Archive for the ‘Planned Parenthood’ Category

Mark your calendars folks, because June 5th is “Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills the Environment.” Yes, this Saturday, 27 “pro-life” groups are coming together to rail against birth control pills, evidently because trying to control one aspect of a woman’s medical decisions doesn’t take up enough of their time. So on June 5th, the American Life League, Human Life International, Operation Rescue, and others are urging people to stand outside a local pharmacy, Planned Parenthood clinic, random doctor’s office, or any busy intersection with a sign protesting birth control.

So why are these organizations so dead-set against forms of birth control? Well, the protest’s website, www.thepillkills.com, attempts to explain their reasoning. Like any medication, hormonal birth control can occasionally have some risks, which is exactly why it’s dispensed by doctors and physicians, who can evaluate whether the drug is appropriate for a patient. But the website sensationalizes these side effects, along with the (very) rare deaths that have sometimes been linked to birth control use, and even goes so far as to suggest an enormous conspiracy. Besides effects on humans, the site also attempts to make the case that birth control is “making male fish, frogs and river otters less masculine.”

The website’s obsession with the “feminizing” of fish and other animals is pretty fascinating (and I could probably write a fair amount about the connection the site then makes to humans eating these fish, and the implicit use of homophobia as a scare tactic, but that may be a bit off topic) . And if you actually look at the article the website used to make its case on this issue, it  is more focused on “the environmental effects of chemicals that aren’t being filtered out by sewage plants, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides that can mimic hormones.” This is an environmental problem, but not something that can strictly be blamed on birth control. It seems to be much more about the lack of proper precautions in the disposal of medications and other chemicals. Not that the people behind www.thepillkills.com would want to be bothered with those facts.

No, they instead hide behind whatever articles or theories they can find to further their real agenda: trying to control the medical decisions of all women.

They can say that they want birth control banned because of health risks or the environment, but I just don’t buy it. The website has too many references to violating “Church teachings” and “Bringing Jesus to Planned Parenthood” to make me think this is nothing but a (very) thinly veiled cover for attempting to (yet again) impose a group’s “moral” values on everyone else.

What I don’t understand, and what I think I never will, is why it’s so important for some groups of people to control what every else does. If you don’t want to take birth control, no one is forcing you. No one from Planned Parenthood is trying to get legislation passed to mandate that every woman must be on some form of hormonal birth control. No one is calling for mandatory abortions. We simply want these options to be available to women who need or want them. If you don’t, then don’t use them.

If only it were actually as simple as that.

What do you think of “Protest the Pill Day?” Is it even something worthy of our time or attention?

Recently, I’ve written a fair amount on various pieces of statewide legislation that are aimed at limiting a woman’s access to abortion. One of the most common approaches for anti-choice legislators to take is legislation mandating that a woman must have, and be offered a chance to view, an ultrasound before having an abortion procedure. Many states have even taken up legislation that would require a woman to view the ultrasound before she can have her procedure… whether she wants to or not.

The Guttmacher Institute has a complete overview of all the states that have introduced ultrasound bills this year. The New York Times also recently published a really interesting article on this type of bill, which you can see here.

The article includes a few choice tidbits, including the fact that many abortion providers already require ultrasounds on their own for medical reasons (including Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina), and that both studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that having a chance to view an ultrasound (or being required to) almost never changes a woman’s mind in whether to have the procedure… and, in fact, it occasionally solidifies a woman’s decision to have an abortion. Like I said interesting stuff, and well worth reading.

But I wanted to focus on one quote in particular, because I think it strikes at the heart of what’s really behind these enacted and proposed bills.

“Like other patients, Laura, who has a 17-year-old son, said she took offense at the state’s implicit suggestion that she had not fully considered her choice.

‘You don’t just walk into one of these places like you’re getting your nails done,” she said. “I think we’re armed with enough information to make adult decisions without being emotionally tortured.’”

As this quote gets at, and as the article itself also alludes to, these types of bills do nothing but infringe on a doctor-patient relationship, and also assume that a woman isn’t smart enough or well enough informed, to make her own decision. I can’t think of any other scenario in which legislators could require a doctor to perform a medical procedure on a person, regardless of the patient’s needs or desires.

Can you imagine the outcry from the “big government is bad government” crowd if they were being forced to undergo a particular medical procedure that they didn’t want (or possibly even need)? If you recall the hysteria that occurred by the Tea Partiers and others during the recent federal health care debate, I think it’s pretty easy to get an idea as to what would happen. But because these groups are generally anti-abortion, there’s nary a word about patients’ rights or individual freedoms when it comes to these bills. Yet another example of hypocrisy in action with this group of people.

I’ve said it in previous blog posts (and I’m sure I’ll say it again) but the continual insistence by legislators that women aren’t smart or strong enough to make this decision on their own is both incredibly misogynistic and insulting. As the quote above indicates, this is not a decision that women take lightly.

I spent over two years working in a clinic that provided abortion services, and I am extremely confident in stating that, to an enormous degree, the women who were seeking abortions had given the matter a huge amount of thought and consideration. And anyone who doesn’t think that to be true has probably never met someone who’s had an abortion… or is so consumed by an agenda that they are completely blinded to the reality of the situation.

So what’s your take on ultrasound laws? Are they meant to be barriers to service, or are they, as I think, a larger insult to women? Or are they something else entirely? Sound off in the comments!

As part of the recent rash of anti-choice bills making their way through state legislatures around the country, our neighbor to the south is attempting to pass legislation that would tighten abortion restrictions in the state. The South Carolina bill, currently in two versions, would expand the waiting period for getting an abortion from one hour to one day. The state House’s version would also require two office visits, while the state Senate’s bill forces a woman to download time-stamped information about abortion from a state website before she can have the procedure.

As critics of the bill point out, the proposed statute has its largest effect on women who live in rural areas and those who are poor. It’s much harder for these women to get to clinics once, let alone twice… and the Senate bill supposes that everyone has access to the Internet. Which is not the case, especially for people of lower socioeconomic status. But it seems that some South Carolina legislators don’t mind passing a bill that disproportionately effects some of its citizens.

In fact, one legislator who’s leading the charge for the tighter restrictions said that “this is the most serious issue this Legislature could deal with, if not this year, this session.” Really? Making access to a legal medical procedure much more difficult for poor and rural women is the most important issue facing South Carolina today? Not, say, the budget problems that the state is facing, which are causing a 44% funding cut to colleges and universities in the state? And are also causing K-12 funding to be rolled back to its 1994 level? And are going to make it extraordinarily difficult for the state to keep paying for Medicaid? Those issues don’t rank near the top?

Proponents for the legislation say that it’s intended to make a woman think about her decision before having an abortion. Well, I have news for the legislators of South Carolina. In the two and a half years I spent working in a clinic that provided abortions, I never met a single woman who hadn’t thought about her decision. And to imply that women aren’t thinking “enough” about this procedure (whatever that means) is disingenuous at best and downright offensive and misogynistic at worst. Might I suggest that the “most serious issue” facing South Carolina voters this fall is to elect legislators who won’t ignore real problems to simultaneously pander to a base of support and throw poor and rural women under the bus?

National Public Radio made the decision this Spring to change the way that they cover stories concerning abortion. They’ve announced that they will no longer use the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” but will instead use “abortion rights supporter” and “abortion rights opponent.” The linked article is by NPR’s ombudsman, and I’d also recommend reading her previous thoughts on the topic, since they helped to precipitate the change. That can be found here.

While the terms are a bit more clunky, NPR is not alone in this decision. Almost all other major news outlets had already switched. And while “abortion rights advocate” doesn’t really have the same ring to it as “pro-choice” to my ears, it does seem to convey more of an element of neutrality, which I would guess is NPR’s objective.

But does this really matter? In one of the linked articles, NPR’s ombudsman quotes a linguistics professor from Georgetown University, Andrea Tyler, who discusses word choice. Dr. Tyler believes that when those opposed to abortion rights were able to get the term “pro-life” into everyday use, they “won” the battle of the words. She says:

“It doesn’t seem like a good thing to be anti-choice. But it’s worse to be anti-life. So there’s an inequality in the frames when you say pro-life and pro-choice. Being the opposite of pro-choice is not as bad as being the opposite of pro-life.”

While I’m not sure I fully agree with Dr. Tyler’s view, I do believe that language can be a powerful framing tool in our lives. For instance, I used to say “pro-life” before generally switching to “anti-choice,” partly because that’s the phrase people around me were using and partly because I don’t think there’s anything remotely pro-”life” about many of those individuals (pro-”only the people who do exactly what I think they should do” is probably more accurate, but may be a bit too verbose to catch on). But I am curious to see what other people think about this, or if NPR and I are reading too much into semantics.

What do you think? Do you consciously use a particular term when talking about the opposing sides in the abortion debate? If so, why?

Like many states, Kansas is having trouble making ends meet because our country’s ongoing economic rollercoaster. The state legislature has been debating a few different options to raise revenues, most of which are ideas that have been considered in many states facing the economic crunch: raising court fees, privatizing services, and increasing the state sales tax. However, one state Senator, Mary Pilcher Cook, took it upon herself to think a bit outside the box. Her idea? Start taxing abortions.

Yes, you read that correctly. Pilcher Cook wants to impose a sales tax on abortion procedures. Her rationale?

She noted that governments routinely use tax policy to effect behavior – cigarette and liquor taxes, for example, or tax breaks designed to spur economic activity. “If you want less of something, you tax it,” Pilcher Cook said.

Her amendment ultimately failed (narrowly), but this seems to represent a dangerous new frontier in the fight for access to abortion services. With town councils and legislators imposing restriction on insurance coverage of abortion (not to mention the millions of women who have no insurance coverage whatsoever), this kind of legislation has the very real possibility of making the burden of payment for an abortion too much for many women. And, as is usually the case in these situations, the hypocrisy here is amazing. On Pilcher Cook’s website, she touts her strong belief in limited government. And says this:

Kansas leadership has been relying on a disturbing trend recently of using governmental control as solutions to issues.

Ms. Pilcher Cook: How is this not an example of “governmental control?” You’re admitting that you’re trying to impose a tax to limit abortions! It’s just unbelievable to me.

So what do you think? Is this an example of one lone, hypocritical legislator? Or do you think we’re going to start seeing legislation like this popping up elsewhere?

As you may have read about in an earlier blog posting, anti-choicers in North Carolina have been trying out a new tactic in their fight to restrict women’s rights. They’ve been attempting to convince town councils and county commissioners to strip abortion coverage out of insurance plans for town and county employees. This initiative has, unfortunately, met with some success. State House Republican Leader Paul Stam has led the fight for the anti-choicers, citing a case he argued in front of the state Supreme Court in 1981.

Recently, the Carrboro Board of Alderman took up the issue and, as you might expect if you’re familiar with Carrboro and its citizens, passed an altogether awesome resolution. What did it say? Well, it was so fantastic, that I’m going to quote a fair chunk of it:

“Section 1. The Board of Alderman rejects this intrusive suggestion of N.C.Rep. Paul Stam, relying on a misinterpretation of the holding of Stam v. North Carolina and other hypotheses, that municipalities “must refuse to fund medically unnecessary abortions.”

Section 2. The Board of Aldermen continues to support a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, pursuant to the law of the land as articulated by our United States Supreme Court.

Section 3. The Board of Aldermen resolves that the Town of Carrboro will endeavor to provide Town employees with health insurance coverage that covers the full range of reproductive services.”

That’s right. Carrboro’s town council went out of their way to pass a resolution upholding a woman’s right to choose. One of the things I think we’re often guilty of in this movement (or, at least, one of the things I’m definitely guilty of) is focusing on the negative, and glossing over the positive. So I want to pause here and take a minute to say thank you. Thanks to the Carrboro Board of Alderman for passing this resolution. Thanks for standing up to those who distort truths and bully elected officials. And thanks for reaffirming your commitment to reproductive rights and choice. I’m proud to be your constituent.

You can read the whole resolution here. And if you’d like to send an email to the Board thanking them, click here for contact info.

Imagine the outcry if North Carolina created a special breast cancer license plate to support organizations that agree to deny women information, referrals or counseling about the medical options available to treat breast cancer. Substitute pregnancy for breast cancer and, in essence, this is what activists rallying in Raleigh next week to pass “Choose Life” license plates want.

The “Choose Life” bill specifically states that funds raised through the sale of these plates may not be distributed to any organization that “provides, promotes, counsels or refers for abortion.” This puts the state in the business of fundraising for organizations that agree to deny women legal health care information at a time of crisis.

For years now, the “Right-to-Life” and other socially conservative organizations in North Carolina have pushed for a “Choose Life” license plate. Since it must be approved by the North Carolina Legislature, these activists tout the plate as either an issue of free speech or as a benign fundraising tool for “crisis pregnancy centers.”

First off, just because a person is free to speak a lie or, in this case, deny women legal health information, it doesn’t mean that the State should sanction this speech by fundraising to support it.

Second, “choose life” is pure political sloganeering. No other approved license plate in North Carolina panders to the politics of one side in a divisive argument.

Finally, implicit in their argument is that “life” is on their side. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every single minute of every single day a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth–536,000 women every year. Of course, the majority of these women live in lesser developed countries where abortion is mostly illegal, family planning hard to come by and prenatal care virtually unheard of.

In fact, the abortion rate in countries where abortion is mostly banned often equals or exceeds the abortion rate in the United States. The primary difference is that in countries where abortion is illegal, women die at a much higher rate from abortion–so much for “choosing life.”

The quality of life enjoyed by most women in the U.S. hinges on access to safe, legal and affordable reproductive health care options including abortion, prenatal care and family planning services.

In the United States, sixty-percent of women who have abortions already have a child or children. They know the love a child offers as well as the demands of caring for a child. In fact, the number one reason women give for choosing abortion is, “concern or responsibility to other individuals.” For most of these women, choosing abortion is about “choosing life.”

image of proposed "choose life" license plate

So let’s go back to the fallacy of “Choose Life” license plates. Whose life are they choosing? The mock up plate features children rendered in crayon. North Carolinians who want to support children may already purchase a “

Kids First” license plate that raises funds for programs that directly serve children.

If the purpose of “Choose Life” license plate is simply to raise money for “crisis pregnancy centers” then would-be license holders should become donors. That’s what supporters of most causes do. Assuming the “crisis pregnancy centers” are legitimate non-profit organizations, the donations are even tax deductible.

The final suggestion made by these groups is that Planned Parenthood can get their own license plate to counter the “Choose Life” plate. In essence, their answer is for North Carolina to create two license plate funds: one, for Planned Parenthood, that provides women with all of their legal pregnancy options and a “Choose Life” fund that denies women this information.

Planned Parenthood is far too respectful of women’s lives, not mention the State’s budget crisis, to fall for such a wasteful bad policy. We hope the NC Legislature is as well.

Tell your legislators that the state has no business sanctioning and financially supporting organizations that deny women information about services they have every legal right to access. Take action now!

Former first lady Laura Bush has been quite busy lately. She’s promoting her new memoir, appearing on talk shows, and expressing her support for both gay marriage and abortion. That’s right. Laura Bush evidently is in favor of both gay marriage and abortion.

Yes, this actually happened. Let’s go the transcript, shall we? Appearing on Larry King Live, Mrs. Bush was first questioned about her views on gay marriage (a perfectly legitimate question, considering how much her husband and his cronies made same-sex marriage an issue in the 2004 election). Her response:

“I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman, but I also know that when couples are committed to each other and love each other that they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone has.”

That’s right. Laura Bush, Republican, wife of George “I believe that God wants me to president” Bush, is more progressive on same-sex marriage than our current “progressive” president.

And on abortion? Mrs. Bush says this:

“I think it’s important that it remain legal, because I think its important for people for medical reasons and other reasons.”

Sigh.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great that Mrs. Bush holds these views, and that she’s speaking about them. But it also frustrates me greatly, for a couple of reasons.

Look, I get it. George Bush and friends were trying to appeal to a very specific segment of the U.S. population, and to have the first lady speaking out in favor of the gays marrying and abortion would have been contradictory to that goal. Mr. Bush had an agenda, and Mrs. Bush’s views simply didn’t fit. So she chose silence.

But she didn’t have to. She didn’t have to offer up tacit support for the policies of her husband if she didn’t want to. She didn’t have to stand idly by and watch as her husband did an enormous amount of damage to adults and children as he spread misinformation and lies about LGBT individuals in an effort to win an election (and, to a lesser extent, stop same-sex marriage). She didn’t have to stay in the background while her husband was trying to allow health professionals to refuse to help patients who wanted an abortion or emergency contraception. While he set back scientific research by who knows how many years by preventing stem cell research in the name of being “pro-life.” While he, consistently and constantly, set out to find ways to impose more and more barriers on abortion services. She had more access to an incredibly homophobic and anti-choice president than probably anyone else. And she did nothing. Is this the lesson that Mrs. Bush wants to teach young girl and women everywhere? That it’s ok to have your own opinions, but if they differ from your husbands, it’s best to not express them? What kind of message is that?

So, welcome Mrs. Bush. Welcome to our side. I just wish I could have said those words years ago, back when the impact of you stating your positions could have been more than just of symbolic importance.

I can’t tell you how many times I had to explain to friends that the local Planned Parenthood clinic offers abortion services… and also birth control, STI screenings, pap smears, and other medical exams dealing with sexual health.  It is somewhat frustrating for me, but it’s not surprising to me that this happens.

After all, abortion is such a contentious issues in this country that it’s hard not to focus our energies on it, and on preserving the right of a woman to choose to continue a pregnancy or not (and rightfully so, in many aspects). It’s a bit sad to say because they’re incredibly important… but pap smears just can’t compete with that kind of attention.

Which is why I’d like to take a moment to promote this: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has designated May 9-15 as National Women’s Health Week. Taken directly from the linked website:

National Women’s Health Week is a weeklong health observance coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health (OWH). National Women’s Health Week empowers women to make their health a top priority. With the theme “It’s Your Time,” the nationwide initiative encourages women to take simple steps for a longer, healthier, and happier life. During National Women’s Health Week, communities, businesses, government, health organizations, and other groups work together to educate women about steps they can take to improve their physical and mental health and lower their risks of certain diseases.

At the website, the Department of Health and Human Services offers a wide array of information, including a interactive screening chart, an eight week physical activity program for women, and a list of Women’s Health Week activities going on around the country (there are several in Raleigh… check them out here). The site also features tons and tons of resources on wide-ranging health topics that affect women… everything from HIV/AIDS to menopause, lupus to smoking. I apologize if I sound like a bit of a commercial for the website, but, just from having looked at it, it appears to be extremely successful in illuminating and providing strategies to deal with the health issues that women may face.

So it seems to me that this week is as good as time as any to think about the other services that Planned Parenthood provides, beyond the important abortion issue. And it would be great if women all across the area took this opportunity to make an appointment with a health care provider (maybe even your local PPCNC clinic!) or simply talk to someone… a wife, a daughter, a mother abut health issues. You don’t have to be as in-your-face as, say, Kathy Griffin, but let’s start the needed dialogue on these important health issues. And let’s work to bring them to the forefront… where they also belong.

A new anti-choice law has gone into effect in Oklahoma, after the Republican-controlled state legislature overrode Governor Brad Henry’s veto of the proposed bill. The law, considered by some to be one of the strongest anti-abortion measures in the country, requires women seeking to have an abortion to hear a description of “the dimensions of the fetus, whether arms, legs and internal organs are visible and whether there is cardiac activity.” Additionally, the individual performing the ultrasound must also “turn the “screen depicting the ultrasound images toward the woman to see them.”

As one might guess, lawsuits have already been filed in an attempt to overturn the law, though until a judge issues an initial ruling, clinics must conform to the statute. Beyond the rather abhorrent intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship by the Oklahoma state legislature, the bill also compels patients to hear information that may have no relevance to their medical care and, extremely troublingly, offers no exemptions for incidences of rape and incest… meaning that a survivor of sexual assault would also be forced to hear this information. Which seems to me to be beyond insensitive, and firmly into the territory of outright cruelty.

According to a provider of abortion services in the state, women have already been leaving the ultrasound room in tears because of the new law. Tony Lauinger, state chairman for Oklahomans for Life, said that he hoped that the bill would help to “prevent psychological trauma to pregnant woman.” Which is, of course, laughable.

The Oklahoma legislature should not be making medical decisions for its constituents. It shouldn’t be forcing survivors of sexual assault to hear information that could be damaging to them. And it shouldn’t be hiding behind the notion of protecting women from trauma, when it really seems like they’re much more interested in inflicting it.