Reproductive Health
Dr. Nancy Tells It Like It Is: Stupak Isn’t Fair to Women’s Health
In Case You Didn’t Believe They Were Out to Eliminate Birth Control Too
Uncover (the Truth About) Abortion Coverage to End the Deceptive Health Reform Dance
I wrote this commentary for The Daily Beast–please go there to comment and share too!
I felt that it was way past time for someone to call out the cynical politicians who won’t vote for health reform under any circumstances but are using women’s bodies as a rallying cry to whip up the anti-choice right. Shamefully, President Obama and most of the Democrats are dancing to their tune, and will continue to unless we voters speak out and insist that abortion and other reproductive health care is covered fairly along with other basic medical care.
They named it “The Abortion-Controversy Hoax.” Probably a better, shorter title than mine.
It’s September. Congress will soon return to tackle health care reform, and I can’t help but notice a familiar political two-step. If you want to see whether a politician–Democrat or Republican–can cut a rug, just ask him or her about abortion. They’ll swing around faster than Tom DeLay on Dancing With the Stars.
Partisans on the right mobbed town halls during the August recess to exploit abortion and women’s health, whipping up controversy around President Obama’s health reform plan. Twisted logic and deliberate misinformation abound in a YouTube ad campaign by the Family Research Council, which, along with other anti-choice groups, also launched a paid media blitz claiming Obama’s health reform plan would pull Granny’s plug while covering abortion—ignoring that most of us grannies want to make advance directives and would be quite grateful if our health plans covered the service.
Meanwhile, Democrats were doing a dance of their own and, without Senator Ted Kennedy to lead them toward their higher principles, tried unsuccessfully to waltz away from the hot-button issue with the Blue Dogs to whom they owe their souls and their majority. No wonder voters are increasingly questioning Obama’s plan.
Read MoreIs Adoption Reform Common Ground on Abortion?
Yes, of course. Adoption reform is an issue on which those who oppose abortion and those who support a woman’s right to choose abortion should be able to work together to forge common ground for policies that make adoption a genuine choice. See there, Steve Waldman and I have found common ground already. So now…
Read MorePossibly the Most Idiotic “Common Ground” Discussion I’ve Ever Heard
Just because every generation has to speak in its own tongues doesn’t mean any generation will find that elusive common ground between pro-and anti-choice points of view when they frame the questions poorly.
One of those conversations is going on now over at RHRealityCheck, a website I respect and love, but that I think has allowed itself to be led down the primrose path to nowhere on this issue. For example, check out this utterly ridiculous bloviation about the merits of paying women to carry pregnancies to term by–as they adorably acknowldege–“two men, no uteruses”: Will Saletan, who never misses a chance to pontificate about how pro-choice he is while capitulating to anti-choice arguments and Beliefnet’s Steven Waldman.
Remind me, how do you spell “c-o-e-r-c-i-o-n”? How much money would it take to make you carry a pregnancy to term against your will?
Read MoreHonoring George Tiller’s Memory Takes More Than Candlelight Vigils
This commentary which I wrote for Salon reflects my sadness and anger after Dr. Tiller was murdered this morning. My sympathy goes, as I am sure yours does, to his family and co-workers. The man fought for his principles on behalf of all women, and we owe it to him to prevent future acts of violence.
I am done with candlelight vigils.
It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana “Freeman” Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public ceremonies.
But I myself am done with candlelight vigils. I have participated in too many of them, from 1993 with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola through the seven doctors, patient escorts and staff murdered over the horrifying five-year period thereafter. I can never forget the day before New Year’s Eve in 1994. I was, at the time, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Arizona, talking on the phone to Pensacola patient escort June Barrett — who had been wounded when her husband and the clinic’s Dr. John Britton were murdered by anti-abortion zealot Rev. Paul Hill — when I received another urgent call from a friend whose granddaughter worked in Planned Parenthood’s Brookline clinic. The young woman had just witnessed the murder of two co-workers by John Salvi.
Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence, vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious harassment.
Read MoreHeads We Win, Tails They Lose: Why Obama’s Plea for Civility on Abortion Helps Pro-choice
Early this morning my daughter called to ask me what I thought about President Barack Obama’s comments about abortion yesterday in his commencement address at Notre Dame. She worried he’d been too soft and that by not stating his moral support for reproductive rights had instead signaled that he would not stand firm on policy related to abortion. Take a look at what he said and tell me what you think:
I replied to her that it was as good as we’d get from Obama, who clearly wants everyone to get along and doesn’t like confrontation. I wish he’d wax as eloquently about sexism and women’s human rights as he did about racism during his campaign. The controversy about race ignited by statements Obama’s minister made had threatened to be as divisive as the one he confronted at the Catholic university, and he used the first occasion to teach about race as well as to “tamp down the anger” as he has said he wants to do with regard to abortion. The disappointment for me was that he failed to elevate women’s reproductive self-determination to a similar moral high ground.
Read MoreWhat Are the Rhythms of A Woman's Life?
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This is Women’s Health Week. I’ll be posting about this on all my blogs during the week, starting with this guest post by Suzanne Mathis McQueen. Suzanne has been a lifelong women’s advocate as well as an entrepreneur in the salon/spa industry, working with thousands of women individually as employer, associate, mentor, business leader, instructor, and hairdresser (aka confidante), for nearly 30 yrs. She is currently writing a book on the natural monthly rhythm of women, basically re-writing society’s version of the female cycle, called Four Seasons in Four Weeks: the new female experience. She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her 14-yr. old daughter, Myan (who was born on International Women’s Day and will also begin blogging, any day now, for teens on the website). I appreciate her sharing this post called “Your Natural Monthly Rhythm”:
When it comes to “periods” Mother Nature doesn’t care whether you’re black, white, purple, or polka-dotted, Republican or Democrat, Buddhist or Atheist, straight or gay, as long as you’re a human female and somewhere between the ages of 8 and 55-ish. Minus pregnancies, nursing, hysterectomies, or some unusual health challenge, women cycle day in and day out for approximately 40 years of their lives. Yet this basic premise of what makes me female is an uncomfortable, if not taboo, subject. Due to lack of information, embarrassment, or violence against them, women worldwide often suffer in silence from its sometimes chaotic effects, which influence their lives in every way – including parenting, friendships, and their sexual relationship.
As an employer, instructor, longtime mentor and women’s advocate, I continue to observe that young women don’t feel well on a consistent basis. The majority of women I talk to say their monthly cycles disrupt their lives in some large or small way, yet they don’t know how to tame the lion. I see most women going 24/7 no matter what is happening with them personally. Often they are quietly dealing with heavy bleeding, on-going fatigue, extreme breast tenderness, or headaches while working and taking care of the family. It would help a lot if their guy could understand.
Read MoreBye Bye, Abstinence Only, Part 2 — So What Do We Do About It?
Just want to clarify that Congress now works over the president’s budget, so the end of abstinence only isn’t necessarily nigh absent some activism on our part. To show your support for ending federal expenditures on an education methodology that has been shown to be ineffective at best and dangerous to the health of young people at worst–and to show your support for medically accurate and comprehensive programs–you can click here. Advocates for Youth will provide an easy way to communicate your thoughts to your members of Congress.
Read MoreBye Bye Abstinence Only
Yesterday, Bristol Palin was all over the media talking about her own teen pregnancy and that prevention is best. Though she focused on abstinence, she acknowledged teens need to know about birth control.
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Today, the president’s budget (.pdf) says in clear terms that the U.S. government won’t be wasting our tax money on abstinence only ineffective sex non-education any more if he has anything to do with it. Who would have thought that conservative abstinence-only proponent Gov. Sarah Palin’s splash onto the political landscape would have helped created the impetus for this sweeping policy change? This is what makes politics so eternally fun! Here’s the relevant language from the budget-now we have to keep the pressure on Congress to follow suit:
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