia affiliate recently announced they plan to spend $3 million to help elect Northam to office. This is Gillespie’s second time running for office, after an unsuccessful bid against Democratic Senator Mark Warner in 2014.
“It’s no surprise that Planned Parenthood would spend millions of dollars on Ralph Northam’s behalf, given his extreme positions like supporting abortions in the eighth or ninth month or just because the unborn child is a girl. Most of Planned Parenthood’s funding comes from individual donors, and Ed does not support subsidizing their budget with taxpayer dollars,” David Abrams, spokesperson for Ed Gillespie’s campaign, told Bustle in a statement.
Illene Toudaleft on YouTube
Smith, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic seat for the House of Delegates in Virginia’s District 73 last November, says she went to the “meet and greet” to show support for Planned Parenthood, which was holding a peaceful protest against Gillespie outside of the restaurant. Around 30 people, including volunteers and local congressional candidates, came out to the event.
“We’ve become increasingly frustrated because he wouldn’t answer what his plans were as far as if he were to become governor, would he commit to making sure Planned Parenthood was funded or defunded,” Smith tells Bustle. “I was surprised when he actually answered [the question] but then the surprise was replaced with disappointment.”
Smith says she had a positive experience during a visit to Planned Parenthood last December for an annual wellness visit, influencing her decision to show support on the organization’s behalf Wednesday evening.
“A Governor Gillespie would mean four years of dangerous attacks against the essential health care women in Virginia rely on,” said Jennifer Allen, CEO of Planned Parenthood Virginia PAC and Planned Parenthood Virginia Advocates, in an official statement. “Gillespie’s plan could take away birth control, life saving cancer screenings, and HIV testing for the over 23,000 Virginians who depend on Planned Parenthood. Virginians will not stand for it and will send a clear message on election day.”
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia will officially endorse Northam for governor on Thursday evening.
https://www.bustle.com/p/ed-gillespie-would-defund-planned-parenthood-in-virginia-74391
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August 7, 2017
Watch These Guys Obliterate The Argument That Abortions Aren’t Safe
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |Leave a Comment
People have plenty of arguments against abortion, but one that consistently pops up from people who have no medical training or expertise to spout such facts is that having an abortion is unsafe.
Lady Parts Justice League, an organization that “uses comedy, culture and digital media to sound an alarm about the terrifying erosion of reproductive access,” created a new parody video to show just how ridiculous that argument is.
Because, as one of the hosts in the video says, when an abortion is done right, by a medical professional who was trained to perform an abortion, it’s actually safer than getting your wisdom teeth pulled.
The video is a spoof on the MythBusters series, using two guys who kind of look like Jamie and Adam from the show to break down the myth that abortions are unsafe. Rather than taking these random guys at their word, we’re introduced to Willie Parker, MD, a Christian doctor who performs abortions in Alabama.
Parker first takes down the idea that a medication abortion is unsafe.
“Medication abortion is simple, safe, and it happens at home,” he says in the video. “In fact, did you know that medication abortion is safer than using Viagra?”
While the “MythCrashers” guys attempt to hand Parker a pizza cutter to show us how it’s done, he says that even a real scalpel wouldn’t be necessary.
“90% of all abortions happen in the first trimester and there’s no cutting of any kind,” he said.
The MythCrashers guys we’re looking for something more exciting — something like an explosion — and they let Parker know that.
“Then I might be your guy,” he said. All he needs for an abortion is five minutes and a few simple tools.
If that isn’t enough to convince you, the MythCrashers also talked to Parker about the myth that having an abortion causes depression and infertility. Bottom line? “There is no link between abortion and depression or infertility.”
The whole video is a silly, tongue-in-cheek look at the misinformation surrounding abortions, but it’s important that these myths be debunked. The idea that having an abortion is unsafe could cause worry for people who may otherwise have no qualms about making that appointment.
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August 6, 2017
Want More Women to Vote? Here’s an Idea: Stand Up for Them
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |[3] Comments
I believe that if Democrats—not any one Democrat, and certainly not just me—want to start winning races again, Luján’s statement that the DCCC would fund candidates who oppose abortion rights puts our country in danger, and makes it all the more likely that the Republicans will continue to defeat us in election after election.
This may seem surprising. After all, Luján’s assertion that there will be no “litmus test” for Democratic candidates who oppose abortion seems like the kind of big-tent cliché with which it is hard to disagree. “As we look at candidates across the country,” Luján said yesterday, “you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America.” But we Democrats also need to stand firm on some basic principles, for a change. Like: Health care is a human right. And: The right to plan her own family is a cornerstone of a woman’s economic security. So yes, we realize that we live in a huge and diverse country, and that our party is huge and diverse as well. We can acknowledge that there are anti-abortion Democrats, just as there are pro-choice Republicans (including the state rep who represents my Houston district). While Luján’s position seems to embrace that reality, it actually does the opposite. For all the hand-wringing about what we Democrats can do to reach more voters, many Americans still see us as the “anti-Trump party.” That is true, and to our credit. But what they don’t see is Democrats taking firm stands in support of our values, and that’s the crux of the reason why we keep losing so many elections.
We’re still the party that was in favor of gay rights but—for far too long—wasn’t quite in favor of marriage equality. We’re the party that promotes racial equality, but helped bring about the mass incarceration of African Americans. We’re the party that denounces income inequality, but still snuggles up to Goldman Sachs at every possible opportunity. The base of the Democratic party has lost its tolerance for these numbing equivocations: We embrace values that might best be summed up as “treating people decently.” We believe in economic fairness; in racial and religious equality; in LGBT rights. We believe that all men—and women—are created equal. These aren’t controversial matters that we need to poll-test or focus-group. Wherever we derive these values, from our religious heritage or from our fidelity to the American heritage of freedom and justice for all, we shouldn’t constantly be negotiating them.
And we, women and men both, don’t believe that women’s fundamental rights should be nibbled away around the edges. We believe that abortion is healthcare, a fundamental human right that the majority of Americans, regardless of party affiliation, support, and that the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed.
When the Democrats unveiled their “Better Deal” last week, they focused on economic policies related to job creation, wages, and income inequality. That’s all well and good, but they left abortion rights off the table, and what is abortion if not an economic issue? Women know this, especially poor ones. And, in the state of Texas, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world, access to healthcare—and yes, to abortion—can be the difference between life and death.
We recognize that different candidates have different beliefs, not just on abortion, but on a huge range of issues. Still, a statement from one of our most powerful party leaders serves as a proxy statement of our values. Wishy-washy equivocations—and not just on abortion, but on immigration, on civil rights, on income inequality—weaken all of us. I always think of an old saying: If voters are given the choice between a real Republican and a fake Republican, they’ll choose the real Republican every time.
I refuse to believe that most Americans (or even most Republicans) can look at today’s GOP and see their own values reflected in its erratic leader. But even though, as we Democrats are fond of repeating, our values are the values of the majority of Americans, Trump won because so many people stayed home. And why did they stay home? Because they didn’t really believe that we believed what we said we believed. And why should they, when we keep compromising and hedging?
Let’s not forget who the most reliable Democratic voters are—women of color, who are most likely to suffer the consequences of Democrats “compromising” on reproductive rights. Texas Latinas are twice as likely to be uninsured and lack healthcare access as white women in Texas, and nationwide, black women are four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as white women. And one more thing: Who has powered the resistance against Trump, and who will inevitably be the most motivated voters in the next election? Women. I was initially shocked to discover that my own resistance group, Daily Action, was 86 percent female, but it’s consistent with all the other data about the postelection landscape. We are the ones showing up and marching and placing calls and fighting to take back our country while our party heads fiddle.
It’s a truism to say that my state, Texas, isn’t a red state: It’s a nonvoting state. We consistently rank in the bottom five states in the country in voter turnout. Perhaps Texans, especially the Democrats among us, stay at home because they don’t have any clear sense of what we stand for. I have one idea of how to get more Democratic women to polling stations: Stand up for them. Let’s cut out the whimpering and stop reducing us to an “interest group.”
We are the base of the Democratic party, so let’s start talking about what happens in states like mine where reproductive rights have been attacked and eroded over and over and over again, and let’s start defending women’s rights to make their own decisions about their health and families. And let’s extend the principle of treating people decently—regardless of their sex, religion, race, or sexuality—and start talking to them like adults. It’s about time we had some of those in Washington.
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August 6, 2017
This anti-abortion hijacking of Black Lives Matter is cynical and offensive
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |[4] Comments
It’s a fairly large number, 100,000, but nice and round. Easy to compute. Most of us could even divide it by 10, at a push. Apparently it is this convenient roundedness that led the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) this week to dismiss complaints about recent claims on a billboard that Northern Ireland’s abortion laws have saved “100,000” lives. In its statement, the ASA said: “We considered that 100,000 was a large, round number that readers would typically associate with estimates” – and was therefore unproblematic.
Funded by a campaign called Both Lives Matter, the billboard prompted 14 complaints, but the ASA decided that its assertion was not misleading – despite the campaign admitting that it is not possible to calculate an exact figure, although its estimate is both “credible” and “conservative”.
It is not just the advertisement that is misleading and offensive, but also the very name of the campaign behind the billboard.
Describing itself as “pro-women and pro-life”, Both Lives Matter is a recent addition to the Northern Ireland anti-choice landscape, where abortion is permitted only if a woman’s life is at risk or there is a very serious risk to her mental or physical health. Fatal foetal abnormalities and pregnancies resulting from sexual crime such as rape or incest are not included.
And yet, somehow, in all its talk of “both” lives mattering during a crisis pregnancy, the campaign fails ever to mention the pregnant woman. What is happening to that person’s life – their body, their dreams, their finances, their mental health – is, for a campaign seemingly more intent on oppressing women than liberating them, nothing more than a word association game meant to draw a provocative parallel with a real struggle for civil rights.
Playing on Black Lives Matter is not just cynical, it’s offensive. A campaign started by three black women – Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi – to highlight the gross injustice and racial dimensions of police brutality in the US, it owes much of its strength not only to the mothers of the men and women killed by police, but to women of colour writ large, who bear the brunt of America’s institutionalised racism and sexism. The concept of reproductive rights and reproductive justice, which goes far beyond the simple right to choose whether or not to continue with a pregnancy, is integral to Black Lives Matter, because it also means the right to parent your child in a safe environment without fear – something consistently denied to black families by police and institutional injustice.
Defined by the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities,” reproductive justice as a concept was developed by women of colour who saw many of their communities challenged not just by an absence of accessible abortion, but by poverty, racism and discrimination.
It is often poor women of colour whose access to reproductive healthcare is most affected by anti-abortion laws in states such as Texas, where the recent HB2 law increased the distance to the nearest abortion clinic by more than 100 miles in some places. This can be an insurmountable burden for women with low incomes, often women of colour, and is a pattern being repeated across America.
Concepts such as reproductive justice and campaigns such as Black Lives Matter are a response to oppression and domination. There are parallels to be drawn with abortion access in Northern Ireland, but it is not the one that anti-abortion protesters attempt to make. Rather, it is an understanding of how human rights might be used to liberate communities, rather than excuse and justify their oppression.
The hijacking of such a powerful concept by the Both Lives Matter campaign is a cynical attempt to spin the language of human rights into froth to hide their true agenda – the subjugation of women. An appropriation of intersecting oppressions, Both Lives Matter neither cares about women’s lives, nor shares an affinity with Black Lives Matter – beyond using a powerful rallying cry for human rights as a cover to maintain the marginalisation of women in Northern Ireland.
It is perhaps beyond the remit of the ASA to name this for what it is. But it is not beyond ours.
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August 5, 2017
13 Organizations Pledge Not to Support Anti-Abortion Democrats
Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: Abortion, Abortion Rights, reproductive rights |Leave a Comment
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PHOTO: STOCKSY
The right to an abortion has long been a main plank of the Democratic Party’s platform, but supporting reproductive rights now appears to be negotiable for would-be candidates. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Representative Ben Ray Luján told The Hill on Monday that getting the 24 seats needed to regain control of the House may require Democrats to support antichoice politicians. “There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates,” he said. “As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America.”
But while the party may be expanding what kind of candidates it will back, many of the organizations they rely on for support aren’t here for it. In response to Luján’s comment, several progressive groups released a joint statement of principles, stating that the party cannot afford to compromise on this position. The groups include NARAL Pro-Choice America and Democracy for America (DFA) as well as MoveOn Political Action, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, EMILY’s List, Working Families Party, Ultraviolet, Daily Kos, Demos, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Indivisible Project, American Federation of Teachers, and Social Security Works.
The right to decide how and when to have a family has a huge impact on other vital party issues, like the economy, education, and gender equality. But more important, the statement says, women cannot be free in a society that forces them to have children against their will. “As progressives, we stand united in the belief that a woman’s autonomy over her own body is not a secondary issue or a ‘social issue,’ but rather a human right and a necessity in order to attain and preserve economic security in her life,” it reads.
While they are willing to support candidates who are personally against abortion but support others’ right to choose, the organizations pledged not to support any candidate with a history of voting to limit abortion or birth control access unless they’ve proved that they’ve changed their minds since those votes.
“Our basic rights and freedoms are under assault daily from the Trump administration,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a press release. “The Democratic Party cannot give an inch in their opposition to this administration. That is true across the board and especially true when it comes to abortion rights. The Democratic Party cannot and will not win if it turns its back on women and our fundamental rights.”
https://www.glamour.com/story/organizations-pledge-anti-abortion-democrats
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Marqwetta Johnson, a 42-year-old mother of seven, died in Oklahoma due to complications from ectopic pregnancy. Krystine Toledo-Gonzalez, a nurse in Georgia, passed away from a staph infection brought on by childbirth. Amy Bartlett, a spokeswoman for Yellowstone national park, died after giving birth to her third child from a heart condition brought on by pregnancy.
These women aren’t statistics or sad stories – they were people with lives and families and dreams. People who were loved and who are missed. These women’s names have been running through my mind for some time, since ProPublica published its incredible investigative project on maternal mortality in the United States.
But as Democratic leaders continue on their ill-advised abandonment of reproductive rights as a core issue for the party, these women’s faces and stories do more than just come to me occasionally. I cannot stop thinking about them, and about how easily those in positions of power forget.
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world, shameful proof of how little we value women’s lives and health: women in the US are more than three times as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than Canadian women, and six times as likely to die as Scandinavian women.
Given this reality, given the risk associated with being pregnant and childbirth – how can we possibly expect women to take it on involuntarily? Yes, access to abortion is about “choice” and our bodies; and as Lindy West pointed out so eloquently in the New York Times, “there is no economic equality without the ability to terminate a pregnancy”. But there’s also something more fundamental at stake – our ability to live.
Everyone should be able to decide whether to put their health and lives at risk through pregnancy. Laws that limit access to birth control, emergency contraception and abortion make that impossible.
So when Democrats say that abortion shouldn’t be a litmus test for the party, what they are really saying is that women’s ability to choose life for themselves is up for debate. That it’s expendable. More horrifically, that we’re expendable.
Admittedly, this is not just a political argument for me – it’s quite personal. As a mother who nearly died in childbirth, I know how terrifying this all is and how real. I know what it’s like to be lying on a gurney telling your husband what you want him to say to your family should the worst happen. I remember the fear like it happened yesterday instead of nearly seven years ago.
Though people have assumed that having a baby so early and so small – born at 28 weeks and 2lbs – changed my mind or made me less sure about abortion rights, the truth is that it made me more pro-choice than ever. Having a child is not all glowing skin and beautiful round bellies – it is pain, blood and risk. It is not for the faint of heart and it should never be something forced on women and girls.
I know that Democrats are shaken, that Trump’s presidential win has them scrambling to regain power at all costs. But their are some costs that are too high; these women’s stories and names and faces should be a reminder of that.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/09/pregnancy-can-kill-right-to-chose-jessica-valenti