Abortion

Julie Stephens Talks Postmaternal Thinking

February 6, 2013 By Elin 1 Comment

Feminist Conversations is a regular series here at Feminists for Choice. Today we are talking to Julie Stephens, author of Confronting Postmaternal Thinking: Feminism, Memory and Care, about the book and the concept of postmaternalism.

1. What inspired you to write Confronting Postmaternal Thinking?

Initially, I was inspired by re-reading Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace, almost twenty years after its publication. I was struck by the contrast between the wonderful promise of Ruddick’s notion of maternal thinking as a different way of seeing, knowing, and acting in the world that fostered non-violence and peace, and the reality, twenty years later, of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the dominance of social policies that were cruel to those most vulnerable.

Dispatches from Abortionland

January 31, 2013 By Guest Leave a Comment

Today’s post, the final is our Roe v. Wade series, is by guest contributor Sarah Cohen, who worked at the National Abortion Federation hotline for several years and currently lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their cat.

Once you move to abortionland, there’s no moving back. Once you start thinking hard about abortion, it touches everything—it’s like a new lens that you see the world through. I can turn any conversation into a conversation about abortion. I see the links to it everywhere—in poverty, the social safety net (or lack thereof), education levels, unemployment, race, urban-rural divides, gender relations, religion, and just about every other dimension of modern life.

I moved to abortionland almost five years ago, when I began working on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline. I’d been pro-choice my whole life, and I’d been interested in abortion politics for a long time, but this was brand new. I did options counseling, I looked up clinics and gave out their phone numbers, I talked about money with all kinds of women. I stayed after my shift ended almost every day, thinking I could take just a few more calls and help just a few more women before going home.

The Path to Choice: Abortion in France

January 30, 2013 By Manis 1 Comment

January 22, 2013 marks the 40^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wadedecision. All month, we’ll be running posts examining various aspects of this landmark ruling. If you’d like to contribute, let us know!

The right to choose and perform abortion in France dates from 1975, thanks to the Veil Act (named for the Minister of Health Simone Veil, who proposed and defended the law). Before that, the 1920 Act forbade any incitement to contraceptive and abortion, which was considered a crime. Under the Vichy regime during the World War II, abortion was a crime against state security and punishable by the death penalty—in 1943, for example, Madame Marie-Louise Giraud, who practiced abortions to provide for her family during German occupation, was guillotined. During the early 1970s, the country saw an increase in activism in favor of the right to choose abortion; the 1972 Bobigny Case, in which a teen rape victim risked her life to obtain an illegal abortion, caused a groundswell of opinion that led to the Veil Act.

Catholics Working to Make “Pro-Life” Less of an Oxymoron

January 28, 2013 By Sarah 5 Comments

It’s been a busy seven days in abortion-related news, even in light of the recent 40^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. A new abortion clinic is preparing to open in the space previously occupied by Dr. George Tiller’s clinic. Arizona state Rep. Cathrynn Brown introduced a bill that would charge pregnant rape survivors that terminated their pregnancies with “tampering with evidence.” Reliably conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat tried to make the case that focusing on pregnant women was “too simplistic” when talking about abortion. And a group of Catholic nuns, priests, and scholars spoke out about the need for Catholics that call themselves “pro-life” to support gun control.

While the Wichita news is encouraging, the Douthat op-ed unsurprising, and the Arizona news infuriating—can someone explain just why politicians in that state hate women so much?—it’s this last item that really jumped out in a crowded week. Frankly, I’m impressed that a number of high-profile Catholics are finally making it plain that if you claim to care about one aspect of life, you should logically care about all aspects.

After all, if you just care about life insofar as it exists in a woman’s uterus, that’s a pretty limited view. And that’s also not really being “pro-life”—it’s more accurately being “pro-fetus,” or “pro-birth.” Which is a very limited viewpoint, as it ignores what happens to people after they are born and able to live independently in the world. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: Abortion, Catholicism, cathrynn brown, Dr. George Tiller, gun control, life

Beyond Abortion: Roe v. Wade and the Right to Privacy

January 24, 2013 By Guest 3 Comments

January 22, 2013 marks the 40^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wadedecision. All month, we’ll be running posts examining various aspects of this landmark ruling. If you’d like to contribute, let us know!

Today’s guest post is by Emily Martin, Vice-President and General Counsel, National Women’s Law Center; and Cortelyou Kenney, a Fellow at the Center.

What most people know about Roe v. Wade is that it is the landmark decision establishing a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. What is less well known is that the decision strengthened the legal foundation on which other protections are based as well. In Roe, the Supreme Court solidified the “right to privacy” as part of the liberty protections under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. This protection of liberty and privacy is responsible for certain fundamental guarantees—including the rights to obtain birth control and to procreate, to marry, to develop family relationships, to rear one’s children, and to create intimate relationships. While the concept of a constitutional “right to privacy” predates Roe, Roe is an important affirmation of and foundation for these rights—rights that could be threatened if it were overturned.

40 Years Later–What the Roe?

January 23, 2013 By Jodi 2 Comments

January 22, 2013 marks the 40^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. All month, we’ll be running posts examining various aspects of this landmark ruling. If you’d like to contribute, let us know!

This week marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. But 40 years later, does the ruling matter? The easy answer is no. While American women still have the right to have an abortion, many cannot exercise that right. Abortion opponents have successfully reduced women’s access to clinics that perform the procedure and placed unneccesary restrictions on many of the clinics that do. Four states have only one abortion clinic, the past two years have seen a record amount of antiabortion legislation passed in state legislatures, and 2013 is already promising more of the same.

But easy answers never tell the whole story. If they did, we would have stopped arguing about abortion ages ago–right around the time “Abortion is Murder” met “My Body, My Choice.” The uneasy answer is that Roe v. Wade very much matters in 2013 … except when it doesn’t.

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Filed Under: Abortion, Pregnancy, Talking About Choice Tagged With: Abortion, Activism, Roe v. Wade, roe v. wade anniversary

Why I Am Pro-Choice

January 22, 2013 By Sarah 3 Comments

This post was written for Blog for Choice Day.

Why am I pro-choice? Because I don’t want a complete stranger telling me to do with my body. Because I don’t want to tell a complete stranger what to do with hers. Because I know that the decision about whether to have a child is too precious and important to be made by anyone other than the woman that is pregnant. Because I don’t think that there is only one right way or right time to become a mother. Because every child should be a wanted one.

Why am I pro-choice? Because of my friends that were able to graduate college. Because of the thousands of women, voices on the other end of the phone, that were able to leave troubled relationships and take care of their sons and daughters and choose how to end much-wanted pregnancies in a way that gave their fatally ill unborn children a measure of dignity, and themselves a measure of peace.

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Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: Abortion, blog for choice, naral, reproductive rights, women's health

I’m Pro-Choice (And So Can You!)

January 22, 2013 By Guest 8 Comments

Today’s guest post, which was written for Blog for Choice Day, comes from Saira Khan. Saira currently works in publishing but dedicates her free time to social commentary on her personal blog. She will be Master of Science candidate at Columbia University in Fall 2013. Follow her on twitter @sairakh.

I was raised in Pakistan, where abortion is illegal. So as you can imagine, there’s a big market for illegal abortions there, and it’s horrific.

In 2012, Nele Obermueller reported for The Guardian:

“Shamin was not married when she got pregnant. Rather than face the shame of being a single mother in Pakistan, she secretly sought out an untrained birth attendant who gave Shamin anti-malaria pills to induce an abortion. ‘But part of the baby stayed inside – and my Shimi got an infection,’ says Jino, who works as a maid in the province Punjab. ‘That’s when she came to me and told me everything. I took her to a clinic but it was too late. She died that same day.’

“Shamin’s story is common in Pakistan, where, according to estimates by the Guttmacher Institute, 890,000 women have unsafe abortions annually. Eight hundred of these women will die and a further 197,000 will be hospitalised due to complications. ‘However even these figures are a gross underestimation, as so many cases go unreported,’ says Nighat Khan from the Guttmacher’s research team in Pakistan.”

As Obermueller indicates, Shamin is not alone in Pakistan. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: Abortion, blog for choice, pakistan, reproductive rights, Roe v. Wade, saira khan, women's health

Roe v. Wade is More Than a Decision: Life has Recovered its Rights

January 21, 2013 By Manis 2 Comments

Abortion has existed for centuries, but the right to choose abortion, and therefore enter motherhood voluntarily, has existed for less than a century. In the United States, this right is protected by Roe v. Wade. But followers of certain religious faiths argue that abortion is murder. Nobody is pro-abortion, certainly not feminists who fight for the right to choose and the dignity of women as human beings. To make a choice, we must be able to act knowingly. Freedom is a blessing which builds when reflection and awareness are used as guides. To make the best possible choice, we need to know as much as possible.

Is teaching creationism, negationism, and climate skepticism, and not teaching biology the best way to prepare youth to grow up in this world, enter the workforce, and start a family? Is any effort to make people believe from an early age that they will never be autonomous to make decisions, but at the same time that they are the only rightful people in the world, the proper way to establish a partnership between God and humanity?

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Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: Abortion, environment, God, Religion, women's health

Celebrate Roe v Wade!

January 15, 2013 By Sarah 3 Comments

The 40^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade just a week away, and a slew of events are planned across the country and online. To see what’s in your area, check out Words of Choice’s roundup of events, some of which are already underway and others that will continue beyond January 22^nd.

Filed Under: Abortion, Quick Hit Tagged With: Roe v. Wade, words of choice