Now, you keep track of all your ejaculate

REPUBLICANS

doesn't get easier as you get older, hon.

Trust and Choice

A Doonsbury Comic Strip You May Not Have Seen

This strip was pulled from many newspapers.

Lady 1: Excuse me is this were I get the sonogram?


Lady 2: Yes it is miss


Lady 2: Would this be your first pregnancy termination?


Lady 1: Yes


Lady 2: Then you'll need to fill out this form please. Take a seat in the shaming room.


Lady 1: In the what?


Lady 2: A middle aged male state legislator will be with you in a moment.

I see the problem

"North Carolina Republican Calls For Publicly Hanging Abortion Providers"

Word for word article from Addicting Info

January 28, 2012

By Stephen D. Foster Jr.

Republicans have a long love affair with executing people. They enjoy it so much that a conservative audience at a GOP Debate cheered for executions this past fall. Republicans also have a deep hatred for doctors who perform abortions. They hate it so much that they, led by Bill O’Reilly, actively targeted Dr. George Tiller until one conservative nut job murdered him inside a church. GOP lawmakers have sought to make it legal to kill abortion providers in several states such as South Carolina, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa. Now a Republican lawmaker in North Carolina not only wants to executeabortion doctors, he wants to hang ‘em. State Rep. Larry Pittman wants to bring back public hangings as a form of execution, and he wants to tighten the noose around the necks of abortion providers. In an email  sent to all the members of the general assembly, Pittman said:

“We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner. If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.”

Just another bloodthirsty “pro-lifer.” Abortion is a legal procedure, one protected by the United States Constitution. If, in 2013, a Republican President takes office and the balance of the Supreme Court stays the same, there’s a chance that Rowe vs. Wade could be overturned. There’s a chance that abortion could be made a capitol offense in some states.

Hanging is one of the crueler forms of execution. When a person is dropped through the trap door of a gallows, their neck can snap. If the neck does not snap, the person is literally left hanging and writhing while they slowly get strangled to death. It’s rather gruesome and is a throwback penalty associated with the Old West.

For now, Pittman is just another crack-pot, determined to drive all OBGYNs who perform abortions out of the state (and probably succeeding), but the more crack-pots we allow to be elected, the better the odds that right-wing bloodlust will extend beyond abortion providers and onto women.

"Pregancy Scare?" by Mike Peters

Cartoon by Mike Peters from Kaiser Health News via Feministing

Ani Difranco's Hello Birmingham

I just posted about Jennifer Baumgardner's I Had an Abortion project. A controversial project being that part of it includes a t-shirt which states "I had an abortion" across the front of it. The purpose of the shirt and the project is to promote awareness, decrease stigma and to provoke thought and education.

To read my post click here.

A film entitled "I Had an Abortion" also exists. In the film the music of my favorite musical artist Ani Difranco is spread throughout.

As a woman of Christian faith one might think that I oppose the freedom to choose however I am pro-choice. While I do believe that the act of abortion is destroying life I do believe that a woman is not owned by government or shaming eyes. I also find it sickening to know that doctors and nurses who assist abortions are often targeted. The knife sinks deeper when I hear of Christian men and women who physically harm physicians to seek vengeance.

Many of Ani Difranco's songs appear in the film however all excerpted pieces are instrumental parts of her songs. One of the songs in the film is called Hello Birmingham which speaks to the 1998 abortion clinic bombing in Alabama.



Hello Birmingham by Ani Difranco

hold me down
i am floating away
into the overcast skies
over my home town
on election day

what is it about birmingham?
what is it about buffalo?

did the hate filled want to build bunkers
in your beautiful red earth
they want to build them in our shiny white snow
and now i've drawn closed the curtains
in this little booth
where the truth has no place to stand
and i am feeling oh so powerless
in this stupid booth
with this useless little lever in my hand
and outside
my city is bracing
for the next killing thing
standing by the bridge
and praying for the next doctor martin luther king

it was just one shot
through the kitchen window
just one or two miles from here
if you fly like a crow

a bullet came to visit a doctor
in his one safe place

a bullet ensuring the right to life
whizzed past his kid and his wife
and knocked his glasses right off of his face

and the blood poured off the pulpit
yeah the blood poured down the picket lines
and the hatred was immediate, yeah
and the vengence was divine

so they went and stuffed god down the barrel of a gun
and after him they stuffed his only son

hello birmingham; it's buffalo
i heard you had some trouble down there again
just calling to let to know
that somebody understands

i was once escorted
through the doors
of a clinic
by a man
in a bulletproof vest
and no bombs
went off that day
so i am still here to say
birmingham
i'm wishing you all of my best
oh birmingham
i'm wishing you all of my best
oh birmingham
i'm wishing you all of my best
on this election day

Jennifer Baumgardner's I Had an Abortion Project Contiues

Jennifer Baumgardner is a brave soul and also a controversial one. I've known about her documentary "I Had an Abortion" (released in 2005) for quite sometime but never sought it out. Just recently I found the film in it's entirety online.



The project is meant to spread awareness of the history of abortions, the legality of abortions, personal stories which entail shame, relief, stigma and education.

I am pro-choice but this doesn't necessarily mean that I am pro-abortion. I do believe that when one has an abortion they are taking life. I also know that if I were to become pregnant I'd probably want an abortion. Pregnancy is a fear of mine as I do not want children..ever. So, which is better? Having the child, going through the emotions and physicality of pregnancy and labor and then giving it up to strangers hoping that it will have a good life or going through a horrifying procedure which eliminates a life growing inside me? One thing I do know for sure is that a woman must make her own choice.

I believe Baumgarder's project strives to educate and explore the idea of abortion. I believe it's purpose is also meant to decrease stigma through awareness and compassion. I support this aim.

The Film
Directed by Gillian Aldrich and co-produced by Aldrich and Jennifer Baumgardner
To purchase click here.
(To my delight the film is full of instrumental pieces to the music of my favorite musical artist Ani Difranco.)



I'm familiar with Jennifer Baumgarder as I read her co-written book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future.



From the website:
About Jennifer:

After a five-year stint as an editor at Ms., Jennifer Baumgardner began writing for a diverse array of publications, doing investigative pieces for Harper’s, Mother Jones, and The Nation. Jennifer is co-author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism and author of Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, as well as Abortion & Life.

Jennifer is a popular pundit and interview guest for venues from Oprah to Talk of the Nation. For two years, she was a host on She Span, a weekly political roundtable on the Oxygen Network for women. In 2003, the Commonwealth Club of California hailed her in their centennial year as one of six “Visionaries for the 21st Century”.

About Gillian:
Gillian Aldrich is a documentary producer and journalist who has worked on social justice issues in television, radio, and print. She has worked with Michael Moore on several projects, including most recently as a field producer for the academy award winning documentary Bowling for Columbine, on his television series, The Awful Truth, and on his best-selling book, Downsize This, as well as contributing to his documentary, The Big One. In television, she line-produced Trio’s The Syringa Tree, a moving one woman show about growing up in South Africa under apartheid. With Skylight Pictures, she co-produced Battle for Broad, a documentary about the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, a renowned group of homeless activists in Philadelphia who have made homelessness an international human rights issue.

The Shirt


I posted about the I Had an Abortion t-shirts in the past. To read that post click here. This is a bold statement no doubt. From what I've read the shirt is not meant to gloat about having an abortion but rather to admit rather than to hide. It's about honesty, it's about healing, it's about moving forward.

The Card
To be distributed at abortion clinics


To order cards, contact jennifer@manifesta.net


The Book
From the website:
In Abortion & Life, author and activist Jennifer Baumgardner reveals how the most controversial and stigmatized Supreme Court decision of our time cuts across eras, classes, and race. Stunning portraits by photographer Tara Todras-Whitehill of folk singer Ani DiFranco, authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Gloria Steinem, and others accompany their elucidating accounts of their own personal abortion experiences.

In this bold new work, Baumgardner explores some of the thorniest issues around terminating a pregnancy, including the ones that the pro-choice establishment has been the least sensitive or effective in confronting.

To purchase click here.

Resources


To learn more go to abortionandlife.com

Military Abortion Ban: Female Soldiers Not Protected by Constitution They Defend

(source)

My stance on abortion is this. I am pro-choice but I am also anti-abortion. Confused? Basically I believe that a woman has the right to choose however I do believe that the abortion procedure does away with a life.

I have not been faced with the frightening decision of whether to abort or go through with a pregnancy and hopefully I never will.

If anyone wants to see what might happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned the below story is an example.

I just read an article from an unfamiliar website called Religion Dispatches, that tells the story of "Amy" who was stationed at Fallujah as a military journalist in 2007. Amy was a marine and discovered she was pregnant. Amy was fearful of mentioning the pregnancy to her chain of command.

Military hospitals are banned from providing abortion services, except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest. If the circumstances are rape or incest the woman must pay for the abortion herself.

“I have long been aware of the stigma surrounding this circumstance and knew my career would likely be over, though I have received exceptional performance reviews in the past,” Amy explains. Although Fallujah has a surgical unit, and abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures, Amy knew that if her pregnancy were discovered, she would be sent back to her home base at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune, where she would then have to seek a private abortion off-base, or she could request leave in Iraq and try her luck at a local hospital. She also knew she could face reprimands from her commanding officers for having had sex in Iraq (part of a broader prohibition on sex in war zones), and that she might not be promoted as a result: a potentially career-ending situation in the Marines, where failure to obtain regular promotions results in being discharged. Moreover, as a woman in the military, accustomed to proving herself to her male peers over her six-year career, Amy was wary of appearing a “weak female.”

“If you get sent home for something like that, everyone will know about it,” says Amy. “That’s a really bad stigma in the military. I thought, that’s not me, I’ve worked harder and I could outrun all the guys. So I chose to stay, and that was just as bad.”

Amy eventually understood the sex she had to be rape however she did not consider the sex to be incredibly violent and figured making a complaint would make her situation worse. She had witnessed other military women given a bad name for "crying rape" and didn't want that to happen to her.

Instead, using herbal abortifacient supplements ordered online, Amy self-aborted. Unable to find a coat hanger she used her sanitized rifle cleaning rod and a laundry pin to manually dislodge the fetus while lying on a towel on the bathroom floor. It was a procedure she attempted twice, each time hemorrhaging profusely. Amy lost so much blood on the first attempt that her skin blanched and her ears rang. She continued working for five weeks, despite increasing sickness, until she realized she was still pregnant.

The morning after her second attempt, she awoke in great pain, and finally told a female supervisor, who told Amy to take an emergency leave to fly back to the United States where a private abortion clinic could finish the procedure. However, Amy was afraid that she would miscarry on the 15-hour plane ride and have no medical escort to help her. She went to the military hospital instead and told the doctor everything. Shortly thereafter, her company first sergeant and other officers were notified of Amy’s condition. The first sergeant came to her hospital room to announce that Amy would be punished under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which addresses violations of general regulations, for having had sex in a war zone.

That night, Amy miscarried alone in her shower. Fearful of the advice of a sympathetic female officer who suggested that Amy might be charged for the abortion as well (she wasn’t), she flushed the fetus down the toilet. “I don’t believe there was ever a life or a soul there,” Amy says, “but I feel undignified for doing that.” When her nonjudicial punishment (a plea sentence for a misdemeanor-like offense) went through, Amy was fined $500 and given a suspended rank reduction.

Amy then requested to be sent home. The military psychiatrist reported that she was "psychologically unstable" and was diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety.

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, staff attorney for the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, says Amy’s story is the outcome of a military ban on abortion. Kolbi-Molinas says, “If you restrict women to unsafe abortions, this is what will happen.” Military Women “Do Not Receive the Protection of the Constitution they Defend”.

I believe that women have the choices and responsibility to themselves. So, even though I understand that women can choose to disclose to the next in command that they are pregnant and receive the consequences that follow, the alternative of attempting to self-abort may often seem doable to those who are frightened of the outcome.

I would like to think that women would know that nothing good can come from attempting to abort a child alone. I am not in Amy's shoes however I can only imagine that if I were in the same situation I would rather reveal the pregnancy than put my life in danger.

Never the less, I am not Amy and I am not the many others who feel that a self-aborted procedure is an option. It seems that the reason a self-aborted procedures seem viable is that the pressures of patriarchy are too great.

According to Religious Dispatches, before Roe v. Wade the situation was reversed: Military women were pressured into having abortions. The military would discharge any woman who was found pregnant. That policy ended in 1976 with Crawford v. Cushman, a US Appeals Court case ruling that discharging pregnant women violated due process.

I am not sure what the consequences are for military men who have sex however. While he may have his own set of concerns he does not have to deal with the issue of a child inside of him. I am not shaming men for this as this is just a simple case of anatomy. However, long standing patriarchy wants to shame women for their choices.

The Male Abortion

Choice For Men is a group that is bringing attention to the "male abortion." They argue that "a woman can legally opt-out of if she gets pregnant. A man is stuck with fatherhood and that isn't fair, ergo she has more rights. So, he should have legal right to opt-out." I don't think that aborting a child or giving it up for adoption is a simple choice to make. And therefore not an easy way to "opt-out."

Choice For Men argues that if a woman becomes pregnant she should not be able to dictate what a man does with his body. In other words Choice For Men believes that if a man unintentially plants his seed in a woman and that results in an unwanted pregnancy he should have a choice as to whether he supports the child or not.

If a woman becomes mistakingly pregnant but wants to keep the child in spite of her partner's protest.. Well, the discrepancy between the two is an unfortunate problem to say the least. I can only imagine who outraged a man who has been raped by his female partner must feel when he hears that his former partner has become pregnant. Or if a woman is to be so evil as to take the semen from a used condom and it into her vagina. The anger and panic of a man who has to come to terms with this is I'm sure beyond my comprehension. However, because there is a life involved that does not get a say in the matter...I believe that it is that man's responsibility to assist in supporting it.

Shocking Shirts

Jennifer Baumgarder is an feminist activist and author. I have read her co-authored (with Amy Richards) book entitled Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future. For five years she was an editor at Ms. Magazine and now writes for various publications including Mother Jones and The Nation.

Baumgarder has taken a bold and some would say offessive step in destigmatizing women who have undergone abortion surgeries. Well, actually she has taken three steps. The first is a book entitled Abortion & Life which addresses the issues surrounding terminating pregnancy. She has produced a film by the same name which features women speaking out about their own abortions. I have not seen the film or read the book but I have seen photos of women wearing Baumgarder's "I Had An Abortion" t-shirts.


Gloria Steinem

According to her website (http://abortionandlife.com) this was Baumgarder's way of encouraging women to come out about their abortion procedures. She states that the shirts are meant to be shocking but not offessive. She is not saying that abortions are a happy occassion but rather one does not have to feel ashamed.

My thoughts on this matter? I am pro-choice but that does not neccarily mean that I am always pro-abortion. While I advocate reproductive rights for women I am not at a place where I can be as gung ho as some. Perhaps one day I will be. At the moment I can not see myself cheering happily at a pro-choice rally or sporting an "I Had An Abortion" shirt, if I had indeed had an abortion. The reason for this is that I find abortion to be too sad of a topic for me to shout and carry on with a hand held sign. However, that being said I understand that it is often people who do those things that get the job done. Active marchers, and caterwaulers and promoters of grassroot politics make a huge difference in history.

I am not opposed to Baumgarder's t-shirts. I am however, wondering why they make me twinge ever so slightly. I suppose it is because although I think some abortions are necessary, it is a procedure that takes a life just the same.

Any thoughts? Any opinions that might make me feel better about this topic?

Dr. George Tiller gunned down...I hang my head low

On May 31st, 2009 abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot dead outside his Lutheran church in Wichita, Kansas. I know this is a topic that is travelling over fast speeds over the blogosphere. I suppose I feel that as a Christian feminist it is important for me to voice my opinion as well.

Dr. Tiller was a target for extreme pro-lifers as he not only performed abortions but performed late-term abortions. It is reported that in 1986 his clinic was bombed, in 1991 the clinic was blockaded for six weeks and in 1993 he was shot in both arms. Dr. Tiller faced many personal and legal battles which tells me that he believed very much in the job he was doing.

What breaks my heart is that there are many extremist citizens applauding the killer that gunned down Dr. Tiller and all the while referring to themselves as Christians. I am not sure what their logic is. My only guess is that they assume that even though the shooter committed murder of one man, a larger number of babies will be saved. I cannot speak for all who condone the murder of Dr. Tiller. I can only speculate that their anger blinded them.

Our current President has voiced his disgust with the actions of this shooter and has said "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence."

During the President's election campaign he and Senator John McCain were invited to the Saddleback "mega church" by senior pastor and activist Rick Warren. Both men were interviewed separately by Warren. During Obama's interview he was asked for his opinion on abortion rights. At one point Obama responded by saying that although he is pro-choice that doesn't neccessarily mean that he is pro-abortion. I agree with his sentiments.

As a human being, as a woman, as a Christian and as a feminist I have battled this topic. It is not an easy one. I have known women who have undergone abortion procedures and let me tell you it is not a quick fix. There are consequences and potential for grief on both sides of the equation.

As much as I love children I do not want any of my own. If I were to become pregnant I would hope that I would have the courage to bear the child and give it up for adoption. But that is not an easy route to take. To put my body through the physical and emotional trials of pregnancy and labor. To marvel at what my body is capable of doing...holding a child, caring for a child and delivering it into life. But also to understand that the life inside me is not mine. There is indeed a danger of becoming attached to the life inside.

I would hope that I was giving the child to good parents. But as a clinical social worker who has a history of working with at risk youth, I can tell you that the foster care system is filled with neglected and abused children and teens.

I know women who have chosen to terminate their pregnancies. The aftermath is difficult to say the least. There is a mourning process. While every experience is different I do not see how a woman can undergo the process of adoption or abortion without being changed in some way.

I do feel that abortion is taking away life. I also recognizes however, that abortions can often save the life of the mother. I would hope that if abortion became illegal that women would not resort to the hanger or other primative methods. However, I believe that women would persue illegal abortions which may be unsafe.

My hope is that a choice for abortion would be a last resort for any mother. But I also recognize that the choice belongs to each mother. As a Christian I believe that God gave us free will. While I currently (I say currently because I am open to learning and perhaps my views will change in the future...who knows) I feel that abortion is taking a life, I also feel that extreme pro-lifers cannot force a woman into making her own choice.

I think what we need is focus on preventing unwanted pregnancies. Additionally, I think it is impotant for every woman to educate herself and fully weigh her options. I have no problem with pro-life camps and pro-choice camps attempting to educate the massess. My hope is that we can move forward without violence. Seems like such a simple notion...but ask anyone who loved and knew Dr. George Tiller...obviously it is not. May he rest.