You know, I’m really glad that the Republican party picked a pro-choice Republican to serve as RNC chair:

Michael Steele: The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

Lisa DePaulo: Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?

Steele: Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

DePaulo:You do?

Steele: Yeah. Absolutely.

Now, I agree with this wholeheartedly, but that’s because I’m a pro-choice Democrat. The Republican Party is not, last I checked, a pro-choice party. That’s one of the reasons I’m not a part of it. Steele later in the interview seemed to try to walk his statement back (he believes abortion is a right, but that right should be left up to the states, or something), but my guess is that the damage is done here.

Up to this point, I’ve tended to think that Steele would survive this current rough spot; no matter how incompetent he is, I can’t see the GOP firing its first African-American chair. Easing him out after a year or so? Sure. But firing him? No way.

After this, though, I think Steele’s days are numbered. No matter how Steele tries to walk this back, he’s on record saying a woman should have a right to choose — a right that the GOP strongly wants to deny women (except, of course, women they know). I think that we’re going to see open rebellion in the anti-choice wing, and I think Steele is probably done for.

And it’s too bad. Because I think he’s been doing a great job. But again, I’m a Democrat.

(Richard mentioned this as an intro to a post earlier this week, but I thought the event needed a post of its own).

From Time, and via Scott, who describes this as “the moral low ground.”

Archibishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of the coastal city of Recife announced that the Vatican was excommunicating the family of a local girl who had been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, because they had chosen to have the girl undergo an abortion. The Church excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure as well.[...]

The case has caused a furor. Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger, both of which apply in this case. (The girl’s immature hips would have made labor dangerous; the Catholic opinion was that she could have had a cesarean section.) When the incident came to light in local newspapers, the Church first asked a judge to halt the process and then condemned those involved, including the 9-year-old’s distraught mother. Even Catholic Brazilians were shocked at the harshness of the archbishop’s actions.

Cara says that as far as she can tell the rapist hasn’t been excommunicated.

Brazil is a pro-lifer’s paradise in many ways; the country, which is 75% Catholic, has strict abortion bans. So how well has that worked out for them? Has making abortion illegal caused it to become rare? Not exactly:

Although abortion is illegal, an estimated 1 million women each year have one. The poor are forced into clandestine clinics or take medication, while the better-off are treated by qualified physicians at well-appointed surgeries known to anyone with money and overlooked by colluding authorities.

That secrecy has a price. More than 200,000 women each year are treated in public hospitals for complications arising from illegal abortions, according to Health Ministry figures.

This is the dirty little secret of the pro-life movement: Their policies don’t reduce abortion much.

It’s not a secret which countries in the world have the lowest abortion rates — and it’s not Brazil, or any of the other countries where pro-lifers have gotten the laws they want. The exceptionally low abortion rates are in countries like Belgium, where demand for abortion has been driven down by a combination of a strong social welfare state for single mothers, excellent sex ed, and lots and lots and lots of contraception.

We could have it both ways. We can have the reproductive freedom pro-choicers want; and we can also have the low abortion rate pro-lifers say they want. (I once figured out, in a back-of-the-envelope calculation, that if the US’s abortion rates were as low as Belgium’s, that would mean 700,000 fewer abortions a year.) This is truly an issue where both sides could get what they want. But this grand compromise won’t work and will never happen, because although pro-lifers may want low abortion rates, they don’t want them nearly as much as they want to control women’s bodies — and the bodies of nine-year-old girls.

(The article also mentions a Protestant church which has been running pro-choice ads, by the way. So yay for them.)

UPDATE: From Elkins and others in comments:

The unrepentant archbishop said overnight the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the Church.

Although the man allegedly committed, “a heinous crime, the abortion - the elimination of an innocent life - was more serious.”

Thank goodness we have the Church to provide us with moral leadership. Otherwise we might think that raping a child was somehow worse than giving an 80-pound nine-year-old a possibly lifesaving abortion.

Author’s Note: This post at Feministe–about the Catholic Church’s excommunication of the mother of a nine-year-old girl who became pregnant with twins, apparently after having been raped by her step-father, and the doctors who performed the abortion that ended the girl’s pregnancy–has been roiling me since I read it. It did, though, put me in mind of a post of my own, “Know Thine Enemy: Fetal Personhood as Metaphorical Thinking,” that seems relevant to me in thinking about the religious (implicit and explicit) opposition to legalized abortion. I want to say up front something that I also say very late in the post, i.e. that I am aware that there are progressive Catholics working very hard and with real integrity against the sexism and misogyny in the Church, and my purpose in this piece is not to trash Catholics or Catholicism. Rather, I am trying to tease out one strand of thinking that seems to me quite present in much anti-abortion thinking and activism, as it relates to Christianity. I posted this originally in 2006 and so some of the legislative news that it refers to is dated. I have not edited the piece much, however–except to correct a confusion in the original between the immaculate conception and the virgin birth (and I hope I got it right this time)–because, while the introduction is long, I think it is still important to work through before getting to my main argument.

I have wanted to write about this for a while, now, ever since I read through the thread called (Very) Basic Economics and Abortion over at Alas. Since then, though, a number of things have happened: the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case concerning so-called “partial-birth abortions,” South Dakota has passed the most restrictive law in the country against abortion, Utah has a proposed law that would eliminate incest exceptions in its parental notification law, and I have been in another conversation, What If Your Mother Was Pro-Choice, on Alas, the initial post of which concerned a common strategy used by people who are anti-choice to try to silence those of us who are pro-choice: what would have happened if your mother had chosen to have an abortion instead of giving birth to you?

At one point the thread became a conversation about whether the virgin birth was an instance of divine rape or not (start reading here). This was relevant because it went to the question of what it means for women to have real choice in terms of pregnancy and childbirth—which also means in terms of when and whether and under what conditions to have sex—and, though I don’t remember that this point was brought out explicitly, to the question of what we model our understanding of women’s reproductive choice on. (I have italicized this because it will become important later on, towards the end of what I want to say.) What I want to do here is to try to tie all these various things together under the title I have given this post because I think it goes to the heart of understanding a rarely articulated aspect of what is at stake in the anti-choice position, whether it is articulated in explicitly religious terms or not, and because, under the general strategy of “know thine enemy,” I think this is an important understanding to reach. It’s going to take a while, and I’m going to have to make a number of leaps, to get where I want to go in this, so I hope you will bear with me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Edited to add: Author’s Preface: I see each post in this series as one section of a single piece of writing, not as a discrete essay unto itself. As a result, while each section may contain its own argument, it is not really possible to know whether an issue that you feel is important will or will not be left out of the argument made by the entire piece if you’ve only read a part of the series. I certainly do not mean this caveat to be, in any way, an inoculation against critique, but given the modular nature of posting to blogs and of how blogs are read, it is a caveat I’d like you to keep in mind if you find yourself wondering, and commenting on, why I have not addressed something you feel needs to be addressed. Thanks.

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To protect the privacy of the individuals involved, some names have been changed and some identifying details have been fictionalized.

Where I lived in the early 1970s, sixth grade was when boys got to see the movie–or maybe it was a narrated film strip with line drawings–about erections, nocturnal emissions, menstrual periods and such (girls got to see it in fifth grade). Seventh grade, if I remember correctly, was when they started teaching about sex itself, which I assume would have included a discussion of birth control, though I am not sure, since a paperwork mix-up placed me in the health class that did not include sex education. So I know I did not learn about birth control there; nor, I am equally sure, did I learn about it in the yeshiva I started attending when I was in eighth grade, where the only classroom-based “sex education” I remember receiving was in Rabbi W’s all-boy gemara class. He would preach at us week after week about the evils of co-ed dancing–it was the season of sweet 16 parties for the girls–and explain how it inevitably lead to unwanted teenage pregnancy. (The boys and girls watch each other dancing, you see, and then they want to slow dance, and so they are touching each other, and then one thing leads to another and, sooner or later they find someplace dark, and before you know it, her belly is big and both their lives are ruined.) My classmates and I talked about sex, of course, but since none of us were even thinking about actually having it, what we talked about tended to be theoretical and had little do with practicalities like preventing an unwanted pregnancy. Three incidents of such talking stand out in my memory, from 8th, 9th and 10th grades respectively.

I first learned about the baseball-diamond-as-metaphor-for-sex in 8th grade, because the big question was whether or not, at someone’s bar mitzvah to which I had not been invited, Robert “got to second” with Sharon over or under the shirt. “Over or under,” of course, was a huge question, one that my classmates pondered at great length, wondering why she would let him get that far, how cool it was that he could get her to let him get that far; or maybe he didn’t have to do all that much persuading, maybe underneath the “good girl” image that Sharon so carefully cultivated was a whole other person that those of us who knew her only in school had never met; and did this make her a “slut,” and how, precisely, did getting that far, did her letting him get that far, obligate him to her in terms of commitment; and what the hell–some people were smart enough to ask–did commitment mean in ninth grade anyway?

I could not imagine why what Robert and Sharon did or did not do with each other was anyone else’s business, nor did I think that the question of when a girl stepped over the line and became a “slut” was anything other than stupid, but I was new to the school, though, which meant no one thought my opinion mattered very much, and so I was almost never included in these conversations. Still, I do remember one time that I spoke up, asking–in response to I don’t remember what–some far-less-articulate version of the following questions: The whole point of touching a girl’s breasts is to bring her pleasure, right? What is wrong with Sharon wanting that pleasure or with Robert wanting to give it to her? And why are we talking about it like Robert was running bases and Sharon was playing (ineffective) defense? You make it sound like sex is a competition that the girl has to pretend to lose, just a little bit at a time, in order for both people to get what they want.

I was not naive. I knew that boys did in fact put “notches on their bedposts” depending on how far they got with any particular girl, and I understood that girls who went too far put that hard-to-pin-down thing called their reputation at great risk. I knew these things, however, as facts, and while I accepted them as information I needed to know about how the world worked, I did not really understand them, and, more to the point, I did not like them. Anyway, no one said anything when I was finished talking. All I have is a picture of my classmates’ faces turned towards me in a momentary, non-comprehending stare, and then they turned back towards each other and continued talking in the terms that were relevant to them.

The second talking-about-sex moment that I remember from yeshiva happened when I was in 9th. The boys in my class were scheduled to take a trip to the very famous Lakewood Yeshiva in New Jersey. I don’t remember why I didn’t go, but I was the only boy in my grade in school that day, and so, since our religious classes were all canceled–it would not have occurred to the administration to send me to class with the girls–I spent the morning shooting hoops in the gym. (The day was split: religious classes in the morning, secular classes in the afternoon.) After lunch, the girls and I decided we would cut classes for the rest of the day. After all, how much teaching would go on with more than half the class missing? So we went out to the back of the school, where one of the girls pulled out a copy of the Ann Landers sex test that had recently been published in one of the local newspapers. (What looks like the version of the test that the girls and I were talking about, can, if you’re willing to wade through some religious self-righteousness, be found here.)

We cut our first period class, which might have been math, talking and laughing about what was, for most of us at the time, the entirely theoretical nature of the items on the test; and we were doing absolutely nothing that would have been considered inappropriate anywhere other than an orthodox yeshiva, where the simple fact of our being alone together was cause for concern. Because of what could happen–remember Rabbi W’s worries over co-ed dancing–if we lost control of ourselves. Because of how, even though we were doing nothing but talking, it would look to an outsider that we are alone together in the first place. Then, just as second period English was about to begin, one of the girls who had gone inside to use the bathroom came running out to tell us that the boys were had returned. Apparently, they had stopped to get a blessing from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the most important rabbis of the 20th century. He gave them the blessing, they got back in their bus to go to Lakewood, and the bus broke down, forcing them to return to school. We ran into the building, rushed upstairs and, remarkably, made it to second period English on time, though it was only a few minutes into Mrs. Lynch’s lesson before Rabbi S burst into the classroom, pointed one by one to each of the girls and said, “You! Out!”

When he did not point to me, I thought perhaps I had escaped detection, but he came back a few minutes later, flung the door open with the same law-enforcement air about him, pointed to me and said, “You too!”

We were suspended, the girls and I, not only for cutting class, and not only because the idea of one boy and twelve girls hanging out alone in the back of the school was unseemly, but also, and to some administrators most importantly, because we had been talking about sex. When we were told that, before we’d be allowed back into class, our parents would have to come in to speak personally with Rabbi S, who was only available in the afternoons, I had to ask if my mother, since she worked, could come in the morning to speak with Rabbi F, the dean of the school. You would have thought that speaking to the Dean would be more serious than speaking to the principal of secular studies, but when my mother came in, all Rabbi F said was, “Mrs. Louras [her name from her second marriage], Richard is a real mensch, a wonderful boy. He made a terrible mistake, but we’re sure he’ll never do it again.” That was it. He and my mother exchanged some pleasantries, told me to go back to my class, and wished her a good rest of the day. My mother, who couldn’t imagine why they were making such a big deal out of the whole situation, collapsed laughing against the wall just outside the school entrance. “Remind me,” she said, “Why were you suspended again?” (To be fair, it’s not that my mother did not think I should be punished for cutting class, but she could not imagine that I was being suspended for a first offense or that the “real” problem, as it had been explained to her, was that I’d been alone with the girls and that we were talking about sex.)

I find it hard to believe that Rabbi F did not say more because he did not know why I had been suspended; nor do I think he did not consider my “offense” a very serious one. Most likely, he was just uncomfortable talking about such things with a woman, especially a woman like my mother, who in her jeans and one-button-too-many-undone button down shirt, her long denim frock coat and her afro, did not at all fit the image of the nice, middle-class Jewish mother with whom he was used to dealing. He never said anything else about the incident to me, either, but an incident that sticks in my head as somehow connected this episode took place later that year. Rabbi F pulled me aside one day while my class was in the library and, speaking very softly, indicated with this chin a new girl in the class whose boyfriend everyone knew was not Jewish. (Indeed, it had been the boyfriend who encouraged her to go to yeshiva so she could learn about her heritage.) He said something about her being a very nice girl, and attractive, and how it was a shame that she was dating a non-Jewish boy. Maybe–and I wish I could remember the exact words he used, because I remember thinking even at the time how absolutely precious his phrasing was–I could get friendly with her, not too friendly, mind you, but friendly enough that she would see just how much Jewish boys had to offer her. I refused, of course, and I think this may be the first time I am telling this story to anyone.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author’s Preface: I see each post in this series as one section of a single piece of writing, not as a discrete essay unto itself. As a result, while each section may contain its own argument, it is not really possible to know whether an issue that you feel is important will or will not be left out of the argument made by the entire piece if you’ve only read a part of the series. I certainly do not mean this caveat to be, in any way, an inoculation against critique, but given the modular nature of posting to blogs and of how blogs are read, it is a caveat I’d like you to keep in mind if you find yourself wondering, and commenting on, why I have not addressed something you feel needs to be addressed. Thanks.

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To protect the privacy of the individuals involved, some names have been changed and some identifying details have been fictionalized.

Recent events in my life have started me thinking deeply, for the first time in many years, about condoms and what it means to use them. Not that I have failed to take condoms seriously. I have worn them when I needed to, refused to have intercourse when they were not available, and I have a ten-year-old son who knows what condoms are and why, all else being equal, everyone who has sex should use them. I am, though, also old enough to remember (and boy does it feel strange to use that expression) when safe sex was pretty much exclusively about birth control. I might have learned that using condoms would help keep me from catching or transmitting gonorrhea or syphilis, the only two STDs I knew about at the time, but I’m not sure. Instead, the focus in my sexual education when I reached puberty was on the need for a young couple planning to have non-procreational sex to do everything they could to prevent the woman from becoming pregnant, and that meant, for men, being willing to wear a condom unless the woman was on the pill, using a diaphragm or had an IUD.

It did not occur to me that there might be more to pre-AIDS male heterosexual responsibility than simply keeping a barrier between my semen and the body of the woman in whom I would otherwise have left it until I was having sex regularly with a woman I thought I was falling in love with–we were each in our early 20s and using only condoms–and I realized I did not know what she would do, or even what she thought she would do, if she became pregnant. Condoms, after all, do fail. I was as certain as I could be that I did not want to become a father, but I was also certain that the ultimate choice of what to do if she did become pregnant was hers. So, if a condom did fail, it suddenly occurred to me, and she decided not to have an abortion, I would be a father whether I wanted to or not. I knew I’d do my best to live up to the responsibilities that fatherhood would bring with it, but I did not think my relationship with that woman would survive. Not only would I have resented her for having made the decision that made me a father, but I did not yet know if the love I was beginning to feel for her was, as they say, a love that would last, and having to be parents to a child–forget whether or not we would have, or could have, gotten married–was not the circumstance under which I wanted to find out.

I will not retell here the story of what happened when I tried to talk to my girlfriend about my concerns, except to say that I was completely unprepared for her to tell me she had no idea what she would do if she got pregnant. It wasn’t that I expected her to know with 100% certainty what action she would take, or that I was looking for some kind of contractual agreement that would insulate me if she at first said she would have an abortion and then changed her mind; nor was I thinking that the only answer acceptable to me was the one I hoped she would give, i.e., that she would have an abortion. What I wanted, first and foremost, was that we should talk, openly and honestly, and then, once each of us knew where the other stood, we could make a decision about what we should do in response. It had never entered my mind, though, that the person who would be pregnant if pregnancy happened would even think about starting to have sex without some sense of what she would do.

Given that my girlfriend had not thought about this, or at the very least was unwilling to tell me what she thought about this, I did not see how we could continue having sex, or, to be more precise, how I could continue having sex, knowing first that our fucking put me at risk of becoming an unwilling father and, second, that if I did become an unwilling father, it would probably mean the end of our relationship. I’d been very happy with the sex we were having before we started fucking; I assumed my girlfriend felt the same way; and I saw nothing wrong with rolling things back to our pre-intercourse days until we were able to talk about this. I wanted to be with her, plain and simple, and that desire far outweighed for me the pleasures of putting my latex-covered penis in her vagina. So, more or less–at my insistence, not hers–we stopped fucking.

That “more or less,” of course, is important. Sometimes I was the one who initiated the sex we had, and sometimes she was; and I honestly don’t remember how many times “sometimes” actually means, but I am sure it was not a lot, at least not relative to how often we’d been fucking before we had this conversation. I also remember nothing of what we said to each other after these instances of “falling off the wagon,” though I am pretty sure that neither of us reproached the other. I do remember, though, that after each of those times I would tell myself it was the last one, and that I was disappointed in myself when that proved not to be the case.

Eventually–I don’t remember how much time passed exactly–my girlfriend told me she’d decided that if she got pregnant she would have an abortion, and we started having intercourse regularly again. Years later, however, in the fourth or fifth year of our relationship, in one of those let’s-talk-about-our-history-together conversations, she told me that she’d lied to me, that she’d always known she would not have an abortion if she got pregnant, and that she’d thought my plan had been to withhold intercourse as a way of pressuring her into having sex with no strings attached. She’d only said she would have an abortion, she explained, because she’d been convinced I was going to leave her if she did not eventually give me what she thought I wanted. She then went on to tell me that she’d realized a while back that she’d been wrong, that I had in fact been sincere in everything I told her, even if I had not always practiced what I’d been preaching. Indeed, given my behavior (I was not then, and I am not now, particularly proud of the “more or less” at the end of the paragraph before last) it’s hard to blame her for thinking the way she did. It didn’t, and doesn’t matter that I was not the only one who initiated the fucking we did when we were supposed to be abstaining. Every time I allowed it to happen, I was acting like the manipulative hypocrite she initially thought I was.

My girlfriend was right about one thing, though. I really wanted to mean what I said when I told her that it was more important to me not to put our relationship unnecessarily at risk than it was for me to have intercourse with her, and I really wanted to mean it when I said that stepping back from the fucking we were doing would not diminish either the pleasure or the meaningfulness of the sex we had. I was not a man who saw fucking as a way of accumulating notches on my belt; I did not, or at least I thought I did not, feel the connection between fucking and manhood that so many of my friends seemed to feel, whether they were out getting laid as often as they could or involved in a serious relationship. Sex, I thought I believed, was simply sex, a way of touching, of giving and taking pleasure in my own body and the body of my lover; and while genital fucking might be one aspect of that pleasure, it certainly wasn’t the only, or even the main way in which that pleasure could be shared. This, at least, was what I wanted my perspective on sex to be. Yet it very clearly was not, for I had been perfectly willing to put at risk a relationship I thought might develop into a real future so that I could fuck the woman I was in that relationship with. It didn’t matter who initiated it or that it was always consensual. It didn’t matter that when we did fuck it was a very rare exception to the rule of abstinence I had wanted us to follow; and , perhaps most important, in these terms, it didn’t matter that I wore a condom each and every time we did it.

Cross-posted on It’s All Connected.

From the AP wire:

LOS ANGELES – Police said Thursday they will investigate death threats against octuplet mom Nadya Suleman and advise her publicist on how to handle a torrent of other nasty messages that have flooded his office.

Word that the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother is receiving public assistance to care for the 14 children she conceived through in vitro fertilization has stoked furor among many people.

Police Lt. John Romero said officers were meeting with Suleman’s publicist Mike Furtney about the flood of angry phone calls and e-mail messages against Suleman, her children and Furtney.

“We are aware of the media accounts of the threats, and that they are being sent to the West Los Angeles detectives for appropriate action,” Romero said.

Furtney said 500 new e-mails were received early Thursday.

The logic here is impeccable. I don’t like the fact that I will have to indirectly help pay to take care of this woman’s children. Therefore, I will kill her, necessitating several foster parents, and thus HEIGHTEN the cost to the state, which I will still have to help pay.

Kugelmass has it right: this actually has very little to do with who has to pay what and how many kids an unemployed single mother should or shouldn’t have. You don’t get this type of widespread, hyper-violent reaction from a question of economics - not even, I would argue, from people disgusted with the Wall Street bailouts. No, this is about “the worship of motherhood and the hatred of mothers.” And I don’t think you can have one without the other.

(Cross-posted at Modern Mitzvot.)

I note with interest recent discussions to this paper about the recent failed coup and a Cylon-Human alliance.

I believe that these authors are asking the wrong questions, as if our only choice is an unelected president and military dictatorship, or a once elected vice-president and military dictatorship. The problems in our society run much deeper than that.

There are those who argue ‘not now’ and that the survival of humanity must trump any concerns of justice, equality and self-determination. Those who make these arguments are trying to cement their own power. Our responsibility is not just to survive, but to build a society that is worth saving.

I look at the few children within the fleet and despair for the world they are growing into.

Pilots who are in danger get all the resources of the fleet looking for them. Aboard the Tillium ship workers’ deaths are treated as inevitable, and speed ups continue despite the risk.

Women are using scarce resources and risking their lives to get illegal abortions. But if they do what the state supposedly prefers and continue their pregnancy, they get no support. Women suffering post-natal depression are just given more shifts and more drugs.

The power and the resources of the fleet are being used to maintain Caprican dominance. The military murder of Sagitarron citizens, is not just the result of one evil individual, but the reflection structural racism which the fleet is based on.

The ruling class have used the near extermination of humanity to cement their own power, and increase their control over anyone who challenges them. Neither a military alliance with some cylons, or a coup would change that. Zarek and Gaetna were no better than Adama and Roslyn. They were using the power of the military to attempt to make a few minor changes in policy.

Real change, the sort that builds a society that is worth saving, comes not from above but from below. Let the government make military alliances with the cylons, or not. Those of us who are fighting for another society that is indeed possible need to build relationships of solidarity with the cylons who are interested.

Chief Tyrall is a union man - Cylon or no. He has made clear, time and again, that he is fighting for something more than the unjust unequal society today. Colonel Tigh has made his position equally clear, he is for dictatorial power, and military control.

It is not enough to put up with intolerable inequality now, for the hope that things will change when we reach our mythic destination. Who believes that when we get to Earth those in charge will meekly give up the extra power that they have seized during this crisis? We must be organizing now among all who are willing to dream of a better society than this one.

[Illustration by Ratscape.]

Matt Drudge, in his job as ruler of the em-ess-em’s world, is pushing this statement by Nancy Pelosi as if it’s supposed to be embarrassing:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic “stimulus” package, claiming “contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, “Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom,” seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.

The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC’s THIS WEEK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

This, of course, is one of the least controversial things Nancy Pelosi has ever said. Children cost money? You don’t say! And it’s cheaper for the government to give poor people who don’t want children birth control than for the government to give poor parents who don’t want their children aid to care for the kids they can’t afford? Shocking!

I particularly love the gratuitous shot at Pelosi for daring to have had a number of children and still believe that people should have the right to chart their own reproductive destinies. Because evidently, if you have more than 1.5 children, you’re not allowed to support other people in making the choice to, say, wait a few years to have a kid until they’re more stable. That’s unpossible!

Seriously, I know there are people out there who believe that birth control is tantamount to the Killing Fields, but for the rest of us, what Pelosi said is simply a basic level of sanity: helping people not have children when they don’t want to helps them financially. If you’re struggling, having a child can push you under completely. Children are wonderful, and I’m grateful to my daughter. But that doesn’t mean they’re cheap.

Back in March, I wrote that I’d vote for either Clinton or Obama, because I was confident that either one of them would restore US funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA for short, odd as that may seem). It’s an obscure issue — but the funds will save tens of thousands of lives, as well as helping thousands of women recover from fistula. There is simply no organization providing this kind of essential medical care to women in as many countries as the UNFPA does.¹

So I’ve got reason to be happy today:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed an executive order ending the ban on federal funds for international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option.

Liberal groups welcomed the decision while abortion rights foes criticized the president. Known as the “Mexico City policy,” the ban has been reinstated and then reversed by Republican and Democratic presidents since GOP President Ronald Reagan established it in 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.

Obama signed it quietly, without coverage by the media, late on Friday afternoon, a contrast to the midday signings with fanfare of executive orders on other subjects earlier in the week. [...]

In a move related to the lifting of the abortion rule, Obama also is expected to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), probably in the next budget. Both he and Clinton had pledged to reverse a Bush administration determination that assistance to the organization violated U.S. law.

The Bush administration had barred U.S. money from the fund, contending that its work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. UNFPA has vehemently denied that it does.

I’m unhappy Obama did this so quietly, but I’d rather have substance than a press conference. No matter how much I end up hating Obama in a few years time, this one act makes him enormously better than any Republican would have been. Tens of thousands of lives better, in fact.

P.S. I didn’t really talk about the Global Gag (aka Mexico City) Rule, but overturning that is sensational as well. For bloggers talking about the Global Gag Rule today, see: Feministe, The Kitchen Table, Shakesville, and Democracy Arsenal.

1. You can get a background on the UNFPA issue from this post. (back)

Today is Blog for Choice Day, and the topic de l’année is pretty straightforward: What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?

My hope has already come true, in the form of Barack Obama’s proclamation issued on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Because my hope was that Congress and the President would place Roe in its proper context. And at least so far, they have:

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere.

And that is exactly right. The fact is that Roe is not just about the right of women to control their reproductive destinies — though that certainly is a vitally important part of it. It is about the right of women to control their destinies, full stop. That is not just about abortion. It’s about so much more than that. And I am so grateful that the President recognizes that. Hopefully, he will take those words and put them into action over the next eight years.

Watch out for that truck:

On the 36th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, a man smashed his SUV into the entrance of the Planned Parenthood office in St. Paul this morning.

Although staff members have gotten used to protests, particularly on the anniversary of the ruling, “we certainly don’t expect this sort of thing,” said Sarah Stoesz, the president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. “”It’s never happened before and we don’t expect it to happen again”

The man, who has refused to identify himself, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, said police spokesman Peter Panos.

“We think it’s intentional because of Roe vs. Wade,” Panos said. “He’s not saying much. He was praying or chanting when the officers arrived.”

Hey, come on — he’s Pro-Life! Which is why he risked killing those women who were going to get their pap smears.

Seriously, while the Planned Parenthood facility on Ford Parkway in St. Paul is (for obvious reasons) secured like Ft. Knox, this guy could have killed people. I know, he was doing it for the babies in the womb™, but he seemed incredibly unconcerned about actual humans outside the womb. Which is par for the course for anti-choicers.

Meanwhile, Sarah Stoez notes the moral of the story:

“The irony is that if those protesters, like this man, would help us assure all people have access to reproductive health care, it would reduce the need for abortions,” she said.

Indeed. But of course, the anti-choice set is not interested in stopping abortion. They’re interested in keeping women’s sexuality under tight control. And so they have helped to advance policies such as abstinence-based education, which increases the rate of unwanted pregnancies. Heckuva job, anti-choicers.

(Via MNObserver)

So as you may have heard, Barack Obama is going to be sworn in as our nation’s 44th president on Tuesday, and while that’s an important historical event, it’s also a reason for America’s businesses to use the moment for some free publicity. Not exactly shocking — it’s that kind of can-do pandering that has made America what it is.

So Krispy Kreme decided that they would give away donuts on Tuesday, because it will attract business, and because of some boilerplate:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American’s sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies — just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet ‘free’ can be.

Seems pretty innocuous, doesn’t it? Well, not if you’re an anti-choice zealot. You see, Krispy Kreme dared to use the “C” word — choice — and That Will Not Stand:

“The unfortunate reality of a post-Roe v. Wade America is that ‘choice’ is synonymous with abortion access, and celebration of ‘freedom of choice’ is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand,” the group’s president, Judie Brown said in a statement.

Really? “Choice” is now synonymous with “abortion rights” — the two mean the same thing?

Awesome! That means that anytime the right wing talks of “school choice,” they’re suggesting that we’re creating schools where our kids can have abortions at will! Who knew?

Seriously, of course, the right wing’s outrage meter’s needle is currently buried beyond “Impotent Rage.” The American people seem to actually like Barack Obama, and seem genuinely relieved that George W. Bush is finally, mercifully leaving office. Anti-choicers can count, and know what an Obama presidency means for their goals of eliminating abortion rights — and frankly, they can count, and realize that South Dakota’s defeat of an abortion ban — again — is a signal that frankly, America doesn’t actually want to outlaw abortion.

And so they’re reduced to getting upset about pretty basic, straightforward language in a press release by a donut company. I’d almost pity them, if I wasn’t enjoying the Schadenfreude so much.

Let’s count the ways in which the appointment of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court was a disaster, shall we?

1. It didn’t start with Alito. It started with Alberto Gonzales, who Bush wanted to put onto the Supreme Court because, as is now obvious, Gonzales is super-competent.

2. After being told that Gonzales was not viable because he wasn’t anti-abortion enough for the fire-breathing wing of the Republican party, Bush appointed White House Counsel Harriet Miers, who at least made some sense from an optics standpoint, as she was replacing outgoing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the court’s first female member.

3. Of course, Miers turned out to be even more of a lightweight than Gonzales, prompting Bush to pull her nomination, and give it to Alito, who the fire-breathers loved, because he was considered to be a clone of Antonin Scalia.

4. This, of course, meant that there were more conservative Catholic men of Italian descent  from New Jersey on the court (2) than women of any ideological stripe (1), despite the fact that women make up 51 percent of Americans, and conservative Catholic men of Italian descent from New Jersey make up a somewhat smaller percentage.

5. To add insult to injury, Democrats declined to filibuster the Alito nomination because that would be mean and unserious, a precedent that I’m sure will hold until the Senate is voting on President Obama’s first SCOTUS nominee, at which point the GOP will have to filibuster that moderately pro-choice nominee on the grounds that they’re moderately pro-choice.

David Broder will nod sagely, and suggest the Democrats compromise by instead putting Robert Bork on the court.

We forget, because it happened in the pre-9/11 world, but one of George W. Bush’s earliest controversies was his decision to block federal funding of stem cell research in all but a few cases. It was a bouquet to the fundies, disguised as “serious compromise.” And there were plenty of people who bought it at the time.

Bush is going out of office as he went in — by using his office to push the fundamentalist agenda while simultaneously claiming to be on the high road. In the waning weeks of his term, Bush added the Conscience Exception Rule for health care, that — well, let’s let Emily Douglas explain:

The Department of Health and Human Services today published a new regulation broadening protections for health care providers who refuse to provide health care services based on religious or moral grounds. The new regulations, which have been widely denounced by women’s health groups, physicians’ groups, members of Congress, President-Elect Obama, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and by over 200,000 individual commenters filing opposition to the regulations, expand the definition of health care providers protected by provider conscience regulation and allow dissenting providers to refuse to refer patients for treatment in addition to refusing treatment itself.

For a more direct explanation, here’s Amanda Marcotte:

Surprising absolutely no one, the Bush administration told the vast majority of the population that uses or has used contraception that we can fuck off, and that we are dirty whores who deserve a dressing down from perfect strangers that are supposedly hired to provide service. In fact, the administration responded to complaints from over 200,000 letter writers by tossing two fingers, by keeping the proposed regulations and adding contractors to the list of people who can obstruct you if you want contraception, sterilization, or abortion.

Yes, the Bush Administration said that they’d allow health care providers to decide if their consciences prevented them for providing treatment for someone making a decision they disagree with, like, say, exercising your Constitutional right to use birth control.

This, of course, has me now pursuing my pharmacy degree, so that I can follow the following plan:

1. Get a pharmacy degree.
2. Become a pharmacist.
3. Convert to Christian Scientist.
4. Declare that I can’t in good faith fill any prescription, and that I should be paid to sit in the corner and shake my head sadly whenever anyone purchases medication.

I think it’s air-tight!

Fortunately, this should be drop-kicked back to the netherworld by the Obama Administration (and if it isn’t, Obama supporters should booze up and riot). But still, it’s a nice parting gift to the women of America to tell them that should they be raped at age 16, their doctor can refuse to write them a prescription for Plan B because everyone knows only sluts use Plan B.

Richard Chappell writes:

Many are complaining that by reaching out to Rick Warren, Obama is offering a slap in the face to progressives. This is silly. Yes, Warren has badly screwed up views on social issues. Most Americans do. That doesn’t mean they must be shunned or demonized; it means that we need to do more to engage with them and bring them to their senses.

No matter the strength of our first-order disagreements, we should be able to ‘detach’ from these and treat each other with respect.

I don’t think anyone has suggested that Obama should not be civil and respectful of Warren. However, civility and respect don’t require honoring Warren in such a prominent way.

For those culture warriors who are shocked, just shocked, that Obama can bear to associate with evangelical conservatives, or who see such expressions of respect as somehow undermining his first-order commitment to liberalism, I can only ask: weren’t you paying attention? This is exactly what we want: a president who will advance solidly liberal policies, without demonizing or alienating conservative-leaning people. If we can leave off the tribalistic hating for just a moment, maybe some of ‘Them’ can even be brought around to our side.

It’s ironic that Richard calls for respectful discourse while condescendingly dismissing the concerns of tens of thousands of queers (and queer allies) as “tribalistic hating.”¹

In his comments, Richard writes:

In the meantime, let’s focus on the respect question: why, exactly, is civically honouring Warren an insult to those who disagree with him on policy matters?

But that’s not the question, because no one has claimed that honoring Warren is a fishslap in the face to everyone who has ever disagreed with Warren on a policy question. Rather, the insult has been most prominently taken by queer activists. (Feminists have also taken insult, but less loudly — more on this below.)

The question Richard should have asked is, why are queers and queer allies insulted that Obama is civically honouring Rick Warren?

And here are several answers:

1) Imagine that Rick Warren had been hitting me on the head with a hammer, and then Obama says “here, Rick, let me honor you symbolically with this gift of a slightly bigger hammer.” In this context, it makes perfect sense for me to be angry at Obama.

Warren hurts people — not progressives in general, but particular groups, most recently queer people in California. (Richard’s post obscures this important reality by talking about “a slap in the face to progressives”). By adding to Warren’s reputation as a moderate, central figure, Obama helps Warren hurt queer people. As Ezra Klein writes:

…calling the Warren issue “symbolic” is just a method of marginalizing minority discontent. Warren is not a symbolic figure. He’s a religious leader who mobilizes his flock and leverages his public influence in order to affect electoral outcomes. The most prominent example was the Proposition 8 ballot initiative — as opposed to, say, the Proposition 8 symbolic logo design contest — in California. Warren used his power and prestige instrumentally, not symbolically. And Obama is giving him more power, and more prestige, which he will, quite assuredly, deploy in an instrumental fashion.

2) I don’t like objections to “emotionalism.”

First of all, used to dismiss an argument in this way, the term come wrapped in a great deal of sexist/homophobic baggage.²

Secondly, the expectation that queers and queer allies “detach” and not react emotionally to Rick Warren, in the wake of the genuinely wrenching passage of Proposition 8,³ is unreasonable. Queer activists and allies have a right to be angry.⁴

3) “Asymmetry of passion,” to use Nate Silver’s phrase, is a legitimate political tactic. I think the LGBT community fears that if they’re mild and concede ground easily, Obama will abandon his commitments to them.

This fear is not unreasonable. Whatever Obama feels in his heart — and I doubt he’s personally a homophobe — as a politician he’s never been a champion of gay rights. He’s just a Democrat who has taken the minimum, politically necessary pro-gay positions to be a viable national Democrat.

And when the politically necessary position is to be anti-gay — by opposing equal marriage rights — then Obama is anti-gay.

My point isn’t that Obama is a bad person. He’s a politician, who like a politician responds to political reality. The more motive we give Obama to be pro-queer, the more pro-queer Obama will be. And “asymmetry of passion” may be the best tool the queer community has for putting pressure on Obama.

It’s interesting that — although there is a great deal of anger in the feminist community over Obama’s selection of the sexist, anti-choice Warren for this honor — that anger seems less intense than the rage over Warren’s anti-gay history in the queer community.⁵

Partly, that’s because Warren’s most recent major campaign (his advocacy of prop 8) was anti-queer rather than misogynistic.

But another reason is that feminists and pro-choicers are getting real policy substance from Obama, which mitigates the anger. Within the first month of an Obama administration — maybe the first week — the “global gag” rule will be history, and US funding for the UN Population Fund will be restored. Hillary Clinton will be secretary of state — which is a more than symbolic point, because Clinton has a long history of concern for women’s rights in foreign policy. There’s also widespread confidence that Obama’s eventual Supreme Court picks will be safely pro-choice.

In contrast, what are queer activists getting from Barack Obama? It doesn’t seem like the promised repeals of “don’t ask don’t tell” or DOMA are going to happen anytime soon. As far as I know, Obama hasn’t endorsed protections against anti-trans discrimination, and he certainly hasn’t signaled it being a legislative priority. And, of course, Obama is anti-equal-marriage.

I assume the outright discrimination against gays practiced by some in the Federal government under Bush, will not be as tolerated under Obama’s people. And I also trust that Obama, while formally anti-gay marriage, will refrain from pushing anti-gay “protection of marriage” laws and amendments. But the queer community wants more from Obama than just refraining from overt bigotry.

So when people say, in effect, “why make a big deal of this Rick Warren situation? It’s a purely symbolic gesture, and what we’re getting from Obama in policy is so much more substantive!,” they ignore that queer activists really aren’t getting much policy substance from Obama.

Queers have a history of being taken for granted, and sometimes betrayed, by Democrats (remember Bill Clinton’s radio ads boasting about having signed DOMA?). It’s not irrational for queers and queer allies to believe that noise and anger is the best chance we have of not being taken for granted, and betrayed, once again.

4) The case for reaching out to evangelicals isn’t as strong as Richard believes.

Richard writes:

There are a lot of well-meaning (if often misguided) evangelicals out there, and by reaching out to one of their most popular (and not hyper-partisan) pastors, Obama is creating the possibility that a lot of these folks might actually open their eyes, unblock their ears, and give him (and liberals more generally) a chance.

As Glenn Greenwald argues, Democrats have a long history of trying to reach out to evangelicals, including some notable cases of throwing queers under the bus, and the tactic has failed:

….Isn’t this exactly the same thing Democrats have been doing for the last two decades: namely, accommodating and compromising with the Right in the name of bipartisan harmony and a desire to avoid partisan and cultural conflicts? [...] I

Courting evangelicals was a particular priority of Bill Clinton from the start. [...] In 1996, Clinton signed into law the single most pernicious piece of anti-gay federal legislation ever passed — the Defense of Marriage Act — with overwhelming Democratic support in the Congress. Scorning the “Far Left,” especially on social issues, was a Clinton favorite. He is the inventor, after all, of the Sister Souljah technique. Bill Clinton was the ultimate non-ideological pragmatist. He was driven by the overriding desire to win over his opponents. [...]

Did any of that dilute the Right’s anger and resentments towards Democrats?

I understand the strategic argument in favor of honoring Rick Warren. But I think Obama, and Richard, overestimate the flexibility of the evangelical community. History suggests that evangelicals aren’t taken in by these tactics; they don’t want symbolic inclusion, they want policy victories. And if Obama doesn’t support evangelical policies, evangelicals won’t support Obama.

Elevating Warren, in the hope of buying some evangelical support, is taking a risk. But if the risk goes bad, the people hurt most won’t be mainstream, centrist Democrats like Obama; they will be queers and women.⁶ It therefore makes sense that mainstream, centrist Democrats are more eager to take this risk than queers activists and feminists are.

[Illustration of Rick Warren developed from "Rick Warren" by Kev/Null, used under a Creative Commons license.]

1. Is this negative use of “tribalistic” both racist and colonialist? It seems to me that it is, but I hesitated to bring it up because Richard might mistake it for me accusing him of racism. It’s racist in the same way that using the phrase “what a gyp” is racist; however, people of good will can thoughtlessly use these phrases without themselves being racist. The racism is in the society that normalizes these phrases, to the point that even anti-racist individuals use them without noticing. (back)
2. I am not accusing Richard of himself being a misogynist or a gay-hater in his heart. I am criticizing his word choice, not his essential character. (back)
3. There were several anti-gay ballot measures that passed in 2008, all of which sucked. But Prop 8 was more emotionally wrenching because we had a chance to win that fight. (back)
4. I predict someone is going to “gotcha!” me by saying that by this logic, I shouldn’t ask for civility in “Alas” comments. But the comments section of a blog is something that people can choose not to participate in, at no cost to themselves. The same is not true of national politics. (back)
5. I’m oversimplifying for the sake of clarity; there is enormous overlap between the feminist and queer activist communities, and of course individual reactions vary hugely within both communities. But although I’m oversimplifying, I think the tendencies I’m talking about are real. (back)
6. To be sure, these three categories — female, queer, centrist democrat — often overlap. (back)

…it looks like South Dakota has rejected the abortion ban again.

If you live in California, you’ve probably heard about Prop 4, which would require parental notification for teenagers seeking abortion care. What’s scary about this proposition is that, unlike more extreme anti-choice laws, it actually looks pretty innocuous on paper. Supporters claim that it’ll foster communication between pregnant teens and their parents by having doctors contact the parents if said teen terminates a pregnancy. And abusive families? Oh, don’t worry about that - teens can just have the clinic contact a trusted relative, or they can go before a judge and obtain a waiver. Everyone wins!

Despite what your voter registration guide says, however, this is not what will actually happen.

Before I address the “exceptions” for abusive families, let me go through the ethical and practical reasons why parental notification is not a good idea. First off, a law can’t force families to communicate. If a teenager has gotten to the point where she’d rather pay for and go through an abortion alone than ask her parents for help, her family most likely has problems that a form letter isn’t going to solve. Yes, that’s what parental notification is: it’s not a visit from a counselor, it’s not a kindly intervention, it’s a form letter that either is hand-delivered or comes in the mail. And what is the teen supposed to do when it arrives? Stand there sheepishly as her parents open it?

A lot of people oppose consent, but are okay with the idea of notification. However, since there’s a mandatory 48 hour waiting period between notification and the procedure, requiring notification effectively equals requiring consent. If you don’t want your daughter to terminate, are you really going to sit on your hands while she goes ahead and does it? Especially if you’re already angry that you found out from a form letter?

Here’s one myth about parental notification: that it has lowered teen pregnancy rates in other states. This is a blatant lie. There is no connection between parental notification and lowered teen pregnancy rates. The cause of reductions in teen pregnancy is comprehensive sex education and accessible contraception, not parental notification. (Big thanks to Petitpoussin for the info.) Also, supporters like to claim that no teen has ever been harmed by parental notification. However, issues like abuse and teen pregnancy are complex and interconnected, so while it may be difficult to pin down one single cause of harm - for example, “If she had terminated the pregnancy, her father wouldn’t have hit her” - that doesn’t mean parental notification laws aren’t playing a part.

Here’s another myth: that parental notification protects teens from sexual predators. If you look at the argument in your voter registration guide, you’ll see that supporters don’t even attempt to explain how this would work. They’re using buzzwords to scare people into voting anti-choice.

And, hey, you know how they’re calling it “Sarah’s law?” Because of Sarah, who was killed when a sexual predator forced her to get an abortion, which was botched? Well, turns out there is no Sarah. The woman on whom the law is based was an adult; her situation had nothing to do with parental notification.

All this and more at the No on Prop 4 website.

Finally, one common argument is that if teens need their parents’ permission to take a Tylenol, then surely their parents should be notified if they’re undergoing a surgical procedure. Yeah, about that. All my life, I’ve suffered from severe menstrual cramps. Unless I’m already taking large doses of pain medication before the cramps start, I find myself in excruciating pain, completely unable to function. One day, when I was 16, the cramps hit me by surprise in 4th period English. By the time I got to the nurse’s office, I was sweating, shaking, and close to throwing up from the pain. I had to sit there for a full hour while the nurse contacted my mother and my mother finished an appointment and drove across town to plunk three pills in my hand. If I’d known I was going to get my period that day, I would have just broken the rules and brought my own.

So you know what? Maybe we should allow teens to make choices about their own bodies.

Now, these exceptions. I could sit here and tell you about why they don’t actually protect teens in abusive homes, but why take my word for it? Let’s play Choose Your Own Adventure: Your Prop 4 Saga!

A quick note before you start off on your adventure - while researching for this post, I found out that this is such a great idea that the No on 4 Campaign already had it. For a more detailed version of this story, see Jane’s Journey: Jane Goes to the Doctor.

YOUR PROP FOUR SAGA!

No, the test’s not lying: you’re pregnant. And fifteen. Maybe your boyfriend pressured you into sex; maybe the condom failed; maybe your abstinence program taught you that contraception’s useless anyway. Or maybe you’re just a normal human being who made a bad call. Anyway, looks like it’s time to go to the clinic. Your boyfriend expresses his condolences and stops returning your phone calls - after all, it’s not like he had anything to do with this. You don’t have a car, so you spend forty minutes on the bus. But at least it’ll be over soon.

“I need an abortion,” you say at the clinic.

“No problem,” says the nurse. “We’ve got those. Now, since you’re underage, we do need to notify your parents that you’re seeking care.”

Crap. That’s exactly what you were trying to avoid.

If you feel comfortable notifying your parents, click here. If you don’t, click here.

**

“Darn it,” you say. “I was afraid that I’d get grounded if my mom found out I was pregnant… but you know what? Now that I think about it, I guess that deep down I do kind of want to tell them. Okay, never mind - I’ll go home and do it myself.”

CONGRATULATIONS! You have a loving and respectful relationship with your parents. After you return home and tell them what’s going on, they give you a big hug and a cup of cocoa and then drive you back to the clinic the next day. After the procedure, you go on with your life, graduating from high school and college and starting a family when you’re thirty-two and firmly established in your career. You call your parents every week - just to talk!

THE END!

**

What would happen if your parents found out you were pregnant - and even worse, that you sought an abortion? You shudder to think. They might kick you out of the house. They might physically abuse you. You can’t say for sure, but you’re really, seriously scared.

“No,” you say. “No, no, no. You don’t understand. My parents can’t know about this. Trust me, they can’t know.”

“Well,” the nurse says, “you could always notify another relative. Do you have an aunt? A sister? A grandmother?”

You’re flooded with relief. “My cousin,” you say. “Could you notify my cousin? Here, I’ll call her right now.”

“Wait a minute,” the nurse says as you pull out your cell phone. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. We’ll send her the letter after you fill out and sign this affidavit stating that your parents abuse you.”

If you personally have been abused by your parents, click here. If you haven’t been abused, but have witnessed abuse in your household and/or know that your parents would react violently if they found out what you’re doing, click here.

**

You look at the form. “So I have to write down all of the things my parents have done to me? And then you’ll notify my cousin instead? This is all confidential, right?”

“Oh, no,” the nurse says. “We’re required to report it to the police.”

“What!?” you cry. “What’ll happen then!?”

“Well, they’ll open an investigation,” the nurse says, “and either a social worker or the police will come talk to you.”

The thought of the police showing up at your doorstep is too frightening to even consider. What would happen? Would you be put into foster care somewhere? Would the police leave you with your parents, who’d be angry at you for getting them into trouble? No one seems to get that if it were as simple as calling the police, you would have done that a long time ago. “Come on,” you plead. “That’s so stupid! That’ll make things even worse! And if the police come then my parents’ll find out about the abortion anyway!”

“You could do judicial bypass,” the nurse says. “Do you know about that?”

Click here.

**

“Well,” you say, “my sister has been abused - does that count?”

The nurse shakes her head. “Sorry, it has to have been abuse against you.”

“But I know it will happen if my parents find out I’m pregnant,” you say.

The nurse winces understandingly, but is firm. “That’s not enough,” she says. “If you yourself haven’t been abused, we have to notify your parents.”

You’re about ready to cry. “That doesn’t make sense,” you say. “I am one hundred percent positive that bad things will happen if they know. Isn’t there any other way?”

“Do you know about judicial bypass?” she asks.

Click here.

**

“You mean like go in front of a judge?” you ask. “How long will that take? Because I think I’ve been pregnant for a few weeks already and I don’t have enough money for a second trimester abortion.”

“Then you need to work fast,” the nurse says. A volunteer comes in to explain, briefly, how to go about it - and you leave the clinic feeling like you’re drowning in details.

If you have the time, transportation, and savviness to navigate your way through the California court system by yourself, click here. If you are most fifteen-year-olds, click here.

**

A week later, you stand in a court room full of people waiting for their cases to be heard, along with your lawyer, your guardian ad litem, and perhaps a translator. You wish you didn’t have to broadcast your story to the entire world. “…and that’s why I can’t notify my parents,” you finish.

The judge sighs.

Flip a coin. If it comes up HEADS, hot diggity dog! The judge waives your parental notification requirement. Click here. If it comes up TAILS, sorry! Your judge happens to be anti-choice. Click here.

**

Oops! Looks like a safe abortion in a professional setting isn’t an option for you. God bless America!

So what are you going to do?

If you resign yourself to teen motherhood, click here. If you decide to self-induce or seek a back-alley abortion, click here.

**

CONGRATULATIONS! You return to the clinic and they perform the procedure. Just in time, too - another week or so and you would have hit your second trimester, making all of your efforts for naught. You breathe a sigh of relief and go on with your life, eventually escaping your abusive household.

THE END!

**

Well, it’s been five months, the baby has turned, and now you’re really starting to show. Maybe you’re looking into adoption, or maybe you’ve given up on college. The most pressing concern right now, though, is how your parents are taking the news.

Maybe they’re hitting you. Maybe they threw you out. Maybe you even fear for your life. Who knows? Who cares? You brought it on yourself, slut! Now love that baby!

THE END!

**

You decide to take matters into your own hands. Going to another state isn’t an option, but you know there are people who perform abortions illegally. You know there are herbs or medication you can take. Hell, you’ve heard of people miscarrying from getting punched in the stomach. There has to be a way to do this.

Flip a coin. If it comes up HEADS, you either couldn’t find any options or tried something that didn’t work. Click here. If it comes up TAILS, you’ve done something extremely dangerous to your body. Click here.

**

You’re dead.

That’s what you get for having sex.

THE END!

**

When in doubt, just remember that the people who drafted prop 4 aren’t concerned with protecting teens; they’re concerned with limiting access to safe abortion. And despite its “exceptions,” this law will do just that.

So. If you live in California, please volunteer to help with the No on 4 campaign. If you live outside of California, or don’t have time in your schedule (I know a lot of people are already involved in multiple campaigns), please donate.

(Cross-posted at Modern Mitzvot.)

As I’ve written before, when it comes to infant and maternal mortality, the US is effectively two nations. According to the CDC, the U.S. infant mortality rate for whites is 5.7 per 1000, a rate comparable to Switzerland or Australia. The U.S. infant mortality rate for blacks is 14 per 1000, a rate comparable to Uruguay and Bulgaria. The differences in maternal mortality rates are even more stark - 5.5 per 100,000 for whites, compared to 23.3 per 100,000 for blacks. This means that as far as maternal mortality goes, American whites have nearly the best outcomes in the world - better than Sweden’s - while American Blacks might as well be living in Bulgaria or Saudi Arabia. (I’m using 1995 World Health Organization data, available in word format here, to make this comparison).

Bottom line: If we judge by infant and maternal deaths, African-Americans in the US effectively live in the third world, rather than in the first world. (See this post for some information about infant mortality among other demographic groups in the US.)

Now it turns out that multiple studies have found that experiences of racism are directly correlated with childbearing outcomes. From Kate Orman’s Livejournal:

…Even if you take into consideration other factors such as income, education, and genetics, the Black infant mortality rate in the US is still higher than for other groups. What’s the missing factor? The review article I summarised earlier cited four journal articles which found a link between infant mortality and Black mothers’ personal, direct experience of discrimination.

I was able to get hold of all four journal articles. Let me try my best to summarise them. Very briefly: multiple studies have found that premature birth, and low birthweight, are more likely for African American mothers who report having personally experienced high levels of discrimination.

Here’s Kate’s summary of one of the studies:¹

Participants “completed a discrimination questionnaire asking them whether they had ‘ever experienced discrimination, been prevented from doing something or been hassled or made to feel inferior… because of their race or color’ in any of 7 situations: ‘at school, getting a job, at work, getting housing, getting medical care, on the street or in a public setting, and from the police or in the courts.’ Even when other factors (depression, smoking, alcohol, education, income, marital status, etc) were taken into account, for mothers who reported experiencing discrimination in at least three of these situations, premature births were 3.1 times as likely, and low birthweight was 5 times as likely.

The other three studies described seem similar in approach.

I’d be very interested in seeing similar studies conducted regarding discrimination among American Indians, Hawaiians, and Puerto Ricans, all of whom experience above-average infant mortality in the US (although less so than African-Americans).²

There’s a lot of writing about the intersection of reproductive rights and racism, but this isn’t something I’ve seen considered. The mere existence of racism is, in effect, an attack on the reproductive rights of women.

1. Sarah Mustillo et al. Self-Reported Experiences of Racial Discrimination and Black-White Differences in Preterm and Low-Birthweight Deliveries: The CARDIA Study. American Journal of Public Health 94(12) December 2004 pp 2125-2131. (Pdf link.) (back)
2. Source: pdf link. (back)

What do you do when your opponent picks a radically anti-choice vice presidential candidate? Well, if you’re a normal human being with an ounce of political sense, you remember that most Americans are pro-choice, and you react accordingly.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to a normal human being with at least an ounce of political sense. His name is Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has launched a broadside against John McCain’s opposition to abortion rights and moved one of the most divisive issues in modern American politics to the airwaves on a large scale for the first time in this presidential campaign.

Obama’s new radio ad, airing widely in at least seven swing states, tells voters McCain “will make abortion illegal.” It’s airing as McCain courts female voters with the addition of the staunchly anti-abortion governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to his ticket.

Wait — you mean to say that women might be more concerned about retaining control of their own uteri than whether or not Sarah Palin also has a uterus? Do tell!

Democrats had, until now, sought to appeal to women primarily on economic issues such as health care and workplace discrimination; abortion rights were hardly mentioned at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week. But women’s rights groups have been urging Obama to attack McCain on the issue, pointing to polling showing that some women who support McCain think he supports abortion rights. In fact, the Arizona senator has long supported a ban on abortions, with exceptions for victims of rape and incest, and for pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother. Palin has an even firmer anti-abortion stance: She would require rape and incest victims to carry their pregnancies to term.

“Let me tell you: If Roe vs. Wade is overturned, the lives and health of women will be put at risk. That’s why this election is so important,” says the nurse-practitioner who narrates Obama’s ad. “John McCain’s out of touch with women today. McCain wants to take away our right to choose. That’s what women need to understand. That’s how high the stakes are.”

An announcer then claims that “as president, John McCain will make abortion illegal,” before playing an exchange on “Meet the Press” in which McCain told moderator Tim Russert that he favors “a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions.”

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. Standing up for abortion rights — really standing up for them, not just hinting at that stance — is an electoral winner, especially given that many of McCain’s female supporters do indeed think he’s a pro-choicer. His selection of Palin should put that to rest, but ads focusing on it should do so even more.

It’s pretty simple: there is a big Will Saletan bloc of people who think abortion is “icky,” and that we should decry it as such — but who still want the option to get one for themselves or a loved one if need be. Indeed, even the McCain-Palin ticket, which features the most radical anti-choice candidate to stand for election in the post-Roe era, took pains to note that the candidate in question’s pregnant family member chose to continue her pregnancy.

People want that choice, and not even McCain and Palin can deny it. They want that choice for their daughters, their lovers, themselves. They may not always feel unconflicted about abortion — and being pro-choice doesn’t mean they have to — but when the chips are down, they want abortion to remain legal.

Palin does not want it to be legal, full stop. McCain — I honestly don’t think he cares one way or  another, which is almost worse — he’s more than willing to trade women’s liberty in to make nice with the powers that be in the GOP. At least Palin’s nuttiness is principled.

Barack Obama is pro-choice, and while he’s not perfect on the issue, he is the most pro-choice candidate to helm a national ticket in the post-Roe era — yes, more than Bill Clinton. Being pro-choice puts him in the company of most of his fellow Americans, and saying so — well, it’s about time he said so, in no uncertain terms. More, please.
(Via.)